December, 1931

'Do me a favour?' asked Teddy, appearing unannounced at Kitty's door and startling her. Surprised, she missed a letter out of the line she was typing and tore the page in question out from the Remington typewriter. She spared Teddy a scowl and he had the grace to look contrite.

'Sorry,' he said. 'You had the door open.'

'I'm listening for Sophy. And editing a column.'

'Don't they have people that do that for you?' asked Teddy, appropriating the back of her chair without so much as a by-your-leave. Without turning her head, Kitty administered a pinch to his forearm, and grinned when he yelped at the carbon now staining his sleeve.

'That's hard to get out you know!'

'What's this favour I'm doing you?'

'You won't like it,' said Teddy. That boded ill; Teddy for all his sins wasn't a bad reader of people. It was what made him such a dab hand at gremlin-wrangling.

'Go on then,' said Kitty, restarting her column revision, 'out with it.' From behind her came the sound of feet scuffing the carpet, and then Kitty was tilted forward, her middle pressed tightly against the desk as Teddy's weight capitulated the chair forward. It was her turn to yelp.

'Sorry,' said Teddy. 'That makes a poor start. It's about this Christmas function the station house is hosting.'

'The one Jem and Geordie always go to?'

Teddy hummed affirmation. 'They're corralling me into going,' he said and Kitty groaned. She wasn't going to like the favour at all. Not if it was headed where she thought it was. Still, there was a chance… 'I really think,' she said, clutching at straws, 'Toby Carlisle is old enough to see to the rest of the gremlins. They don't need me to – '

' 'Course he is,' said Teddy. 'Simon can help him. Not what I'm asking, Kitten.'

'Oh,' said Kitty, and twisted round to look at him. 'Right. If not gremlin-minding, what are you asking?'

'Er,' said Teddy, and scuffed a foot over the rug again, 'That is, I'm supposed to bring someone along. Numbers or something. I don't know.' This last hastily, in the face of Kitty's groan.

'Teddy!'

'I didn't tell them you'd come,' said Teddy hurriedly. 'But I've got to bring someone– '

'Have you?'

'Inspector's orders.'

'So I can blame Geordie for this?'

'You do that. He's the one that wants me there. God knows I never asked. I hate this sort of thing.'

'Not half as much as I do, you don't,' said Kitty darkly and shook her head, blotting carbon-stained fingers on her skirt. For a moment they both went silent, as if hoping little Sophy would recall them to more immediate worries than the station house's social evenings. Perhaps Helen would come rushing through the door, shrieking her flight from Christopher. Perhaps a crater would open up in the vicinity of the desk and take Kitty, the desk and the Remington into its core, rendering the whole discussion moot. No such thing happened. The smell of the carbon mixed with the damp wool of Teddy's uniform, dappled, she saw now she looked at it, with mud and melting snow.

'What were you even doing before you came in here?' she asked.

'That's a no, is it?'

'That's a why-are-you-still-in-damp-clothes. Faith's habits are catching.'

'Clearly,' said Teddy, and grinned. 'You'll go then?'

'I said nothing so rash.'

With a push Kitty freed the back of the chair and sent him stumbling across the room. He shored up against the window, which he prised open, so that little flurries of snow tumbled onto the sill, crisp-smelling after the chemical tang of the carbon.

'Don't,' said Kitty, 'you're letting in the cold.'

'I didn't think you should be breathing that stuff in. Can't be healthy. Tell you what, come along and I'll give you the Lapsly murder.'

'Teddy…' in warning tones.

'What're you typing up anyway?'

'Editing, I told you.' But it was no good, he was back leaning against her chair, pulling it backward and craning his neck over her shoulder to read her discarded copy.

Minister's Marital Mishap was stamped bold across the article under revision.

'I thought you didn't go in for gossip columns?'

Kitty made a face. 'Not mine. The editor's front page piece.'

'He's leading with this? What's the mishap?'

'He's run off with the Sunday School Teacher.'

'He's what?' said Teddy, obviously incredulous. 'That's the misadventure of the hour?'

'It makes a splash,' said Kitty, shrugging.

'The Lapsly murder makes more of one.'

'Not for this week, it doesn't,' said Kitty. 'Have you even made an arrest?'

