Greetings, my dear readers. I am still writing on this fic and it is stubbornly growing in lengths, so I dearly hope you aren't bored yet - There is plenty more to come. Thank you, you hard working reviewers who have taken the time to give me some feedback, but also thanks to you silent ones out there who choose to just come along for the ride. It's nice to have people with me on this journey (especially since I am not completely sure where it's going yet myself). I'll try my hardest to make it worth your time. ;)

Chapter 16: Rhubarb

A change of clothes and the related conclusion that Mr. Butler was indeed a saint with psychic abilities later, the heroes of the fruit-harvest collected around a table for afternoon tea. It had been a long time since breakfast. Also, most of them had indulged in an unusual amount of physical activity and so the first minutes of the meal where dominated by ravenous silence, while the storm raged outside. The sunflowers were spread in vases around the sun room, that currently had heavy rain beating against its windows.

Finally Aunt Esmeralda lifted her glass.

"I would like to propose a toast. To this family, that has proven today that it stands together in times of need."

She winked at Jane, who had the decency to blush.

"Thank you. Especially to our guests, who have worked as hard as the rest of us."

Approving muttering and clinking glasses were the answer.

"Actually I rather enjoyed myself," admitted Miss Fisher.

"That was certainly due to the company," Walter Cox-Stafford pitched in to collective amusement.

Someone grumbled something.

"Pardon me, John?" Aunt Esmeralda asked.

The man cleared his throat loudly, while eyes turned to him. Then his back straightened.

"I was saying, this is exactly what I would expect Miss Fisher to say."

Jack Robinson froze, mid-bite, then swallowed hard as his father continued.

"It is common for people who never had to work a day in their life to enjoy the occasional tinkering," John Robinson explained, steel-grey eyes glued to Phryne, who was utterly silent. Jack wanted to protest that Miss Fisher worked hard on her cases, had in fact not been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but found himself completely speechless at the openly shown hostility. Instead, another voice rose to Phryne's defence.

"Funny you should say that, Mr. Robinson", Mac challenged casually, her hand, disguised by the table cloths, wrapping around Hazel's for reassurance.

"When I met Miss Fisher we were both up to our elbows in the blood of dying soldiers, working rather hard, as I recall."

For a moment John Robinson seemed thrown off his balance, then he recovered. He opened his mouth to say something certainly cutting, when Jack found his voice again.

"That's enough, father!"

For a long moment the two Robinson's just glared angrily at each other, then the father's eyes faltered. Jack dared to breath again. He felt the sudden urge to flee the tension that was still hanging over the table and laid down his serviette to excuse himself under Phryne's worried eyes. Chatter picked up again, when John Robinson also stood, pushing over a cup that spilled coffee all over the tablecloths. Nobody took any notice.

"So you are just going to run away again, are you?"

Jack spun on his heel in the doorframe, when the next verbal punch came.

"Just like after your mother's death."

After a moment of shocked silence, Jack Robinson's voice had dropped another ten degrees.

"You would do better to leave mother out of this!"

John Robinson threw his own serviette onto the puddle of coffee blindly.

"Why? Just because you decided you couldn't care less about your family after she had passed? Anna would turn in her grave, if she knew that you were doing it again."

Aunt Olivia's calming hand had come up to lie on her brother-in-law's arm soothingly, but he shook her off. Jack's face went greyer and greyer at every hit to his stomach, his heart and his bones. The shock outweighed the pain. They had never spoken this open and certainly not in public.

"Mother would have wanted me to be happy," he pressed out, "unlike you, father, she wasn't a stranger to love and she embraced it."

This blow hit the older Robinson squarely in the chest. But the shock didn't last long. The rage was too great, too long bottled up, to be silenced now.

"So this is what you call it then? Love?" he huffed, "getting married to the wrong woman yet again? I do not have to remind you of your first attempt, do I?"

"Certainly not, father!" Jack's voice could have cut glass at this stage and Phryne found it increasingly painful to watch his face twist in hurt. Yet, she couldn't move. This was his battle, her heavy limbs insisted. His alone. "And I do recall that you disapproved of Rosie all along, so you should find satisfaction in my defeat."

At this, Iris's curious eyes widened in shock. Miss Fisher guessed, she hadn't known this tiny detail either.

"Satisfaction?" John snarled, "In the disgrace of my son getting divorced? Hardly! But I did warn you that it wouldn't last and I was right."

