Free Angel With Two Faces by Nicola Upson Page B

Yard was an avid reader of crime novels in general, and a big fan of Josephine’s books in particular. ‘Between you and me, I think he’s hoping for another appearance in this new one.’
    ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised, ‘although I can’t say I’m feeling very diligent at the moment, and somewhere as beautiful as this is hardly likely to put me in the mood for murder.’
    ‘Don’t you believe it.’ He told her briefly about the funeral, Morwenna’s fears, and the tensions at the wake afterwards.
    ‘What a terrible suspicion for his sister to have to live with,’Josephine said. ‘I can understand why she’s angry. Do you think there’s more to it than an accident?’
    ‘I don’t honestly see how there could be, but there’s no doubt that certain people are closing ranks about something. It’ll be interesting to see if William’s got anything to say about Harry’s death, although obviously I can’t talk about suicide. You know how indiscreet Ronnie and Lettice can be, and Morwenna wouldn’t thank me for spreading that round the estate. It’d be me they’d have to fish out of the lake next.’
    They rounded another bend in the drive, and Josephine saw Loe House in its entirety – an embattled seventeenth-century mansion, with two slightly projecting wings and many features which had clearly been added at various points over the two hundred years that followed. She could see why Ronnie had warned her not to expect anything too grand: constructed of a self-effacing pale stone and topped with a grey slate roof, the building seemed to crouch into the parkland and its obvious restorations gave it a rather patched-together appearance; nevertheless, taken with the landscape on either side, there was something quite noble about the house in front of her. A long garden wall stretched out from both wings, topped to the right with a line of dark yew trees and forming a pair of linked enclosures on the left-hand side, one of which was filled with apple trees in blossom so thick that snow seemed to have settled on the leaves. Just past the kitchen garden, where the driveway joined a track leading round the lake to the sea, there were some ramshackle farm buildings and an immaculately kept stable block, built in a U-shape and crowned with a clock turret. It was just after seven, but a couple of men were still working in the yard, taking advantage of the pleasant evening and, as she watched them go leisurely about their tasks,Josephine found it hard to imagine the kind of friction here that Archie had just described. To her, Loe House seemed to be that rare sort of place which encouraged the illusion that certain corners of England might never again be touched by conflict, the sort of place where a personal life undisturbed by politics might still be possible – and for that, she blessed it.
    ‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, pleased at how captivated Josephine seemed by her surroundings. ‘It does me good to see it through your eyes for the first time – I tend to forget how special it is, particularly after a day like today. Let’s go in – the Snipe has pulled out all the stops in honour of your arrival, so I hope you’re hungry.’
    Josephine nodded, noticing that there were three more cars in the driveway, parked next to Archie’s and the Austin in which Ronnie had collected her from the station. ‘Is anyone else coming for dinner?’ she asked casually, waving to Lettice, who was waiting in the doorway.
    ‘Good God, no,’ he said, knowing how she felt about parties. ‘William isn’t the type to stand on ceremony – he just has a passion for motor cars. And apart from being proud of Lettice and Ronnie, he’s not particularly interested in theatre, he won’t have read your novels, and he has no appetite whatsoever for the London crime scene. We might even have a nice evening.’
       
    Kestrel Jacks stood under a sycamore tree at the edge of the small clearing, smoking a