A Cotswold Ordeal (17 page)

The lunch seemed to fizzle out after that. Thea lost any further inclination to draw gossip out of Cecilia, and Jocelyn seemed to withdraw into her own gloomy thoughts. One final unfortunate exchange centred upon the defunct Milo and Jeremy Innes’s retrieval of the body.

‘That was Valerie’s fault, of course,’ said Cecilia. ‘Decided the animal would be happiest at Juniper Court, when really Frannie Craven should have had him, if anybody should.’

‘Jeremy seemed to think somebody killed him deliberately,’ Jocelyn said. ‘He was furiously upset.’

‘Jeremy’s very confrontational,’ Cecilia mused. ‘He should do well in the Army.’

Thea laughed a little at this, but not enough to salvage the atmosphere.

Back at Juniper Court, a few minutes after one thirty, Thea idly lifted the phone and got the broken signal to indicate a 1571 message. When she listened, it was Phil Hollis, asking her to call back. He’d left it only ten minutes previously.

She got through to him quickly. ‘Now brace yourself,’ he said. ‘This might sound a bit beyond the call of duty.’

‘Go on.’

‘Mr and Mrs Franklyn would like to meet you. It’s not unusual, actually. You found the body, you see. It gives you a special sort of place in the story for them.’

Thea gulped. ‘Well, it won’t be the first time, I suppose,’ she said bravely.

‘Hmm?’

‘In Duntisbourne. I met the entire family of the victim.’

‘So you did. Well, that’s okay, is it?’

‘Yes, it’s okay.’

‘I’ll be there just after two, then. Have you had lunch?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Well I haven’t. You’ll have to put up with me eating sandwiches in the car.’

‘No problem,’ she said, wanting to add,
Yes, but
what about Mr and Mrs Franklyn’s lunch?
People suffering from a sudden intolerable loss forgot to eat, or they ate a jar of Marmite at three in the morning, or a whole loaf of bread, picked off with their fingers, a chunk at a time.

‘And before you ask,’ he added, ‘no, you can’t bring the dog.’

He gave her a thoroughly professional briefing as they drove to Cirencester, making her feel important and excited and involved, for the first time since Monday.

‘We’ve questioned him, of course,’ Hollis said. ‘And he says he was asleep in bed with his wife until eight on Monday morning. Then he had to go and see a client in Bisley at nine thirty.’

‘Bisley? Where’s that?’

‘You may well ask. It’s north of Chalford. To get to it from Cirencester, you might reasonably opt to go through Daneway – but not Frampton Mansell, which is where you saw him, as I understand it.’

‘Yes. But not before nine thirty. He must have been coming back from his client.
What
client, anyway? Has he or she backed up what Mr F. says?’

‘It’s a foreign family in a big house, down an impossibly steep and narrow little lane. I sent two DCs to check it out, and it sounds more or less kosher. Franklyn’s a financial consultant – he was helping them choose a pension plan, or some such stuff. They think he arrived when he said he would, and stayed about an hour. They admired his car. He charged them over a hundred quid for his services, which came as something of a shock, I gather.’

Thea thought this over while Hollis ate most of a cheese and pickle roll, driving with one hand.

‘Does he know it’s me?’ she wondered. ‘I mean,
surely he does. So he’ll know I saw him near Juniper Court at about eleven, just about the time when somebody was stringing up his son’s body in the stable. He’s had loads of time to prepare his alibi.’

‘He doesn’t know the exact times, and I want you to be careful not to give anything away about that. It strikes me that it’s the wife who wants to see you, and the chap’s been forced to go along with it.’

‘But that wouldn’t make him the murderer, would it? Didn’t you say Nick died much earlier, probably at the barn?’

‘Right. Something like four or five in the morning, they think. He was just stiffening up by the time they cut him down from your stable beam. But it’s a bit convoluted to think one person killed him and another took him to Juniper Court.’ He threw her a quick look. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘I have no idea. Considering that everybody knows everybody, and they all seem to be part of the Rural Warriors outfit, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was like the Orient Express and the whole community pitched in.’

He sighed. ‘I know this is going to annoy you, but what’s the Orient Express reference about?’

‘Oh, honestly!’ she tutted. ‘It’s an Agatha Christie story. It turns out that everybody did it.’

