‘I don’t know. All this controversy is keeping my name in the papers, but that isn’t what I wanted. I wanted peace.’
‘You should have bought a desert island instead of this place. Couldn’t you do that? Go on. Buy somewhere nice and hot in the middle of the sea and I’ll come and be your Robinson Crusoe. Sleep in a hammock and live on coconuts. Reckon I could handle that.’
‘It’s a nice thought, but . . .’
She sighed as her ‘important contacts’ phone rang again. This time it was the police.
Jason watched her, his head on one side, as she nodded and made non-committal noises into it. Halfway through, he got bored and started tinkering with the cafetière, making a fresh pot after the burnt offering.
‘Not your mate again?’
‘No, it was the police.’
He always tensed when she mentioned the police – she supposed it was hardly surprising, after what he had been through.
‘It’s all right, they aren’t after you.’
‘Good,’ he said, giving her a wry smile. ‘I always get that feeling, you know, that they’re going to get me for something else, something I don’t even know about. I can’t shake it. I don’t feel as if it’s over yet.’
‘They’ve got the right people this time. You’re in the clear. Anyway, it wasn’t about that. It was about the bones in the cellar. The forensic anthropologist had a look at them.’
‘And?’
‘Human, female, older than twenty but younger than forty, no obvious cause of death, probably died somewhere around the end of the nineteenth century.’
‘Right.’ Jason shrugged and shook his head. ‘Poor cow,’ he said. ‘So, what are they going to do?’
‘Nothing. I mean
, what can they do? They can’t go around looking into centuries-old cases, can they? They’ll just shut up the cellar again and do . . . whatever it is they do . . . with the bones.’
‘Shouldn’t they have a decent burial? After being hidden down there all these years.’
‘What’s her name, though? How can you have a funeral for an anonymous skeleton?’
‘We could try and find out,’ he suggested. ‘Bet Harville would know something about it. It’s probably some great grandma of his.’
‘No, the forensic people said she’d never given birth.’
‘Probably one of their maids. Them Harvilles probably treated them like dirt and chucked their bodies into the cellar once they’d worked ’em to death.’
Jenna took some cups from the cupboard.
‘I know we all love the Harvilles,’ she said. ‘But we shouldn’t go making assumptions. I wish I did know though. Lawrence did mention something about a tragic first wife somewhere in the family tree who committed suicide. It could be her, couldn’t it? I mean, the vicar would have refused to bury her in consecrated ground. Perhaps they just couldn’t think of anything better to do with her.’
Jason snorted. ‘They’ve got a bloody huge garden. Might have been better than leaving her down there with the rats.’
‘True. It does smack of something that they wanted to hide. Whoever “they” might be. Oh God, I hate mysteries. I’m not sure I can cope with this one. I want to know who she is.’
‘Perhaps darling Lawrence could help,’ said Jason with a sniff.
‘Er, I don’t think he’s going to have a lot to say to me, not now. Why don’t we go down into the cellar again? See if there are any other clues in there.’
‘Don’t you think those forensic guys will have done that already?’
‘No, and they aren’t coming back. The body’s been found to be too old for them to pursue it. I mean, we’ve all heard of cold cases, but this one is bloody freezing. They’ll leave it to amateur detectives like us rather than waste their own resources.’
‘Speak for yourself. When did I ever claim to be an amateur detective?’ Jason folded his arms, apparently displeased with the entire affair.