"Well I guess, that is a feather to pin to your hat. That you were right," Jack said, sounding suddenly tired, defeated. "But nevertheless you couldn't be more wrong this time."

"I beg to differ." John prompted sullenly. Jack glanced at Phryne, who stared at him with a mixture of affection and worry and something changed in his eyes.

"Time will tell, won't it?" he smiled wryly. "Phryne, would you like to accompany me upstairs. I believe, we have a murder to solve."

Miss Fisher got gracefully to her feet and accepted his arm, trying to ignore the subtle tremble of it. With a last cold glance at his father, they left the room. In the moment of silence following, sounded a well-timed clap of thunder while people stared at each other in disbelief. Then all hell broke loose.

X

Jack was still shaking all over, when they arrived upstairs, but he hadn't lied. He indeed intended to investigate. Miss Fisher wasn't surprised. She had found out some time ago that this was his default method of dealing with emotional pressure. Running was out of the question with the heavens still open outside and he hadn't brought his cigarettes. So, a murder was probably better than him drinking himself into oblivion. As long as he was the policeman and not the killer, of course. Even though she wouldn't have blamed him all that much in this particular instance.

Watching him half absorbed in thoughts, she finally peeled the key to Uncle Walter's office from his trembling fingers and pushed it into the lock. He didn't say a word till the door had shut behind them, then sank into Miss Spencer's chair, seeming to shrink. The pride with which he had ended the argument had gone, and in its place was a son who had just lost his father. She could feel the pain come in waves of him and felt tears pricking in her own eyes. Nevertheless, he pulled a folder towards himself and started riffling through it, as if the answer to everything was hidden amongst the bills for lavender oil and rhubarb. Miss Fisher stood for a long moment, wondering what to do. Then he glanced up at her, his fingers aimlessly searching for nothing in the piles of paper.

"I am sorry", he said, making her want to laugh hysterically. "My father is a very stubborn man."

"Runs in the family," Phryne quipped, sitting down.

He rewarded this with a half-smile, returning to his work.

"So, what are we looking for?" Miss Fisher asked, grabbing herself a pile of letters.

"I'm not sure. But there must be something here or Crossley wouldn't have been so panicked at Miss Spencer's death. According to Aunt Esmeralda, the pair weren't particularly fond of each other."

"Do you think he is involved in her murder?" Miss Fisher asked, dimly remembering the tall man, she had briefly been introduced to.

"Maybe. I definitely don't trust him."

"Yes, but as I recall, you do not trust anyone, Inspector."

He looked up from studying a business letter at this, glancing at her, with a tiny grin to his lips.

"That is certainly not true," he protested. Phryne couldn't help but smile at the implication, without however tearing her eyes from the page.

"Jack, do you still have that piece of paper that we found in Miss Spencer's house?"

The Inspector produced the requested item seconds later, watching her with bated breath as she held it beside the page.

"I think we better call your Uncle up here," she stated quietly.

"What is it?"

Phryne looked at him, suddenly completely serious.

"I believe, somebody has been cheating."

X

"I didn't think I would ever say this, but I am ashamed of you, John."

A flash of lightning underlined Esmeralda's harsh words. The Lady of the house, who was usually so friendly, at present looked like she wanted to strangle her brother-in-law. John Robinson sat stoically on his chair, pretending not to care about the wild, angry chatter around him. He couldn't ignore however being directly addressed.

"That is of course up to you, Esmeralda," he replied coldly, getting to his feet. "Don't worry, I will be out of your hair first thing tomorrow morning."

"You cannot seriously intend to leave without speaking to Jack?!"

The voice belonged to Iris. An approving murmur sounded along the table.

"I believe, my son and I have spoken quite enough," John said, turning to the door. In the chaos of emotion nobody appeared to notice the slight sway in his step, causing him to hold on to the edge of the table. Almost nobody.

"I'll accompany you upstairs," Olivia said beside his ear, taking his arm without an invitation. John looked like he wanted to blow her off, but thought better of it.

They left the group of excited people behind and walked in silence up the stairs, towards John's guest room with it's view out onto the currently heavily rain-battered orchard.

The man sank into a chair under the window, his companion sitting down opposite from him.

"You are an idiot, John."

Surprisingly this wasn't an insult, just a statement. Mr. Robinson didn't seem to have heard her. He was staring out into the first gloom of the evening.

"And don't I know it?" he mumbled after a moment of silence, absent mindedly rubbing his chest.