‘And now you’ve spoilt it for me.’

‘Serves you right.’

‘We’re almost there. Just down here and it’s a cul de sac on the left, if I’ve read the map right.’

‘Hello, again,’ Thea said to Mr Franklyn, when Hollis made the introductions, wondering in the sudden stillness of the detective beside her whether that was entirely the wrong thing to say. It seemed to come as a shock to Mrs Franklyn, too.

‘Again?’ she queried, with a puzzled frown. Thea had the impression that most things puzzled this poor woman at the moment.

The man turned to her. ‘You remember, dearest – I met this lady on Sunday. When I was out looking for Nick.’

‘Oh, did you?’ Interest lapsed into lethargy. Thea remembered the sense of fragility that she could see on the woman’s face – the conviction that if you moved or spoke too violently, your arms and legs and head would all come off.

The Franklyns were hollow-eyed but controlled. The man held his wife’s hand, stroking her fingers, one by one, feeling the joints, bending them slightly. Thea understood his need to believe in warm living flesh, to convince the bereaved mother, at the same time, of the same reality. Mrs Franklyn kept her free hand pressed against her sternum, as if monitoring her own breathing.

‘I saw your appeal on the telly,’ Thea pressed on. ‘You did it very well. It must have been nerve-wracking.’

‘We badly want to find who did this, you see,’ said the father.

‘Not that that will bring him back,’ his wife put in, as if this needed to be said repeatedly, before she could properly believe it.

‘Did you find Daneway?’ Thea asked, feeling unkind and irrelevant. It was now blatantly obvious to her that the man had not slaughtered his son.

He stared at her blankly. ‘Where?’ he said.

‘Daneway. You asked me the way, remember? On Sunday afternoon. I hope I directed you the right way.’

‘I was looking for Nick,’ he repeated. ‘We were worried about him. He’d phoned us that morning and said something about the canal. He said there was trouble over the plans for the canal and he had to confront some people. It didn’t make very much sense.’ He turned to Hollis in appeal. ‘I’ve already told you all this.’

‘I don’t think Mrs Osborne is asking you to explain yourself,’ Hollis said. ‘She’s here because you and your wife said you’d like to meet her.’

Franklyn subsided, shaking his head gently as if it was hurting him. ‘Angie thinks it might help her to hear about his…how he was.’ He tilted his head towards his wife, but didn’t look at her.

Obediently, Thea turned to the mother. ‘I’m not sure what I can tell you,’ she said. ‘I assume you’ve had the medical details from the Coroner’s Officer?’

‘His face,’ said the mother, leaning forward, suddenly urgent. ‘What was his face like?’

‘Very pale,’ said Thea. ‘His eyes were open, but not bulging or anything. I suppose they told you the same as they told me – that he must have died very quickly from heart failure.’ She looked to Hollis for confirmation. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘I didn’t know whether to believe them,’ the woman said. ‘Hanging, you see. It’s always been a horror with me. I used to dream it was happening to me, gasping for breath, kicking my legs in empty air. My sister always said I must have been hanged in a former life, but that sounds daft, doesn’t it. It seems so terribly cruel that it should happen to Nick. He’s my only one, you know.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Thea, with a great sigh. ‘I can’t really say anything that could make you feel better. If my daughter died, I’d be annihilated. Even though I don’t see so much of her now.’

She’d obviously pressed a button. The woman seemed to imbibe these words as if they were saving her life. ‘Don’t you! I hadn’t seen Nick for a long time, either. We weren’t even sure where he was. He’d been quite…difficult…last time we met. Argumentative, rebellious. You know how they get.’

‘I’d gathered something like that, from what you said at the appeal.’ Thea looked at Mr Franklyn, who stared unwaveringly at the floor.

‘Yes, well, I never thought it was very important. Just one of those family tiffs. But now – well, now it makes me feel so
guilty
.’ She wailed the last word. ‘If only I’d made more effort to find him sooner, none of this might have happened. When he phoned, he sounded…strange. As if he had to do something unpleasant, and wanted to hear our voices first. It scared me, and I sent Nigel out to look for him. When we realised he’d been to the
very same house
where Nicky was going to die the next morning, just imagine how we felt.’ Mrs Franklyn clutched her husband more tightly. ‘Have I understood it right?’ she asked. ‘I’m in a terrible muddle.’

