‘No one has seen her all of the day,’ Magnus said, as Julia and Joseph followed him out to the limousine, which was parked in front of the house. ‘It will soon be dark. She lacks the skills for survival in the wilderness.’
Xavier was waiting by the car. He held up his phone as they approached. ‘She answered the phone,’ he said, ‘So we know she’s alive. However, when I told her it was me, she said, “You don’t exist!” and hung up. I should have pretended to be Magnus, but I couldn’t pull off the voice.’
‘Did she give any indication as to her location?’ Magnus said.
‘None.’
‘We will have to track her.’ Magnus lifted a bottle of perfume out of his jacket pocket. ‘I have the scent.’
‘Can’t we just follow the tracks like you did when I ran off?’ Julia said.
‘Most of the roads are now clear of the snow,’ Magnus said. ‘Tracking you was like stalking a wounded deer. A practice.’
‘I’ll try harder next time,’ Julia said with a smile.
‘I’ll get Barry,’ Joseph said, running back up the path. Turning to call over his shoulder, he added, ‘He’s a little temperamental, but he knows how to track.’
‘Dark will fall at sixteen hundred hours,’ Magnus said.
‘You mean four o’clock?’ Xavier asked.
‘Yes. Your camera. Does it have a heat sensor?’
‘I think so.’
‘We will use it. She may have taken cover to hide from imaginary drones.’
Joseph came jogging back down the path, with Barry straining at the lead in one hand, Basil in the other.
‘Your other beast can track too?’
Joseph shook his head. ‘No, but he hasn’t been out for his walk yet. Two birds with one stone, and all that.’
‘Let’s go.’
Joseph took the perfume bottle from Magnus then squatted down and held it up in front of Barry. He pressed the stopper and the dog leaned forwards to talk a little sniff, then whined and shrank back.
‘Doesn’t look like he’s a fan,’ Julia said.
Barry did a couple of circles in the road, Joseph feeding out the lead to give him room. He sniffed at the tarmac, then lifted his head, let out a little whine, and darted off towards the village.
‘I think he’s got it,’ Joseph said, hurrying after the dog, then finding himself nearly split in half as Basil decided to go in a completely opposite direction.
‘I’ll take him,’ Julia said, taking the otterhound’s lead from a relieved Joseph, and tried to pull him after her, as he found something interesting in the icy snow by the roadside and begun to dig with such ferocity that he showered Magnus and Xavier with clods of sleet.
Barry had already started off down the road, dragging Joseph after him. Basil noticed the wolf’s departure and bounded in pursuit, dragging Julia along behind.
The footpath led them down into the village’s quaint centre, up to the door of a little confectionary shop which was now closed. After nosing around a little, they picked it up again, following it as it led down past the pub to a pretty humpbacked bridge over the river, where Elizabeth had apparently paused for a while to contemplate life. Then, the footpath led back the way they had come, then up the gentle hill through the village’s few residential streets in the direction of the Grange.
‘Perhaps she decided to upgrade to someone a little older and richer,’ Joseph said, as Barry briefly paused at the start of the wide driveway before heading inside.
‘Oh, where have they gone? Magnus and Xavier were right behind us, but they seem to have disappeared.’
The road behind them, the surface cleared of snow which was still piled along the verges, was empty.
‘Perhaps they got lost,’ Joseph said. ‘Let’s just look up here and see if we can find her, then we’ll double back.’
The driveway up to the Grange was like something out of another way of life. Wider than any of the roads through the village, it was lined by snow-covered pines which hid any view of the country house itself, which was located around a wide arc in a hollow near to the river flowing down the valley and through the village.
‘Was this the kind of walk you were thinking about?’ Julia said, as Barry and Basil briefly converged, distracting each other long enough to engage in a brief playfight.
‘Perhaps without the dogs,’ Joseph said, holding her gaze for a long moment before Barry broke into a sudden dash, jerking him away. ‘Something a little more … peaceful!’
With patches of ice still covering areas of the driveway, he had no choice but to follow or risk being pulled off his feet. Basil, thankfully, probably beginning to tire, followed at a more leisurely pace as the driveway arced around a corner and dipped downhill, the Grange coming into view.
Now that she knew Lord Andrews’s secret, the signs were easy to spot. Signposts with the National Trust logo indicated the various themed walks through the garden—the Riverside Way, the Lilac Garden, the Rose Field—and there was even a small, glass-framed visitor centre tacked on to the right side of the house, now with a CLOSED sign hanging in the window.
The courtyard, set up for tomorrow’s festivities, appeared at first to be empty, then the sound of faint voices came from behind the towering Christmas tree set up in the centre. Most of the snow had been cleared, but there were marks in the gravel to indicate that a person had come this way.
‘I think we’ve found her,’ Julia said, as they came around the angle of the Christmas tree. ‘I think … oh.’
Joseph stopped suddenly, Julia bumping into him.
‘Grandma?’
Instead of Elizabeth, as they had expected, Mable stood there, held gently in the arms of Lord Andrews, a wide, beaming smile on his face, his wild curly hair pressing out from beneath a Christmas hat. Mabel had removed one glove, and a glittering diamond ring shone on one finger.
‘Grandma? What’s going on?’
The pair of them giggled like school children. Mabel smiled. ‘I had a bit of a change of heart, didn’t I? I figured both me and Bob are getting a bit long in the tooth, so why not give it a try?’
Julia glanced at Joseph, who was staring, mouth agape, at the couple as the sun suddenly dipped beneath the horizon and the solar powered Christmas lights on the tree came on, bathing them in cool reds, greens, and yellows.
‘But … we were following Elizabeth. We were tracking her perfume.’
Mabel blushed. ‘Oh, really? I wondered why you’d brought these two out. I just thought I ought to tart myself up a bit for the occasion.’