Page 44 of Joker in the Pack

Myvisitor? Good grief, he made it sound as if I’d invited the burglar in. “How much of a mess?”

Yvonne put an arm around my shoulders. “Why don’t we all go and take a look?”

The tears came a few seconds after I stepped through what was left of my front door. A hurricane had rampaged through downstairs, leaving a trail of crumpled boxes and broken ornaments, knee-deep in places. Why had somebody done this? I’d tried so hard to fit into the village, and now my new start in life had been pushed under a bus.

Yvonne gave me a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Olivia. Why don’t you stay at ours for the rest of the night? We can come back here in the morning.”

“But the house… I can’t even lock it.”

“I’m not sure there’s much more damage they could do. Besides, Graham’ll be wanting to fingerprint first thing in the morning, so we shouldn’t disturb anything. Isn’t that right?”

From the look on Graham’s face, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Right. Of course. Fingerprinting, yes.”

I couldn’t get the mess out of my mind as Yvonne led me back up the path. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But I’m sure the police will find whoever did it.”

“Really? Graham didn’t seem too confident.” Or competent.

“He’s not used to all this drama. Until Eleanor died, the worst thing to happen in years was a spate of missing cats. Although there was a touch of vandalism last year, and someone broke into an empty house and held a party, but everyone thought that was kids.”

Yvonne’s spare bedroom could have come straight from the pages ofCountry Lifemagazine, with its comfy, overstuffed armchair and artfully distressed wardrobe. But as I huddled under the floral quilt, I found myself longing for my ugly room next door. Funny how you missed things when they were gone, wasn’t it?

I barely slept, and I wasn’t hungry either, but out of politeness, I forced down a few mouthfuls of the porridge Yvonne made me in the morning. My stomach rebelled with every swallow, and in the end, I put my spoon down and apologised.

“Thank you for everything, but I really should get back home.”

Home. It didn’t feel like much of a home as I scrubbed the remains of a bottle of ketchup off the kitchen floor. And the counters, and even the window. The burglar’s artistic streak had come out, and he’d covered my kitchen with a variety of condiments then smashed every jar in the cupboard.

I said burglar, but I couldn’t see that anything had been stolen. There was nothing worth much in the house anyway, but I found the watch Edward gave me for our first anniversary safely in its box at the back of my underwear drawer, and Mother’s gold earrings were on the floor under the bed.

Could it have been kids? Anger welled up inside me. How dare someone come into my home and wreck it? Whoever broke in had been out to create as much mess as possible.

All my crockery lay in smithereens on the kitchen floor, and I found the contents of my wardrobe at the bottom of the stairs. In the piles of peril, random boxes had been opened and the contents broken and strewn around. My temporary livelihood, ruined. Thank goodness I’d posted those ugly dogs on my way to visit Maddie yesterday.

And all I could do was start clearing. My first thought had been to call Maddie, and she’d definitely have come, but she’d also have called in sick to do so. With her already in trouble at work, I didn’t want to add to her problems.

I threw the remains of a plate into the bin, wishing I was aiming at the vandal’s head instead. Although a shard of china in the eye would be too good for that scum. If I ever got my hands on them, I’d… I’d… Well, I didn’t exactly know, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

My phone rang as I mopped up a bottle of shampoo in the bathroom, and although I wiped my hands on a towel as quickly as I could, it stopped before I grabbed it. Tate. Dammit, lunch with him tomorrow had been the last thing on my mind, but I needed to cancel or at least postpone it. How could I get ready to go out when I didn’t even have a mirror left intact?

I called back, even though I didn’t want to speak to anyone. Mother’s manners were blueprinted on my soul.

“Did you call?”

“Olivia. So kind of you to phone me back. If it’s not too much difficulty, I was hoping to pick you up at one tomorrow rather than half past twelve. One of my colleagues has arranged a conference call with Japan, and it’s not easy to get out of it.”

“About lunch… I actually need to postpone it, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been burgled, you see, and I’ve got rather a lot of mess to clear up.”

“Burgled? But this is the Foxfords. Nobody’s been broken into around here for years.”

“Well, I guess I’m just lucky.” I struggled to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“So sorry—I didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic. It’s just I can’t remember the last time we had a burglary around here.”

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