Thea felt Hollis go tense beside her. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said tersely.

Thea heard the words
unlikely coincidence
ring in her head. She looked at Nigel Franklyn. ‘What
did
you feel?’ she asked.

‘As if Fate was playing with me. I only came to you because your gate was open and it was wet, so anywhere I could drive close to the front door seemed a good idea.’

‘You were very wet,’ she observed.

‘I’d been walking across fields, and all sorts, trying to find the damned canal. I just knew about
the tunnel at Daneway. I still don’t understand why Nick thought it was so important.’

‘We’ve never really kept up with Nicky’s activities, you see,’ said the mother. ‘We couldn’t really understand why he was so hot-headed about such – well,
dull
things. He never had a proper job, you know, because he said it would distract him from what really mattered.’ Her eyes seemed to sag, elongating in her face. ‘I wish I’d tried harder to share it all with him.’

‘It sounds to me as if he was very popular,’ Thea attempted. ‘He seems to have inspired a lot of enthusiasm in others.’

‘Maybe he did,’ came the dubious response. ‘But that’s just another way of saying he was like an outlaw, isn’t it? He was such a quiet little boy, too. Right up to when he was sixteen and started messing about with that Club. I’ll never forgive myself for not taking more care to check up on what that was all about. Especially when he let himself get so
scruffy
. But he only laughed when I said something about it.’ The woman’s voice was slow and slack with misery.

‘I’m sure you couldn’t have prevented it,’ Thea said, hurrying to reassure, while knowing she couldn’t be the least bit certain that it was true.

‘I might have talked him out of this stupid business about the canal, and being some sort of campaign leader. That must be what got him killed.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ chided her husband affectionately. ‘Nobody would kill for the sake of a canal.’

Abruptly, the woman jerked her hand away from him. ‘What then?’ she flared. ‘What made somebody hate our son enough to kill him? Answer me that!’

His response was to pull her to him, and press her head against his shoulder. Loud sobbing filled the room. Thea and Hollis stood up in unison and made an unobtrusive exit.

‘Poor, poor woman,’ she said as they got back into the car.

Thea and Hollis didn’t say much on the return drive, except that Thea wanted to know if she’d done what he’d wanted her to.

‘You did fine,’ he told her.

‘He wasn’t telling the whole truth, though, was he?’ she said. ‘Apart from anything else, how could he not know where Daneway was, if he had an appointment in Bisley the next morning? Presumably he travels the whole area all the time. He must know every little lane and shortcut.’

‘That’s what we thought,’ said Hollis. ‘And I’ll share one other little snippet with you, even though I shouldn’t. Nigel Franklyn knows Desmond Phillips. In fact, he’s his financial advisor. What do you think about that?’

‘I think he must be an awful fool if he thought you wouldn’t find that out,’ she said slowly.

‘Or maybe he just doesn’t care,’ said the policeman.

‘When will I see you?’ she asked, when he delivered her back to Juniper Court, not even attempting to hide her desire to be with him.

Before responding to her question, he gave her one of his looks, full of guarded hope and a kind of disbelief. ‘You can give me some tea, if you like,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve earned a few hours off, and I haven’t really had much chance to speak to your sister.’

Thea forced herself to assess the moment. When had all this begun? This easy acceptance that she and he were somehow already linked. The semi-professional way in which he was involving her in his murder enquiries and his obvious personal concern for her welfare? The answer to the question hardly mattered, she decided. The fact was, it had happened, and she liked it.

‘Right,’ she said.

They took tea and biscuits out to the garden, and tried to relax. Jocelyn was quiet and serious, not at all the teasing younger sister that Thea had anticipated. Hollis waited for her to make the first conversational move, after a brief exchange of greetings. Thea gave an account of their visit to the Franklyns.

‘I bet you feel rather differently about their son now, don’t you?’ Jocelyn said. ‘Now you know he’s not just some sad vagrant nobody needs to care about.’

‘I never thought that,’ Thea defended herself uncomfortably.

‘You did,’ said Jocelyn equably. ‘Anybody would. It’s the way of the world. Some people are little more than detritus, drifting about on the polluted edges of society.’

Hollis made a murmuring sound, suggestive of interest and partial agreement.

