settling down, if she could have found a man to hitch up with. Provided he had a few bob. She knew Tash Dumelow, maybe she wanted to follow her example and team up with someone like Simon. Though I don’t think she was as choosy as Tash.’
He drained his glass. ‘She wasn’t interested in Barrie Gilpin, then?’
‘You must be joking. If she did give him a come-on, it would just have been for fun. She had bigger fish to fry.’ As if led by a particular train of thought, her gaze travelled to the bar. Joe Dowling had appeared and slung his arm around Lynsey’s waist. ‘Maybe not that big, though. Look at that slimy toad, thinks he’s such a charmer. It’ll serve him right when the girl’s forty and the size of an opera singer. It’s a fat family, cellulite’s in the genes, you mark my words. She’s put on a stone since Christmas. Ten to one, she’s pregnant and he hasn’t even realised yet. Joe’s not the sort who believes in doing the decent thing.’
Daniel refused to be diverted by her pleasurably malicious speculation. ‘Did he fancy Gabrielle?’
‘He’d fancy the creature from the black lagoon if it wore a thong and was into leather and handcuffs. Trust me, Daniel, there are things about Joe Dowling and his tastes you really don’t want to know. Yet he fancies himself rotten, thinks he’s God’s gift to women. At least he met his match years back when he tried to flirt with Tash one night at closing time. In the nicest way, she gave him the brush off good and proper, made him look such a fool in front of everyone. For once in my life I felt like flinging my arms round the woman.’
‘But you don’t care for her?’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad, isn’t Lady Muck. But obviously, I’m jealous as hell.’ She gave him an unexpectedly disarming smile. ‘Our paths haven’t often crossed, but she tries hard to fit in around here, to act like a native. She’s always wanted to be One of Us, I think. Maybe it’s the foreign ancestry, something in the blood, I’ve never known anyone so single-minded. Let’s face it, it’s paid off. If ever a woman had everything she wished for, it’s Tash.’
‘And her husband’s a property developer.’
‘Who knows better than to shit on his own back doorstep, if you’ll pardon the expression. He’s never tried to build on Brackdale’s green and pleasant, even his farm is a bit ramshackle. All you need to know is that he’s absolutely loaded and he worships the ground Tash walks on. Sickening, really. Mind you, I used to be cynical about her motives, but even I’m prepared to admit, it can’t just have been Simon Dumelow’s bank balance that was big enough to catch her eye. The clincher is, even after all these years, they still seem besotted. Matter of fact…’
‘Yes?’
She guzzled her drink. ‘Tash is lucky in more ways than one, trust me on that. Simon might not mind a bit of mild flirting, but give a hint of going any further, and he backs right off. Worse luck. Whenever I meet a decent bloke, he’s always spoken for. By the way, I didn’t catch the name of that pretty wife of yours.’
‘Miranda. And we’re not married.’
She stretched and yawned, in a seen-it-all manner. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re not into long-term commitment? Even though you’ve both run off from the city to live together in a tiny place like Brackdale?’
He shrugged. ‘Miranda and I haven’t known each other that long.’
‘Early days, then?’
As he nodded, she stood up. ‘Better stop at one. Alcohol goes straight to my head, terribly. I start talking out of turn and after three drinks I’m an utter disgrace. Anyway, I’ll rack my brains, see what else I can remember about Gabrielle Anders, if you’re that interested in a dead lady. My number’s in the book, by the way. If you ever want to get in touch.’
He watched her walk up to the bar and speak to Joe Dowling and his fiancee. Whatever she said succeeded in causing Lynsey’s face to flame and the landlord’s vulpine smile to dissolve into a hard line of anger. But Dale didn’t seem to care. On her way out, she threw Daniel a smile. As if to say: see, it’s like I said, I do make waves. She was no fool, he thought, but she liked playing a part, was turned on by the idea of being dangerous to know.
Chapter Nine
It might be too late to put things right with his old man, but Daniel still needed to put his own mind at rest. Achieve closure, as Miranda liked to say. She often wrote about the importance of achieving closure. Of course he must tread with care. In Brack, it would be as easy for a newcomer to put a foot wrong in conversation as to stumble off a fellside track in the fog. He and Miranda would have to work hard for a long time if they were ever to become part of this community. Bad enough to be an off-comer, far worse to be disdained as a ghoul.
Did they even want to become part of the community? As they drove to Brack Hall on the Saturday evening, Daniel asked Miranda and she had no doubts.
‘Of course. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Forsaking the city for village life.’
‘We’re a mile from the village. Days could pass without our seeing a single soul, if it weren’t for all the workmen tramping in and out.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
‘Not in the least. All I ever wanted was to run away with you.’
She put her hand on his thigh. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say, but I don’t want to be a hermit. Okay, we have our writing, but we can’t want to hide away from the world forever.’
‘Round here, it takes a generation before people really accept you as one of them.’
‘Relax, we can always bond with the other off-comers. How about the people in that mobile home park in the next valley?’
He grinned. ‘So this is our first toe in the water, so far as integrating with the community goes? A dinner party with the local squire and his wife. Very traditional. Except that he only keeps a farm as a write-off against tax and she’s a townie who plays at being an artist.’
‘Tash is in love with the Lakes. She rang up this afternoon, while you were outside, to check we were still okay to come. We talked for a couple of minutes and she told me she could never bear to leave. She was trying to persuade me that coming here was the best decision I ever made.’
‘Did she need to?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you sure?’
The hesitation before she replied chilled him more than any simple nostalgia for city life. ‘It’s just that — sometimes I wonder. What will we do when the cottage is sorted?’
They pulled up outside the electric gates guarding the Hall and he forced a smile. ‘Why worry? After everything that’s gone wrong this past few days, we’ll be old and grey before all the work is finished.’
‘Feel that wall,’ Simon Dumelow said. ‘See how thick it is?’
After greeting them with champagne, Tash’s husband had insisted on taking them for a guided tour. He was a bluff Lancastrian with an extravagance of grey hair, expensively cut. His black short-sleeved shirt and matching designer slacks probably cost twice as much as Daniel’s best suit. Daniel guessed he was in his mid-fifties, but he had the boyish enthusiasm of a kid showing off his model railway set.
First stop was the Virginia creeper-festooned pele tower that had once provided a refuge from Border raiders. Underground were the cellars, air-conditioned and lined with racks crammed with vintage wine. Now they had arrived in the tunnel-vaulted room occupying the ground floor. In the fourteenth century a windowless and fetid home to the livestock, today it was a games room with dazzling overhead lights. The only battles it saw were fought on a full-sized Thurston billiard table. A dutiful guest, Daniel thrust his hand against the stone and murmured with appreciation. The wall was undeniably solid.
‘Six feet,’ his host said. ‘Six feet of Cumbrian sandstone, would you believe? They don’t build them like this any more.’
‘Dumelow Properties don’t,’ his wife said sweetly, ‘that’s for sure.’
Simon Dumelow smirked at his guests and patted his wife on the rump. ‘She likes to bite the hand that feeds, does Tash. Keeps forgetting that without Dumelow Properties she wouldn’t be the lady of Brack Hall.’
‘It’s a wonderful home,’ Miranda said. ‘Like a castle.’
‘That’s exactly what it was,’ Simon said. ‘Pele towers were scattered on either side of the border in the days when the English and the Scots were always fighting. Come to think of it, have they ever stopped? Inside a place as well-fortified as this, you could withstand a siege if ever the Reivers came to call.’
Tash clicked her tongue, as if embarrassed. ‘Darling, aren’t you forgetting? Daniel is the historian, he’ll know
