CHAPTER 1

       A New Will

      Michael Gathercole stared at the closed door in front of him and tried to persuade himself that now was the moment to knock, as the aged grandfather clock in the hall downstairs stuttered its announcement of the hour.

      Gathercole’s instructions had been to present himself at four, and four it was. He had stood here—in this same spot on the wide first landing of Lillieoak—many times in the past six years. Only once had he felt less at ease than he did today. On that occasion he had been one of two men waiting, not alone as he was this afternoon. He still remembered every word of his conversation with the other man, when his preference would have been to recall none of it. Applying the self-discipline upon which he relied, he cast it from his mind.

      He had been warned that he would find this afternoon’s meeting difficult. The warning had formed part of the summons, which was typical of his hostess. ‘What I intend to say to you will come as a shock …’

      Gathercole did not doubt it. The prior notice was no use to him, for it contained no information about what sort of preparation might be in order.

      His discomfort grew more pronounced when he consulted his pocket watch and noticed that by hesitating, and with all the taking out of the watch and putting it back in the waistcoat pocket, and pulling it out once more to check, he had made himself late. It was already a minute after four o’clock. He knocked.

      Only one minute late. She would notice—was there anything she did not notice?—but with any luck she would not remark upon it.

      ‘Do come in, Michael!’ Lady Athelinda Playford sounded as ebullient as ever. She was seventy years old, with a voice as strong and clear as a polished bell. Gathercole had never encountered her in sober spirits. There was always, with her, a cause for excitement—often such morsels as would alarm a conventional person. Lady Playford had a talent for extracting as much amusement from the inconsequential as from the controversial.

      Gathercole had admired her stories of happy children solving mysteries that confounded the local police since he had first discovered them as a lonely ten-year-old in a London orphanage. Six years ago, he had met their creator for the first time and found her as disarming and unpredictable as her books. He had never expected to go far in his chosen profession, but here he was, thanks to Athelinda Playford: still a relatively young man at thirty-six, and a partner in a successful firm of solicitors, Gathercole and Rolfe. The notion that any profitable enterprise bore his name was still perplexing to Gathercole, even after a number of years.

      His loyalty to Lady Playford surpassed all other attachments he had formed in his life, but personal acquaintance with his favourite author had forced him to admit to himself that he preferred shocks and startling about-turns to occur in the safely distant world of fiction, not in reality. Lady Playford, needless to say, did not share his preference.

      He started to open the door.

      ‘Are you going to … Ah! There you are! Don’t hover. Sit, sit. We’ll get nowhere if we don’t start.’

      Gathercole sat.

      ‘Hello, Michael.’ She smiled at him, and he had the strange sense he always had—as if her eyes had picked him up, turned him around and put him down again. ‘And now you must say, “Hello, Athie.” Go on, say it! After all this time, it ought to be a breeze. Not “Good afternoon, your ladyship”. Not “Good day, Lady Playford”. A plain, friendly “Hello, Athie”. Is that too much to manage? Ha!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘You look quite the hunted fox cub! You can’t understand why you’ve been invited to stay for a week, can you? Or why Mr Rolfe was invited too.’

      Would the arrangements that Gathercole had put in place be sufficient to cover the absence of himself and Orville Rolfe? It was unheard of for them both to be away from the office for five consecutive days, but Lady Playford was the firm’s most illustrious client; no request from her could be refused.