A Meeting of Minds by Clare Curzon Page B

and bathroom. Our experts have finished looking around here.’

    â€˜Just her bedroom and study.’
    Both rooms were quite severe, which hadn’t surprised Zyczynski. She remembered Sheila at Beattie’s dinner party talking of little but her work; and again when she entertained Childe here, bringing the conversation down to levels he might be more comfortable with. She hadn’t seemed a complicated person and, although brusque, not unkind. It couldn’t have been easy still to be tied to her mother, particularly since the older woman was more than a little dotty. Or was that a harsh assumption, and she was perhaps just eccentric?
    As if to illustrate her question, there came a sudden, theatrical interruption.
    â€˜Why, may I ask, this invasion of my home?’ And Vanessa was there in the doorway, rigidly outraged, her voice rising in scale and passion to the tragically broken final syllable.
    â€˜Joan,’ Fenner greeted her laconically, ‘how are you? But perhaps I don’t need to enquire.’
    For a brief instant she was deflated by use of the despised name but she rallied magnificently. ‘You! I should have known you would come to – to mock me in my grief . I – have – lost – my – daughter!’
    He was looking at her with a kind of distanced pity. ‘I too.’
    Yeadings made a little throat-clearing noise and moved between them. ‘Why don’t we sit down and talk? It must be some time since you both met. Mrs Winter, would you like Miss Zyczynski to make you some tea?’
    Vanessa swung her head to take in the two spectators. Her mouth tightened like a drawstring purse. She closed her eyes. ‘Coffee,’ she said faintly but firmly Then she swept across her drawing-room, sank on a sofa and lay back among the cushions.
    â€˜Everything all right?’ demanded an abrupt voice from the corridor as the two men were finding seats. Beattie stomped in to stand there, hands on hips, staring at the other woman. ‘You went off without a word. I wasn’t sure you’d make it upstairs on your own after downing all that gin.’

    â€˜Rosemary’s gone to make us all coffee,’ Yeadings said to cover Vanessa’s recoil.
    Beattie picked up the hint. ‘Right, love. I’ll take over in the kitchen and send her back in.’ While Vanessa moaned gently Beattie and the DS exchanged places. Then silence fell.
    When eventually the tray arrived with a large cafetière and cups for them all, Vanessa sat upright and waved a gracious hand at Zyczynski. ‘You pour, Rosemary.’
    She turned on Fenner. ‘You see what I am reduced to.’ Her arm swept widely to include the room and the world outside. ‘I am utterly alone, with my lovely home sold to strangers. I am abandoned here in the country among aliens who cannot care whether I live or die. And, indeed, by now neither do I.’
    â€˜Sugar and cream?’ demanded Beattie looming over her with a second silver tray, smaller than the other.
    â€˜Both.’
    â€˜Give it to her black,’ Fenner advised. ‘Now that I’m here we need to talk. Properly. Not drivel.’
    Vanessa gave a sob and glanced helplessly at Yeadings as if to say, you see how he behaves to me!
    â€˜So,’ her husband said, leaning towards her, ‘what was Sheila up to, that someone had to kill her?’
    It had the intended shocking effect. Vanessa ceased acting and shook her head. ‘How should I know? She never confided in me. And there is no call to be so crude. If you had fulfilled your part in her life and been there for her as a father, we might have been a normal, fond family. And I should not have lost my two darling children.’
    He stayed impassive. ‘We needn’t waste time on all that again. You know we are both impossible to live with. Sheila was the only good thing to come from our misalliance. And now she’s gone.’
    He