Free Play to the End by Robert Goddard

in?"

    "Why didn't you phone?"

    "I thought you'd want to hear what I have to say in person."

    "Oh God." There was a pause. Then she said, "Well, since you're here now .. ." Then there was a buzz. The gates began to swing open.

    I stepped back to pay off the taxi driver, then hurried in through the gates and started along the drive.

    The noise of the taxi's engine faded into the distance. All I could hear after that was the hiss of the wind in the trees and my own footfalls on the tarmac of the drive. I rounded a screen of shrubs and saw light from the house spilling across the lawn. Then I saw the house itself. There was a figure standing in the brightly lit porch, waiting for me.

    Jenny was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, a stark contrast with the outfit I'd glimpsed her in at Brimmers. But her expression, I realized as I drew closer, was much the same. She wasn't smiling. Then a dog barked and appeared at her side a reassuringly placid-looking Labrador.

    "Yours or Roger's?" I asked, nodding to the dog, who padded out across the terrace to meet me.

    "Roger's father's originally," said Jenny. "Here, Chester." Chester obediently retreated. "You'd better come in."

    "Thanks." I followed the pair of them into a wide hall, panelled in light wood and scattered with thick, vividly patterned rugs.

    "You shouldn't have come here, Toby," said Jenny, calmly but firmly. "I asked you not to."

    "Did you?"

    "It was understood between us."

    "But we haven't always understood one another properly, have we, Jenny?"

    She sighed. "Why did you come?"

    "To tell you what's happened." I held up the bag. "This is part of the price I've paid for getting Derek Oswin off your back. For good, this time."

    "Are you sure I've seen the last of him?"

    "Nothing's certain, I suppose. But I'm confident. Because of this."

    "What's in the bag?"

    "I'm not sure you'll believe it."

    "Try me."

    "Why don't we ... go in and sit down?"

    "This was just an excuse, wasn't it, to nose around here?"

    "Not just, no."

    "All right. Come up." She led the way up the elegantly curved staircase. "Roger uses the reception rooms on the ground floor for his office. We do most of our living on the first floor."

    The stairway and the landing were decorated with tasteful lavishness, modern abstracts jostling for space on the mellow-papered walls with landscapes and portraits from a more distant era. We entered a drawing room where logs were crackling in a broad fireplace, in front of which Chester had already stationed himself. The furnishings were like a cover shot for an interior-design magazine throws, rugs, urns; fat-spined books on the table; thin-stemmed candlesticks on the mantelpiece. Jenny favouring to my certain knowledge a plainer style, I categorized it as stuff Colborn had probably had shipped in for him by a lifestyle consultant. Disliking him was already proving to be simplicity itself.

    "Do you want a drink?" Jenny asked. She held up a bottle of Laphroaig.

    "Thanks."

    She poured me some and handed me the glass.

    "I'd have had Roger down as a Glenfiddich man."

    "You've never met Roger." And you're never going to, her eyes added.

    "Derek Oswin's met him. Many times."

    Any reaction Jenny might have displayed she artfully hid in the motion of sitting down. She waved towards an armchair opposite her and I lowered myself into it. Then she said, "Just tell me, Toby."

    "All right. Oswin used to work for Colbonite. You know about the company?"

    "Of course. Roger's father closed it down ... years ago."

    "Thirteen years ago."

    "There you are, then. Ancient history. Roger wouldn't remember one employee out of... however many there were."

    "He'd remember this one. Odd you should mention history, actually, because that's what's in the bag. Oswin's history of Colbonite. He's been trying to persuade Roger to help him get it published. Roger hasn't wanted to know. But Oswin's not one to take no for an answer, so, in his very own crackpot fashion, he's