Page 91 of Fire Must Burn

There was a well-trodden path through the tall grasses. In the distance, she heard some low quacking. The path took her into that direction, and a few minutes later she came to large, irregularly shaped pond. As she did, a muddy brown-coloured duck paddled across, the splash of green on its wing giving away its identity. Behind it, four ducklings, about three-quarters the size of their mother, followed behind in a line, stopping to dabble amid a clump of weeds whenever she did.

Some movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she squatted by a yellowed stalk to see a small, narrow beetle climbing it. Its back had an almost beaded appearance with a thin, green stripe running up the centre.

Zircon reed beetle, she thought happily, pulling out a small notebook and jotting it down.

There was a group of beetles skating along the surface by a cluster of weeds at the edge. She made her way over to them to get a closer look.

‘Once again, you should be more careful, Miss McTague,’ came a voice nearby.

She looked up, startled, to see Mrs Dorter standing ten feet away, a large straw basket partly filled with herbs in one hand, and a rather sharp-looking blade in the other.

‘Or should I say,’ continued Mrs Dorter, smiling coldly, ‘you should be more careful, Miss Sparks?’

ELEVEN

‘Was that meant to be a threat?’ asked Iris. ‘Because I don’t respond well to those.’

‘Where you’re standing,’ said Mrs Dorter, pointing with her blade. ‘You shouldn’t be in that patch. That’s spurge. It’s an irritant. Get any of the sap on your skin and you’ll be very sorry you did. I recommend you scrub those boots before you go back into the house. There’s a pump over by the barn with a brush hanging from it you can use. Then leave them in the boot room when you come in.’

‘Ah,’ said Iris, stepping away from the weeds. ‘Thanks for the warning. I’m not as up on my irritants as I should be. So. You called me Miss Sparks just now. How long have you known?’

‘You looked familiar when I saw you at dinner, but I couldn’t place you,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘It wasn’t until I bumped into you at midnight that I recognised you. It was seeing you in the doorway like that that jogged my memory, just like that night at the Pickards’ mansion, although I still couldn’t remember your name. I had to dig up my diary from back then to find it.’

‘I’m impressed that you went to all that trouble.’

‘You showed up at my establishment under an alias.’

‘As do most of your clientele.’

‘But I know all of their real names,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘It guarantees my privacy and theirs. If you and Mrs Bainbridge were merely here to have a liaison away from the prying eyes of London society, then I couldn’t care less. But you brought up that ludicrous connection to Lucinda Pickard, and that raised my suspicions, Miss Sparks. Why are you here?’

‘To speak to you about that night at the Pickards’ mansion. To find out what happened to Nancy Spurlock.’

‘Why? Why now, after all this time?’ snapped Mrs Dorter.‘She’s long gone. So is Kevin, so is Bruce. Who cares about any of them any more?’

‘Three other people were there that night,’ said Iris. ‘You. Me. And Tony Danforth.’

‘Tony went off to Singapore sometime in the late thirties,’ said Mrs Dorter.

‘He came back recently,’ said Iris. ‘And someone tried to kill him almost immediately. It may have had something to do with what happened to Nancy that night. You’re the only one who can tell me about it. That’s why I’m here. This is as private a place and time as any. Nobody else is around. Tell me.’

‘You’re still the same silly little self-important girl, aren’t you?’ sneered Mrs Dorter. ‘You think you can show up out of nowhere at my house and make demands? All dressed up with your fake specs like you’re something out of a girls’ detective novel. I bet if I knocked those stupid glasses off your face you could see just fine.’

‘And I bet that if you tried you’d be floating in that pond before you ever connected,’ Iris replied. ‘Let’s keep things peaceful, shall we? I only came to talk to you.’

‘How did you know I’d be out here this time of day?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Iris, holding up her book. ‘I was looking at the neighbourhood beetles. It’s a hobby of mine.’

‘Beetles?’ replied the other woman incredulously.

She looked down by her feet, where a brightly metallic one was crawling along.

‘What’s that one?’ she asked, pointing at it.

‘Oh, that’s a nice one,’ said Iris. ‘A jewel beetle. Aphanisticus emarginatus. It’s fairly common around—’

She stopped as Mrs Dorter stepped forwards and crushed it with the toe of her boot.