The Mistress of Alderley: A Novel of Suspense

When Caroline came in from the garden, she was pleased to find that Mrs. Hogbin had gone upstairs to do the bathrooms. Caroline had had cleaning ladies in the past whom she'd regarded as friends, whom she'd been more pleased to sit down with over a cup of tea and a scone than any of the theatrical people she called her friends. Mrs. Hogbin wasn't one of them.

She came through to the spacious hallway and poked her head around the door of what had once been a box room.

"Tea, Alex Coffee, Coke, milk "

"No thanks," her son said, hardly looking up from the screen that mesmerized him. "Mum, I need a whole lot of new software."

"Then you're going to have to need for quite a while."

"Oh Mum! I've got to have it! I bet Marius buys all the latest stuff for Guy."

That was a line Caroline always felt she had to nip in the bud. Guy was not the spoiled child of a rich man: he was not given lavish pocket money, or bought everything his young mind could covet.

"Maybe, and maybe not. Anyway, Guy is nearly twenty, he's Marius's son, and he's about to start a computer degree course at St. Andrew's University."

"So what He's been computer mad for years, and has stuff I could only dream about. You have to start young to be really on top of them. I bet if I asked--"

"Don't even think of asking Marius. Just think of all the calls he has on his money. My God -- doesn't he do enough for us all "

She shut the door on his already opening mouth. At least he'd looked up from that bloody screen. Unfortunately, before she could get to the sitting room she was caught by Mrs. Hogbin, descending the stairs with a bucket.

"I'll be finished in half an hour, Mrs. Fawley. If I could have your company, just to the bus stop--"

"Of course, Thora. You never used to be so nervous, though."

"It's all those feedopiles. It doesn't feel like nobody's safe in their beds any longer."

As she waddled through to the kitchen it occurred to Caroline that Thora not only did not know how to pronounce "pedophiles," she had no idea what they were. So much for the educational mission of the popular press. The word had become for Mrs. Hogbin a synonym for what in Caroline's childhood used to be called a "sex maniac."