‘It’ll get cooler in the evening,’ I said heartlessly and started the car. ‘You have a whole bottle of Scotch to help pass the time, only don’t smoke.’
‘Not smoke?’ His voice shot up in a yelp of dismay.
‘Listen; stop kidding yourself. If these guys find out you’re in the back of the car, they’ll steal up and slit your gizzard.’
That quietened him.
I drove up the two miles of private road a lot more sedately than the first time I came this way. I took the bend in the drive nice and slow, and pulled up within a yard of the balustrade surrounding the courtyard.
In the warm light of the evening sun, the house looked about as attractive as any house would look after a million dollars had been spent on it. The big black Cadillac stood before the front entrance. In the middle distance two Chinese gardeners were picking the dead roses off an umbrella standard. They worked as if the rose tree was their main source of income for the next nine months: probably it was. The big swimming pool glittered in the sun, but no one swam in it. Across the expanse of velvety lawn in the lower garden, below the terraces, six scarlet flamingoes stood looking towards me, stiff-legged and crotchety, as unreal as the blue sky of an Italian postcard. There was everything to be had this day at Ocean End except happiness.
I looked towards the house. The grass-green shutters covered the windows; a cream-andgreen striped awning flapped above the front door.
‘Well, so long,’ I said in a low voice to Kerman. ‘I’m going in now.’
‘Have a lovely time. Kerman’s voice was bitter from under the rug. ‘Don’t stint yourself. Have plenty of ice with your drinks.’
I walked along the terrace and screwed my thumb into the bell push. I could see through the glass panels of the door into a big hall and a dim, cool passage that led to the back of the house.