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start. Tamsin’s not by nature as pervy as I delight in being, but I have yet to see her fazed, and she deals as well with the stuffed shirts of the hierarchy as she does with the women-hating bully boys of the tabloids. Both types take her for Essex-girl stupid and they don’t stand a chance. Best of all from my point of view, is that we don’t have to pretend there is a lot in common: when there’s a job on we do it; when we’re just travelling to one conversation is happily precluded by the endless supply of what she calls her ‘bangin’ choons’.
    But we did talk that day over lunch at The Greene Man , whose name seemed too apposite to pass up, even though my particular quest was for a woman. The village pub was less than a mile from the house we were bound for, but it was hard work to winkle out even a snippet or two of gossip while we waited at the bar for the food to arrive. I don’t know what the tight-lipped landlord had us down as, but when I revealed that we were interested in acquiring the collection of books, he opened up a touch and leaned over the counter.
    ‘I would say you’d better be careful going out there. It’s only what I hear, mind, but there’s two maids partial to them alcopops on a night off, and the lads round here tell me you wouldn’t believe some of the stories they come out with after they been plied with a few.’ There was the bang of a door in the distance and he glanced sharply in that direction. ‘I’ll just say this. It’s not pranks they’re up to at the End, but something that sounds very similar... if you get my meaning.’ With an embarrassed smirk he drew back as his wife clattered in with two steaming plates of hotpot and a crusty loaf. I avoided Tamsin’s eye until the dishes had been served, and then behind the cover of a partition we succumbed to a fit of the giggles.
    ‘Oh, jeez. It’s so bad to him he couldn’t get nearer than a bleedin’ rhyme.’
    ‘Yeah. If only he knew...’ That set us off again like a couple of schoolgirls until the smell of the stew took command. Only after we’d both taken bread and swallowed with it some meltingly tender chunks of mutton did she look at me again.
    ‘Okay, guv, so when we arrive there, what’s the agenda? Any idea how long a job we’re looking at?’
    ‘Well, we both packed a toothbrush as instructed. But beyond one overnight it’s impossible to say. Even if we knew how many books I was given no clue as to how they are catalogued. If they are catalogued at all.’ The PA made a face then popped another piece of meat in her mouth. I did the same. The lunch was too good for pessimism to take hold at that point.
    ‘So we just hole up in the library and get stuck in, and take it from there, right?’ I cleaned up my plate with the last of the bread and pushed it aside.
    ‘Yeah. Though there was one thing about a house rule that I didn’t understand, largely because Samantha was being coy. Laughing up her sleeve would be a better description, now I think of it. Said we’d find out soon enough for ourselves, as indeed we shall. Better move, eh, Tams?’
    The driveway wasn’t one of those tree-lined ones that delivers the visitor gaping before a gigantic façade; instead it snuck round the side of an ornamental garden to reach a relatively modest front entrance. There was pretension in the later eighteenth-century wings, though drawn shutters gave them an air of abandonment. The older central section was of three storeys, crowned at one end by a square tower, with a profusion of ivy around richly curtained windows. I gave the iron lever a sharp tug and we waited in a burst of warm May sunshine for the door to open.
    ‘You must be the ladies from the Library: Dr Greene and Miss Bingley, if I remember right. I’m Mrs Jencks. Perhaps you would be so good as to come with me.’ She could have been anything from a weathered forty-five to a youthful seventy, and the clipped tones suggested a lady unaccustomed to