Cast For Death by Margaret Yorke

said.
    Both the Barrys looked surprised at this, but Hugo, at least, did not condemn Patrick.
    ‘Tiresome little thing,’ he remarked. ‘Always yapping.’
    ‘It might have caused a serious accident, running out into the road as it did,’ said Patrick. Not overfond of dogs himself, except for certain individual ones, he was about to say they could be a great nuisance when his glance lighted on a small bundle by the hearth: a chihuahua wearing a woollen jacket,
    Hugo Barry noticed Patrick looking at the dog, and gazed fixedly at his own drink. He showed them to the door when they left shortly afterwards.
    ‘Tina wasn’t a cold sort of person,’ he said abruptly to them, in the hall. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression of her.’ He paused. ‘It was better she moved. And she’d taken up with this actor fellow - I don’t know his name.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Maybe he’s married too.’
    ‘Well!’ exclaimed Patrick when they went out to the car. ‘What do you make of that, Dimitri?’
    Dimitris Manolakis was clicking his tongue against his teeth and smiling.
    ‘Patrick, you have such a—I do not know how to say it—people tell you what they are thinking. No wonder you do not marry, the world is for you, you can choose what you like.’
    Patrick felt embarrassed at all this personal speech. He changed the subject. Tina would keep – or the circumstances surrounding her death would.
    ‘We’ll have dinner in Thame,’ he said. ‘There’s a famous pub there – someone wrote a book about it once.’ He started the car. ‘Well, at least you’re seeing some British homes and meeting some British people. I wonder what sort of impression you’re getting of the nation.’
    ‘Quite good,’ said Manolakis, nodding his head. ‘Quite good.’

 
Part IX
1
     
    ‘I shall have to go in the back,’ said Liz with resignation. ‘I’m smaller than you, Dimitri, and anyway you must sit where you can see the countryside.’
    They were standing in the quadrangle of St Mark’s and surveying Patrick’s car, which had room in the rear for only a child or a gnome.
    ‘I do not like this for you, Liz,’ said Manolakis solemnly.
    ‘Well, let’s go in my car,’ said Liz. She had arrived in Oxford soon after four, in her old Triumph Herald. ‘It’s cramped too, but not as much as yours, Patrick. You can spread yourself out in the back. Dimitri must be in front.’
    It was decided. Patrick gave in with fair grace. He climbed into the back of the Triumph and arranged his legs as best he could behind the front seats. From this position he had an uninterrupted view of the two dark heads in front of him as their owners chatted eagerly all the way through north Oxford and out on to the Woodstock road. Liz had not been to Oxford since the controversial traffic amendments; she was astonished at the street closures and the bus lanes, and remarked upon them to Patrick, who, because the engine was rather noisy, found it hard to hear what she said. After a while Liz stopped trying to talk to him.
    ‘Did you like Devonshire?’ she asked Manolakis.
    He and Patrick had spent the week in the West Country, and had been across the Severn Bridge into Wales. Manolakis expounded at length on the delights of their tour; he had enjoyed walking on Dartmoor and looking at the Atlantic from Land’s End.
    Liz was a good driver, and her old car still had some zip left, Patrick had to admit as he crouched behind while Manolakis compared the wild ponies he had seen with the sheep in Crete. He interrupted the dialogue in front to explain about Blenheim Palace as they came into Woodstock. Liz broke into his account of the first Duke of Marlborough’s exploits to tell Manolakis that Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim.
    ‘You can see this palace?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, but we haven’t time now,’ said Liz. ‘In fact there are lots of large houses in this part of the world one can look at.’
    ‘You have so many