THE HARGROVE INVITATION

THE CALL

Chapter Five

She made the call at seven forty-five.

Before Clara came downstairs. Before Dominic appeared in the kitchen doorway. Before anyone in the house was awake enough to hear her.

She stood in the pantry with the door pulled almost closed and the rain beginning outside and the house breathing around her in its early morning way and she dialled Margaret Elliot's number from memory because she had called it enough times over thirty years that it lived in her fingers rather than her mind.

Margaret answered on the second ring. She always answered on the second ring. Dorothy had always found this detail revealing — not the first ring, which would suggest anxiety, but the second, which suggested control. Margaret Elliot let the phone ring once so that answering it was a decision rather than a reflex.

"Dorothy." Margaret's voice — precise, already alert, the voice of a woman who did not waste the first moments of a conversation on pleasantries. "It's early."

"Yes," Dorothy said. "I'm sorry to call at this hour. There's a situation."

"What situation."

"Mr Hargrove didn't sleep in his bed last night. His study lamp was on all night. His coat and phone and glasses are all here. He isn't."

A silence. Brief and total — the silence of a very sharp mind processing quickly.

"Since when?" Margaret said.

"I last saw him at half past nine. He came to the kitchen for his evening tea." Dorothy paused. "He seemed — not himself. Distracted. He talked about the will reading. He seemed worried about something."

"Worried about what specifically."

"He didn't say." Another pause. Precisely measured. "There's something else."

"Tell me."

"The young man. Dominic Crane." Dorothy kept her voice neutral. Factual. The voice of a woman reporting, not accusing. "He was in the corridor near Mr Hargrove's study at midnight. I heard him. And Margaret — " A beat. "He's not family. Not in any way I can account for. I've been in this house forty years and I've never heard Roland mention him. Not once."

Silence on the line.

"He negotiated his way in," Dorothy continued. "Contacted the office in September. Roland agreed to let him attend but he never told me why. Which is — " She paused. "That's unusual. Roland told me everything eventually."

"Did he say what he wanted?" Margaret said. "Crane."

"Questions about the estate. About the family history." Dorothy looked at the pantry wall. "He's been walking the house since he arrived. Trying doors. Looking at things." A pause. "He tried the west wing door twice yesterday evening."

The silence this time was longer.

"I'll come," Margaret said.

"I thought you might," Dorothy said. "Clara is going to suggest calling the police. I've told her to wait until you arrive."

"Good." A pause. "Dorothy. Is there anything else I should know before I get there?"

Dorothy looked at the pantry wall.

"No," she said. "I think that's everything."

"I'll be there by nine thirty."

"Drive carefully," Dorothy said. "The lane is wet."

She hung up.

She stood in the pantry for a moment with the phone in her hand and the rain coming down outside and the house breathing around her.

Then she put the phone in her pocket and went back to the kitchen and put the kettle on and waited for the house to wake up.

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