‘Oh God, Dennie, please.’
‘Dennie, then. What brings you here?’
‘I’m not going to say that I was just passing, but I’ve come to say that I can’t thank you enough for the other night, and to say sorry for the trouble, and to bring you a present.’ She held out the box. ‘First pickings from my allotment.’
‘That’s so lovely of you!’ Ardwyn replied, taking the box and examining its contents. ‘Thank you! You will come in for a cup of tea, I assume?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Ardwyn turned back to Shane. ‘You’re okay with what needs doing here?’
‘Mm-hm.’ He nodded and bent to work, picking up a large lump of stone and hefting it.
‘Bye, Shane!’ Dennie said, even more brightly than she’d greeted him, because it obviously made him uncomfortable and she couldn’t work out why. He was acting like a guilty teenager. This wasn’t like him at all. ‘See you at the Pavilion some time?’ He mumbled something in response.
‘You seem to be gathering quite a little army of helpers,’ she said to Ardwyn as they walked back to the house. ‘I saw Matt Hewitson just now, looking like a regular member of Young Farmers.’
‘I know, people are so generous with their time, offering to help. It’s exactly the sort of village community spirit that Everett and I were hoping we’d find.’
‘Well, Matt’s mother will be pleased that he’s doing something constructive with his time, anyway.’
They laughed together.
Viggo was given a bowl of water outside the back door and leashed to the pole of the rotary clothes hoist. There didn’t appear to be any livestock nearby but it was lambing season and an unsecured dog, even one as well behaved as Viggo, was asking for trouble.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ said Ardwyn. ‘What breed?’
‘He’s a Great Dane. Six years old. Not a youngster, but not over the hill yet, just like his owner. They were originally bred for hunting boar, I believe, but all he gets around here is rat.’
‘I bet he’s great company for you.’ Ardwyn squatted down in front of Viggo and took his ears in her hands, scrunching them playfully. ‘Are we going to be friends, Viggo?’ she said. ‘Are we?’ She scrunched his ears and scratched the fur beneath his throat and he panted, adoring the attention. Dennie found herself surprised and even a little jealous. You big traitor, she thought. ‘Yes, I think we are, aren’t we?’ She turned back to Dennie. ‘Can I give him a treat or something?’
‘Oh, now if you do that he’ll be your friend for life.’
She disappeared inside and came back a moment later with some plain biscuits that Viggo made short work of.
‘That’s it,’ said Dennie, throwing her hands up in mock despair. ‘I may as well leave him here now.’ Maybe she had got the wrong idea about this young woman after all.
Ardwyn led her through the back door and into the kitchen, which was clean and orderly, though quite old-fashioned. There was a heavy wooden table, lots of mixing bowls and ceramic jars, and pots and utensils hanging from the walls, but no microwave or even an electric kettle; Ardwyn put a metal one with a whistling cap on the hob of a large black-leaded cooking range to boil. It smelled of flour and lard and pepper, and reminded Dennie of her grandmother’s kitchen. She supposed it was the fashion amongst the younger generation to go for ‘retro’ things – in other words the clapped-out stuff that her generation had thrown out decades ago in favour of things that did the job better.
‘This is all very embarrassing,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d come during the day this time, and in clothes. Honestly, what must you think of me?’
‘Actually, what I’m thinking is would you like some walnut cake?’
‘Very much so, thank you.’
Ardwyn took down and opened a square tin, and cut them each a slice of walnut cake that was heavy, loaded with walnuts, dried fruit and ginger, and easily the best she had tasted for a long time. Fair play to the young woman – she could bake.
‘I used to sleepwalk when I was a girl,’ Dennie admitted. ‘I’d wake up in the living room with no idea of how I’d got there, and once or twice I was even found outside, miles away. One time I scared the life out of our poor old milkman who was doing his rounds early in the morning, when he found me sitting in the back of his little electric cart drinking one of his pints. My parents were at their wits’ end. And then one day it just stopped as suddenly as it started. I’m really so—’
‘If you apologise to me one more time,’ Ardwyn interrupted, ‘I’ll take your cake away.’
‘You monster!’
Ardwyn laughed again. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing serious – unless you find yourself obsessively washing your hands to get rid of imaginary bloodstains, that is.’
‘That was Lady Macbeth, wasn’t it?’
Ardwyn nodded. ‘“Out, damned spot”, and all that. I don’t know, I had a lot of respect for her up until that point. She had the spine to do what she thought was necessary, but then of course Shakespeare has to go and have her lose her mind like some typical feeble woman.’
Sarah is staring down at Colin’s body on the blood-slicked floor of her kitchen. Her hands and arms are red to the elbow. She raises eyes like screaming black holes to Dennie and whispers, ‘What are we going to do with him?’
Dennie jerked back into the present, shaking her head to clear it. For God’s sake, not now.
‘Are you all right?’ Ardwyn was peering at her in concern.
‘Yes, I, uh…’ Dennie faked a small coughing fit. ‘I think I might have breathed in a piece of walnut or something.’
‘Oh no! Let me get you a glass of water.’
While Ardwyn was busying at the sink, Dennie hunted around for something to change the subject. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been living in
