Secrets of the Heart

under the eyes and anger expressed in the set of a large mouth. The effect was of long-limbed beauty, but beauty that was worn carelessly, disregarded even. The shock of discovery, which he knew of old, went through Julian.

Not now, he thought.

‘You’re trespassing,’ she informed him.

Abandoning Maud to Julie Andrews, Agnes had seized her jacket and fled outside. The rain brushed her cheeks, light whispery drizzle that soaked everything it touched, and she made for the shelter of the kitchen garden.

A stranger was walking around it, a tall, confidently dressed man with reddish-blond hair. He was examining a shard of glass, in a manner suggesting energy and attack, and she observed that, under a battered jacket, he was city-suited, a type she tended to avoid.

She challenged him, and the stranger dropped the glass and turned round. Agnes looked into a face that was knowledgeable, sophisticated, clever and a little bit sad. It was a face that reminded her of the Greek masks, one laughing, the other tragic. The last always got to her. Her fingers closed around the fluff in her pocket. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

He straightened up. ‘A Mrs Maud Campion phoned me and asked me over. Apparently the house is for sale.’ He peered at Agnes’s flushed, set face. Rain had plastered tendrils on to her forehead. ‘You don’t look as old as your voice.’

‘Possibly because it was not me. Maud Campion is my aunt. But you’ve been misinformed. Or perhaps,’ she said coolly, ‘you did not hear properly.’

The stranger’s eyebrows twitched together, but he did not budge. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.

The reporter and observer in Agnes took mental notes. Does not like to be doubted.

He shrugged, and the superbly cut suit obediently followed the movement. ‘It’s a wonderful place,’ he said politely. ‘It must have been beautiful once.’

True. On the wall behind him in the old days would have grown an espaliered peach: the nails were still in situ and traced their pattern over the pink brick. In the shade of its ripe, moist fruits would have flourished chard, spinach and sweet young peas. But, whoever he was, this man did not fit into the picture.

‘It would be an ideal project,’ he said, quick and calculating.

Agnes was on a short fuse. ‘Were you hoping to find somewhere to buy in the village? There is a house by the church. It’s in hideous brick, its architectural references are to suburbia and it’s been built on part of the cricket pitch that had been left in perpetuity to the village but, no matter, the developer and the local planning officer did a deal and hey presto.’ She looked again at the suit. ‘But the price is good.’

‘Sounds dreadful,’ he said sympathetically, ‘but perfect for me. Vulgar, intrusive and, no doubt, very expensive.’ He brushed a runnel of rainwater from his cheek and added, ‘I see you have me summed up.’

Despite herself, Agnes grinned. ‘That settles that, and you need not stay any longer.’

He appeared to consider. ‘Not quite. There is Mrs Campion to explain things to.’

Agnes did not respond and he continued, ‘My firm develops sites. During my conversation with your aunt, she suggested strongly that this might be one of them.’

‘Ah,’ she said, after a moment or two. ‘One of those.’

‘I know what you’re thinking.’

‘Do you?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Someone has to build houses. It can be done with taste and subtlety.’

This was an old chestnut and she had imagined that he would be cleverer than to produce it. ‘Subtlety,’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘Not always. Take at look at the houses on the edge of village when you leave. That was once a wood with medieval coppices and wild anemones. Now there are plastic swimming-pools and plate-glass windows.’

‘I’ve upset you,’ he said.

‘My uncle loved those anemones. He died last week.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Startled, she looked up at him and read his wish to convey a similar acquaintance with grief.

He said, ‘I don’t possess a handkerchief but I’m sure you’re the sort of person who has one.’

‘I don’t.’ She thought of the anemones lying under the bricks and mortar.

‘How lucky then,’ he said, ‘that you are not wearing mascara.’

There was a moment or two of silence.

His feet crunched on glass as he moved away. The rain began to fall in earnest. ‘There is a good case for pulling down a house in bad shape.’ He turned to address her. ‘A house like this can bleed you dry and there is always a need for new housing.’

Agnes pulled herself together. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘of course, but not here.’

‘So be it.’ He tipped a sliver of glass with the toe of his shoe. He seemed to be considering the next move. ‘In my experience, defenders of the heritage are never prepared to enter the debate and there are arguments on both sides.’ Again he smiled, ironic and, this time, a little defensive. ‘I don’t blame them. It’s easy to forget that if we want to develop our new industries we have to house people and give them the services they want. But I am holding you up.’ He turned to go. ‘Will you apologize to your aunt for me?’ His gaze roved pointedly over the wounded glasshouses, the shattered cold frame in the corner, the barren soil. ‘I should stick to sailing,’ he remarked. ‘It’s less controversial and there are not so many people out for your blood.’ He turned to Agnes. ‘Do you sail?’

‘No, I don’t.’

She led the way out of the walled garden to his car. He opened the door and extracted his wallet. ‘Here’s my card.’

She looked down at the white rectangle. ‘That’s very kind, but I don’t see the point.’ It was balanced between his finger and thumb. There was no point either in being any more rude than she had been. Agnes stretched out her hand, took it and read the name printed on it. Comprehension dawned. ‘I know who you are. You do a lot of work in this area. That’s why Maud got in touch.’

Pepped up no end by this confrontation, she watched the car disappear down the drive.

3

Saturday.

‘Why didn’t you come last night?’ Kitty Richardson asked Julian Knox as she slid out of bed and ran over to greet him. ‘I was expecting you as usual. I waited.’

Yes, she had. She had stood by the window of her small, exquisitely arranged cottage for a long time that Friday evening, anticipating the crunch of his car turning into the drive, in much the same pose (had she but known it) that Agnes had assumed at the window of Flagge House. However, in Kitty’s cottage, which she had bought outright herself, the curtains were lovely, expensive, clean, and if they bore a resemblance to those hung at the windows of Julian’s house, which could be seen from Kitty’s windows across the bay, that was because Julian had paid for the same interior designer to furnish both houses as a job lot.

‘Sorry, Kitty,’ said Julian, and Kitty tensed, for Julian did not sound that sorry. ‘I had some business in the morning, then I went to view a possible project on the way down. By the time I reached Lymouth it was late and I wanted to go over the figures, so I went to Cliff House for the night. Forgive?’

Liar, liar, she thought, for Julian knew perfectly well that, whatever the hour, Kitty always waited up. He had needed to go home to the house poised on the sea cliff, just to breathe, and she bitterly resented it. He knew Kitty could see the house from her cottage and would have been watching, would have seen the lights go on. He knew what Kitty would have felt, and her disappointment.

‘Why didn’t you ring?’

‘It was late. I told you.’ He paused. ‘You would have seen the lights, Kitty, and known I was safe.’