The House of Memories by Monica McInerney Page B

never advertised his services, relying on recommendations. In the past year or so, he explained, the word of mouth had increased, aided by the fact that three of his tutors’ charges had scored some of the best A-level results in the country. One of them had featured on the front page of the
Times
, after perfect grades in six different subjects. The phone calls started coming in that day. Not from the “normal” parents, but from the “other” group. His clients were now almost exclusively the superrich parents.
    “It’s how people operate at that level of society,” Lucas said. “They all want what the other has, be it a new car, a villa in Tuscany or a brainy child.”
    He could have taken on fifty more tutors—there was so much work on offer—but he didn’t want the extra work, or the extra lodgers. The more he said no, the more money he was offered. The more he looked around his house, the more he realized what he could do with that money.
    “I did my sums, Ella. This house needs urgent renovation. A lot of it. The fees I could charge would refit the entire house. Add an extension, more bedrooms, more study areas. Two years of working with those clients, difficult or demanding as they might be, would buy me and my students a renovated house and five years of research time. I decided it was worth it.”
    It wasn’t difficult to find very bright tutors. There was a waiting list of graduates wanting to spend a year living and working with Lucas. After a week of interviews, he took in four new lodgers, all in their late twenties, experts in languages, science, mathematics and physics. All four were studying for their PhD. All four spent every free moment from their own studies working as tutors. Two of the clients’ children had recently won academic awards. All of the parents reported improvements. All of the fees had been paid in full too. Lucas had already hired an architect. The renovation work was due to begin on the house at the end of summer.
    It all sounded positive. I couldn’t see where I fitted in. “Do you want me to manage the renovations?”
    “No. The architect will do that.”
    “Look after the tutors’ timetables?”
    “No, I do that myself. With help from Henrietta. She helps me do the students’ appraisals too.”
    Henrietta wasn’t just a fellow lecturer at his university. She was also Lucas’s long-term girlfriend. I didn’t pursue that subject for now. “Then how can I help?”
    “Ella, I need you to play detective.”
    I smiled. I couldn’t help myself.
    “I’m serious,” he said. “I have a thief in the house.”
    I thought of the chaos on every floor. “How can you tell?”
    “Not this house. Let me explain.”
    He told me that the four tutors divided their time between the different clients’ houses, depending on what subjects were required.
    “Much as I’d like to offer one person who can teach applied physics, advanced Mandarin, French, Spanish, classic literature and algebra, it doesn’t work like that. Each tutor has an area of excellence. So each of them visits different houses at different times.”
    I knew that from my previous stay. Back then, Aidan had been Lucas’s language expert. He was fluent in French, German, Spanish and Italian, as well as his native Irish. Not that there’d been a great call for the Irish language among the upper-class children of London.
    Lucas told me that two months earlier he’d received a phone call from a long-standing client. The man’s two oldest children had been coached into Cambridge by Lucas’s tutors. The third child, in her late teens, had her sights set on Yale. All four of Lucas’s current tutors were helping her on her way. Lucas wouldn’t have called the father a friend, but they had a long association.
    “Your tutors haven’t noticed anyone or anything unusual in the house, have they?” the father asked. “It’s just that something has gone missing.”
    The “something” was a small but valuable