Thea heaved a sigh. ‘Don’t get all poetic on us. It’s too hot for that.’

Jocelyn subsided, with a glance at Hollis. After a moment she said, ‘That poor woman. It doesn’t bear thinking about, losing her one and only.’ She turned to Thea, her voice becoming stronger. ‘Mind you, I’ve always said it’s dangerous only to have one. Haven’t I always said?’

Thea found herself unable to respond naturally with Hollis at her side. She remembered with a wince his own dead daughter. What’s more, she did not feel that he ought to be learning about her in this indirect fashion. It was bad of Jocelyn to force these matters into the open. But she had to say something. ‘Many times,’ she said. ‘And I agree with you in theory. On the other hand, it would be wonderful if people knew when to stop. In my case, if I had produced another one, it would have been for Carl and Jess, not for myself.’

‘So?’

‘So I’m not that self-sacrificing a person. Anyway, there could be a dozen reasons why Nick Franklyn was an only child. It makes no sense to criticise.’

‘I wasn’t really. Just saying, that’s all.’

‘How many have you got?’ Hollis jumped in at last.

‘Five. Two boys and three girls. Ages range from twelve down to five.’

‘I’m impressed,’ he smiled. ‘We only managed two.’ Thea held her breath, waiting for reference to
the daughter, but it never came. Instead she was constrained to digest the
we
, understanding for the first time that she had achieved an age where she was never again going to be somebody’s first significant partner. There would always be ‘baggage’: assumptions, painful experiences, habits, and wariness. It was a gloomy thought, and she tried to drown it in a large mouthful of tea.

‘Has anybody come forward after the appeal?’ Jocelyn asked Hollis.

He seemed to find this question as surprising as Thea did. ‘Not that I’ve heard,’ he admitted. ‘We never really expected them to.’

‘So why do it?’

He put his cup down and folded his arms across his chest, settling back in the expensive garden chair. ‘It sometimes rattles somebody’s cage,’ he said. ‘Gives the message that we’re taking it seriously. Quite subtle stuff, basically.’

‘And hasn’t it almost become routine that the person doing those appeals on TV turns out to be the murderer?’ Thea put in. ‘Like a sort of double bluff? I can think of at least four instances in the past three years or so where that’s happened.’

Jocelyn seemed to find this irritating. ‘How can you remember them? It’s in one ear and out the other with me.’

‘I don’t know. I get interested. It’s something to do with the way people can tell absolutely outright
lies, with extraordinary skill sometimes. Not just in court, which must be hard enough, but sitting in front of all those cameras and microphones. It fascinates me.’ She looked at Hollis, who was looking at Jocelyn. Nobody spoke for a moment.

‘I think they convince themselves it’s true,’ he suggested. ‘They split off. Somebody else did it. It wasn’t really them at all. That’s what they actually believe sometimes.’

Jocelyn nodded. ‘A sort of Doctor Hyde thing.’

‘
Mr
Hyde. Doctor Jekyll,’ said Thea automatically.

‘For God’s sake, don’t
do
that!!’ Jocelyn snapped. ‘You’re always correcting me.’

‘Well, you’re always getting things wrong.’

‘It interrupts the flow. You make me forget what I was saying. You know what I mean, and you still have to catch me out and show me who’s the clever one.’ It was a moment that should have been acutely embarrassing, but somehow it wasn’t. Thea felt herself to be showing in a bad light, but Jocelyn was definitely over-reacting. And Hollis merely looked from one to the other with something like fondness in his expression. It was obvious that he didn’t mind cross words or flaring tempers. He could cope with imperfection and choppy emotion.

‘Sorry,’ Thea addressed her sister. ‘You’re absolutely right. I’ll try not to do it again.’

‘No you won’t,’ grumbled Jocelyn. ‘You’re far too old to change.’

All three laughed and Thea’s heart expanded at the thought that this man of such rare maturity and balance just might be hers for the taking. She came close to feeling grateful to Jocelyn for affording him the opportunity of revealing his qualities.

Inevitably they returned to the subject of the murder. ‘But in this case,’ Thea said emphatically, needing to explain herself, ‘I’m sure the man didn’t kill his son. You only have to look at him to know that.’

Hollis looked at her with naked affection. ‘So that’s all right then,’ he smiled.

