Chapter 36
Thirty-six
William stood waiting on Langford Manor’s stone porch, his tall frame silhouetted against the lowering sky.
From the grim set of his jaw and the tight line of his mouth, Tina knew without asking – the children were still missing.
He looked like he was on parade – shoulders squared, chin set, gaze locked straight ahead.
A man trained to hold the line even as chaos edged closer.
And yet there was something simmering beneath the discipline. Something very close to fear.
Her hands shook as she checked her phone yet again. Still nothing. She dialled her daughter’s number for the umpteenth time. No reply. Come on, Elspeth. Please.
Stay calm, she told herself, twisting her wedding ring round and round. Elspeth’s a sensible girl. She wouldn’t go far. But even as she repeated her promises – no harsh words, no punishment, just home safe – they sounded desperate and flimsy in the cold night air.
She stepped inside the elegant hallway, only to halt abruptly.
There in front of her was Elspeth’s satchel, flung onto the central marble table as if she’d just stepped out into the garden.
Tina reached out, touching the worn leather handle which so recently her daughter’s hand had held.
It was cold. Her lower lip wobbled. She closed her eyes. Where are you, sweetheart?
They began their search inside. Penelope, gliding through the house in a cloud of citrus perfume, wearing heels far too expensive and far too high for any sort of emergency. She clacked over polished floorboards, pausing by the library door.
‘I saw them in here about three hours ago,’ she said airily, as if reporting that the butler had misplaced a spoon.
‘Rehearsing for As You Like It. Benjamin was Orlando. Elspeth was Rosalind. Rather sweet, actually. And they’re such sensible children.
They can’t have gone far.’ But behind the casual sentence, Christina spotted the tightness in Penelope’s jaw and the slight quiver in her hands – fear hidden beneath practiced composure.
William snapped on the lights. The library burst into view – oak panelling, towering shelves, laden with spotless porcelain, the faint smell of ash.
Two thumbed paperback copies of Shakespeare’s play lay face-down before the fireplace.
The grate still held the ghost of a fire – embers dull red beneath charred logs.
‘Nearly out,’ William muttered, crouching to prod the logs with the poker.
‘That’s seasoned oak. No one’s fed this for at least two hours.
’ He cast an apologetic glance at his wife, ‘I know you say you’ve looked, but I think we should check the house again.
Thoroughly. Main rooms first, then the cellar. And the attics last.’
Tina tried Elspeth’s phone again. A faint ringing cut through the silence. Her eyes snapped to the sofa, where both Elspeth’s phone and another device lay abandoned. A chill ran down her spine – why would they go anywhere without their phones?
The four of them swept through the house in grim formation.
No children.
An hour later, Tina’s composure was fraying and her mind spinning.
What if this drama – her daughter going missing on the very day she’d crossed Ernest and Frank – wasn’t a coincidence?
What if Ernest was involved? What if Frank had called in a favour from the dodgy characters he seemed to mix with in retirement?
She chewed at a fingernail. If her co-forgers were involved, how would she tell Hamish? Would he ever forgive her? Would she ever forgive herself?
She pounded down the stone stairs to the cellar. Behind her, Penelope’s heels ticked on the floorboards. The rhythm grated. Penelope had stopped at the door to the cellar like a frisky horse spooked by a tall fence, refusing the obstacle and shying away to safety.
Tina’s shoes squeaked. Dust filled her nose; cobwebs snagged her hair.
‘Perhaps a glass of wine?’ Penelope called down, her voice as light as if they were discussing Shakespeare over supper, ‘Steady the nerves?’ Although delivered smoothly, Tina detected the slight tremble; Penelope was a consummate actor, but she was also a worried mother.
William charged back up the stairs, fury breaking through the thin crust of his restraint. ‘Pen, Christina and Hamish aren’t here for a bloody social call! Their daughter is missing. With our son. Save the brandy for when we’ve found them.’
For ten minutes they prowled through every dark corner of the warren of underground rooms. The air was musty and stale, thick with the scent of damp stone. Doors groaned in protest as they were forced open, sending echoes down narrow corridors full of spiderwebs, but no trace of a child.
