22
There was no school the following morning, so Jasmine headed straight out to her studio after breakfast. She was relieved that she had missed Lieutenant Slimeball at breakfast and imagined he must have left the estate very early.
Her back was turned to the open verandah as she selected her brushes. This morning she would do some more work on Bintang’s portrait until she had a chance to ask Reggie about finding her a suitable piece of wood for Siti’s memorial marker. She might need another sitting from him but meanwhile she would work on the background.
At the sound of footsteps, she turned around in surprise, smiling, expecting to see Bintang. As he was always so quiet and catlike, she should have realised that the heavy tread could not have come from him. The source was the steel-ti
