by Val McDermid
‘Yeah, OK. Can I use your computer?’
Jane pondered for a second or two then nodded agreement. ‘But you have to go home tonight. I don’t want you holing up here indefinitely. Promise?’
Tenille had made a pretence of sulkiness, but she’d promised. She would check out the flat later and, if Geno was there, she’d simply come back to Jane’s. She had the key, and knowing Jane was gone, she had the freedom to treat the place as her own for a fortnight. One way or another, things would be sorted out by then, she told herself. No matter what Jane thought, she had no conviction that the Hammer would deal with Geno. He wasn’t the sort to take orders from any woman, never mind a middle-class white one.
Tenille waited patiently while Jane packed a bag with clothes and books, then as soon as she left, she headed into the study. She sat down and her finger hovered over the power switch. She felt too weird and too wired to go online. She’d taught herself over the past few years to think of herself as alone in the world, a single particle spinning through the constellations of other people’s lives. Since her mum had died, she hadn’t allowed herself to feel like she belonged anywhere. Sharon didn’t want her, she knew that. Her aunt was acting out of obligation, not love. Without her mum, Tenille was disconnected from the world, unstrung and free. She’d tried to make herself believe that was the best way to be, and mostly she succeeded. When first she’d been told that the Hammer was her real father, that self-contained part of herself had not wanted to believe it. She couldn’t have put words round it at the time, but it was something to do with not wanting that kind of connection with anyone because to be connected was somehow to render herself vulnerable.
What had made her feel almost comfortable with the idea was the recognition that, even if he was her father, the Hammer wanted nothing to do with her. He had never acknowledged her existence, far less any relationship between them. He had never done any of the things that even the most hopeless of absent fathers occasionally managed. Never turned up on Christmas Eve with an armful of badly wrapped, expensive but inappropriate presents. Never slipped in to the back row of a school nativity play. Never taken her to a movie or McDonald’s. The long and short of it was that he’d never shown the slightest interest in her.
And that made it all the more unlikely that he’d do anything to defend her from Geno. After all, what would it say about him if he did? It would be as good as shouting from the top of D Block that she was his daughter. He might suddenly decide he wanted to start doing the rest of the things that a father was supposed to do, like making sure she went to school and all that shit. Tenille really didn’t think she wanted that pressure in her life.
On the other hand, she sure as hell didn’t want Geno in her life either. And if the Hammer didn’t do something about it, she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage that. It wasn’t like she knew anybody who would weigh in against Geno, and she couldn’t afford to hire any of the local thugs to sort him out. She swore under her breath and turned on the computer, determined not to think any more about it.
I set this down as it was told to me, in the words of my friend:
I had sailed with Lieutenant Bligh before I signed on the Bounty and found him a man whose moods were impossible to predict. When all was going well with the voyage, he would be charm itself. I had reason to know this more than most, for on that first voyage he kept me close, often inviting me to dine with him in his cabin. But if anything chanced to go wrong on board ship, he was choleric and intemperate, always seeking around to cast the blame on another. Never was any occasion of blame laid at his own door. He was also jealous of his position, demanding as of right that respect which a captain needs must earn. Bligh squandered his opportunities to command the good opinion of the men by reason of his vitriol. Sailors are not known for their nicety of expression, but even below decks in the most vile conditions I have never heard language so foul as Bligh would pour out in his expressions of scorn and rage. But he was a fine navigator, and I knew that I could learn much at his side, and so I was willing to forgo my misgivings & to accompany him again, most particularly on such a long voyage.
10
The air even tasted different, Jane thought as she swung down the platform at Oxenholme. She caught sight of her father near the exit and waved cheerily. Allan Gresham raised his hand slightly in response, the small gesture of a modest man more at home on the fell with his Herdwick sheep than he would ever be where people congregated.
Jane dropped her bag and threw her arms around him, brushing a kiss against his rough cheek. ‘Thanks for coming, Dad,’ she said.
‘You can’t rely on the buses,’ he said, picking up her bag with a surprised grunt as he felt the weight. ‘What’ve you got in here? Gold bricks?’
‘I wish. It’s books, papers. A few clothes.’ Jane fell into step beside him as they made for his Land Rover in the car park.
Once they were clear of the station lights and their faces were obscured by early evening darkness, Allan cleared his throat. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?’
‘Why would I be in trouble?’ Jane’s voice betrayed astonishment.
Allan hefted her bag into the back of the Land Rover and gave a helpless shrug, hands spread at his sides. ‘I don’t know. It’s just…It’s the middle of term. You’ve got a job to do. Students to teach. I didn’t think you could up sticks with no warning.’
‘I haven’t, Dad. This is official. Study leave. Something’s come up that I need to pursue right away, and my boss has given me a couple of weeks off.’
They climbed aboard and Allan started the engine. He raised his voice to be heard above the rhythmic grunt of the diesel. ‘I thought you did dead poets? How can that be urgent?’
‘It’s the body in the bog, Dad,’ Jane said.
