Daniel watched Marc Amos striding off into the distance, his wind-cheater a red blob dipping between the rocks and eventually vanishing as Priest Edge fell away towards the depression of Far Gate. Below the fell’s steep flank lay Whitmell Vale, a ravine-scarred trench watered by a meandering beck. The sheep-crowded fields and the isolated stone cottages scattered along the floor of the valley presented an inviting prospect. He’d save Whitmell for another day and keep to his plan to follow the coffin trail back to Underfell, that part of Brackdale that lay between the Hall and the slopes.
Centuries had passed since, with no consecrated ground in the Vale, Whitmell folk had strapped their dead on packhorses and taken them over the fell to a final place of rest in the graveyard at Brack. Eventually a small church boasting a neat spire was built to serve the tiny community, and thereafter the coffin trail served no useful purpose. For those travelling from Whitmell to Brack, the lane that curved between the jaws of the Horseshoe provided a quicker route from one hamlet to the other. Yet the coffin trail boasted an enduring virtue in its glorious views of Brackdale and fell-walkers had never allowed the track to fade away through disuse.
The descent was easy and it did not take long for him to reach the foot of the fell. He crossed the beck that provided the grounds of Brack Hall with a natural boundary and skirted the Dumelows’ land on his way to the village. While he looked over to the farmhouse, the front door opened. Jean Allardyce emerged, shopping bag in hand, and hauled herself into an elderly Land Rover parked on the hardstanding beside the house. As Daniel reached the end of the driveway, the vehicle pulled up beside him.
She put her head out of the window and called, ‘Can I give you a lift?’
‘That’s good of you.’ He was happy to walk, but as usual curiosity got the better of him. No harm in a short detour: Miranda wouldn’t be counting the minutes until his return. ‘If you could drop me off in the village?’
‘No problem, I’m just on my way to Tasker’s. Jump in.’
He clambered in beside her, taking in a faint freesia fragrance as she bent towards him to move a sheaf of travel brochures off the passenger seat. He hadn’t taken much notice of Jean Allardyce until now and hadn’t fully realised that, although timid and inconspicuous, she was a pretty woman with full lips and porcelain blue eyes. He found himself clenching his fists at the thought of Allardyce beating her.
‘Booking your holidays?’ he asked as she tossed the brochures into the back.
She smiled. ‘Just weighing up the options. A harmless fantasy. Ever since I was a child I’ve had this dream of journeying across the Prairies, seeing the hidden corners of Indian Country. I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder, I used to love her tales about the pioneers.’
‘You wanted to explore a different world?’
‘Yes, it would be a dream come true. Places with names like Plum Creek and Silver Lake always seemed more enticing than Grizedale and Ullswater.’ After looking each way with an unnecessary care that, he suspected, was a habit, she eased the Land Rover out into the lane. ‘I suppose you find that hard to understand.’
‘We all need a change, once in a while.’
‘You’re right. I’ve spent my whole life around here. I’ve seen nothing of the world. Nothing.’ Her voice faltered. ‘You won’t believe this, but I’ve only ever been to London once, and that was on a school trip to see Madame Tussaud’s and the Tower.’
‘Miranda will tell you that you haven’t missed much.’
‘They say that familiarity breeds contempt.’
‘Maybe not contempt, but…’
‘I think contempt is the right word,’ she said, unexpectedly fierce. ‘Never mind, you’ve both taken a risk, leaving your jobs and your friends, starting all over again. It’s very brave. Sometimes I wish I’d had that kind of courage.’
‘I don’t think we were brave. Rash, yes.’
‘I suppose that at least you knew Brackdale. You were friendly with Barrie Gilpin.’
‘That’s right. He was a good companion.’
She said tightly, ‘It’s a shame that everyone remembers him — the way they do.’
‘Your husband is very sure that Barrie killed the girl.’
‘Tom’s very sure about everything.’ She added, as if it was an explanation, ‘He was in the forces, you know.’
Daniel kept quiet, guessing that she hadn’t picked him up out of mere altruism. She needed someone to talk to. He was aware of her trembling in the seat beside him, as if she were worrying that it was a step too far even to hint that her husband’s judgment might not be perfect. Her eyes were locked on the road ahead, although even when it straightened, her speed did not exceed twenty miles an hour. Her natural caution was, he suspected, allied to a conscious fear of the consequences of doing the wrong thing. Anger welled up inside him as he contemplated the ways in which the strong may subjugate the will of the weak. But even if Allardyce used his fists to cow his wife, at least he had failed to rob her of the capacity for independent thought.
After a few moments she said, ‘I felt sorry for Barrie, but after he died, there was nothing more anyone could do for him. Tom said it was all for the best.’
‘Not if Barrie weren’t guilty.’
‘No, no.’ Her voice broke. ‘It ruined his mother’s life, you know. Wrecked it. The way people turned from her, if she went into the village. No wonder she hid away. She was almost a hermit, by the end. The innocent always suffer, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They suffer most.’
‘And yet, that’s Tom’s point. He says it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.’
‘Do you agree?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said unhappily, slowing as they approached the market square. ‘I simply don’t know.’
Joe Dowling, his tan apparently replenished by a spell under the sun lamp, came out of The Moon under Water, watering can in hand. He smirked at Jean Allardyce, but treated her passenger to a scowl. Jean edged around the marked-out spaces, but there was no sign of a gap in the rows of cars. A yellow Alfa had double-parked opposite Tasker’s, and Daniel saw Tash Dumelow checking her rosy lipstick in the rear view mirror. As she caught sight of them, a broad smile spread across her face and she waved energetically in greeting.
Daniel waved back and said to Jean, ‘What’s she like to work for?’
‘Over the years, Tash has been very kind to Tom and me.’ To his surprise, Jean’s reply was neither perfunctory nor dutiful, but oddly elegiac. ‘We don’t see that much of Simon, but they make a lovely couple. Tash may not have been to the manor born, but you couldn’t wish for a nicer boss.’
Remembering the bitchiness of the Senior Common Room, he said lightly, ‘So life in the Lakes isn’t all bad, then?’
‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t take any notice of me. I’m — not myself at the moment.’
‘Thanks for the lift, anyway. If you could drop me off around here…’
Greatly daring, Jean halted the Land Rover precisely over the double yellow lines. Daniel wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d told him it was the first time in her life she’d flouted the parking regulations. Perhaps he was a good influence on her. She’d be farting in public next.
‘Will this do?’
‘Perfect. It’s very good of you.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ she said absently. He could tell that her thoughts had flown away. To the little house on the prairie? ‘I suppose it’s true what they say. All good things must come to an end.’
Chapter Thirteen
The cottage was quiet as he reached their new front gate. His legs and back were aching after the long walk: too many years sitting in libraries, hunched over old manuscripts. He glanced at his watch: quarter-past five, a later return than he’d intended. At least Wayne’s rusty white van had disappeared, so there was no one else in the house. Pausing on the threshold, he took in a draught of air. Time to put things right with Miranda.
She was curled up on the living room sofa, in her white gown, listening to Sheryl Crow. As he walked in, she glanced up and gave him a little smile. He sat down beside her, so that their legs touched, and put his arm around her shoulder, feeling the bone beneath the towelling.
