‘I never heard such a load of crap.’ With a contemptuous snort, Tom Allardyce banged his tankard down on the bar. Some of the beer sloshed on to the counter and trickled over the edge on to the floor.
Joe Dowling frowned. ‘Barrie Gilpin must have killed that girl. Who else could it have been?’
Daniel shrugged and picked up the drinks. As he wove through the crowd, a woman in an alcove looked up from her meal and smiled. Leigh Moffat. She was having dinner with a woman with shoulder-length auburn hair whose cast of features resembled Leigh’s so closely that she had to be a younger sister. He paused by her side, breathing in the rich aroma of a steak and kidney pie drenched in onion gravy.
‘I suppose that after serving food to your customers all day long, the last thing you want to do at night is stay at home and cook.’
Leigh smiled. ‘Joe Dowling doesn’t have any greater pretensions to haute cuisine than me. But I wouldn’t like you to think I spend all my evenings pigging myself with pub meals. My sister and I only come here once a fortnight, don’t we? Dale, this is Daniel Kind. I mentioned him to you, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ Dale gave him a teasing grin and offered a small ringless hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Daniel. In fact, the food in the pub down the road is at least as good as this, but The Moon has a nostalgic pull for us. We both used to work here.’
‘For Joe Dowling?’
Dale giggled and put her hand over her mouth as hiccups threatened. Where Leigh’s manner was thoughtful, considered, Dale seemed to have a mischievous instinct. She’d opted for a seat next to a poster depicting Ingrid Bergman getting up close and personal with Cary Grant in
‘Casanova himself, yes.’
Leigh gave her sister a reproving glance. ‘I saw you, talking to Tom Allardyce.’
‘You make it sound like a hazardous sport.’
The sisters exchanged looks and Dale said, ‘Let’s just say he isn’t someone you’d want to meet in an alley on a dark night.’
‘I bet. We heard a rifle shot in the woods, or the fields beyond. Might that be Allardyce?’
‘Uh-huh. His trouble is, he still thinks he’s in the army.’
‘He was a soldier?’
‘In Northern Ireland, yes. His father and granddad farmed all their lives, but Tom joined up after school. He’s a rebel by nature. But Brackdale never prepared him for Belfast during the bombings. He saw some pretty grim things, so the story goes. One night he beat up a Republican suspect, and the powers-that-be kicked him out. So back he went to farming.’ Dale forked in a mouthful of beef bourgignon. ‘Even he decided there’s no point in fighting against Fate, I suppose. He likes animals right enough, better than people actually, but that doesn’t stop him shooting those that get in his way.’
When Daniel told her about the rifle shot he and Miranda had heard, Dale nodded. ‘That would be Tom. He likes letting the foxes know who’s boss. Tom’s not someone you’d want to fall foul of.’
‘Frankly,’ her sister said, ‘most people round here give him a wide berth.’
‘Except mine host?’
Dale smirked. ‘Tom’s wife is Joe’s cousin, but even Joe’s scared of Tom. See him quiver when Tom shouted at you? Not wishing to be nosy, but if you’ve never met the man before, what was that all about?’
In a few sentences he explained about his doubts over Barrie’s guilt. ‘It’s a long time ago, of course, but I just can’t imagine him as a murderer.’
Dale shrugged. ‘It’s not much to go on.’
‘The police didn’t look any further,’ Leigh said. ‘Hannah’s old boss was in charge of the enquiry. I don’t know whether her new job will cause her to re-open the case.’
Daniel caught Miranda’s eye. She looked with theatrical despair at her watch and he offered an apologetic smile. A waitress emerged from the kitchen, carrying their meals. But there was one more question he had to ask.
‘Hannah?’
Leigh nodded. ‘Marc Amos’ partner, Hannah Scarlett. She’s a police officer, one of the team that investigated Gabrielle Anders’ murder. Didn’t you catch her on the regional news the other night? She’s in charge of a team that’s been set up to investigate cold cases. You know, unsolved crimes.’
Chapter Eight
The renovation of the cottage was proceeding at a pace Daniel had believed impossible outside the fantasy world of TV makeover programmes. Surely it was too much to hope that their luck could last? Joiners, plasterers, plumbers and electricians came and went more or less as per timetable and the gleaming new kitchen equipment functioned with supernatural efficiency. Yet somehow there were always more jobs to be done.
Miranda presided over the activity with irresistible enthusiasm and was forever locked in earnest debate with the self-appointed foreman. Eddie was a shrunken fellow in his fifties with a piratical patch covering a glass eye that was presumably the legacy of some long ago breach of health and safety legislation. He didn’t disguise his appreciation of Miranda’s tight tops and even tighter jeans and took voluble pride in making sure that her every wish was the builders’ command. His younger colleague, the hunky Wayne, didn’t say much. Daniel suspected that talking, and probably thinking, took up effort better devoted to ogling.
They were counting the days to the start of work on the bothy. On the rare occasions when either of them found time and energy for writing, they shared a laptop, but the plan was for each of them to have a dedicated office. The secret of homeworking, Miranda explained, was to separate business activity from space devoted to domestic life. She’d once written an article about it.
Early on the morning after his visit to Grange, Daniel was pouring cornflakes into his bowl when he became aware of water dripping on to the breakfast bar. He glanced upwards and saw a patch of damp by the light fitting. Above was the new bathroom. Miranda was taking a shower and the seal had failed. One problem swifly followed another. Within hours, they suffered a power cut and a van delivered the wrong kitchen blinds. Miranda was in her element. She had a flair for domestic crises, Daniel discovered, making frantic phone calls to beg for help and threatening legal action against unreliable suppliers. His own coping strategy when all else failed was to seek refuge in a book. He’d acquired a paperback RSPB guide and could now almost tell the difference between a coot and a moorhen. He’d also started battling through
‘Any good?’ Miranda asked. She was on her way upstairs, carrying mugs of steaming tea for Eddie and Wayne. They both took so much sugar that it was a wonder either of them had any teeth left.
‘I’m picking up tips,’ he said. ‘Thoreau opted out of corporate America a century and a half ago and made his home in a log cabin in the backwoods of Massachusetts.’
‘A role model, then?’
‘Not exactly. He only stuck it for a couple of years.’
‘And after that?’
‘Back to the city. The simple life wasn’t quite as simple as he hoped.’
‘What happened?’
‘He tried to cook a fish for supper and ended up burning down three hundred acres of woodland. Some people called him the Sage of Walden. To the locals, he was the fool who set fire to the forest.’
He wanted to learn more about the murder, but the tradesmen came from Kendal or further afield and none seemed to know anything of the Gilpins or the history of the cottage. Even in this day and age, Brackdale kept itself to itself. People in the village spoke of Carlisle as though it were as distant as Cairo. Few tourists seemed aware of the valley’s existence, although one morning Daniel had to slam on his brakes as he turned out of Tarn Fold. A huge coach full of Japanese Beatrix Potter fans was executing a perilous about-turn between sharp-edged stone walls. The driver had not realised how badly he had lost his way until the lane leading to the quarry workings narrowed to such an extent that he found further progress impossible. There was only one way in to Brackdale, only one way out.