He chuckled. ‘Fletcher Christian, eh? I wondered how long it would take you to convince yourself this was your man.’
‘It might not be him,’ Jane protested. ‘I never said it was. And chances are it’s got nothing to do with him or the Bounty. But it’s given me a peg to hang my theory on, and that’s good enough to buy me some time to look properly into something I turned up last summer.’
‘You’ve always had a talent for persuasion,’ Allan said, resigned echoes of old conflicts in his tone. ‘So if this is your man, how did he end up dead in a Cumberland bog?’
‘I haven’t a clue. And to be honest, that’s what interests me least. I’ll leave that to the historians.’
Her father nodded. ‘Any road, I’m glad there’s no trouble.’ He snatched a quick sidelong glance at her. ‘We cannot help worrying about you, all the way down there.’
It was, she knew, a coded way of asking about Jake. The familiar familial habit of talking about things without actually mentioning them. ‘I’m all right, Dad. What can’t be cured maun be endured. And I’m good at enduring.’
‘Some folks can’t tell the difference between sugar and shite, right enough.’ They fell silent, an easy quiet broken only by the swish of the wipers on the windscreen.
‘How’s Gabriel?’ Jane asked as they turned off for Fellhead.
‘He’s grand,’ her father said proudly. ‘A big strong babby. Started crawling. Your mother said to Diane, “Now your life’s really over.”’ He chuckled. ‘I mind when you got going. You would set your heart on getting somewhere and nothing would stop you. Funny, you were that different from Matthew. He was into everything. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. But he never had that single-minded determination you had, even when you were tiny. So I reckon we’ll get a taste of what Gabriel’s going to be like now he’s off.’
Jane knew the story. It was one of many that always made Matthew scowl. ‘It’ll be nice to see Gabriel. They change so quickly when they’re that small. Does he still look like Granddad Trevithick?’
‘Aye. Your mother says it’s only because he’s bald and round in the face, but I reckon she’s only saying that to keep Diane’s mum happy. She reckons h
e looks like her brother at the same age. He’ll end up looking like himself, whatever.’
‘I wonder if he’ll get the Gresham curls?’ She reached over and rumpled her father’s thick hair.
‘He won’t thank us if he does. It’s all right for lasses, but us lads don’t like looking as if we’ve spent all day at the hairdressers.’
Jane peered out of the window as they reached the outskirts of the village. Every cottage was imprinted on her memory. She could have picked any of them out of an identity parade. Most were picture perfect, but there was always the odd one whose owner either didn’t care or couldn’t afford to keep it in good repair. Locals dreaded the death of those inhabitants more than any other because the houses always went to outsiders who were taken with the romance of having a holiday cottage in the Lakes and loved the idea of a bargain they could remake in their own images. Their wallets had pushed even semi-derelict properties out of the reach of most of those who had to subsist on Lakeland wages. Jane’s heart sank at the sight of a new For Sale sign. ‘What happened to Miss Forsyth?’ she asked.
‘She had another stroke. Couldn’t manage the house any more so she’s gone into a home in Keswick,’ her father said succinctly as he swung the Land Rover into the narrow lane that led up to their farmhouse on the edge of the village.
‘So I suppose that’ll be another holiday cottage,’ Jane sighed. In the short span of her life, she’d seen almost a third of the homes in the village change hands from families who could track their ancestors back hundreds of years to incomers who did their shopping in distant supermarkets and had no interest in village life except as a curiosity pickled in aspic.
‘I don’t think anybody round here’s got the money for it,’ Allan agreed. ‘Mind, the house by the Post Office, the couple that bought that live here year round. She does something with computers and he publishes a magazine for ramblers.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t feel like proper jobs to me, but at least they’re not just weekenders.’
Allan pulled off into the gateway leading into their yard and parked by the lambing shed. The low farmhouse seemed to crouch against the hillside, its weathered stone blending seamlessly into the landscape. Buttery yellow light spilled out of the kitchen windows, their outline blurred in the heavy drizzle. They hurried through the rain to the back door, shaking themselves like dogs when they were inside the flagged hallway. The glorious aroma of lamb combined with rosemary and garlic wafted round them in a welcoming miasma.
Judy Gresham appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘Jane,’ she exclaimed, satisfaction written on her face. In spite of the hard life of a hill farmer’s wife, Judy wore her years lightly. She looked more like a woman in her forties than her mid-fifties, her dark brown hair as thick and luxuriant as it had been when Jane had loved to wind it round her fingers as a child. Jane relished the look of surprise on the faces of university friends she’d brought back here when they met her mother. Her father was exactly what they expected–weather-beaten face, stocky frame dressed in overalls over jeans and plaid shirts. But her mother confounded them. Instead of an apple-cheeked woman in pleated skirt and apron stirring jam for the WI stall to the tune of ‘Jerusalem’, they were confronted with a slender, well-kempt woman in jeans and stylish shirts, never seen in public without make-up, earrings and nail varnish. The features in her oval face were small and neat; Jane wished she’d inherited those rather than her father’s deep-set eyes, wide cheekbones and very definite nose. Beside her mother, Jane always felt a big and frumpish disappointment. That was her projection, however; Judy had never indicated by word or look that she was anything other than delighted in her daughter’s appearance.
