We splashed from the Land Rover to the door from memory.
‘What’s that awful smell?’ Annis asked in the hall.
I raced ahead to the kitchen whence the smell emanated and in my eagerness to knock the casserole off the heat managed to burn my fingers twice. At last I got hold of the oven gloves and lifted the lid on the pheasant. One for the forensic students. I’d scatter its ashes later. In the meantime I opened the back door to air the place.
Listening on the stairs I could hear the faint bleep of the answering machine in the attic office. Out of breath from rushing upstairs I listened to all the messages but Louis’s kidnapper had not left one. I fixed my little voice recorder on to the cordless office phone with a couple of rubber bands (I’m terminally low tech) and sat it on the kitchen table by the fruit bowl. Drinking mugs of tea and coffee we sat and stared at it, willing it to ring and dreading it at the same time.
