It looked as if I’d been dropped like a hot potato. So much for his protestations that he still loved me!
I turned and started to climb the steep path towards the Lady Spring, where I stopped to drink a cup of water: my soul was in urgent need of a slight purge.
Chapter 16: Howling Hetty
When I got home, Judy said that Rufus had not only dropped off my new filing cabinets, but insisted on carrying them through to my studio. Then he’d told Debo and Judy where I was, which was something I’d been too distracted to think of.
After that, they invited him to stay and eat my portion of vichyssoise soup and hasty pudding, which Judy had made for lunch.
‘And never did I ever think I’d invite a child of Fliss Gambol’s to share a meal under my roof,’ Debo said. ‘But actually, he was quite nice, so I kept forgetting.’
‘So did I, while we were chatting over coffee in the Blue Dog. I think he’s had a tough time the last few months and it’s made him angry with everyone and everything, but underneath, he’s OK.’
‘And how was Kieran?’ asked Judy.
‘Awful! I don’t understand how he could have so quickly turned into such a clone of his father, but I think I had a lucky escape.’
I told them how he’d obviously thought that the mere sight of him would send me contritely rushing into his arms and agreeing to anything he wanted. ‘But then later he completely lost interest in me when he spotted Cara Ferris! It seems she was an old flame that never quite got extinguished and they were all over each other like treacle.’
‘That was a bit sudden,’ Judy commented.
‘It was, but then so was the way I fell right out of love with him,’ I said fairly – and then, right on cue, the man himself rang my mobile.
‘Kieran?’ I said, surprised.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said tersely, ‘and Cara’s just told me what really happened on the night of that accident you were involved in as a teenager.’
Of course she’d told him that I’d insisted on driving, which made it all my fault that Harry was killed and her modelling career prospects ended.
‘I’m sure that’s not how it happened,’ I protested, but my words fell on deaf ears, because he was already saying what a sweet, sensitive little soul she was and ordering me to stop harassing her.
‘Oh, shove off, you credulous pillock!’ I snapped, losing patience, and clicked off the connection.
‘Hear, hear!’ Debo said. ‘I take it that was the final disengagement?’
‘Permanently and irrevocably detached,’ I confirmed.
‘I’ll break out a bottle of elderflower champagne then, shall I, and we’ll drink to that?’ Judy suggested.
Lulu rang later and apologised for not warning me that Kieran was there and not twigging who he was.
‘Mum had taken the booking for the room, but then he didn’t arrive, and they thought he was a no-show. But apparently he turned up after I’d gone back to the caravan, so late that Bruce was locking the place up for the night.’
‘He should have warned me he was coming up – just as he should have let you know if he was going to arrive in the middle of the night. That was so inconsiderate.’
Mind you, in retrospect there had been so many occasions when he’d said he would meet me somewhere, or call me, and then hadn’t. At the time, seen through the rose-tinted spectacles of love, this had seemed an endearing, if slightly irritating, foible.
‘Two couples arrived earlier today for a Haunted Weekend, but the ones who came yesterday are Americans from Minnesota, and really fun,’ Lulu said. ‘They’ve gone off to see Rufford Hall and then Winter’s End, because I told them it was haunted by a seventeenth-century ghost called Alys.’
‘Good thinking. You might find a few more local ghostly goings-on for visitors’ days out, too.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought, so I’ll have to do a bit of research. I put the American couple in the Blue Room and they said they’d hardly slept a wink last night, because of the manifestations, so they were delighted. They were convinced it was Howling Hetty.’
‘But she doesn’t appear anywhere in the building, does she?’
‘No, not even in the public bar where her skull is.’
‘Well, it’s not my idea of fun, but I’m glad they’re enjoying themselves.’
‘I can understand why you fell for Kieran, now I’ve seen him,’ Lulu said, reverting to the original topic. ‘He’s very attractive to look at, even if his manners aren’t so pretty. He wasn’t exactly friendly when you introduced us, was he?’
‘No, in fact, he was quite abrupt and rude. You know, he seemed a totally different person until recently, so kind-hearted, generous and easy-going. Maybe he’s a human chameleon?’