Teddy gestured at the mud drying on his uniform, the patches of damp where the snow had been. Kitty's eyes went wide in spite of themselves. 'You never have! When? Who? Where? What gave them away? One of Jem's improbable revelations? Don't tell me – Helen's dollhouse now resembles the crime scene…' Never mind that last-minute inserts costed a fortune; if Teddy could give her this lead it would be well worth it. Certainly it would sell more than Minister's Marital Mishap.

'Only if you come with me for the evening, Kitten,' said Teddy, curse him everlastingly. The snowfall was increasing, the window beginning to let in an honest-to-goodness wind. Kitty shivered and Teddy draped his coat over her shoulder in a semblance of Kitty wasn't sure what. Not chivalry, anyway. Or perhaps soggy chivalry.

'You're still damp,' she said, shaking it off and pressing carbon-stained fingers to her temples. 'Tell you what, you give me an exclusive statement, a quote and the notes from the interview with your murderer. Then I'll go.'

'You know I can't give you the interview notes!'

'I can't wreak havoc on our layout for this week,' said Kitty easily.

'I'll get you a quote from the murderer. And persuade the Lapsly family to give you one.'

It was tempting. A murdered child was big news. Even bigger the successful capture of what had hitherto proved an elusive murderer. A story like that, under her pen… The room was freezing. Kitty slid free of the chair and pressed the sash down, staunching the worst of the cold. It left the room faintly chill, like a cold room in summertime, the smell of dying greenery still palpable on her tongue.

'Fine,' said Kitty relenting, even as she grimaced at the thought of what it meant. She'd have to wrangle a dress from somewhere – a good one. No hope of buying one in the present circumstance, of course. Not that her carefully hoarded reporter's salary had run to that sort of thing even before the market crash.

'You'll manage something, Kitten,' said Teddy, apparently reading her thoughts in her face. Either Faith's habits really were catching, even down to her glass face, or Teddy was a better detective than she'd previously given him credit for.

'It will be fun,' he said now, clapping her on the shoulder. 'We can commiserate together over finger sandwiches or something.'

'Stop while you're ahead,' said Kitty. 'You weren't selling it before you reminded me of what an evening out entailed.'

Buying a dress was out of the question. That had been abundantly clear from the first, though Kitty still traipsed through the shops on Market Street as a matter of course. This was purely to humour Helen, who was more excited about the evening than Kitty was. But it was Helen, and while Kitty had minimal time for gremlins, she was loath to disappoint Helen. So they wandered the shops, looking at smart frocks with peter pan collars, and lace trim, gay floral sashes and impossibly small buttons that looked more trouble than they were worth.

'You'll have to have gloves too,' said Helen at some juncture, making Kitty's stomach curdle. Why hadn't she thought of that? She thought of the battered lace pair that had once seen her through the Garden Party and Fete beat and supposed they would never do. Even if it was only Teddy, the station house people, and the present depressed circumstances. Dutifully she let Helen pull her in the direction of the gloves counter, where were amassed under glass any number of delicate niceties from lace to satiny-elbow-length creations that looked woefully impractical. How did one use one's hands in such things? Or was that the point? Kitty shook her head, idly wondering what the fun was in standing like an ornament for an evening. Helen pointed excitedly at a pair in purple that were neither suitable nor affordable and Kitty traded smiles with the saleswoman. Sister? She mouthed in sympathy over the counter, and Kitty nodded.

She came away with a pair of lavender handkerchiefs to humour Helen, confident in the knowledge she would never use them, and then deposited the young girl in Teddy's lap, told him resolutely it was his turn, and went to Fox Corner to sort out the fashion quandary once and for all.

'It's just,' said Kitty, by way of apology as Mara poured out tea, 'you're an angel with a needle, and I'm not. And Faith – '

'The last time Faith sewed anything that wasn't a suture,' said Mara with a smile, 'we were at war. And even then Di and I redid all her seams. Ask her sometime. She used to make the most crooked sheets in Christendom. Bet she tells you about it.'

Kitty laughed, assured Mara that Faith had, and watched as Pilgrim wove between assorted box plants on the windowsill, their wintergreen smell tempering the spice of the tea.

'It doesn't need to be new,' said Kitty now, 'I mean, I'm happy to have something made over.'

Mara gave her a look, much to say, have you got such a thing and Kitty shrugged.