Now she folded Jane in a tight embrace then held her at arms’ length for a critical scrutiny. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ she said. ‘It feels like ages since you were home.’
‘It’s only been a few weeks, Mum,’ Jane protested.
‘Months, more like.’ Her mother turned into the kitchen, confident daughter and husband would follow. The scrubbed pine table where the family had eaten countless meals was laid for dinner, water glasses gleaming in the soft light. ‘Perfect timing,’ Judy continued. ‘The joint’s just ready. Sit yourselves down.’
Five minutes in the house and London felt like a foreign country, Jane thought as she watched her mother pile roast potatoes and parsnips round the thick slices of lamb. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, this was where she belonged. This was where she felt most alive. Impossible to imagine that only that morning she’d been confronting a London gangsta in his own living room. If she told her parents, their mouths would fall open in shock, their eyes agleam with concern and incomprehension. And they’d be right, she thought, reaching for the plate and setting it down in front of herself.
A couple of melting mouthfuls into the lamb, Jane heard the back door open. ‘Only me,’ her brother’s voice called from the hall through the rustle of an outdoor jacket being removed.
Judy looked faintly guilty. ‘Matthew, what a lovely surprise,’ she said as her son walked in, pushing damp curls away from his forehead.
Matthew Gresham took in the scene and gave a bitter little smile. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘I brought that magazine Diane said you wanted,’ he said to Judy, tossing a rolled-up copy of a gardening monthly on the table as he dragged a chair back and plonked himself down like a sulky child. Jane watched it uncurl, waiting for the other shoe to drop. ‘What are you doing home in the middle of the week in the middle of term?’ he said, his voice deceptively pleasant. ‘You blotted your copybook, Sis?’
‘Study leave,’ Jane said. ‘It’s good to see you, Matthew,’ she added, trying to appear pleasant.
‘All right for some,’ Matthew said. He sniffed the air. ‘Nice bit of lamb. You been slaughtering, Dad? I’ll look forward to something more exciting than pasta arrabbiata for Sunday lunch.’
Judy’s lips tightened but she said nothing. Jane wondered how differently her brother might have turned out if her mother hadn’t been so willing to let him rule the roost as a child.
‘Your mother makes very good pasta,’ her father said. ‘You can’t beat home-made tagliatelle. And it takes a lot more time to prepare than a joint. Which you’d know if you ever turned a hand in the kitchen.’
Matthew flicked his eyebrows upwards. ‘So what’s this study leave all about, then? Time out to mend a broken heart?’
Jane shook her head, a rictus smile plastered on her face. ‘I see the charm and diplomacy is still a work in progress. No, Matthew, this is nothing to do with Jake. There’s some documentation I need to look for up here and my professor agrees with me that I need to do it sooner rather than later.’
‘Documentation you need to look for? You’re not still banging on about Wordsworth’s lost masterpiece?’ Matthew stretched across and picked a fragment of lamb from the serving plate, popping it into his mouth with a murmur of appreciation. Then suddenly he snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, I get it. You’ve convinced your gullible boss that the body in the bog is–ta da!–none other than Fletcher Christian.’ His face soured again. ‘God, you’ve got it so easy down there. Fancy a few days in the Lakes with a bit of home cooking? I know, come up with some daft notion and sweet-talk the world into dancing to your tune.’
‘Give it a rest, Matthew,’ Allan said. ‘Your sister’s not in the door five minutes.’
‘And it’s not as if you’ve got much to complain about,’ Judy said brightly. ‘A beautiful baby boy, a lovely wife and a good job. There’s millions would be happy with your lot.’
‘So is that it, Jane?’ Matthew continued relentlessly, ignoring his mother. ‘You’re going to waltz back in here and find Willie’s epic on the Bounty and make your fortune?’
Jane swallowed her half-chewed mouthful and glared at her brother. ‘I’m pursuing a line of research. But if I do find anything, it won’t be me getting rich, it’ll be Wordsworth’s heirs. Or whoever has title
to whatever it is I find.’
Matthew looked scornful. ‘Let’s not be naïve here, Sis. OK, you’re the only person in the world who believes in the magic manuscript. But if you do find it, it’ll be the making of you. A brilliant career, all off the back of the Lakes.’
‘And how do you think people would make a living round here if it wasn’t for heritage tourism?’ Jane countered. ‘There’s other parts of England just as beautiful, but they don’t have anything like the tourist income we have. The history of literary connections with the Lake District is one of the main reasons people come here. Whether it’s Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter, Ruskin or Arthur Ransome. Their legacy has given back much more than they ever took out of the area.’
‘But this? This won’t be something that generates money and jobs in the tourism industry, will it? This is not going to help create jobs for the kids I teach and their families. It’ll be a handful of outsiders getting rich.’ He shook his head. ‘I never thought you’d be one of the ones treating this place like a cash cow.’
