Horton accepted with alacrity, even though he would have preferred a cold drink for his still sore throat. But if it meant he'd learn something that could help them with the investigation then he'd swallow caster oil and like it.
He stepped into the narrow terraced cottage a few yards along from the village shop where the sales assistant had given him Bella Westbury's address. He hadn't expected her to be in or so friendly, a decided bonus after Danesbrook's evasiveness. He'd introduced himself as a friend of Arina's, saying that he had lost touch with her over the years and had only just learnt of her death. She accepted it readily.
'Sling your jacket down anywhere and come through to the kitchen. It's warmer.'
The room felt warm enough to Horton with a wood-burning stove belting out heat but he wasn't going to argue. Bella Westbury was not the type of woman to mess with.
Horton did as instructed and followed her short, sturdy figure through a small living room crowded with an assortment of old and worn furniture, which appeared to have been thrown together without any regard to design, space or colour. It reminded him of his childhood days spent in rented accommodation before the council flat had become his and his mother's home.
'Arina's death was tragic,' she tossed at him over her shoulder. 'Such a bloody waste of a life.'
Horton ducked his head to avoid the wind chimes in the kitchen doorway and didn't quite succeed. Their musical tingling was accompanied by a feline chorus. Horton counted five cats crawling over the small kitchen, which was five too many for his liking. Bella Westbury lifted one from the table where it had been licking at a plate of Ginger Nuts.
She said, 'Arina was cultured, educated, gentle, kind and intelligent. But of course, you'd know that, being an old friend.'
Shrewd green eyes examined him out of a weathered face of about fifty-five years. Horton gave what he considered to be a sad smile of acknowledgement, which she seemed to accept as genuine. Quickly, to forestall her asking any questions about his relationship with Arina, he said, 'I was talking to Jonathan Anmore in the churchyard. He spoke very fondly of Arina.'
'He would. No one had a bad word to say about her. Why should they when she was one of the best? Jonathan always fancied his chances there. But then Jonathan fancies his chances with any female under forty. Arina would joke with him, but that's as far as it went. Biscuit?'
Horton politely declined.
Maybe she saw his distaste because she said, 'I'll just let the cats out.'
The wind rushed in as she threw open the door, setting off the wind chimes. Horton let his eyes roam the cramped, untidy kitchen. They came to rest on the wall beside him that displayed several framed newspaper cuttings.
'Is that you?' he asked, trying to keep the surprise from his voice as he stared at a young woman with long auburn hair and fire in her eyes.
'Greenham Common, September 1981,' she answered crisply and proudly, throwing a tea bag into two mugs. 'Twenty-five and full of ideals. Still am, thank the Lord. Not like the namby-pamby kids these days. They're too intent on climbing the greasy pole to the top of a corporation that is as corrupt as they are.'
Horton thought that a bit harsh but didn't say so. She filled the mugs with hot water and plonked them on the table. Gesturing him into a seat she said, 'I met Ewan there.' Her brow puckered.
Horton hoped he wasn't about to hear the gory details of a troublesome relationship. But then it was his own fault for raising the subject.
'He was a miner from South Wales,' Bella continued, sitting down opposite Horton. 'His mother was one of the first women who marched for ten days to set up the Greenham Common Peace Camp. I heard about it on the news and went there like a shot. I was there until 1983 when I married Ewan and went to live in South Wales and we all know what happened after that. I will never forgive Margaret Thatcher and the Tories for their treachery and the police for their brutality.'
Her voice was harsher and Horton's eyes flicked to the framed newspaper cuttings of a crowd of miners being beaten back by the police. He was rather glad he hadn't come here as a police officer. He certainly wouldn't have been offered tea and biscuits. Although only a teenager at the time and more interested in playing football, he'd seen films of the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985 during his police training. The conflict had produced clashes between the state and the miners in epic propor tions, eleven miners had died, tens of thousands had been arrested, and scores of police had been injured. The mines the colliers had been fighting to keep open were all eventually closed down. The miners lost, big time.
'I fought beside Ewan,' she said, proudly. 'We were a real community then, not like now where no one knows a single bugger in his street, although it's not so bad here on the island, the last bastion of Olde England. It's so important — community — despite what that bloody madwoman said. We're still suffering the consequences of her reign now.'
Horton guessed she meant Margaret Thatcher. He could well imagine Bella Westbury on the picket line. So where was Ewan Westbury now? He'd seen no evidence of a man living here. Dead or divorced, he wondered? He needed to get her back to talking about Arina Sutton and then hopefully Owen Carlsson, but before he could speak she was off on her reminiscences.
'We all stuck together. The railway workers, seamen, printers, they all came out in support of the miners, and we had international help. It was 1926 all over again with the women running soup kitchens. We staffed food centres and collected cash, but it was all a waste of time in the end. And now look at the mess we're in: oil shortages, petrol prices sky high, power rationing, dependent on overseas countries for coal when we've got a rich resource right under our feet.'
'But coal isn't environmentally friendly,' chanced Horton. Despite his intentions to get her back on his track he recognized she'd given him a lead into discussing environmental matters, which could take him to Owen Carlsson.
'Of course it is,' she declared, slamming her mug down with such force that he was surprised it didn't break. 'There's new technology that makes it cleaner and there could be more and even better technology to help get it out of the ground without scarring the countryside and killing men, or having to go cap in hand to other nations. If the so-called brains and techno kids put their minds to it we could benefit big time. Christ! If they can invent mobile technology, nuclear weapons and God alone knows what, surely they can find a way of processing our rich natural resources into clean and efficient energy?'
Horton wondered what Sir Christopher and Arina Sutton had thought of Bella's views. Somehow he couldn't see her keeping them to herself while dusting the furniture or cooking the dinner.
'Instead they talk about wind farms,' she snorted. 'They wouldn't keep this kitchen in energy let alone the rest of the village or the island. You'd need thousands of the ugly monsters blighting the landscape and I for one don't want them ruining the beauty of the countryside. Besides it's all bollocks you know, this eco-friendly crap, designed to make the government look as though they're doing something to save the planet, when it's already too late.'
'Isn't that a rather pessimistic view?'
'Not if you read the global warming reports and hear Owen Carlsson talking. He was Arina's boyfriend. He'll tell you. He's studied the oceans. He knows just how bad things are, but people simply don't want to hear what he's saying.'
And was that why he was killed, Horton wondered, thinking back to his earlier discussion with Uckfield at the nature reserve, and Uckfield's meeting tomorrow with Laura Rosewood. Had Owen been saying too much? Was the controversial environmental project he'd been working on something to do with global warming? The reports Horton had glimpsed in Owen's study again sprang to mind. He wished he'd had time to read them.
Then he registered that Bella Westbury had talked about Owen in the present tense. So, another one who hadn't heard the local news. He'd tell her soon, but he wanted to fish a little longer.
'I read something about there being a local opposition group to the wind farms.'
'You bet there is! WAWF, Wight Against Wind Farms, both the onshore and offshore variety. Like I said, they won't make a blind bit of difference. Not while they keep aeroplanes in the sky. Did you know that after 9/11 when the USA grounded all flights for three days the temperature in America actually fell? If that isn't proof of the harm they do I don't know what is. And this pathetic, stupid government tell us to stop buying carrier bags and use energy-efficient light bulbs. I mean what the hell difference is that going make?'
