The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [107]
Forty feet from the house, my shoes touched gravel; off to the left I caught the reflection off polished metal and window-glass: Several motor-cars were parked there. I circled the house in the other direction until the grass resumed underfoot, allowing me to get close to its walls.
The drawing room windows, also open to the night but behind curtains, had been well off the ground. I took a detour into the outhouses in the yard at the back, and found what I had hoped in the second one: a large bucket with sturdy sides, although its bottom was a bit dubious.
Bucket in hand, I walked soft-footed back up the neglected garden-beds to the lighted rooms at the front. Long before I came near, I could hear voices, overlapping chatter from a mixed group of men and women. I settled the bucket top into the baked earth, let my kit slide to the ground beside it, and cautiously balanced myself on the metal rims.
If I went onto my toes, I could see a narrow slice of the room through a space in the centre of curtains so old, their lining showed cracks and tears. What I saw amounted to little more than movement and sparkle: the back of a head here, a hand with a glass half-full of greenish liquid there. It was not worth the leg-strain, so I lowered myself back to the rims and listened to what sounded like a group of ten or twelve, more than half of them women. The murmur I heard earlier had begun to pick up, in volume and in speed.
I bent my head, concentrating on the sounds. With an effort I could unpick the threads of conversation to reveal that they were talking about a person:
“—think she would have known that—”
“—charming, really, but I always wondered about—”
“—can't have had anything to do with it, can he?”
“—know artists, there's no telling—”
They were talking about Yolanda's death, and Damian's involvement. Considering that they had all been here by eight o'clock and it was now half past, they were past the first stage of discussing their shock and sadness and well into the I-told-you-so and she-brought-it-on-herself stage. It was, I decided, a process furthered by the liquid in their glasses, which was not the fruit punch it looked like—or if it was, then someone had spiked it. Laughter rose, was cut off, and then started again a few minutes later; this time it was not stifled. Soon, the talk had left Yolanda entirely and was about handbags, school tuition, a sister's baby, and horse-racing; soon, twelve people were sounding like twice that number.
Nine o'clock approached; the voices grew ever merrier; my ankles grew ever tireder. I stepped down from the bucket to ease the strain of the unnatural pose, and rested my shoulders against the brick under the window, hearing not one thing of any interest.
Then the village clock struck nine, and in moments, the noise from within grew to a crescendo that I feared meant they were about to take their leave, until I realised that to the contrary, they were greeting a newcomer.
No-one had come down the gravel drive, on foot or wheel, which meant that the new arrival had entered from the house itself. I craned to peer through the slit, but the man who belonged to the voice that was now dominating the room had his back to me. All I could see were three individuals with identical rapt expressions.
I bent to my bag and took out the sheer silk mottled scarf, tying it loosely around my entire head. With the danger of reflection off my spectacles thus lessened, I patted around until I found a twig, then climbed back