A Bedlam of Bones by Suzette Hill Page A

then judging that my guests would now be more settled and mutually attuned, dished up the greens and announced that lunch was ready.
    It was not the easiest of meals – Clinker huffing and puffing, Ingaza casting dire imprecations. What was notable were the differing attitudes: brooding resentment from Nicholas, blue funk from the bishop. Given the latter’s position, Clinker certainly had more to lose and one could understand his apprehension. Nevertheless, Nicholas was deeply agitated – but less through fear than with indignation that anyone should try to browbeat him. I had seen some of this at Saint Bede’s, and more recently in France when he had been enraged that one of our opponents should presume to call the shots (and not only figuratively). Pride, not fear, drove Ingaza, and it soon became clear that what had really riled him was the allusion to himself in the bishop’s letter as ‘a bit of fluff’. This he would never forgive, and were vengeance ever to be wreaked that would surely be the spur.
    At one point I suggested diffidently that perhaps it might be best to grasp the nettle and show the letters to the police after all, adding without much conviction, ‘One gathers they’re quite used to this sort of thing … Some actor had problems only recently and the Law was surprisingly …’
    Clinker put down his knife and fork and gazed at me. ‘Look,’ he said coldly, ‘it may be all right for you, Oughterard, but I can tell you that Horace Clinker has no intention of being bracketed with some mincing, pansy-arsed thespian. So kindly come up with a better idea than that!’
    Nicholas turned to me. ‘He’s on form, isn’t he?’ he observed.
    Personally I was a trifle taken aback by the bishop’s linguistic choice, but in the circumstances felt that a tactful silence was the best response. Thus I smiled vaguely at the cat and went on eating.
    Discussion continued. However, we reached the treacle tart stage with little being achieved other than their resolution not to burden the police, and Ingaza’s proposal that the blackmailer be booted to buggery. Neither idea got us very far. But the tart was a success.
    * See Bone Idle

10
     

The Vicar’s Version
     
     
    Such had been my preoccupation with the unsettling events surrounding Clinker and Ingaza, that my sister’s arrangement to accompany Lavinia to the gallery launch had slipped from my mind. Some days later, however, a call from Primrose slipped it firmly back again.
    ‘Hello,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Thought I’d just let you know that Lavinia is all set to come down next Wednesday and stay the night. Looks as if it’s going to be quite a good do. Are you sure you don’t want to come?’
    ‘Quite sure,’ I replied firmly.
    ‘Oh well, suit yourself, but Nicholas might look in. I gather some of his cronies will be there.’
    ‘ They may be, but I doubt if he will,’ I said absently.
    ‘What? Why shouldn’t he be – is he taking Aunt Lil to the dog track or something?’
    I hesitated. ‘No – it’s, er, just that I think he’s got other things on his mind at present. He may be keeping a low profile.’
    ‘Huh,’ she said impatiently, ‘he’s always got something on his mind. Cooking up some scheme or other, I bet. And by the way, he’s been very quiet about my share from the last Canadian consignment. I put a lot of effort into getting those sheep pens just right – it’s no use painting twentieth-century gates on to eighteenth-century palings, somebody’s sure to object. So kindly tell him that Primrose Oughterard is awaiting settlement!’
    ‘Well if you must go in for this kind of artistic chicanery—’
    ‘It is not chicanery!’ came the indignant response. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a dozen times, I am merely supplying the Canadians with what they like and cannot obtain in the normal way. If it pleases them to think that a few classical embellishments here and there add up to the real thing,