to have my images under his big name. Also, we need the money if we’re gonna make a start on getting this place into any kind of good condition. We were counting on that money, were we not?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Right, end of story. Back to the airbrush.’
She bent and kissed his hair. ‘You’ve gone pale.’
‘Yeah, well, I didn’t expect it. It was a kick in the mouth. Do me good – getting too sure of myself. All right, go ahead. Regale me with the unglad tidings you bring back from the big metropolis.’
They’d taken to calling New Radnor the big metropolis, on account of it having three shops.
‘Well...’ Betty sat down next to him. ‘Mrs Wilshire was all worked up because she remembered she’d promised to get the home help to hunt out some of the Major’s papers relating to... this place. He kept them in a wooden summer house in the garden. And of course, the home help didn’t show up. Anyway, she gave me the key. That’s why I’m so late. I was in there for over an hour. Quite a little field HQ the Major had there: lighting, electric heater, kettle, steel filing cabinet.’
‘And she let you loose in there? Almost a stranger?’
‘She needs somebody to trust.’
‘Yeah.’ People trusted Betty on sight; it was a rare quality.
‘And she wanted it sorting out, but quite clearly couldn’t face going down there, because of the extra responsibility it might heap on her, which she’s never been good at. And also because there’s a lot of him still there. You can feel him – a clean, precise sort of mind; and frustration because he couldn’t find enough to do with it. So when he was buying a house, he was determined to know everything, get the very best deal.’
‘Not like me, huh?’
Betty smiled. ‘You’re the worst kind of impulse buyer. You even hide things from yourself. You and the Major wouldn’t have got on at all.’
‘So what did you find?’
‘Mrs Wilshire said I could bring anything home that might be useful. I’ve got a cardboard box full of stuff in the car.’
‘But you didn’t bring it in?’
‘Tomorrow.’ Betty leaned her head back. ‘I’ve read enough for one night. No wonder he kept it in the shed.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I mean, in one respect, Major Wilshire
‘This is something the agent should’ve told us? We get to sue the agent?’
‘How very American of you. No, I rather doubt it. All too long ago. Anyway, they told us about Major Wilshire’s death, which was the main drawback, presumably, as far as they were concerned.’
‘So what is this? The ruins are haunted?’
‘We jumped to conclusions. We assumed the church was abandoned because of flooding or no access for cars. Or at least
‘I assumed. Yeah, assuming is what I do. All the time. OK.’ Robin stood up. ‘I can’t stand it. Gimme the car keys, I’ll go fetch your box of goodies.’
When he arrived back with the stuff, she had cocoa coming up. He slammed and barred the door. He was tingling with cold and damp.
‘Whooo, it’s turned into fog! Was it like that when you were driving home?’
‘Some of the way.’
Just as well he’d fallen asleep earlier and hadn’t known about the fog; he’d have been worried sick about her, with the ice on the roads and all.
He dumped the cardboard wine box on the table. ‘Best not to go out at night this time of year, living in a place like this. Suppose it was so thick you drove into the creek?’
‘Brook,’ Betty said.
‘Whatever.’ Robin unpacked the box. Mostly, it seemed to be photocopies, the top one evidently from some official list of historic buildings.
And so on. There were a couple more pages of this stuff, which Robin put aside for further study.
‘Like you said, looks like the Major built up a fairly comprehensive background file.’
He turned up some sale particulars similar to the one he and Betty had received. Same agent – and same wording, give or take.
‘A characterful, historic farmhouse with outbuildings and the picturesque ruins of a parish church, in a most unusual location...’
All true enough, as far as it went. Next, Robin found several pages ripped out of a spiral-bound notebook and bunched together with a bulldog clip. There was handwriting on them, not too intelligible, and a string of phone numbers.
‘What’s this?’
‘Don’t know. Couldn’t make it out. There’s all kinds of junk in there. Mrs Wilshire told me to take it anyway. I think she just wanted to get rid of as much as she could. Right, there you are... that’s the start of it.’
He lifted out a news cutting pasted to a piece of A4. The item was small and faded. ‘Rector Resigns due to Ill Health.’
It said little more than that the Reverend Terence Penney had given up the living of Old Hindwell and had left the area. A replacement was being sought.
‘When was this?’ A date had been scrawled across the newsprint but he couldn’t make it out.
‘Nineteen seventy-seven.’
‘
‘’seventy-eight, actually.’
‘Why did I have it in mind it must have been abandoned back in the thirties or forties?’
‘Because you were sold on the idea that it was due to motor vehicles and the brook. Read the letter underneath. It’s from the same woman who wrote the piece in the newspaper.’
It had been typewritten, on an old machine with an old ribbon.
