"Ursula telephoned me to ask for advice."

"Did she really?" I was surprised. "Why didn't she ask Alicia?"

"Ursula detests her mother-in-law," Joyce said. "We have that in common. Ursula and I have become quite good friends."

Amazing, I thought, and stood up to fetch the refills.

Joyce's eyes suddenly widened in disbelief, looking beyond me. "I knew you were lying," she said bitterly. "There's Malcolm."

CHAPTER SEVEN

I turned, not knowing whether to be frightened or merely irritated.

Malcolm hadn't seen Joyce, and he wasn't looking for her or for me but solely for a drink. I made my way to the bar to meet him there and took him by the arm.

"Why aren't you bloody upstairs?" I said.

"I was outstaying my welcome, old chap. It was getting very awkward. They had an ambassador to entertain. I've been up there three bloody hours. Why didn't you come and fetch me?"

"Joyce," I said grimly, "is sitting over there in the corner. I am buying her a drink, and she saw you come in."

"Joyce!" He turned round and spotted her as she looked balefully in our direction. "Damn it."

"Prowling around outside we also have Donald and Helen, Lucy and Edwin, Ferdinand and Debs, and Serena."

"Christ," he said. "Hunting in pairs."

"You may joke," I said, "and you may be right."

"I couldn't stay up there. They were waiting for me to leave, too polite to tell me to go." He looked apprehensive, as well he might. "Will Joyce tell them all that I'm here?"

"We'll see if we can stop it," I said. "What do you want to drink? Scotch?"

He nodded and I squeezed through the throng by the bar and eventually got served. He helped me carry the glasses and bottles back to the table, and sat where I'd been sitting, facing Joyce. I fetched another chair from nearby and joined my ever non-loving parents.

"Before you start shouting at each other," I said, "can we just take two things for granted? Joyce wants Malcolm to stop scattering largesse, Malcolm wants to go on living. Both ends are more likely to be achieved if we discover who murdered Moira, in case it is Moira's murderer who wishes also to kill Malcolm." I paused. "OK for logic?"

They both looked at me with the sort of surprise parents reserve for unexpected utterances from their young.

Malcolm said, "Surely it's axiomatic that it's Moira's murderer who's trying to kill me?"

I shook my head. "Ever heard of copycat crime?"

"My God," he said blankly. "One possible murderer in the family is tragedy. Two would be…"

"Statistically improbable," Joyce said.

Malcolm and I looked at her with respect.

"She's right," Malcolm said, sounding relieved, as if one killer were somehow more manageable than two.

"OK," I agreed, wondering what the statistical probabilities really were, wondering whether Ferdinand could work them out, "OK, the police failed to find Moira's murderer although they tried very hard and are presumably still trying."

"Trying to link me with an assassin," muttered Malcolm darkly.

"We might, as a family," I said, "have been able to overcome Moira's murder by making ourselves believe in the motiveless unknown outside-intruder theory…" "Of course we believe it, "Joyce said faintly.

"Not now, we can't. Two unknown outside-intruder motiveless murders – because Malcolm was meant to die – are so statistically improbable as to be out of sight. The police haven't found Moira's murderer, but we have now got to try to do it ourselves. It's no longer safe not to, which is why we engaged Norman West." I looked directly at Joyce. "Stop fussing over what Malcolm is spending and start thinking of ways to save his life, if only so that he can make more money, which he can do, but only if he's alive."

"Ian…" She was shocked.

"You roused the whole family this morning on the telephone, telling them where to find me, and now seven of them that we know of are here, and others may be who've kept out of sight. Much though we hate the idea, Moira's murderer may be here."

"No, no, "Joyce exclaimed.

"Yes," I said. "Malcolm's primary defence against being murdered is staying out of reach of lethal instruments, which means people not knowing where to find him. Well, you, my darling mother, brought the whole pack here to the races, so now you'd better help Malcolm to leave before they catch him."

"I didn't know he'd be here," she protested.

"No, but he is. It's time to be practical."

No one pointed out that if she had known he'd be there, she would have sent everyone with even more zeal.

"Do you have any ideas?" Malcolm asked me hopefully.

"Yes, I do. But we have to have Joyce's help, plus her promise of silence."

My mother was looking less than her normal commanding self and gave assurances almost meekly.

"This is not a private bar," I said, "and if any of the family have bought Club passes, they may turn up in here at any moment, so we'd best lose no time. I'm going to leave you both here for a few minutes, but I'll be back. Stay in this corner. Whatever happens, stay right here. If the family find you, still stay here. OK?"

They both nodded, and I left them sitting and looking warily at each other in the first tete-a-tete they'd shared for many a long year.

I went in search of the overall catering director whom I knew quite well because one of his daughters rode against me regularly in amateur races, and found him by sending urgent messages via the manager of the Members' bar.

"Ian," he said ten slow minutes later, coming to the bar from the back, where the bottles were, "what's the trouble?"

He was a company director, head of a catering division, a capable man in his fifties, sprung from suburbia, upwardly mobile from merit, grown worldly wise.

I said the trouble was private, and he led me away from the crowds, through the back of the bar and into a small area of comparative quiet, out of sight of the customers.

My father, I told him, badly needed an immediate inconspicuous exit from the racecourse and wanted to know if a case of vintage Bollinger would ease his passage.

"Not skipping his bookie, I hope?" the caterer said laconically.

"No, he wants to elope with my mother, his ex-wife, from under the eyes of his family."

The caterer amused agreed that Bollinger might be nice. He also laughed at my plan, told me to put it into operation, he would see it went well, and to look after his Rosemary whenever she raced.

I went back through the bar to collect Malcolm and to ask Joyce to fetch her car and to drive it to where the caterers parked their vans, giving her directions. The two of them were still sitting alone at the table, not exactly gazing into each other's eyes with rapture but at least not drawn apart in frost. They both seemed relieved at my reappearance, though, and Joyce picked up her handbag with alacrity to go to fetch her car.

"if you see any of the others," I said, "just say you're going home."

"I wasn't born yesterday, darling," she replied with reviving sarcasm. "Run along and play games, and let me do my part."

The game was the same one I'd thought of earlier in the changing- room, modified only by starting from a different point. It was just possible that the wrong eyes had spotted Malcolm in his brief passage outside from the exit door of the Directors' rooms to the entrance door of the bar, but even if so, I thought we could fool them.

In the quiet private space at the rear of the bar, the catering director was watching the large chef remove his white coat and tall hat.

"A case of vintage Bollinger for the cater era handout for the chef," I murmured in Malcolm's ear. "Get Joyce to drop you at a railway station, and I'll see you in the Savoy. Don't move until I get there."