Found Guilty at Five Read Online Free

to do it?”
    “Oh, you, of course, Jamie! My accompanying days are over. I was joking when I offered to play. Fingers like bananas now, I’m afraid. Here, how about this Elgar piece? One of my favourites.”
    *   *   *
    D EREK, WITH HIS ELDER SON D OUGLAS, WAS PASSING BY S TONE House on his way home from the pub, and heard lovely sounds coming from the open window. “Ah, that’ll be Jamie and his girlfriend,” he said.
    Douglas said nothing. He was now a married man, with a small son, and his chief concerns were for his own family. He’d noticed Akiko, said she was charming and given her no more thought.
    Derek, on the other hand, had thought hard about Jamie with a foreign girlfriend. Very nice girl, she seemed on first acquaintance. It was a pity Gran could not accept her with good grace. He wasn’t sure whether his mother-in-law disliked the girl herself, or found her alien and different, and therefore suspect. He would have to have a private word with her, though unfortunately, private words with Gran usually ended up with her shouting only too publicly that he was wrong and she was right.
    His thoughts moved on to the Norringtons. There had been a lot of talk in the pub about the new owners of the hall, and many people thought they might well be good for the village. Opinion was divided, however, between the generations. The old guard could not get used to the idea of so much change. New people at the hall, and obviously nouveau riche
,
as against the inherited wealth and connections in high places of the Tollervey-Joneses.
    Then Douglas, visiting from Tresham, had put a spoke in the wheel by suggesting that the Tollervey-Joneses were not all that aristocratic. “Coal mines in Derbyshire, that’s where their money came from way back,” he had said. “Exploiting the masses. And they were no better than the rest of us. The old great-great-grandfather was a blacksmith. I suppose,” he said, making an effort to be fair, “you could argue they did well by their own efforts, and had a right to be toffee-nosed.”
    A hubbub of conflicting support and disagreement in the pub had ensued, and Derek decided it was time to leave for home.
    “It’s the same nowadays,” he said now. “Take Jamie and his career in music. No musicians on my side of the family. And no one on your mother’s, so far as I know. None of the rest of us are musical, and he didn’t have any special encouragement. But look where he’s got to! Playing the piano all round the world, and sometimes his name is mentioned on the radio. We shall see him on the telly soon, I’m sure of that.”
    They had arrived at Meade House, and Douglas opened the gate for his father. “Yeah, but he got given that piano, remember? Maybe none of us got the chance, until Jamie,” he said. “By the way,” he added, “Akiko is his colleague, not his girlfriend. Haven’t you noticed he stresses that?”
    “So he may. But I know a girl in love when I see one. We shall find out, son. Now, in we go, and make sure you walk straight. Our gran can spot a man who’s had one too many from a mile away.”
    “Right. Better leave the gates open, so’s Jamie can bring in his car. The precious cello, you know. Jamie’s a bit of a softy, so I hope he knows what he’s doing.”
    “Don’t you like Akiko, then? She seems a really nice girl to me.”
    “Very pretty, very polite, and a bit chilly. I tried talking to her about her home, but she froze me out. Not one word about her folks. A bit strange, don’t you think?”
    “I did notice, Douglas. But it’s none of our business. Leave it to Jamie. That’s my advice, though I doubt your gran would agree!”
    *   *   *
    A N HOUR OR SO LATER, A KIKO SLIPPED BETWEEN THE COOL sheets of the bed in the attic and thought about the evening performance at Stone House. Her brain was still fizzing, and she did not feel in the least sleepy. She and Jamie had played well, and she had to admit that her growing affection