“You’re telling me,” Frank said. “What’s your gut say?”

I shifted, trying to find a bit of wall where nothing stuck into my arse. This was a little more complicated than it should have been, since I wasn’t about to tell him, or Sam, about the diary or about my feeling that I was being followed. “I think there’s something we’re missing,” I said, in the end. “Something important. Maybe your mystery guy, maybe a motive, maybe… I don’t know. I just get this very strong sense that there’s something here that hasn’t surfaced yet. I keep feeling like I’m about to put my finger on it, but…”

“Something to do with the housemates? College? The baby? The May-Ruth thing?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I honestly don’t know.”

Sofa springs creaking as Frank reached for something-a drink; I heard him swallow. “I can tell you this much: it’s not the great-uncle. You were way off base there. He died of cirrhosis; spent thirty or forty years locked up in that house drinking, then six months in a hospice dying. None of the five of them visited him. As a matter of fact, he and Daniel hadn’t seen each other since Daniel was a kid, as far as I can find out.”

I had seldom been so glad to be wrong, but this left me with that same grabbing-at-mirages feeling I’d had all week. “Why’d he leave Daniel the place, then?”

“Not many options. That family dies young; the only two living relatives were Daniel and his cousin, Edward Hanrahan, old Simon’s daughter’s kid. Eddie’s a good little yuppie, works for an estate agent. Apparently Simon figured Danny Boy was the lesser of two evils. Maybe he liked academic types better than yuppies, or maybe he wanted the house to stay with the family name.”

Good for Simon. “That must’ve got up Eddie’s nose.”

“Oh, yeah. He wasn’t any closer to Granddad than Daniel was, but he tried to fight the will, claimed the drink had sent Simon off his trolley. That’s why probate took so long. It was a stupid thing to do, but then, our Eddie’s not the brightest pixie in the forest. Simon’s doctor confirmed that he was an alcoholic and a horrible old man, but sane as you or me, and that was the end of that. Nothing dodgy there.”

I slumped down on the wall. I shouldn’t have been frustrated, I had never actually thought that the gang had slipped nightshade into Uncle Simon’s denture adhesive; but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something crucial going on around Whitethorn House, something I should be able to put my finger on. “Yeah, well,” I said. “It was just a thought. Sorry for wasting your time.”

Frank sighed. “You didn’t. Anything’s worth checking.” If I heard that sentence one more time, I was going to kill someone myself. “If you think they’re dodgy, then they probably are. Just not that particular way.”

“I never said I thought they were dodgy.”

“A few days ago you thought they’d put a pillow over Uncle Simon’s head.”

I pulled my hood farther over my face-the rain was picking up, fine little stinging needles of it, and I wanted to go home. It was a toss-up which one was more pointless, this stakeout or this conversation. “I didn’t think it. I just asked you to check it out, on the off chance. I can’t see them as a bunch of killers.”

“Hmm,” Frank said. “And you’re positive that’s not just because they’re such lovely people.”

I couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was winding me up or testing me-Frank being Frank, probably a little of both. “Come on, Frankie, you know me better than that. You asked me about my instinct; that’s what it says. I’ve spent basically every waking second with these four for a week now, and there’s been no sign of a motive, no indications of guilty consciences-and like we said before, if one of them did it, the other three have to know. By now someone would have cracked, even for a second. I think you’re dead right that they’re hiding something, but I can’t see it being that.”

“Fair enough,” Frank said, noncommittally. “So you’ve got two jobs for Week Two. The first one is to pinpoint whatever it is that’s tingling your spidey sense. The second one is to start pushing the housemates a little, find out what it is they’re not sharing. They’ve been getting an easy ride so far-which is fine, that’s what we planned, but now it’s time to start tightening the screws. And while you’re doing that, here’s something to bear in mind. Remember your girlie chat with Abby, the other night?”

“Yeah,” I said. A flicker of something very strange went through me, at the thought of Frank hearing that conversation; something almost like outrage. I wanted to snap at him, That was private.

“Pajama parties rule. I told you she was a smart kid. What do you think: does she know who the daddy is?”

I hadn’t been able to make up my mind on that. “She could probably make a good guess, but I don’t think she’s sure. And she’s not about to tell me what her guess is.”

“Watch her,” Frank said, taking another swig of his drink. “She’s a little too observant for my taste. You think she’ll tell the guys?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t have to think about this one. “I get the sense that Abby’s very good at minding her own business and letting other people sort out their dramas all by themselves. She brought up the baby so I wouldn’t have to deal with it alone if I didn’t want to, but once she’d made that clear, she was straight out of there-no hints, no probing. She won’t say anything. And, Frank-are you going to be interviewing the guys again?”

“Not sure yet,” Frank said. There was a wary note in his voice; he doesn’t like being pinned down. “Why?”

“If you do, don’t mention the baby. OK? I want to spring that one on them myself. Around you, they’re on their guard; you’ll only get half their reaction. I can get the whole thing.”

“All right,” Frank said, after a moment. He was trying to sound like he was doing me a favor, but I heard the undercurrent of satisfaction: he liked the way I was thinking. It was nice to know someone did. “But make sure you time it right. Get ’em when they’re drunk or something.”

“They don’t get drunk, exactly, just tipsy. I’ll know my moment when I see it.”

“Fair enough. Here’s my point, though: that’s one thing Abby was keeping under wraps, and not just where we’re concerned-she was hiding it from Lexie, too, and she’s still hiding it from the boys. We’ve been talking about them like they’re one big entity with one big secret, but it’s not that simple. There are cracks there. They could all be keeping the same secret, or they could each have secrets of their own, or both. Look for the cracks. And keep me posted.”

He was about to hang up. “Anything new on our girl?” I asked. May-Ruth. Somehow I couldn’t say it out loud; even bringing her up felt strange now, electric. But if he had found out anything more about her, I wanted it.

Frank snorted. “Ever tried rushing the FBI? They’ve got a whole plateful of mother-stabbers and father-rapers of their own; someone else’s little murder case isn’t at the top of their list. Forget about them. They’ll get back to us when they get back to us. You just concentrate on getting me a few answers.”

Frank was right, at first I think I had seen the four of them as a single unit: The Housemates, shoulder to shoulder, graceful and inseparable as a group in a painting and all with the same fine bloom of light on them, like the luster on old beeswaxed wood. It was only over that first week that they had turned real to me, come into focus as separate individuals with their own little quirks and weaknesses. I knew the cracks had to be there. That kind of friendship doesn’t just materialize at the end of the rainbow one morning in a soft-focus Hollywood haze. For it to last this long, and at such close quarters, some serious work had gone into it. Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work as effortlessness.