William plodded back upstairs followed by Hamish, then Tina, who shut the door while Penelope fluttered over William as if trying to calm an over excited terrier puppy.
Hamish cleared his throat. ‘How old is this house?’
Tina caught the faint narrowing of William’s eyes, the practiced tilt of Penelope’s head, her smile cool and curated.
But Tina knew what was happening. Hamish wasn’t drifting off into the sixteenth century – this was Hamish the historian, observing, deducing, trying to figure out an explanation from the facts.
The focused, capable, brilliant man beneath the affable surface.
‘Parts date back to the Domesday Book,’ Penelope replied with a rehearsed flourish.
‘Though much was added by the sixth Viscount, and of course during the Regency era . . .’
‘Did your family break with Rome?’ Hamish pressed, eyes flicking across a carved lintel. ‘Any priest-holes the kids could have crawled into and got stuck?’
‘Of course!’ William said, sudden energy sparking. He turned like a hound on a scent. ‘This way!’
They pounded up the back stairs – Tina panting, her heart thundering in her ears.
William moved with military precision, barking Ben’s name at each landing.
Tina followed, all her senses heightened – wood smoke, fingers on the smooth polished banister she used to guide her upwards, the iron tang of fear rising in her throat.
Behind her, Hamish’s breathing grew ragged. Up they ran. Tina’s coat caught on a newel post, and she shrugged it off, not waiting to see it land.
Please be here. Please, just be hiding.
William stopped in the upper corridor, dropping to one knee and prising up a loose floorboard, exposing a black iron lever. He yanked the lever. With a groan of ancient hinges, a wall panel swung open. The air that wafted out was dry and smelled of wood long forgotten. They peered inside.
Darkness. Cobwebs. And emptiness.
A hollow place, meant to save lives, now holding nothing but dust and disappointment.
‘Outhouses next,’ William said, the words flat, as if trying to inject hope into his weary troops, ‘then the woods.’ Some of the steel had gone from his voice.
Before he could leave, Penelope moved. She glided a half step closer, one hand brushing her husband’s sleeve, not clinging, just enough contact to anchor him.
Her expression remained perfectly composed.
‘Do take a torch,’ she murmured, almost absently.
‘Though of course you’ll have thought of that already, army training and all.
’ The corners of her mouth lifted in a delicate, admiring smile, the kind worn by someone who believes herself to be stating an unshakable truth, not avoiding conflict – the way Tina had for the past decade.
Tina stood in the hush, heart heavy, and then – finally – noticed Penelope’s performance in full: the way she soothed William with studied elegance; the carefully placed suggestions, the perfectly timed smile.
The way she never contradicted him directly, just offered distractions and redirections.
Social defence mechanisms, disguised as charm.
Using those dramatic credentials earned at Oxford.
A shield of good breeding and curated poise.
And all at once she saw herself – her own years of smoothing conflict, suppressing her instincts, apologizing for shadows she didn’t cast. In her own way, she’d staged that same performance, hadn’t she?
Used it to avoid the truth. To avoid herself.
Avoidance had shaped so much of her life.
The truth about her father. The shame she’d carried.
The guilt that drove her to forgeries. The marriage she’d seen teetering but hoped would save itself.
She must be bolder, be herself, stop assuming problems would miraculously resolve themselves.
William’s shoulders twitched, then straightened. He didn’t look at his wife, but he nodded once – more to himself than anyone – turned and clattered back down the stairs, Hamish following.
Penelope turned to Tina, reaching for her hand. ‘Come with me, darling,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s simply ghastly outside. Let the men search the barns and sheds. They’re so good at the practical things.’
It was the final straw. Tina stared at her, saw the certainty in Penelope’s eyes, the presumption that Tina would retreat, let the world spin without her, and wait prettily for others to fix things.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Your son is missing, Penelope. Your son and my daughter. I know you’re handling this differently from me, but I must help.’
And with that Tina ran off down the stairs, her shoes clacking on the steps as if spurring her on.