Thea made a valiant effort to stick to the subject. ‘Everybody keeps talking about the canal,’ she said. ‘Surely that can’t be what’s behind Nick’s killing? I’m really amazed at the opposition to it being restored, I must say.’

‘The canal people have been getting backs up for years around here. They don’t mean to, most of the time, but they seem incapable of grasping the fact that not everybody thinks it’s a good idea to look back. After all, they do a fair amount of damage in the process.’

’Yes, I know. I’ve had it all explained to me.’

He wasn’t deterred. ‘And they put a lot of pressure on landowners to let the conservationists have access to their bit of the canal. Moral
blackmail, some would call it. People resent it. Plus they do a lot of fundraising, competing with other charities that are dear to people’s hearts. They tread on toes. And not everybody wants a whole new lot of tourists spoiling the peace.’

‘Nick Franklyn was a leader of the Rural Warriors, wasn’t he?’

‘He’s not on record as a rioter or anything. We’ve checked the Rural Warriors, and they’re involved in a whole range of things. Mostly, at the moment, they’re busy opposing a planning application for a massive new mansion not far from here. They also resist road widening, landfill sites and new supermarkets.’

‘Good for them. I think I’ll sign up.’

‘Very funny. They also passionately condemn all efforts to restore the canal, so you’re at odds with them there.’

‘And you think Nick was more involved in roads and mansions than canals?’

‘I didn’t quite say that. The canal is a very live issue around here.’

‘So who’s your chief suspect?’ Jocelyn demanded. ‘Thea seems to suspect the father, with that awful Valerie Innes in second place. Or is it the other way round?’ she asked Thea, who clamped her lips together and waited for Hollis to speak.

He looked at them both with an expression of amused forbearance. ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he
said. ‘We have to keep an open mind.’

‘Oh, pooh!’

‘I assure you that’s how it is. We’re collecting evidence. Getting to know the boy, and what his last movements were. Talking to everyone who knew him.’

‘Including Flora Phillips? And her family?’ Thea frowned at a sudden thought. ‘Where are Julia and Desmond, anyway? Isn’t it time they came back, and stopped pretending they’re having a happy holiday? Flora’s sure to have knocked that on the head by this time.’

‘I’ve handed all that over to Social Services,’ he said, with unmistakable relief. ‘Flora was just a distraction, silly girl. If the social workers think her people should come back, then it’s up to them to say so. But I imagine they’ll settle for the mother in Liverpool.’

‘But why did she come back? And who exactly is her boyfriend? Was it Nick, as Cecilia said?’

‘I have no idea,’ Hollis admitted wearily. ‘Except that nobody has suggested to us that she was involved with Nick. Of course, we’ve been asking it from the other end, as it were. Who he might have been involved with. And the answer seems to be nobody.’

‘We thought she seemed very shocked when we told her he was dead,’ Jocelyn informed him. ‘Don’t you think she might have some idea who did it?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sure she has an idea. We all have an idea. That isn’t the problem.’

‘Oh?’ Thea frowned at him suspiciously. ‘What is, then?’

‘Proving it,’ he told her.

A faint jingle from the house made them all raise their heads and listen, until Jocelyn realised, ‘That’s my phone. I left it in the living room,’ and went to answer it.

She was pale when she came back. ‘What’s the matter?’ Thea asked.

‘That was Noel. He thinks Alex is going to come and find me.’

This sounded complicated. Jocelyn’s eldest, the placid twelve-year-old cricket-playing Noel, had warned his mother about his father. ‘And?’ she prompted, aiming for the safe non-judgemental line.

Jocelyn eyed Hollis doubtfully. ‘You don’t really want to hear this,’ she said.

He was instantly alert. ‘But Thea does. I get it. I’ll take myself for a little walk, then, shall I? Just around the paddock. Maybe the dog will come with me.’

‘Oh, she’ll go with anybody,’ said Thea, inattentively, hardly noticing when he left.

‘Thea, that wasn’t very polite,’ Jocelyn admonished. ‘The poor man.’

‘What did Noel say?’

‘That was it, really. Alex has run out of patience and I suddenly feel scared. My insides are all shivery.’

‘Hmm. Scared he’ll hit you, or just that he’ll talk to you?’

‘He wouldn’t hit me in front of you, so it must be the talking.’

