no doubt that the Dumelows were genuinely in love.
The yard smelled of mud and dirty straw. As they walked through it, they bumped into Tom Allardyce, who was on his way back from the fields. When Simon explained that the police just wanted a quick look round the farm, Allardyce replied by striding past them without another word. Tash ran after him and murmured something in his ear, but Allardyce didn’t turn to face her. He just spat on the ground and stomped into the house.
Simon turned to the detectives and cast his eyes to the heavens.
‘See what we’ve had to put up with?’ he mouthed.
Tash rejoined them. ‘I just wanted to remind Tom that if there was anything he wanted to tell the police, now was the time. All you want is a bit of co-operation. You saw how he reacted.’
None of them said much as they trudged around the scattered buildings and sheds. Hannah’s headache had returned and her wellingtons were tight. Despite the fine weather, there was still mud on the ground, as well as a regular quagmire in her brain. If Allardyce had killed his wife, there were plenty of places in the vicinity of Underfell for him to dispose of the body at minimal risk. This was a lonely spot; as long as you weren’t careless enough to be seen by a walker over on the coffin trail, or someone watching from the Hall, you could do more or less as you pleased without fear of detection. It would take a painstaking search by a large team of officers to have a realistic hope of finding a well-hidden corpse on the farmland. If he’d buried her somewhere up on the fells, chances were that it might never be discovered.
She heard Simon Dumelow whisper to his wife, ‘Are you okay, darling?’
‘Yes, it’s just that — I’m afraid that he’s hurt her. You know what he’s like. Perhaps he hurt her more than he intended.’
‘Where next?’ Nick asked.
Simon rubbed his forehead; his stride had shortened in the last few minutes and he seemed close to exhaustion. Hannah noticed that his wife gave him a sharp glance. Her concern was almost tangible and Hannah wondered if she had already guessed that something was wrong.
‘What do you think, darling?’ he asked. ‘Is it worth taking them up to the sheep handling facility?’
She clapped him on the back. ‘It won’t take long. Then you can have a rest. You look as though you need it.’
‘Working too hard, that’s all,’ he mumbled.
The four of them made their way in the direction of the coffin trail and the slope of the fell, towards the small field near the beck. ‘This is where the sheep are gathered in,’ Tash said. ‘They are kept in those pens and there’s a dipper behind those dry stone walls.’
‘Twice a year dipping isn’t compulsory any more,’ Simon added. ‘Unfortunately, there’s been talk of an outbreak of sheep scab, so Tom dipped the animals the other week to give them protection.’
‘But the dipper isn’t enclosed?’
‘Not in a building. Sheep dip’s toxic, you know. Better to have the tank out in the open air.’
They reached a dyke and beyond it the walls enclosing the sheep dipper. It was about fifteen feet long, with a battered wooden cover. Simon said, ‘We can’t leave it open to the elements, of course. The tank’s protected to avoid accidents and keep the insurers off our back.’
‘The cover doesn’t look that secure,’ Nick said.
‘One more job to do and to pay for,’ Simon said with a hollow smile. ‘I’ve kept nagging Tom about it. He ought to get round to it soon.’
‘Mind if I lift the cover and take a look?’
Simon leaned against the wall for support. ‘Be my guest. I’d give you a hand, but…’
‘No problem, leave it to me.’
Nick strode to the sheep dip tank and, bending down, started to pull the cover to one side. Even in the open, the stench took Hannah’s breath away. As the tank came into view, they could see the grey milky fluid. And then they saw something else.
Tash screamed and buried her face in her husband’s neck. He seemed to be hypnotised. Nick’s face was empty as he kept on shifting the cover.
Hannah chewed her lip so hard that it began to bleed. She’d never once been sick at a post-mortem. Throwing up in the presence of death was an admission of weakness. But the sight of Jean Allardyce’s fully clothed body floating in the sheep dip tank was enough to make the strongest stomach heave.
Chapter Twenty
The morning after his talk with Hannah Scarlett, Daniel overslept by an hour, but as Eddie wasn’t due to turn up until ten, it didn’t matter. When Miranda opened the blinds, sun flooded the kitchen and as they munched croissants, she chatted about her plans to turn the barn into their office. It was as if they’d never exchanged a cross word.
In the course of a cold and invigorating shower, Daniel had resolved to stop worrying about Jean Allardyce and Barrie Gilpin. Hannah was right: he could do no more for them than he could for poor Aimee. If Jean had disappeared, no-one would try harder than Hannah to find her. Another decision was not to think too much about Hannah, either. Each time he remembered the way she’d put her hand on his, he felt like a schoolboy fantasising over a girl who is out of reach. Dangerous territory; better not to stray into it.
As she filled the cafetiere, Miranda announced that she was itching to write again. She fancied producing a series of features about downshifting for a lifestyle magazine and she meant to ring every editor in London until she found a taker for it. After all, they’d have to start earning a bit of money soon. The house proceeds wouldn’t last forever.
‘How are you getting on with your article about corpse roads?’
‘Let’s just say it’s making appropriately funereal progress.’
She laughed and said, ‘I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t walked the coffin trail myself yet.’
‘You should. It fascinated me, imagining that I was treading in the footsteps of the villagers of three hundred years ago.’ He mimicked the sombre tone of a fellow historian who presented on television. ‘“Trekking over the fell through rain and mud, bearing their melancholy burden.”’
‘Weird.’ She shivered pleasurably. ‘I was thinking, maybe I might take Tash up on her invitation to pop round for a coffee one morning. I could leave the car at the farm and walk up the fell from there.’
‘It’s a long haul if you go all the way to Whitmell and you won’t find a bus to bring you back.’
‘I wasn’t planning to cover the whole route, just the easy bit. It isn’t far from Brack Hall Farm to the top of the fell and it looks like an easy climb. I could stroll along the top and take a look at the Sacrifice Stone from close quarters.’
‘Just as long as you don’t climb up and sit on top of it.’
When he told her about the warning words of the woman he’d met and the legend, she giggled and exclaimed, ‘So you’re doomed?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘Well, better be practical. Did I ask if you’d made a will?’
‘You inherit my books.’
‘Such generosity.’
Wobbling dangerously on her stool, she kissed him on the cheek. One thing led to another and a couple of minutes later she was leading him back upstairs. When she slipped off the last of her clothes and clambered on top of him, he found that sleep had washed away the tensions of the night before.
They were dressed again with five minutes to spare before they heard Eddie’s truck pulling up at the end of the track. Daniel reminded himself that if he had any discipline, he’d have made use of the time to work on his article. But what was so admirable about having discipline? That was the whole point about moving out to the sticks. No more deadlines; they could please themselves.
While Eddie set to work, Daniel retreated to his computer and tapped out a few paragraphs about the coffin trail. For the first time since the move, his prose was racing. Walking the trail for himself had unshackled his imagination; until now he’d needed to hack out every sentence, like a labourer using a pickaxe on granite. After he’d
