An hour later, the last of the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away. Florence took off her old-fashioned apron with its cheerful pattern of blue pansies, folded it, and placed it in her bag.
Mrs. Lloyd looked up from her magazine. “Well? Is it time to go?”
“It is,” said Florence. “In fact, I think I hear them. Yes, here they come,” she said as the sound of voices came closer, passed the open-fronted sheds now shuttered for the night, then filed past the windows of the café. Their voices receded as they continued on their way to the exit. When the last of them had disappeared into the night, the two women turned to each other.
“Well, Penny and Victoria must have stayed behind for a few minutes for some reason,” said Florence, checking her watch. “They probably have some last-minute details to sort out. We’ll give them ten more minutes.”
Mrs. Lloyd made an exasperated little sound. “Ten more minutes and then what? It’s getting late and I’m tired. Now we’ve probably missed our chance of a ride home. Everyone else will have left and the buses have long since stopped running. And we’re practically in the middle of nowhere.”
“Ten more minutes and then we’ll see about getting some help,” said Florence. “We can’t just leave them down there all night and ring for a taxi, can we?”
By the time she finished her sentence, just two vehicles remained in the visitors’ car park.
* * *
A frowning Victoria closed the zipper on her harp case. “I’m not sure the case will keep all the damp out. I hope my beautiful harp will be all right down here overnight with this humidity. To be honest, I’d be happier if I could bring it back to the surface. If the wood swells, even a little, the sound will be completely off and I don’t know what kind of permanent damage that might do to it.”
“I can give you a hand carrying it up the stairs, if you like,” said Penny. “Or better yet, maybe he can help us.” She gestured at one of Bevan Jones’s assistants covering up the audio equipment with a blue canvas-type material. Victoria had a word with him and then returned to Penny.
“He’s got some extra waterproof material that he can spread over my harp, and the keyboard, too. That should keep the damp out, so the instruments should be okay for one night. I hadn’t thought about this, but I’m glad he can help.”
“I wonder,” said Penny. “There’s something I’d like some help with. Now it’s my turn to have a word.” The lights had been turned up and the stage area was fairly well lit, but the sides and back of the cavern were bathed in absolute darkness. “Is Bevan not here?”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him for a while,” said Victoria. “He wasn’t in the café, was he?”
“I’ll have a word, then, with your man over there.” Picking her way over cables and moving a couple of chairs out of the way, she reached the assistant who had just finished wrapping the sound equipment in waterproof material.
“No, he’s gone home. His missus called. His son was having trouble breathing and she wanted him home.”
“Trouble breathing? Is he…?”
“Yeah, he has that condition where he gets very short of breath and he has to use one of those puffer things. Anyway, what was it you wanted?”
With her thoughts running in all directions, Penny told him.
While she was explaining what she had in mind, Karis approached Victoria and the two discussed last-minute concert arrangements as Rebeccah hovered nearby.
As she got closer to the three women, Penny breathed in a fragrance, heady and strong, as if it had just been applied. Sharp and over-the-top flowery. Overwhelming, even. Oh, what was it? The box. It came in a yellow-and-white striped box. She hadn’t smelled that fragrance in many years and now she’d smelled it at least twice within the past few weeks. When? Where?