“Too bad,” Clive said. “I’m between girlfriends right now.” He looked at Jack. “As I was saying, I’ll just pop down to London for the meeting, and I’ll be back in a jiff. You won’t even know I’ve been gone.”
Kate rolled her eyes. He was going to return to a place where he was being treated as second-class? Leave his job so he could fill drink orders for Nadine and Byon? Not likely.
“What’s everyone doing at the house?” Jack asked.
Clive nodded toward the window. “You saw Nadine. She’s taking care of...you know.”
“The funeral arrangements.” Sara was licking her spoon after every bite.
“How are she and Teddy getting along now?” Kate asked.
Clive gave a little smile. “Nadine wants to borrow the dress her daughter wore to dinner last night, but Teddy won’t part with it.”
“Couldn’t she substitute paint for the dress?” Kate said.
Clive laughed. “Nadine is going to London with me. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning. I’ll be back in the afternoon, but Nadine won’t be back until Sunday.” Clive kept his head down as he said this.
“How’s Byon?” Jack asked.
“He’s looking for something. I think it’s some music he wrote years ago. He said he left it with Nicky, which means it was probably used as a drinks coaster. But Byon is in the attic dumping boxes out.” Clive leaned forward. “I don’t know that woman, Isabella, but I think when she sees the mess he’s making, she may disembowel him.”
“And she will use me to do it,” Sara murmured.
Jack spoke up. “Was Mr. Howland there the night of the party?”
“Party?” Clive said. “Oh, you mean the night... No, he wasn’t. He didn’t like any of us so he stayed away. I remember that Nicky was giving Nadine hell because she could have gone to Hawaii with her father. When Nadine said she wanted to be with us, Byon and Nicky booed her. They said she had some secret reason for wanting to miss a trip like that.” His eyes widened. “If Thorpe is Teddy’s father, I guess there was a big reason she canceled on her father.”
“What did you see that night?” Kate said.
“Nothing much.” Clive kept his eyes on his drink.
“Weren’t you hiding from Willa?” Kate asked.
Jack and Sara were watching her, realizing that she had new information.
Clive looked serious. “I was always hiding from her. She was a true stalker, worse than Puck for sneaking around.” He looked up. “She’s different now. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something not the same about her.”
“Such as?” Sara asked.
“I can’t identify it. Or maybe I remember things differently. She used to have a look of ‘Please don’t hurt me.’ That seems to be gone now.”
“What do you remember about the lawyer Willa liked?” Kate asked.
“Eddie? Nice man. Very clever. He seemed a bit dull but he had a top-notch brain. One time I asked him why he spent so much time with someone like Willa.”
“And what did he say?” Sara asked.
“He said ‘passion.’ That inside her was a lot of passion and he liked that. Personally, I never saw it.” Clive looked at his watch. “I need to go. Tomorrow I have to make a sales pitch to some Asian billionaire about why he should put every penny he has with Coutts. Thanks for the drink. I’ll see you later.” He left quickly.
For a while they sat in silence. Kate and Sara finished their bowls of dessert while Jack drank another beer.
“Whoever believes that any of them will return, raise her hand,” Jack said.
Sara and Kate gave him looks of “get real.”
“Let’s go.” Jack left money on the table. “I think we should talk about what we’re going to do.”
They drove back to Oxley Manor in silence.