'There's always my 'Occasional Dress',' she said. Originally this had been little Christopher's name for what in those days had been a buttercup yellow thing with more lace than Kitty thought normal, vintage long-dead Aunt Emeline by way of Uncle Albion, who had loved dress and its wearer both. It had seen Kitty through the Garden Party and Fete Beat, and it had never suited her. Christopher had named it back in its glory days and the name had stuck long after that garment's consignment to the rag bag, and had been passed on to its successor, a navy teagown that had seen Kitty through assorted Blythe-Meredith weddings, christenings, and anniversaries. This was also Mara's seamwork, as Kitty remembered, and it was good work; the teagown's latent shabbiness was entirely Kitty's doing. This in spite of her resignation of the Garden and Fete Beat. It turned out – and how was Kitty to know – that being crammed too long in a wardrobe was as detrimental to fabric as leaning against the odd fireguard. And, in fairness, occasions after the cessation of the Garden and Fete Beat had been a rarity in Kitty's life, would that they remained that way. Drat Teddy Lovall and his Christmas gatherings, she thought, not for the first time.

'There's always your water blue silk,' said Mharie speculatively to her sister.

Kitty was on the verge of protesting this gift, but Mara shook her head. 'Not for this' she said, mildly. 'It wore out ages ago, and besides,' with a nod to Kitty, 'of course you've got to have something new your first evening out.'

Kitty opened her mouth to protest, unsure if she intended to say that no she didn't, argue she had spent countless evenings out, that this was no grand occasion, or what. Finding the majority of the sentiments could be articulated with only minimal accuracy, she duly closed her mouth again. She then suffered herself to be dragged by a giddy Mharie into the sewing room, a sunny oasis, even in the middle of winter, in robin's egg blue and elaborate scalloped moulding around the ceiling.

'Too grand for a nursery,' she recalled Mara having said of it the first time she had lead Kitty thence to discuss the details of some long-ago conspiracy. Probably the navy tea gown. They were both making entirely too much of what was really a non-event, as far as Kitty was concerned, but then, they were both obviously enjoying it. A family thing, probably, because Faith had looked positively sympathetic when Kitty said she'd been roped into the evening, and then redirected her to Fox Corner, lest Kitty foist dress-making on her.

The room filled with what Kitty always thought of as the peculiarly Romish smell of cedar; it evoked incense to her and high-ceilinged cathedrals for no logical reason whatever. In fact it was only Mharie, kneeling by the cedar chest that housed all Mara's sewing pieces, lifting out bolts of fabric and exclaiming over them. Kitty shook her head; magpies hoarded shiny things, apparently the Fox Corner people garnered fabric, and why not. Now Mharie held up a swatch of green worsted speculatively to Kitty and considered.

'No, no,' said Mara, joining her, and gesturing for Kitty to follow suit. 'They'll all be in reds and greens this time of year. You'll want something different…'

'You know,' said Kitty, 'I really, really, don't.' Then, on consideration, she added, 'I'm going to kill Teddy.'

'Not until you've got your story, you're not,' said Mara placidly. 'Once it's broken, I'll even help you. Here, what do you make of this?' She held up a wintry blue crepe up for inspection, and Mharie hummed approvingly, so Kitty nodded acquiescence, supposing that to be the thing to do. Mara shook her head, returned it to the cedar box and Kitty raised perplexed eyebrows.

'You'll wear darker colours better,' said Mara as if this was enlightening, and then passed over a maroon bolt of something. 'More Faith's colouring than yours,' her justification. Kitty gave up understanding. Apparently this was a whole other world she had fallen into, and it came with a whole other language. Mharie was nodding agreement. Kitty joined in for the sake of amity.

'Besides,' she hazarded, 'I suppose the people not in green will be in red?'

'Quite,' said Mara and Kitty felt she had scored a victory. Mutely she accepted the weighty offering of some wool-based fabric in deep iris-blue.

'Now that,' said Mara, satisfied, 'will bring out your eyes.'

'But I don't want – '

'No, a leannan, but I do. It's been ages since I've had an excuse to do this sort of thing, and I'd do it right. Humour me?'

Kitty, supposing this was why she had called in in the first place, acquiesced graciously. Mharie said, 'I'm sure I could conjure occasions for you.'

