Is it my imagination, or is he relieved it isn’t someone else?
As Daniel parked outside Tarn Cottage, Miranda flicked a stray blonde hair out of her eye and asked, ‘So where are the builders?’
He took a breath. Now for the tricky bit. Driving her back from the station, he hadn’t got round to breaking the news. Downshifting to a dream cottage in the Lakes was one thing. Rendering the house and outbuildings habitable was quite another. For weeks the air had been thick with dust and dirt. As well as varied and ingenious excuses for the slow rate of progress.
‘Eddie’s off sick. Asthma attack, allegedly. The other lad and his brother decided to go backpacking around the Philippines and didn’t give any notice.’
‘Jesus, so they haven’t made a start on the bothy?’
The renovated bothy was to be her sanctuary. She’d planned it out before they moved in. A studio flooded by light, a chart of acupuncture centres on the pine-clad wall, the decor in natural colours, oaten and wheatmeal, a massage bed in the centre, dominating the room. She’d written articles on the importance of de-cluttering your life. Less is more.
Daniel shook his head. ‘A week on Monday if we’re lucky.’
‘Get on to Stan Mustoe, tell him it isn’t acceptable.’
‘This is the best he can do, he claims we’re getting preferential treatment. Same with the plumber. The latest bulletin from Casualty is that he broke an arm playing cricket. Trying to fend off a bouncer when he should have ducked. We won’t be seeing him for a fortnight. You want to hear about the electrician?’
She put up her hands in surrender. ‘Taken hostage by terrorists? What’s wrong with these people?’
‘Can’t get the staff, Stan Mustoe’s very words. He mourns the old apprenticeships.’ Daniel put on a cod local accent. ‘“All the kids keep boogering off to university, that’s the trouble. Lads have got fancy ideas these days, they’re poncing around on courses about media studies and suchlike. What’s wrong with plumbing and plastering? That’s what I want to know.”’
‘Just as well I have a bit of good news, then.’
On the way home, he’d decided she was building up to something. Something he wouldn’t like, so she needed to pick her moment. They’d chatted about London and she kept saying how much of a buzz there was in the city. Suki, who edited the magazine she wrote for, had taken her out clubbing. Not that she really liked clubbing, she added quickly, but it made a change. And Suki was fun.
‘What news might that be?’
‘Suki’s introduced me to her old boss, Ethan Tiatto. He likes my work. Next month he starts publishing a new magazine and he’d like me to contribute lifestyle features.’
‘Perfect.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Congratulations.’
She drew back. ‘There’s just one snag. I’ll have to spend more time in London. Ethan wants me to attend the editorial conference every fortnight.’
‘You could go to Kendal or Lancaster or somewhere, talk to them by videolink.’
‘Sorry. It’s part of the deal. I have to be there in the flesh. Ethan sets a lot of store by brainstorming ideas. Remote discussions won’t do. But it isn’t so bad. I’ll need to stay overnight, though he did say he’d pay for me to fly from Manchester.’
‘They must be keen.’
She gave him a mock bow. ‘Of course they are.’
She loved writing, it was one of the things that had drawn them together in the early days of love’s madness. She saw her journalism in mystical terms; the way she talked about it was exhilarating. Once, after they’d shared a bottle of Merlot, she’d confided that although she wasn’t sure about having kids, every piece she wrote was like a child of her imagination.
Suitcase in hand, he led the way up the front path. ‘That’s great. I’m pleased.’
‘I thought you might be cross with me,’ she said when they’d settled in the living room. She was lying on the sofa and he was cradling her head in his arms.
‘Why?’
‘Well…this was my idea, wasn’t it? The rural idyll.’
‘It was a wonderful idea. I’m a convert to this way of life. Dangerous as it is out there. See the scratches on my arm?’
She laughed. ‘I never realised you’d go native.’
‘So you said in your last column for Suki.’
‘You don’t think I wanted to buy the cottage simply because I was looking for copy?’ Her voice rose. ‘I mean, nothing could have been further from my mind. I adore this place. It’s so peaceful, so — away from it all. It’s just that…well, I like London too. That’s why I don’t want to sell my flat. It’s a bolt-hole.’
‘Why do you need one?’
‘Hey, you don’t understand. I want a foot in both camps. I need to keep writing.’ A line of counter-attack struck her. ‘And we could use the cash. The money you made on your place in Oxford won’t last forever. Not at the rate we’re spending on these vanishing builders. Your TV royalties are down to a trickle. I want to live the dream too, but we can’t live on fresh air.’
‘At least here it is fresh.’
She feigned a coughing fit. ‘Am I imagining this dust?’
‘You know what I mean.’
When they’d met she’d been miserable and unfulfilled. He’d sacrificed his career to move here with her — his choice, no regrets. Yet he hadn’t managed to give her peace of mind. Not that she was a pessimist. She believed that happiness was just around the corner. Her life revolved around her latest passion, until a few months later, she was ready to move on. In dark moments, he wondered if one day her passion for him would burn out too.
He bent down and they kissed long and hard while he started unfastening her silk shirt. Soon they were making love on the rug by the hearth. Afterwards, she propped herself up on one elbow and smiled at him.
‘Trust me, Daniel, we can do it. You and me, we can get the best of all possible worlds.’
Before he could answer, the phone rang.
Chapter Two
‘Whatever happened to the finest traditions of anonymous mail?’ Linz tutted as she laid the message flat on the circular table for Hannah and Nick to see. ‘Me, I yearn for the good old days. The golden age of the poison pen. Letters cut out of a newspaper and glued on to paper. They always seem so spookily romantic and mysterious, don’t you think, Sarge?’
‘Too right. Brown capitals in broad felt tip? Hopeless. Totally lacking in character, let alone charm.’ Nick ran a hand through his eternally untidy hair. ‘Even if this note is in freehand, our correspondent might just as well have used a stencil. How bloody inconsiderate.’
‘Would handwriting analysis be a waste of time?’
‘Try it, we need to tick all the boxes. But if you ask me, we’d get better information from an ouija board.’
Linz giggled. She often giggled in Nick’s company. For an idle moment Hannah wondered whether there was something going on between her sergeant and DC Waller. Surely he wasn’t the type. Though in her head sounded the voice of experience. It belonged to Terri, her oldest friend and a woman so jaundiced about the opposite sex that she claimed she could scarcely bear to bank her exes’ maintenance payments.
Terri had trotted down the aisle three times before she was thirty, and each time her wedding dress was cut lower and her heels were higher, but did that prove how much she knew about men or how little? Hannah had never seen Nick flirting with Linz. She always felt safe with him; in weak moments, she’d even found herself fretting that her own charms were fading. Terri must be wrong. Nick had never given Hannah any reason to doubt that he was a happily married man. The odds were that Linz saw him as a challenge. Which was fine by Hannah, as long as her
