aggressive about his behaviour, but it had been unimportant at the time. And another time, she had seen him leaving the ExEx building.
'So you're the brother of ... ?
'Jason's older brother. That's right. You probably know what happened to Jase?'
'Amy told me.' And her own personal memory of Jase?' lying dead on the roof of the house in Eastbourne Road.
'Jase and 1 wanted to take over this hotel, long ago, when Nick's parents were running it.
Nothing came of it back then, but when 1 heard Nick was selling up 1 didn't want to miss a second chance.' He had stepped away from her while he spoke, and was standing by the service table. He opened one of the drawers and took out a handful of knives and forks, which he wrapped in a cloth he had brought with him. 'Things are changing in Bulverton. Maybe you've heard. There's a lot of new money coming into the town.' He glanced in the direction of the table recently vacated by the four Americans, though Teresa couldn't immediately see the connection. 'People's lives are going to be transformed, and the town will follow. Ten years from now Bulverton will be a different place.'
'So you bought the hotel just yesterday?'
'We haven't done the legal stuff yet, the paperwork, but we shook hands on a deal. Nick's using a lawyer in London. I've got my own. You know how long lawyers take. In the meantime, Nick and Amy wanted to get going straight away, so they left yesterday evening.
Most of their stuffs still upstairs, but we're storing it for them until they want it.'
'Do you know where they've gone?'
'They didn't tell me,' he said, but in a way that Teresa knew meant that they actually had. 'I think it's like a honeymoon, you know.'
She laughed then, but more because this news needed some kind of release than because she found it amusing.
'So a in 1 likely to see them again?' she said. 'I was starting to get on well with Amy.' if
'I wouldn't know. Maybe you're still here in a month or so? But the way they were talking yesterday, it didn't sound like they were planning to return to Bulverton. A lot of unhappy memories here. For them, and for a lot of people.'
'Yes, I know.'
There didn't seem to be anything more to say to that.
Dave Hartland headed back towards the kitchen with his bundle of cutlery, and Teresa started on her rapidly cooling toast. She was upset by the suddenness of the changes in the hotel; it felt almost like a personal affront, that she had offended Nick or Amy in some way.
Of course it couldn't be anything like that or so she hoped.
Teresa had often tried to put herself in the minds of the people in this small town, the sharers of collective grief She knew too well how it felt to suffer an individual loss, but had no idea of how different it would feel to be one of many who survived a massacre. Did it provide more comfort or less, to know you weren't alone? The upheaval, the shock, the sense of betrayal, the guilty feelings of the survivors, the intrusion of the press ... all these were elements of crisis aftermath that were known about and studied by psychologists, but none of their research could explain how it actually felt to be amongst those involved. Before she came to Bulverton, Teresa had thought she might identify with the People here, because of Andy, but the truth was that the
boutiques and craft studios. We want people to bring their kids, so we're going to build an indoor adventure playground, with a gallery where the parents can watch their children and have a few drinks. We're even thinking of putting in a gym, so people can work out before they come in for a drink or a meal. You know the old barn *at the back that Nick and Amy used for storage? We'll convert that. And we're probably going to have an extreme experience facility here as well. 1 was talking to those friends of yours from America. Their company will be franchising ExEx in this country soon, and if 1 move fast we'll be the first private facility on the south coast.'
~ 'You certainly do move fast,' Teresa said, impressed by the man's ambition.
'I've spent all my life in the town, watching this place run slowly into the ground. You know what it's like upstairs: the whole place needs clearing out and starting from scratch. Well, jean and 1 know how to make the place profitable, and we aren't getting any younger, so we're putting everything we've got into this.'
'I guess so.'
Teresa couldn't imagine how much it would cost to undertake a fullscale conversion along the lines he had described, but it must run into millions. Hadn't she seen him running a market stall in the Old Town? That was hardly the sort of enterprise which would develop enough spare capital for an expansion along these lines.
She waited a few minutes longer, but it was clear he couldn't find the hotel records on the computer. It made her impatient, watching him fumble around with simple software, and she knew she wasn't helping by standing over him. She suggested again they could sort out the account later. He seemed relieved to agree.
CHAPTER 32
Thinking about crossover and how to avoid it, Teresa came into a clearing in the trees, where three long wooden tables had been set up. A young woman was sitting at one of the tables, with plastic cups and plates, scraps of food, and several toys spread all about. She was laughing, and her child was running around on the grass, wrapped up in his game.
Teresa retreated as far as she was able, back and back into the recesses of Grove's mind. How could she use his eyes, yet look away?
Grove brought out his handgun from the concealment of his Jacket with a deliberate, wide swinging motion of his hand. He cocked the gun, working the mechanism three or four more times, relishing the