'I thought,' said Mara, straightening the contents of the cedar chest, 'you came down to us for school?'

'What, and you never had an evening out before university?'

'Well,' said Mara, 'I sewed my own dresses when I did.'

Kitty wanted to laugh; she was glad she didn't when the pins and tape measure emerged. They looked entirely too easy to weaponise. Really there was far more to this sewing business than she had suspected, and she had obviously spent too much time in Teddy's company. Normal people didn't even think about the best way to weaponise pins and needles.

'I'll have to return the favour,' she said, trying not to breath unduly as Mara measured her chest.

'You can take this one off me of an evening,' said Mara, with a nod towards her sister, so that Kitty laughed, Mharie squeaked and the measuring started over again of necessity.

'You know,' said Kitty to Mharie, 'you could always go in my place.'

'You'd never get your story that way,' said Mara with exasperating rightness and Kitty mentally hurtled another curse in the direction of Teddy Lovall. This was all his fault. Or possibly Sophy's for not intervening when his machinations were still in their cradle. Trust her to fall asleep the one afternoon Kitty had needed her intervention.

'You know,' said Mara, not unreasonably, rolling the tape measure back up, 'you might find you enjoy it. Judith and Faith won't let you go wrong, and the odds are on Geordie doing you a rendition of When You're Lying Awakeor some other nonsense.'

Kitty laughed. She said, 'I wouldn't mind seeing that – I hear so much of those operettas.'

'Well there's your favour then,' said Mara. 'You can get me out of the next one.'

'I thought those were a strictly non-gremlin affair?' said Kitty.

'Well, you hardly count, do you?' said Mara, raising her eyebrows, 'if you're old enough for dances.'

'It's not – ' began a vexed Kitty, before catching the joke in the corner of Mara's eye and calling it a day.

Even Kitty had to concede the dress worth the effort, as she stood in the sunroom at Fox corner, modelling it for Mara and Faith. It floated off her in all the right places, not a sheath as had been so lately fashionable, but a proper dress, with tucks and pins, and a collar that left Kitty's throat feeling naked in the absence of her midi collars.

'It ought to be shorter at the knee,' said Mharie with a critic's eye.

'No,' said Mara, turning Kitty as one would a mannequin, 'Kitty wears this length well.'

'You realise I'm still here?' said Kitty, more amused than irritated. She was also unable to articulate quite what it meant that someone should take this kind of care and trouble over something she had no real interest in herself, all in the name of presenting her at her best. She ran her fingers over the rich blue of the fabric, and wondered at it, the delicate ribbing of the bodice and the velveteen feel of the collar, the round whirls of the buttons under her fingers.

'You've made an ice queen of her, Ariel,' aid Faith, observing from the safe distance of the sofa.

'Kitty?' said Mara, surprised. 'I shouldn't think so. Much too warm for that.'

There followed a dizzying quarter-hour in which scarves, gloves and jewellery were unearthed to go with it, nobody appearing to hear Kitty's protestation that really, the dress was more than enough.

'Reporters aren't meant to stand out,' she said at last, no other protestations hitting their mark.

'No, well,' said Mara, 'like it or not, you aren't a reporter for the evening. I suppose you can stop, sometimes.'

Kitty briefly considered suggesting this was equivalent to Mara giving up her theatre or Faith her doctoring, but suspected it was probably a lost cause. They did, after all, occasionally put away their work. But that wasn't the same; they had good reason for stopping. Kitty was going along so that the Chief Superintendent's wife didn't have to agonize over numbers at table, or something. Because Teddy had asked and in a fit of lunacy she had agreed. So here she was in a dress of iris blue, with gloved hands and a scarf of indeterminate shade draped over her arms, and an offering of Scotch pearls at her throat, wondering vaguely how one was supposed to wear a scarf, why women bothered with gloves, and what the point was of earrings if they pinched so very much.

They arrived, when it came to the point, at the kind of house Kitty had only ever glimpsed at a distance, the kind that journalists tracking politics glanced off of in conversation. Even then, she had supposed them to be making it up. There was no making up this. The high-ceilinged room full of cornices and scrollwork moulding, the improbably deep carpet, and the furniture varnished until it reflected lamplight back at the viewer. It was enough to temporarily stall the burning question of the Lapsly Murder Verdict in the name of launching another investigation entirely into the affairs of the precinct's superintendent. She looked first to Geordie for confirmation of this necessity, but finding him unfazed, turned to Jem and Faith. It was Teddy whose expression most mirrored hers, eyes saucer-wide where they stood reflected in the foyer mirror.

