—
The next morning we steamedinto Southampton. We were in no hurry to disembark, so we dawdled outside, keeping an eye on the lower decks. Eventually, when the first hubbub of arrival had died down, we noticed a stretcher being discreetly loaded into an ambulance with its lights off. Lazarov. I’d filled in the others that there seemed to be no loose ends left thanks to Grigory’s drunken gossiping.
“If anything, he’s made himself a suspect by taking the watch,” Helen pointed out calmly. “Lazarov was easily wearing twenty-five thousand dollars on his wrist, and for a bodyguard that would be a tidy little motive.”
“Grigory did us a favor,” I agreed. And he’d done me one as well. Given his preoccupation with his own unemployment, he probably hadn’t noticed the missing diary. I’d thought once or twice about chucking it overboard, but in the end, I never did.
We went through all the usual disembarkation business before picking up our hired car. Natalie and Mary Alice had ditched their canes and wigs, and the four of us were in high spirits as we headed to Benscombe, the house where we’d trained. It had belonged to our mentor, Constance Halliday, and hadn’t been properly lived in for a couple of decades afterher death. Helen and her husband had eventually bought it, and we had used it as a safe house during our last outing. It had been in shitty shape then with crumbling floors and wallpaper hanging off in strips. The shootout and small fire we’d set hadn’t helped. Since then Helen had been living at Benscombe, slowly renovating it back into shape, and this was the first time the rest of us were getting to see her progress. The drive from the port wasn’t long—less than two hours—but we weren’t in a rush. We made several stops. The first was the New Forest so we could stretch our legs properly now that we were on land again and the horizon was no longer bobbing up and down. Helen and I laced up our sneakers and ran for a few miles to loosen up our muscles while Nat and Mary Alice drove to the nearest village to pick up picnic supplies.
After we’d eaten our body weight in sausage rolls and sandwiches, Helen wanted to stop at a raptor center while Nat and Mary Alice argued about the inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories and whether it was within driving distance.
I turned to Helen. “A raptor? Really?”
She shrugged. “I have a pigeon problem at Benscombe. I’ve heard keeping an owl or falcon around would scare them off.”
Mary Alice finally proved her point to Natalie—thank you, DuckDuckGo—and we headed for the raptor center. By the time we’d consoled Natalie with a very long pub dinner and stocked up on groceries, the sun was setting as we approached Benscombe.
We were listening to Mama Cass—“Make Your Own Kindof Music” is basically our anthem—and singing along at the top of our lungs when Helen slammed on the brakes and said a couple of words I’d never heard come out of her debutante mouth.
I looked to where she was pointing and said a few choice words myself. Against the soft purple twilight sky, the house we’d trained in—Constance Halliday’s childhood home—was silhouetted, the shadow of the façade moving strangely. A pillar of smoke rose from the bricks, and sparks shot skyward.
Benscombe was burning.
Chapter Eleven
It was almost dawn whenthe fire brigade finally got the last of the embers to stop glowing. A pall of smoke hung in the air, veiling the early light. Helen sat on an upturned flowerpot, huddled into her coat, while Natalie shoved cups of tea at her, courtesy of a nosy neighbor. Mary Alice stood a little apart, watching grimly as the hoses were turned off and coiled away. The house was outside a village, so the firefighters were on call only, the equivalent of a volunteer squad in the U.S., with smaller vehicles and less manpower. But even a fully equipped brigade couldn’t have saved Benscombe. It was completely engulfed when we called 999, but we held out hope for the first hour—until the roof caved in and took the upper floors with it. Everything collapsed into the cellars with a roar, and that’s when we realized the house was a total loss. We continued to watch as the fire flared up again and again, the exhausted brigade forced to chase down each eruption tokeep it from spreading to the gardens and outbuildings. Mary Alice had spent most of the time roaming the perimeter of the property, studying the fire from different angles and poking around the shrubbery while Natalie and I stuck close to Helen, making sure she didn’t go into shock.
Finally, the fire was well and truly extinguished. The packing up took a little while, but the trucks began to leave, one by one, until only a co-responder’s vehicle was left. The owner was a kid who looked barely old enough to have left uni, and he walked the property with a clipboard, making notes to write up a report.
When he was finished, he came to stand by Helen, cocking his head in sympathy.
“I’m very sorry, madam,” he said formally.
“Do you know how it started?” she asked in a hollow voice.
He flushed to the tips of his ears, clearly embarrassed at having to lay blame for the fire. “Well, now. It looks as if some paint pots were stacked up, perhaps a bit of redecorating?”
Helen nodded dully. “I was making over the kitchen.”
“Ah yes. The problem is that paint pots are highly flammable, of course, especially with turps and oily rags and so forth. When it’s all heaped up together, it’s really only a matter of time before the worst happens.”
Helen jerked up her head. “But I—”
I cut her off, pointing to an item I’d spotted in his hand. It was wrapped in a sooty handkerchief, about the size of his palm. “What is that?”
“Oh yes. I found this on the front doorstep. Rather amiracle it survived, but I thought you might like it as a memento,” he said, offering the small bundle to Helen.
She stared at the bundle, making no effort to accept it. I took it from him and slipped it into my pocket. “Thank you. And we’re terribly sorry about the paint pots. So slipshod of us,” I told him with a vague smile.
He nodded. “It is difficult to remember everything with a property of this size. Perhaps something a little more manageable? Maybe a nice, small flat in a housing development?”
He probably thought he meant well, but I wasn’t taking it that way, and I knew Helen wasn’t either. There’s a special tone younger people often get when they’re talking to anyone past fifty, all saccharine condescension. Some older people don’t mind, but it always makes my fingers twitch for a good piece of garrote wire. Helen’s reaction was the same. I grabbed her hand and felt the corded fingers tightened into a fist. “We’ll certainly discuss it,” I promised him.
“Do you ladies have somewhere to go?” he asked.
“We could always try a nice kill shelter since we’re clearly past it,” Mary Alice muttered.
He flushed again, and Natalie stepped forward with a charming smile. “Thank you so much for your time. Yes, we do have somewhere to go. Please don’t let us keep you. You must be absolutely exhausted,” she said, gently leading him towards his vehicle.