‘The garden is a pretty big project in its own right.’
‘There’s no need to sound so doubtful. I’ve picked up quite a few gardening tips from the television, and if I run into trouble there’s a whole section on gardening in the library. If the worst comes to the worst, I can get a gardening firm in to do some of the heavy stuff.’
So it began. Though he oversaw the work, Mr Broughton was seldom actively involved. He subcontracted the electrical work to a trusted local firm, but pretty much everything else was done by three of his employees. Kenny treated Wendy with exaggerated deference each time she arrived on the premises, which she did on an almost daily basis, her jeans tucked into her wellingtons and old anorak over her gardening jumper, addressing her as ‘Missis’, which seemed to be his equivalent of ‘Your Ladyship’. Kenny’s sidekick was the much younger, perpetually cheerful John, who bore a faint resemblance to Robert Redford, a resemblance which he had played on by growing a Sundance Kid-style moustache. John wore a sleeveless T-shirt in all weathers and whistled as he worked. His accent betrayed him as a Brummie, and his habit of ending the day with the words ‘tara-a-bit’ took her back to her Coventry days. The third member of the team was Peter, a hulking giant of a man, who wore a permanently sorrowful expression, which probably derived from his principal interests in life: Hartlepool Football Club and the mournful songs he sang about penitents being in a jailhouse and elderly hobos dying on freight trains.
One afternoon Wendy met John carrying a length of pipe across the courtyard while Peter’s voice was issuing from somewhere within the house. It was a song Wendy had heard him sing so often that she knew the words herself.
‘What are those songs that Peter sings?’
‘It’s that country and western stuff.’
‘Like Dolly Parton?’
‘Oh no,’ John said. ‘Peter doesn’t think much of them. He’s got a thing about some old bloke who used to drive an engine.’
‘A railway engine?’
‘I think that’s right. Peter …’ John raised his voice above some hammering that had begun upstairs. ‘Peter! Come and tell Mrs Thornton about your engine driver.’
The song came to an abrupt halt, just as someone was a kissin’ with Nellie Bligh, and Peter’s huge frame appeared, filling the doorway.
‘He were a brakeman. The Singing Brakeman, they used to call him.’ Peter’s speaking voice was grave and steady. He would have made a marvellous undertaker, Wendy thought.
‘Yes, but what was his name?’
‘Jimmie Rodgers – the Singing Brakeman.’
Wendy did not like to enquire what a brakeman actually did, so she said, ‘Are all the songs you sing his songs?’
‘Mostly. I know all of them.’ His features attempted to reconfigure themselves into a smile, but the unaccustomed effort was too much for them.
‘And he worked on the railways,’ John prompted.
‘Aye. He worked on the railways in Mississippi. That’s in the Deep South.’ Peter imbued the words with the kind of awe some people might have used a century before, when referencing the Mysterious East. ‘He were a genius. He died of TB.’ Peter nodded to himself, as if these two factors were inextricably linked.
‘Thank you for explaining,’ Wendy said, for some kind of comment was clearly required.
As Peter disappeared into the house again, John winked at her as if sharing a joke, before he went on his way, pipe balanced effortlessly across his shoulder.
Wendy put her tools away in one of the reroofed sheds and headed for the front gate, where she paused to glance back at the house. The external appearance of The Ashes was vastly improved, now that the slate roof had been replaced with modern terracotta tiles and the old brown brickwork cleaned and repointed. After an initial period when the place had looked more like a warzone than a dwelling, the house was coming alive again just as she had always known that it would. The garden was progressing too. Soon she would be able to start buying plants from the newly opened garden centre at the other side of the village. From inside the house, she could hear Peter singing something about being a thousand miles away from home, just waiting for a train.
It was only when she opened the gate and stepped on to the pavement that she noticed a vaguely familiar figure a couple of yards down the road. It was a woman she had seen a few times, walking along Green Lane. Someone encountered often enough for them to be on nodding and smiling terms, although they had never exchanged a word. Today the woman was not smiling, but she did appear to be hesitating, on the point of speaking.
Though something about the woman’s demeanour made her feel slightly uneasy, Wendy smiled and said ‘Hello,’ as she emerged from the gate.
‘Hello.’ Encouraged by the friendly overture, the woman stepped closer, simultaneously glancing towards the house, as if she was trying to make sure that the front hedge concealed her from anyone who might be looking out of a window.
‘Is there something the matter?’ Wendy asked.
‘I’m Mrs Parsons. I live just opposite. Well, not exactly opposite … across the road, a few doors down. Look … I don’t know … well, I don’t want you to think I’m poking my nose in or anything, but those men who’re working on your house – it is your house now, isn’t it? Well, do you know who that big, tall one is?’
‘Do you mean Peter?’
‘The big one,’ Mrs Parsons repeated. ‘Peter Grayling, his name is.’ She paused again, but then continued when she realized that Wendy was none the wiser. ‘He’s the one what was arrested over that girl what disappeared. Leanne Finnegan, her name was. You must remember it. Happened up Hartlepool way, two years back. Police never