'Quite a step up from the Inspector's house, isn't it?' said Teddy. Kitty fussed with her shawl– its purpose still indeterminate – and hummed agreement. She would probably never have called the Carlisle house small, if only because of the sheer numbers it accommodated without ever feeling crowded. Kitty was starting to think that had more to do with people, though, than means. She had only to glance upwards at the prismatic chandelier to be well aware this was another world entirely. One filled with rainbows of light, forests of furniture and the crystalline brightness of the laughter of myriad people as it bounced off furniture and echoed around the room.

Warily, she followed the others into what appeared the main room, Teddy at her elbow. The space was dominated by a Christmas tree awash in candles and popcorn strings, music emanating from a phonograph in some clandestine corner of the room. It was enough to make her dizzy, and looking to Teddy, it was plain the feeling was mutual.

'How can they even host a Christmas do?' asked Kitty, curiosity getting the better of her.

Teddy shrugged. 'The Inspector reckons it's built into budget, or something.'

'Into the – Teddy, that doesn't make any sense!'

'Well what does the paper do?'

'It doesn't,' said Kitty and allowed him to navigate them towards the bulwark of a grand piano.

Geordie, meanwhile, and Jem, had fallen easily into conversation with a nearby knot of people.

'Superintendent,' said Teddy, following her line of sight. 'Also his wife, and Hale.'

'That's the other Inspector?'

'One of them. Really, Kitten, I thought you knew all this lot.'

'I rely on you to keep me in station house gossip,' said Kitty, and shrugged. 'No one else has time for The Chronicle.'

'Yes, well,' said Teddy, 'my apologies on their behalf. There's a reason the Inspector's the best at what he does.'

'Here I thought that was to do with having you and Jem as extraneous limbs,' said Kitty. Someone orbited them with the promised finger sandwiches and Teddy duly swiped them their portion. Wonder Bread, Kitty thought, nibbling gingerly at the offering. And sandwich paste. So there was a limit to the Superintendent's pockets, then. When she next looked over, Teddy was tucking the remnants of his sandwich into his pocket.

'Fish paste,' he said to her raised eyebrow, as if that explained everything. It wasn't that it didn't, but the look on his face… 'Remember that murder at the Crown Imperial?' he asked, apparently divining her thoughts. 'Back when you'd just come to Larkrise?'

'Sure,' said Kitty. 'You foisted gremlins on me with exactly no warning. And they weren't even my gremlins, but Geordie's. What's that got to do with anything?'

'Fish paste,' said Teddy, so that she blinked at him. 'In the sandwiches. Put me right off the stuff. And I'll tell Tibby she doesn't count as one of yours, shall I?'

They were interrupted by an improbably tall youth arriving in their vicinity to lift the gleaming lid of the piano. Easily he slid onto the stool and commenced to play what sounded like Lady of Spain, all swooping rhythms and harmonic riffs. Teddy's music, Jem called that in tones of derision. Kitty could never decide if she liked it or not. Just presently, she was leaning towards not, and not entirely because couples were beginning to cut swathes of quick-step across the floor in time to the music. Surely there weren't supposed to be that many mistakes in the playing?

'Not mistakes,' said Teddy, and grinned at her. 'Riffs.' Kitty waved the treatise on music theory away, and he seized the opportunity to snatch her hand and pull her onto the floor.

'But,' said Kitty, her foot narrowly missing his toes,' I can't dance! You know this. I know Shirley and Mara were married ages ago, but you can't have forgotten that.'

'Nah,' said Teddy,' but that was different. This is easy.'

It was. Over the phonograph someone crooned Goodnight Sweetheart, and the pianist segued gamely into the same, quick to embellish it with incidental harmony, fingers like a troupe of acrobats over the ivory sweep of the keys. Teddy raised an arm and spun Kitty underneath, and perhaps that was easiest of all; to emerge laughing and pink-cheeked, the rhythm of the music like a second pulse in her blood. Without the worry of formations and sets, it was almost like breathing, the inhalation of the music and the pull of Teddy's expertise as he guided them across the floor.

