“Light fitting.”
“Clean.”
“Anything fixed to the structure that we did not have eyes on a week ago.”
“Three things, sir. New radiator, new pelmet rail, replacement skirting on the east side. All installed by Mick's crew, all checked by us, all clean.”
I nod.
“Vehicles next.”
“After the house. Then outbuildings. Then anything else that touches your movement.”
“Thank you. I'm grateful.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nods once and steps back into the hall, leaving me in the room.
I stand a moment longer. I put my hand flat against the patched wall. The plaster is cold.
We go through the rest of the house. Our bedroom—clean. The dressing rooms. The bathrooms. The corridor cupboards. Down the back stairs. The kitchen, the pantry, the boot room, the cellar. The garages, all four cars. The stables, the loose boxes empty because the horses are at the home farm. The office wing.
Two and a half hours.
The ordnance lead finds me in the kitchen looking out at the lawn. “Mr Ravenscroft. The structure is clean. Vehicles clean. Outbuildings clean. We will return tomorrow for a final pass and the equipment scan, but I do not expect to find anything.”
Henderson comes through from the kitchen with two glasses of water, hands one to me, and leans against the door frame in the way he does when he is giving me room without leaving. The water is cold from the tap and the tap water at Ascot has always been good. I drink half of it without registering the taste.
“It’s a good house,” he says, after a while.
“It is.”
“Soon it’ll be a home again.”
My phone buzzes.
I think Brodie. Or Pryce, who is with Ivy. I take the phone out of my pocket without looking up.
The name on the screen isSarah.
I look at it for a beat. Sarah and Matt, from the resort. The threesome. The week before everything went sideways. I had not expected to hear from her.
I open the message.
SARAH
Hi gorgeous. Matt and I are in London. Last-minute trip! We're hosting tonight at the Orchid House, eight til whenever. Small group, very curated, the kind of evening you and Ivy would enjoy. Champagne, music, toys, like-minded company. xS
A photograph attached. Sarah and Matt on a balcony somewhere, golden light, his arm around her waist. Both of them smiling at whoever took the picture.
I read the message twice.
The wording is careful in the way these invitations always are.Curated. Like-minded company.The Orchid House is one of three or four places in London that hosts this kind of evening. She is asking if we want to spend the night the way we spent that afternoon at the resort.
I am not in the mood for it. The morning has taken too much.
I put the phone back in my pocket without replying. I turn back to the window and the lawn and the cold glass in my hand.
