The Magic of Christmas. Trisha Ashley

worried, despite knowing I had nothing on my conscience other than guilt for that profound moment of relief I’d felt on hearing that it was Tom who’d had the accident and not Jasper.

      ‘Jasper, perhaps tea would be a good idea? Or coffee. Would you mind?’

      He gave me a look, but rose to a gangling six foot and, stooping under the low beam, went to the kitchen, though he left the door ajar. This is not a cottage where you can have private conversations … or indeed, private much of anything.

      ‘Can you tell me how the accident happened yet? I thought he must have had a seizure, perhaps, or a heart attack, even though he seemed a bit young for that? Or perhaps the brakes failed, or something?’

      ‘Actually, it looks as though one of the Citroën’s wheels came off.’ Her eyes were fixed on my face to gauge the full effect of this pronouncement.

      ‘A wheel came off? But would that have caused him to veer off the road?’

      ‘Not necessarily. It’s usually possible to drive on three wheels to a safe halt.’

      A sudden, rather nasty, thought struck me. ‘Do you know which wheel came off?’

      ‘The front driver’s side.’ She looked at me intently again, and I realised I must’ve turned pale. ‘Why?’

      ‘I had a flat tyre … it must have been that same morning, so I changed the wheel for the spare and took it in to be mended. Jasper undid the last nut – it was stiff – but I changed the wheel and put the nuts on again,’ I said firmly. ‘Jasper had gone back into the house by then. And what’s more, it was absolutely fine on the drive to the dig and back!’

      ‘Mrs Pharamond, I’m not accusing you of anything!’

      Wasn’t she? It began to sound amazingly like it!

      ‘Isn’t it just possible you didn’t tighten them up quite enough, so they slowly worked loose? Accidents do happen.’

      ‘You mean I might have accidentally killed my husband?’

      Now I saw which way she was heading with this, I thanked God it was me who had tightened the nuts and not Jasper!

      ‘If they were a bit loose, then the tight bends of the quarry road could have completed the job,’ she said. ‘It’s a possibility. We haven’t found any of them yet.’

      ‘But I’m sure they were tight, because I used a wheel br—’ I stopped as Jasper came back in carrying a battered tin tray of mugs and an open carton of milk.

      ‘Yes, they were,’ he said, putting the tray down on the coffee table with a thump that slopped some coffee over the rims. ‘I could hear what you were saying from the kitchen and Mum put the wheel back on and tightened the nuts. And then when she went in to wash her hands, I tightened them up even more.’

      We gazed at him, though presumably not with the same mixed feelings of affection and exasperation.

      ‘Oh, Jasper,’ I said, ‘I’m not being accused of anything except carelessness, so you really don’t have to try and protect me!’

      ‘I’m not, Mum, it’s quite true. I left you putting the wheel back on, but I checked it was tight enough later, when you weren’t about.’

      I wondered how often he’d felt he needed to check up on me, and from my expression he deduced that he ought to add something. ‘It was fine – I thought it would be.’

      ‘Of course it was! Any idiot can change a wheel,’ I said indignantly.

      PC Perkins had lost interest in the ins and outs of our dispute, and turned to Jasper, notebook at the ready. ‘So you are quite sure that the wheel was in a safe condition?’

      ‘Absolutely. And I often checked them and the tyre pressure since I passed my test, for the practice.’

      ‘So, how do you account for the same wheel coming off?’

      ‘I don’t – that’s your job, isn’t it? But we don’t know how long he’d been out, so he could have left the car standing about, and loosening the wheel nuts might have been someone’s idea of a joke.’ He shrugged. ‘Mum’s car was ancient, so who knows? Maybe the threads had gone or something, even?’

      I stared at him, thinking that he certainly didn’t get his coolness and sang-froid from me or Tom – but, of course, my father was in the diplomatic service.

      She closed her notebook with a snap. ‘Once the post-mortem has been completed, if everything is in order, an inquest will be opened and adjourned and an interim death certificate issued,’ she said briskly, by which I presumed she meant unless they found I’d been feeding him Cyanide Chutney for months. (Or Polly Darke’s poisonous tomatoes. Pity I hadn’t thought of that one!)

      ‘The funeral can then take place, and the inquest proper will open at a later date.’

      ‘Must there be another inquest?’

      ‘Yes, it’s standard procedure in cases of this kind.’

      ‘Which kind?’ I demanded, when I heard the kitchen door suddenly burst open and crash back against the wall, rattling all the china on the dresser. Then Polly Darke stumbled over the sitting-room threshold like a dishevelled, shrink-wrapped Bacchae, all billowing green chiffon sleeves, stick-thin legs and enormous boobs.

      ‘Well, stay me with flagons,’ I said, surprised (damson gin for preference), for even Polly wasn’t usually this avid to garner news.

      Her slightly prominent eyes passed over the policewoman and fixed on me. ‘Is it true?’ she demanded thrillingly. ‘Is Tom really dead? They’re saying he had an accident – in your car!’

      Presumably this was rhetorical, for with an anguished cry of, ‘Tom! Tom!’ she threw herself into the nearest chair and burst into hysterical sobs.

      Jasper and I exchanged glances. Attention-seeking taken to extremes, combined with a raging desire to know what was happening was, I’m sure, our first thought.

      ‘This is Polly Darke, Officer,’ I explained resignedly. ‘She’s a novelist and lives near Mossrow.’

      Polly looked up, her face like a drowned flower (a slightly withered pansy). ‘I can’t believe it. Only the night before last Tom was with me, and now he’s gone. Gone!’

      ‘Why was he with you?’ asked Jasper, puzzled. ‘I thought he’d finally finished those Celtic murals you asked him to do ages ago?’

      ‘Because he loved me!’ she exclaimed tragically and began to sob gustily again.

      ‘He was with you the night before last?’ I stared at her, my mind whirling faster than a tumble dryer. ‘Good heavens, don’t tell me that you, of all people, are Dark Heart? No, it can’t possibly be you!’

      ‘Yes it is! Why not?’ she demanded belligerently, straightening from her pose of utter despondency. ‘I could give him what he needed—’

      ‘Tie him up, tie him down?’ I suggested a bit numbly. You know, I’d never even considered her as a possible suspect, because to me she was a rather pathetic and ludicrous creature, though perhaps men might see her differently? But not young men, apparently, for Jasper looked even more incredulous than I was.

      ‘Dark Heart?’ he queried.

      ‘Yes, your father was having an affair with someone, but though I found a note in his pocket on the morning of the day he vanished, it was only signed “Dark Heart”, so I didn’t know who it was.’

      ‘You mean, Dad was having an affair with her?’

      ‘Evidently, but I certainly thought it would be someone younger.’

      I’m quite sure Polly is much older than I am – well the other side of forty – even if she does try to hold back the years with every ancient and modern art at her disposal.

      ‘What