Kitty looked across the room in its daze of crystalline splendour, and saw that both Geordie and Jem were gamely trying and failing at the same dance, no doubt complaining to their respective partners at Wayne King's failure to be music by Arthur Sullivan. Teddy spun her once more for good measure, the room swirling past in kaleidoscope fashion, before a hand shot out to tap Teddy smartly on the shoulder.

'My turn next,'the owner of the hand said, glibly. There was a voice to go with the hand. It was a male voice, a voice like velvet, and it could have meant anything.Kitty turned to find the velveteen voice emanating from a personage in smart navy wool,who, though ostensibly talking to Teddy, was looking at her critically.

'Don't mind, do you Lovall?'

'Don't mind, do you Lovall?'

'Sorry?' said Teddy, steering them towards the privacy occasioned by a collection of lacquered end-tables.

'I thought,' said the navy suit, still following behind, 'when you'd finished with her, you could give me a turn.' It might have been nothing. Still, the back of Kitty's neck prickled. She had the distinct impression he wasn't talking about dancing. And it was all so absurd, because Teddy, of all people, would never…It was almost certainly nothing. Too many hours fending off editors, she thought queasily.

'Sorry?' said Teddy again. His fingers tightened at her elbow, and it was gratifying to know that if she had misunderstood, so had he. Without seeming to do it, he manoeuvred her behind him, and himself behind the most stalwart of the end tables.

'Can't imagine it would take long,' said navy suit, and any doubts Kitty still harboured as to his agenda flew out the nearby window.

'Easy, is she?'

'Wouldn't know,' said Teddy. 'Gresham, is it? Constable?'

Constable Gresham smiled affirmation. It was a smile as slippery and smooth as the velvet voice, a smile meant for eels and serpents and things that slimed their way across the earth. Kitty's stomach curled, and Teddy's good arm shot outwards, colliding neatly with the other man's nose. Afterwards she would say that had she blinked, she would have missed it entirely. Or she would have but for the blood on Teddy's knuckles and the look of mingled agony and incredulity on the other man's face. As it was, she caught it, and wanted very much to laugh. Surprise as much as anything else, Kitty thought. Years, and somehow she had only heard Jem's descriptions of the odd blow Teddy dealt to recalcitrant suspects when taking them in. Even then it had seemed to incredible to believe. But there was blood on his knuckles now and a twist to his mouth that Kitty had never seen there before.

'Don't you ever,' said Teddy, voice dangerously low, 'talk about my sister that way again.'

'Right,' said the constable, still reeling. 'Sorry. Of course. Didn't realise.'

'Obviously,' said Teddy.

'Cleared that up, have you?'

'Yes, sir,' said the battered Constable Gresham. He flashed them what might have been a smile or might have been only blood and teeth - it was hard to tell. He then beat a hasty retreat, hand to his abused nose and tripping over an end table in the process. The room, which had seemed to Kitty to have slowed to a treacly stand-still, now revved into full gear again. Her ears were assaulted by the sound of Gresham's fall, the buzz of conversation, the chink and clink of glasses. Closer conversational eddies indicated Teddy was saying something. With effort Kitty refocused her attention on him.

'All right, Kitten?'

'Fine,' said Kitty, but shakily because it was still too recent and one person too many with an eye on her skirt. She was suddenly, unreasonably grateful that Mara had insisted on the unfashionably lengthened hemline. At her elbow Teddy's fingers loosened. The record on the phonograph turned over and lively strains of I Got Rhythm flooded the room. Kitty breathed deeply and felt normalcy come flooding back like blood. She thought if Teddy reiterated the original question, she might even answer convincingly now. She stepped out from Teddy's grasp and the cattery of end tables with their pronged feet.

'Sorry,' said Teddy over the hubbub. 'I could probably have left that last bit to you.' When Kitty only grinned, a dazzling affair of white teeth that rivalled the chandeliers, he said, 'You'll have to let me in on the joke, Kitten. I don't follow.'

Somehow she schooled her features and with a near-enough straight face said, 'Surly Sargent Decks Constable – the editor will love it.'

'Kitty!' in tones of exasperation.

Kitty beamed, seraphic. 'You promised me a story,' she said.