‘I thought he didn’t know where you were.’

‘That’s why Noel called. He caught Alex reading my emails. He’s probably seen the one from you, where you tell me how to find this place. If he’s clever, there’s probably enough to go on.’

‘Is he clever?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Is he on his way as we speak?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He can’t leave the kids, can he?’

‘Where was he when Noel phoned?’

‘Arguing with Roly. I could hear them yelling at each other.’

Thea gave her sister a closer scrutiny. ‘Is that part of the problem?’

Without warning, Jocelyn launched into explosive sobs, her breath restricted and her eyes flooding. Thea wondered at her own failure to observe the tension and misery behind the past days of apparent serenity. She hovered helplessly, waiting for the storm to die down, unable to think of a single consoling remark. Things were far too fragile
for a confrontation with Alex, assuming he could find a babysitter.

To her relief, the storm soon passed. ‘Sorry,’ Jocelyn sniffed. ‘It all got too much for a minute. I have no idea, you see, what I’m going to do next. It was so awful hearing Noel’s voice. He was being so grown up and understanding, and I’ve hardly given him a thought since I left. I’m a lousy mother.’

‘You do all right,’ said Thea impatiently. ‘Don’t go all self-pitying on me.’

This robust sisterly remonstrance seemed to restore Jocelyn to a more equable condition, and Thea softened. ‘Well, we’d better keep the hall table in front of the door, then, hadn’t we – and tell Hepzie she’s to guard us with her life.’

Jocelyn frowned at the floor for a moment. ‘Thea…’

‘Mmm?’

‘Do you think anything’ll happen? With this murder, I mean? Are we stupid to be staying here, with so much going on?’

‘I think we’ll have to trust Phil. We’ve told him the whole story, and he’s let us stay here. He must think it’s safe. Imagine the scandal if we’re murdered after all this.’

‘Gosh, yes. That makes me feel much better.’

Thea grinned fleetingly. ‘You’re not seriously scared, are you?’

‘Only on and off. It’s difficult to feel scared all
the time, isn’t it. You sort of forget about it after a bit.’

‘Same routine as before then: door open and shout if you think anything’s happening. Even if I don’t hear you, Hepzie will.’

‘I need some distraction,’ Jocelyn asserted. ‘I’m going to go and cook us something.’

‘If in doubt, cook?’

‘It’s force of habit, I suppose. You don’t have to eat it.’

‘I’ll be delighted to eat it, and I might persuade Phil to stay as well. We can have it on our laps in front of the telly, can’t we?’

Jocelyn grinned. ‘That’s another thing Alex hates,’ she said. ‘He thinks a family should have every single meal sitting up round the dining table.’

‘He’s right, in theory,’ said Thea. ‘But if you ask me, once a week is good going, these days.’

‘That’s what I said,’ nodded Jocelyn.

While Jocelyn peeled potatoes, Hollis made himself at home at the kitchen table, playing with Hepzibah, who had her front paws on his thigh.

‘My dogs don’t jump up,’ he said mildly.

Thea blinked slowly. ‘You’ve got dogs? Why didn’t you say?’

He grinned. ‘A Welsh corgi and a Gordon setter. Possibly the daftest mixture you could wish for.’

‘Could you go away for a bit,’ Jocelyn requested.
‘I can’t cook with people watching.’

‘Fine,’ said Thea. ‘We’ll go into the lounge. Pity there’s no gin.’

‘There’s sherry.’ Jocelyn pointed to a rack of bottles in a corner of the kitchen. ‘And plenty of wine. I vote we help ourselves.’

The living room was dominated by the words painted on the wall, turning it from a comfortable space in which a family gathered to relax and talk into a scene of invasion and contamination. The upward tilt of the writing, the ragged drips of the hurriedly-applied spray paint, the aggressive sentiment, all contributed to a chilly feeling of wrongness. ‘Flora did that,’ Thea said. ‘At least, she didn’t deny it when we accused her. I assume the poor girl wanted her house back.’ She thought back to Flora’s refusal to explain. ‘She was angry with us for being here. I think that’s really the whole reason. And if you saw her bedroom, you’d know she has a bit of a thing about painting on walls.’ She looked again at the lettering. ‘It isn’t very nice, though, is it.’