Page 67 of The Impossible Fortune

The house squats before them at the end of the long driveway. The driveway itself is starting to lose the battle with the nature around it, weeds and wild flowers poking through the gravel. Joyce wonders why the gardeners haven’t taken care of that. You wouldn’t see a weed onDownton Abbey. The grasslands around the house have also seen better days, but perhaps Lord Townes is an environmentalist and goes for the ‘untamed’ look. A lot of very rich people are environmentalists now. Ron says it’s the ones who can’t afford helicopters any more. It was Ron who told them Lord Townes had booked in for a visit toThe Compound on Wednesday morning. Elizabeth is keen to meet him before he goes.

Joyce is hoping that a butler might greet them outside. Not that she would say it out loud, but on the journey down, as Elizabeth and Bogdan were talking about the best things to do if you got kidnapped, Joyce imagined a butler with a deep voice who had served the Townes family for generations and been unable to find love, after a doomed, fleeting romance with a scullery maid forty years earlier made him close his heart. Many years later the man – Henderson perhaps, Phillips, Brabazon – meets a woman in a mauve cardigan, and is transported back in time. Nothing is said, but there is a glance, a stolen look, and, as she leaves, he bows his head and says, ‘Madam,’ and she bows her head and says, ‘Henderson.’ What happens after that is a mystery, as she’d fallen asleep, to be woken by Elizabeth saying, ‘The key thing if you’re tied up in the boot is to kick out the brake lights.’

As they crunch to a halt, Joyce sees there is no Henderson, so there goes that little dream. Lord Townes himself has come out to greet them. Of course there could be a fantasy in which Joyce marries a lord, but that is a lot less likely than a butler, and probably a lot less fun. Joyce resolves to make do. Meeting a lord is quite exciting in itself.

‘You must be Elizabeth Best and Joyce Meadowcroft,’ says Lord Townes. ‘What an enormous pleasure.’

‘Lord Townes,’ says Elizabeth, and shakes his hand. Joyce curtsies.

‘No need for any nonsense,’ says Lord Townes, graspingJoyce’s hand. ‘Come on in the both of you. I’m Robert to friends, and I can tell we’re going to be friends, so I’m Robert to you. Does your driver need anything?’

‘Bogdan?’ says Elizabeth, looking back at the car. ‘No, he’s going to listen to a podcast about the fall of Carthage.’

Lord Townes escorts them through an immense oak front door into a hallway lit with one small bulb. Joyce sees portraits and rugs and vases scattered around, but she also sees a lot of dust and peeling wallpaper, and, on this summer’s day, feels an instant chill. Lord Townes – apologies, Robert – shows them into a drawing room, and Joyce sits in the cleanest chair she can find.

‘I would offer you tea,’ says Lord Townes, ‘but the kitchen is a very long way away. You say this is about Nick Silver?’

‘Yes,’ says Elizabeth.

‘He was my son-in-law’s best man,’ says Joyce. ‘My son-in-law, Paul, he’s a professor.’

‘Well, I know Holly Lewis better than I know Nick Silver,’ says Lord Townes, ‘but do fire away.’

Through an open double doorway to her right Joyce can see a snooker table with a stained cover on it, and a stag’s head sticking out of an oak-panelled wall. The stag is missing an eye.

‘They asked to see you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Last week. May I ask what about?’

‘May I ask why you want to know?’ Lord Townes says. ‘It was a private conversation.’

‘Somebody killed Holly Lewis,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And Nick Silver has disappeared.’

‘Holly has been killed?’ Lord Townes looks like the victim of a prank.

‘I thought you might already know,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Car bomb.’

‘No,’ says Lord Townes. ‘Impossible, no.’

Joyce doesn’t believe him. Lord Townes already knew this information.

‘What did you speak about?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘You are quite serious?’ Lord Townes asks.

‘Robert, you know who I am,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You know my background.’

Lord Townes had rung someone ‘very high up’ before agreeing to meet them. That person had immediately rung Elizabeth.

Lord Townes nods.

‘We would very much like to find Nick Silver, and find the person who killed Holly,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce keeps getting distracted by the stag with one eye. Poor thing.

‘What do you know?’ asks Lord Townes. ‘I will fill in whatever else I can.’

‘Holly and Nick run The Compound,’ says Elizabeth. ‘They came to you for advice about a financial matter, a very large sum of money in cryptocurrency, which they had been holding for many years, and had finally decided to cash out.’

‘That’s the long and short of it,’ agrees Lord Townes.