‘Listen,’ she said as the cappuccinos were served. ‘We didn’t want Tom Allardyce to die. No one did. He brought it on himself. He knew exactly what he was doing when he provoked that AFO to shoot him, believe me. But even if we’d brought him to trial, secured the convictions, the odds are that we wouldn’t find out everything. Think of Fred West and Harold Shipman.’
‘Sure, but why not at least try to make sense of the fragments you don’t understand?’
She lapped the chocolate topping off her drink and gave her mouth a quick wipe. ‘History’s one thing. Nobody’s going to make too much fuss if you guess wrong about whether Queen Victoria ever dropped her knickers for John Brown. Murder cases change lives forever. We trespass enough into private grief when we focus on what the courts need to know. It’s impossible to do more.’
Stung, he said, ‘History matters more than you think. There’s a saying in the States that says history is fiction with the truth left out. Not entirely unfair, but to my mind history is all about searching for the truth. Like police work, or so I assumed.’
‘It seems to me,’ she said calmly, ‘that you have a secret yearning to be a detective. My sergeant thinks so too. Trust me, it’s not as much fun as you may think.’
He swallowed some coffee. It was scalding, but he scarcely noticed. ‘Sorry if you think I’m naive.’
She reached across the table and brushed the tips of his fingers. Her touch was warm, but he didn’t respond and she put her hand back on her lap. ‘Hey,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t be cross with me, Daniel. I do understand. Your dad was a hero and then he let you down. Of course you’re bound to be fascinated by the work he did.’
‘No psychiatric analysis, please,’ he said. ‘I get enough of that at home when Miranda combs through the horoscopes.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘This has been a lovely evening and I don’t want to spoil it with some pointless argument. Yes, history’s important, and so is finding out about your father. All I’m saying is that it isn’t a good idea to worry away at problems that don’t have answers.’
‘I don’t agree,’ he said, signalling for the bill. ‘It’s the only way we ever achieve anything.’
‘How did it go?’ Miranda asked when he joined her in bed at midnight. He could still smell the fresh paint.
‘All right.’
Her body wriggled against him. ‘I finished the article.’
‘Terrific.’
‘Guess what? Suki, the editor, emailed me to suggest lunch next time I’m down in London. If I move quickly, there could be a chance of a regular half-page. You know, confessions of a city girl who’s found herself plonked down in the countryside without a pair of green wellies to her name.’
‘You make it sound as though I dragged you here kicking and screaming.’
She poked him in the ribs. ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of poetic licence. I rather fancy writing a funny column. Misadventures in the middle of nowhere, something for readers to chuckle over while they sit under the hair dryer. There can be something very po-faced about beauty tips, aerobic exercises, and feng shui. Anyway, I’ll see what she says.’
‘So you’ll take her up on the lunch?’
‘Why not? I only need be away one night, two at most. I might look up one or two people whilst I’m down there. And I happen to know that Suki likes to lunch lavishly, so I’m hoping for something swish and champagne- laden in Chelsea. What was your pizzeria like?’
Absurdly, he felt defensive, as if she’d impugned the quality of restaurants the length and breadth of Cumbria. ‘It was fine. And it wasn’t simply a pizzeria.’
Her breasts were pressing into him, her legs were rubbing against his. Finishing an article always gave her a high and he knew she’d want to celebrate by making love. But he wasn’t in the mood.
‘So,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘you were adventurous enough to go for a Michelin-quality lasagne, then? Don’t deny it, I can smell the garlic. Not that you’ve quite managed to put me off, though. You lucky, lucky man.’
He felt her hair on his cheeks as he kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Eddie’s here early tomorrow, we need to get to sleep.’
‘Don’t think you’re getting off that lightly. Not when you’ve spent the entire evening with another woman. Is she gorgeous, by the way?’
‘She’s a police officer.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
Her hands began to roam as he said, ‘She told me a lot about my father that I didn’t know. And plenty about what happened to Tom Allardyce. But she obviously believes that history is bunk.’
Miranda giggled. ‘She’s out of date. Julian Barnes says that it’s burps. We keep tasting the onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.’
He spent much of the next day in the garden, scything down brambles. Left to spread unchecked, they would choke the begonias that he’d planted to add a splash of colour while he weighed up the garden’s long-term potential. It was the sort of job apt to induce myocardial infarction in the fittest, but at least it offered the reward of fast and visible progress. The lavender bushes filled the soft air with their scent, every now and then a squirrel scuttled up and down a tree and made the leaves rustle. The tarn was still and the heron invisible, but in the distance he could hear the tumbling waters of Brack Force.
In mid-afternoon, Miranda returned from an expedition to Tasker’s and they sat on the paved area, eating Magnum ice creams. She was agog with the news that Simon Dumelow was seriously ill with a brain tumour. According to rumour, he only had days to live.
‘Hannah Scarlett told me he was sick,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t know…’
‘He looked so fit when we went to dinner there. But remember when he stumbled on the stairs? I suppose it was a symptom and we never dreamed…’
He said slowly, ‘We talked about escapism.’
‘That’s right. Winter Holiday and all that.’
‘Yes.’ He remembered Tash blushing as they shared memories of the children’s book. Out of nowhere, a thought slapped him. ‘You’re right, she did understand.’
Tash Dumelow had aged ten years in the week since their encounter in Tarn Fold. She answered the door herself in T-shirt, denim jeans and trainers. Her pasty complexion had become a make-up free zone and the red- rimmed eyes were dull and expressionless. Daniel thought she’d put on weight. He could smell gin on her breath.
‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said hoarsely.
His throat was dry and he was wishing he’d prepared a script. Too late now. All the way over here, a voice in his head had nagged like a termagant.
You should be ashamed of yourself. The woman is grieving and you’re making a terrible mistake. Why didn’t you wait and think this through, instead of letting yourself be bowled along by excitement? What will you say if you are proved wrong? You’re ruining everything, not just for you but for Miranda as well. Why didn’t you listen to Hannah and mind your own business?
‘I — we were sorry to hear the news about Simon.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not good, is it? The nurse is with him now.’
He coughed and shifted from one foot to another. ‘I don’t want to intrude…’
It was a lie; he’d driven over here precisely because he was determined to intrude. But he didn’t know what else to say. If she said she wasn’t up to talking or slammed the door in his face, he didn’t have a Plan B. He would have to go away and decide whether he dared share with anyone the idea that had leapt unbidden into his mind. It was a credible idea, it made his spine tingle just like the comparison between nineteenth-century historians and Sherlock Holmes that had become the springboard for the book and then his television series. But as Hannah Scarlett said, there was a world of difference between academic theorising and building a case on the granite of evidence.
‘You must excuse me,’ Tash said. ‘I’ve forgotten my manners. What are you doing out on the doorstep? Come in for a few minutes. The nurse will be a while yet.’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this,’ he said, following her along the hallway. Their footsteps echoed on the floorboards. ‘It must be very difficult for you.’
‘It’s outside my experience,’ she said, not looking over her shoulder. ‘The man I love is dying and I’m being
