Free The Right Thing by Judy Astley

now, I wouldn’t get there till about three in the morning. I mean it’s more than three hundred miles to Highgate.’ (More exaggeration, Kitty noted with a grin.) ‘So I rang Julia on the mobile from the car for suggestions about hotels, seeing as she’s a walking encyclopedia, and she suggested you.’ Rose took hold of Kitty’s wrist, making the glass in her hand tremble dangerously. ‘You don’t mind, do you darling? I mean it’s just for a night, though I know it’s all a bit out of the blue after all these years.’
    â€˜No, of course I don’t mind. It’s hardly as if we’re short of accommodation.’ It would have to be the sofa bed in her attic studio though, she thought, unless she trudged out in the dark and made up one of the beds in the barn. ‘Do you mean these aunts just turned up and chucked you out right there and then? What on earth were you doing?’
    â€˜Nothing! Just my absolute very best as a family friend, same as anyone would,’ Rose squealed, her eyes innocent and wide. ‘Poor Tom’s distraught, doesn’t know what day it is, the children were wandering that great place like lost cats and after the funeral when everyone had gone, well, I just felt they couldn’t be left like that. It was so big and so empty. Someone had to make sure those children hadn’t run out of Coco Pops and that the dogs were let out.’
    â€˜But why you? Were there no staff?’
    â€˜There’s a dopey au pair who’s trying to book a flight home, three dailies who come in – you saw them, the ones handing out drinks – and a couple of garden chaps, oh and the farm staff of course, but no family. I couldn’t believe they all just went off home. Quite honestly, I was glad to see the aunts.’ Kitty couldn’t help grinning and Rose’s eyes widened again. ‘No, truly,’ she insisted. ‘I am just a friend, you know. Ever since we made that programme. BBC2, you might have caught it, Antonia and I got on terribly well. I was due to go back to research another show, but now I don’t suppose . . . Anyway, the aunts had been to the funeral and gone home, and then just turned up back again as if they’d had a powwow and decided I was the sort who’d nick the silver. Someone must have phoned them.’ She frowned, trying to pin a name on the traitor. ‘Ben knew where I was, you know. Well, I mean I hadn’t told him I’d be anywhere else.’
    â€˜I don’t think he did know, actually. Julia rang.’
    Rose laughed. ‘Well he will by now then, now that I’ve spoken to her. Can you imagine her having any piece of information that she doesn’t broadcast?’
    â€˜Oh it happens, occasionally.’
    â€˜Talking of which . . .’ Rose reached into her handbag and hauled out a pale grey leather Filofax. ‘In here somewhere . . . oh yes, here it is. Julia asked me to pass this on to you. Some number about adoption. She said you should ring it and they’ll be able to help.’ She handed the slip of paper over to Kitty who read on it the address and phone number of the Post-Adoption Centre, a north London address that couldn’t be far from Rose and Ben’s own home.
    â€˜Very mysterious. What’s it for?’ Rosemary-Jane looked intently at Kitty. ‘Are you adopting a baby? Are we allowed at our age? Or are you looking for your real mum? I never did think you looked much like yours.’
    Kitty folded the paper and took it to the dresser where she placed it carefully in a box covered in shells that Lily had made at school.
    â€˜It’s no to both of those. Just something for a friend,’ she replied to Rose. ‘Have another drink and I’ll whip up a mushroom omelette for you. Then I think if the football’s finished, you should meet the rest of my family.’
    â€˜What time