The Magic of Christmas. Trisha Ashley

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      I stared at him, thinking that he certainly didn’t get his coolness and sang-froid from me or Tom – but, of course, my father was in the diplomatic service.

      She closed her notebook with a snap. ‘Once the post-mortem has been completed, if everything is in order, an inquest will be opened and adjourned and an interim death certificate issued,’ she said briskly, by which I presumed she meant unless they found I’d been feeding him Cyanide Chutney for months. (Or Polly Darke’s poisonous tomatoes. Pity I hadn’t thought of that one!)

      ‘The funeral can then take place, and the inquest proper will open at a later date.’

      ‘Must there be another inquest?’

      ‘Yes, it’s standard procedure in cases of this kind.’

      ‘Which kind?’ I demanded, when I heard the kitchen door suddenly burst open and crash back against the wall, rattling all the china on the dresser. Then Polly Darke stumbled over the sitting-room threshold like a dishevelled, shrink-wrapped Bacchae, all billowing green chiffon sleeves, stick-thin legs and enormous boobs.

      ‘Well, stay me with flagons,’ I said, surprised (damson gin for preference), for even Polly wasn’t usually this avid to garner news.

      Her slightly prominent eyes passed over the policewoman and fixed on me. ‘Is it true?’ she demanded thrillingly. ‘Is Tom really dead? They’re saying he had an accident – in your car!’

      Presumably this was rhetorical, for with an anguished cry of, ‘Tom! Tom!’ she threw herself into the nearest chair and burst into hysterical sobs.

      Jasper and I exchanged glances. Attention-seeking taken to extremes, combined with a raging desire to know what was happening was, I’m sure, our first thought.

      ‘This is Polly Darke, Officer,’ I explained resignedly. ‘She’s a novelist and lives near Mossrow.’

      Polly looked up, her face like a drowned flower (a slightly withered pansy). ‘I can’t believe it. Only the night before last Tom was with me, and now he’s gone. Gone!’

      ‘Why was he with you?’ asked Jasper, puzzled. ‘I thought he’d finally finished those Celtic murals you asked him to do ages ago?’

      ‘Because he loved me!’ she exclaimed tragically and began to sob gustily again.

      ‘He was with you the night before last?’ I stared at her, my mind whirling faster than a tumble dryer. ‘Good heavens, don’t tell me that you, of all people, are Dark Heart? No, it can’t possibly be you!’

      ‘Yes it is! Why not?’ she demanded belligerently, straightening from her pose of utter despondency. ‘I could give him what he needed—’

      ‘Tie him up, tie him down?’ I suggested a bit numbly. You know, I’d never even considered her as a possible suspect, because to me she was a rather pathetic and ludicrous creature, though perhaps men might see her differently? But not young men, apparently, for Jasper looked even more incredulous than I was.

      ‘Dark Heart?’ he queried.

      ‘Yes, your father was having an affair with someone, but though I found a note in his pocket on the morning of the day he vanished, it was only signed “Dark Heart”, so I didn’t know who it was.’

      ‘You mean, Dad was having an affair with her?’

      ‘Evidently, but I certainly thought it would be someone younger.’

      I’m quite sure Polly is much older than I am – well the other side of forty – even if she does try to hold back the years with every ancient and modern art at her disposal.

      ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded indignantly, glaring at me. ‘I’m only thirty-five!’

      ‘And the rest,’ Jasper said drily.

      I’d entirely forgotten the policewoman was there until she interjected into the sudden lull in the proceedings, ‘So you knew your husband was having an affair, Mrs Pharamond?’

      Her notebook was open again, I saw, pen poised.

      I glanced uneasily at Jasper. ‘He … well, he had had lapses occasionally in the past, but they didn’t mean anything. Then I found out about a more serious affair about five years ago, when my son was ill – and I’m so sorry, Jasper: I didn’t want you to find out about your father’s affairs, especially like this.’

      ‘Oh, I knew all about the women, Mum,’ he said calmly. ‘I even caught him at it with that girl out of the Mummers once, when I walked in on them in the workshop.’

      ‘You did?’

      ‘That’s a lie!’ Polly yelled furiously, but Jasper just glanced coolly at her, one eyebrow raised, as though she were a failed soufflé. He looked terribly like Nick. I don’t think Polly is any kind of soufflé, though, more of a synthetic Black Forest gateau with poisonous cherries.

      ‘So you were not on good terms with your husband,’ the policewoman suggested to me, ‘although he’d had affairs in the past to which you hadn’t objected?’

      ‘Of course I objected!’ I exclaimed. ‘What do you take me for? And they were usually more in the nature of one-night stands than anything serious. For a long time I used to believe him when he said he loved me and they meant nothing.’

      ‘Yes, but that was the old Dad, not the nastier model we’ve had to live with lately,’ Jasper pointed out. ‘Even I’ve overheard him, taunting you about some woman he’s been seeing – and he’s not coming across as a very admirable-sounding character, is he?’

      The police officer said patiently, ‘So this time he was having a serious affair, Mrs Pharamond? He would have left you?’

      ‘No, it had to be the other way round, because this cottage belongs to his great-uncle by marriage, Roly Pharamond. So I intended leaving, once Jasper was at university and I’d found new homes for the livestock and sorted out somewhere to go, some sort of job …’ I trailed off.

      ‘That’s so not true! I heard you arguing in his workshop that very morning and when I questioned him about it later, he told me he’d asked you to leave and you’d refused!’ Polly cried. ‘He was afraid Roly Pharamond would take your side and he’d lose the cottage and everything he’d worked for.’

      ‘Obviously you didn’t hear much, Polly!’ I said, surprised. ‘What I actually told him was that I’d had enough and was going to leave him as soon as I could. And if anyone worked around here and stood to lose everything, it was me!’ I added incautiously, and the policewoman’s pen skidded quickly across the page.

      ‘Well, at least you don’t have to do that now, Mum,’ Jasper remarked, and a small silence ensued.

      I sighed. ‘We might still have to move, Jasper. It depends on Uncle Roly.’

      ‘Unks won’t put you out, Ma. He’s really fond of you.’

      ‘So,’ said the officer to Polly, ‘you overheard an argument, and what then?’

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