"Do you need your pills?" Olivia asked. A shake of his head was the only answer she got. She pulled herself to her feet and poured him a glass of water that John Robinson drained in one gulp.

"She is going to make him unhappy", he said, more to himself than his sister-in-law.

"Well, I'm not sure, which conversation you were participating in, John, but the only person hurting him down there was you."

His eyes flew up at her, studying her face. But Olivia Morgan sat back down with her usual grace and no sign of hostility. She had known her brother-in-law for many years. They returned to staring out the window in union, watching the trees being shaken brutally by the raging storm.

"I just don't understand, why she would want to marry him. He has nothing to offer."

Olivia's eyes widened in sudden recognition.

"Oh, dear God."

John Robinson had visibly shrunk in his armchair, fiddling with his empty glass. Right now he looked like a small boy, realising he had broken his grandmother's vase.

"John! Look at me."

Reluctantly he obliged.

"Anna loved you. God knows why, since you are such an old grump, but she did."

A small, tender smile accompanied that sentence that belied the harsh words. Mr. Robinson stayed silent for a long time, turning her words in his head.

"Miss Fisher isn't Anna!"

"And thank God for that. It would be rather disturbing if Jack had fallen for his mother."

Despite himself, a tiny grin snuck onto the former policeman's features, reminding Olivia how much father and son were really alike. It was astounding, how two men could hurt each other so much, without realising how deeply they loved each other. Sighing, she pulled herself to her feet.

"Just so we are on the same page: if you should decide to leave without settling this first, I shall not only consider you stupid, but also a coward. And I would hate to do that."

"I will take that into consideration," John mumbled, staring out the window. He was pondering and it was probably best to leave him to it, but she had one more thing to say.

"John, Anna isn't coming back. But she would hate for you to drive your son away, you know that."

He nodded silently, without turning his head. Olivia pulled the door shut behind herself and took a deep breath. Her work here was done. But there was still plenty to take care of.

Walking down the corridor she wondered, if Jack really had gone investigating his case or if he too was hiding somewhere to ponder. It was strange, or possibly it wasn't, that he had always gotten along better with his mother, despite having inherited so much of his father's stubbornness and sense of justice. What a shame that John had lost his own over Anna's death. She prayed that this could be mended. If she had hoped to find Jack alone to talk to him, she was disappointed however. Walter's loud voice reached her through the closed office door.

"This is impossible! How could anyone do this?"

Olivia knocked politely and pushed the door open. Three pairs of eyes turned to her.

"Is it a bad time?" she asked.

"Not unless you consider my employees stealing from me a bad time", Walter spat and Olivia closed the door behind herself hurriedly.

"What?"

"We found some manipulated numbers in the books," Jack explained. "In fact, a piece of paper we discovered in Miss Spencer's home seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle. It points quite clearly to the differences."

"Which means she must have known about it," Phryne said thoughtfully, sharing a look with the Inspector.

"And all of this right under my nose," the Master of the house cried. "How could I have been not aware?"

Olivia laid a calming hand on his shoulder, that he patted gratefully.

"You trust your people, that is not a bad thing."

"Well it is, if they decide to abuse it!"

"Do you have any idea, who it might have been?" Jack asked his Uncle. He pulled the folder to himself again, studying the numbers again, as if he couldn't trust his eyes. Then he shoved the paper away in disgust.

"Must be Crossley or Miss Spencer. Nobody else could have faked this."

"Well, we can't ask Miss Spencer anymore," Jack stated, "but where is Mr. Crossley?"

"He left before the storm hit. Supposedly he wanted to be with his family," Walter grumbled.

"Well, we can hardly blame him for that," Phryne stated, looking out into the rain. "It looks like there is little we can do, till the weather has settled. So, Walter, do you play chess?"

Mr. Cox-Stafford overlooked the blatant attempt to distract him from the disloyalty of his staff, mostly because Miss Fisher had turned her most charming smile in his direction. He wondered for a moment, if it was a good idea for her to leave Jack to his thoughts. His nephew still looked rather pale around the nose, but then Olivia was here and he had noticed a certain urgency in her expression, that told him, she was dying to have a word with the Inspector himself. So he chose to offer his arm to the Honourable Phryne Fisher with utter gallantry.

"Only in entertaining company. The game is too boring in itself for dull people."

She laughed at this and winked at Jack before leaving. The lady-detective hadn't missed the intention of his aunt either.