Murder Most Royal — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

Ned’s uncle Patrick was homosexual, too, and the St Cyrs had treated it as just another family eccentricity – on the understanding he would go on to marry a good woman. No, there was something else. And Ned, she sensed, was at the heart of it.

Was this what her world had come to?

Rozie pictured her friends in London, Lagos and New York, grabbing cappuccinos on their way into work in gleaming skyscrapers and cool workspaces, swapping stories about hot men in cocktail bars and deals they were about to do. And here she was, at the end of the world, with a group of people twice her age, about to make herself truly miserable.

It was half past seven in the morning and the sun was still rising. She stood on an old wooden jetty that stuck out into the dark green waters of the river Dix at Vickery, wearing nothing but a towel and a swimming costume, feeling the ice forming on her skin. There were four people with her, two men and two women, two string-thin and two more generously endowed, all paper-white in the unforgiving early morning light.

Katie had told her she would love it. At this moment, Katie was tucked up in bed under a nice, thick duvet. What would she know?

‘Are you ready? Don’t forget, two full minutes,’ Mary Collathorn said. ‘Thirty seconds for you, Rozie, ’cause you’re a beginner. Shoulders submerged or you don’t get the benefit. Ready, steady, go!’

Mary climbed carefully down the jetty steps, whooping with shock as she entered the freezing water. Her bright red swimming hat was swiftly joined by the green, blue and white hats of her companions.

Rozie went last. As expected, the water stung her shins and ankles with icy fury and she had to force herself to keep descending into it. Every atom of her being told her to save herself. Her only thought was to get deep enough to cover her shoulders quickly, and to get back out as fast as she dared.

The others were swimming to the opposite bank and back, whooping and hollering their way through the shock of the cold.

Rozie had let out a single loud gasp when she got in, but now she experimented with joining in with the hollering. It helped, and there was something joyful about them all expressing the craziness of this together. Even so, she wasn’t sure what hurt most, her stomach, chest or shoulders. Every part of her protested at the shock. Her instinct was to leap away from it and get the hell out, but she fought it.

Mary had said thirty seconds.