Page 63 of Fire Must Burn

‘Sauce!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you?’

There was no answer.

‘Kevin! Bruce!’ she called. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ said Kevin, emerging from a doorway on the other side, the lit room behind him putting him into silhouette.

‘What do you mean “everything’s fine”? She was screaming.’

‘Well, she was upset at something, I guess,’ said Kevin. ‘She had too much to drink, and suddenly flew off the handle and turned into a banshee.’

‘Where is she? I want to talk to her,’ demanded Sparks, walking around the landing to reach his side.

‘That may be a problem,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s run off.’

‘Run off? Where?’

‘No idea,’ said Kevin, looking up and down the hallway.

‘We should go look for her,’ offered Tony, who had come up behind Iris.

‘Let her sulk the night away somewhere,’ said Kevin. ‘She’ll be fine in the morning.’

‘She is drunk, upset and wandering around in the dark in a giant house she doesn’t know her way around in,’ said Sparks. ‘She could hurt herself.’

‘It would serve her right,’ said Kevin.

‘She could also break something,’ Tony pointed out. ‘Something valuable.’

A fleeting expression of agony passed over Kevin’s face.

‘A valid point,’ he said. ‘Sparks, head down to the ground floor. I’ll take this level. Tony, work your way up. Turn the lights on as you go.’

‘Should one of us fetch Dorty?’ asked Tony.

‘My guess is she’s already up and on the hunt,’ said Kevin. ‘Whoever finds Sauce first, bring her back to her room so she can sleep it off.’

Sparks immediately headed for the staircase, feeling her way with one hand on the banister, the other holding up the skirts of her dressing gown. Halfway down, it occurred to her that Bruce hadn’t come out. She wondered about that, but given the amount of alcohol they had consumed it wasn’t all that surprising.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, then felt around the wall by the foyer until she found a light switch.

‘Sauce?’ she called.

There was no response. She thought back through her hazy recollection of the last few minutes. She didn’t think she had heard the front door open, so Sauce was probably still in the house somewhere. Unless she had escaped through the rear and was wandering the hedge maze like a lost, diaphanous apparition from a Victorian ghost story.

She made a circuit of the rooms they had been in, turning on lights as she went. The galleries, the parlours, the dining, reception and game rooms were all empty. From the floors above she could faintly hear the two men calling Sauce’s name with no apparent success.

She saw a door leading from the dining hall. Towards the kitchen, she guessed. She opened it and nearly screamed herself as she came face to face with the forbidding visage of MrsDorter, who regarded her impassively. She held a covered tray in one hand.

‘I’m so sorry,’ gasped Sparks. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Mrs Dorter.

‘I’m looking for my friend, Sauce,’ said Sparks. ‘I mean Nancy. Miss Spurlock. She was upset about something.’

‘Screaming her bloody head off would be a more accurate description,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘It’s all right, Miss Sparks. I have her. I was just fetching something from the kitchen to soothe her nerves.’

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ said Sparks. ‘Is she all right? I should go to her.’