Lulu sang a snatch of ‘Karma Chameleon’ and then giggled. ‘He was more like a human boa constrictor at breakfast! I think he ate enough to keep him going for at least three months. When he ordered extra sausages, he asked me if they were free range and I told him they were so free range they’d been running round the farm that very morning, humming the theme tune to “Born Free”.’
‘Did he give you his “you’re barking mad” look?’
‘Something like that,’ she admitted.
‘I’d talked about you often and said your family had the local pub, so he must have known who you were even before I introduced you … unless it didn’t register. I’ve come to suspect he never listened to a single word I ever said.’
‘I peeped in while you were having lunch and he didn’t look very happy, though you seemed to be enjoying the food.’
‘I certainly was. That brother of yours is such an inspired cook that even Kieran ranting at me couldn’t spoil it! But Kieran was too miffed that I hadn’t fallen straight into his arms to appreciate it and then I put the lid on things by telling him we were totally finished. But I could have saved my breath, because as soon as he clapped eyes on an old flame outside, he entirely forgot my existence. And you’ll never guess who the she was!’
‘I don’t have to, because I saw him come back into the hotel with Cara Ferris, of all people. Then they sat in the bar for ages canoodling, until finally I had to ask him to go and remove his luggage from his room so it could be cleaned for the next guests.’
‘I said he was inconsiderate.’
‘And rude, because he just tried to wave me away as if I was an irritating insect and said he’d do it later.’
‘I expect you sorted him out?’
‘Oh, yes, I told him if his bags were still there in fifteen minutes, I’d have to charge him for another night’s accommodation. And then someone shouted that there was a horse wandering round the beer garden, stealing sandwiches.’
‘I expect that broke up the necking party?’
‘It certainly did. Cara leaped up and dashed out, and he followed her. Then she must have ridden off, because he came back alone, paid his bill and left.’
‘I expect that’s the last we’ll ever see of him,’ I said, feeling quite happy about it. ‘He had the gall to ring me up later and order me not to harass poor, sensitive little Cara about the accident.’
‘Sensitive as old boots,’ Lulu said, then added, curiously, ‘How was your trip with Rufus?’
‘Surprisingly fun. For a start, we’ve both had traumatic events in our pasts that are still impacting on our lives, so we have that in common. Fliss sounded like the mother from hell even before she went public about who fathered him.’
‘Perhaps he’ll turn out to be more reasonable about the kennels and everything than you thought, then.’
‘Possibly, though he’s no pushover. But you’ll meet him properly tonight because I’ve invited him to Jonas’s ghost story session. He wanted to see Howling Hetty’s skull anyway. Is that OK?’
‘Of course. Cam says he’s recorded some sound effects and he’s bringing Jonas down early so he can set things up.’
‘Great. I think I’m walking down with Rufus – he said he’d give me a ring later
.’
‘Fast mover,’ Lulu commented admiringly.
‘Nothing like that,’ I protested. ‘I barely know the man. In fact, yesterday I was convinced I didn’t like him in the least.’
‘I know, I’m just teasing,’ she said. ‘Well, I’d better get back to it. See you later.’
After the ups and downs of the day, I found it hard to settle doing anything constructive, so I fetched Babybelle from her kennel and took her down to the lower pool, where she could bathe and I could sit on a mossy rock and contemplate life, the universe and everything.
It was peaceful, but today there were no guardian angel voices assuring me I was heading in the right direction. On the other hand, there was none telling me I was going wrong, either.
When I got home, Judy was spinning some of Belle’s washed and carded dog hair. She said she would knit me a jerkin, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to look like Babybelle’s skinny sister.
I met Rufus that evening just where the Sweetwell path joined with the narrower one leading down from the Lodge, and as we walked to the pub he asked me diffidently if my meeting with Kieran had been good.
I replied that it had been good in the sense that he’d accepted we were no longer an item. Then I told him about Cara turning up and how they seemed more than pleased to see each other.
‘Cara Ferris is the main witness to the accident, the girl in the back of the car, and I need to talk to her. But she hasn’t answered my phone messages and today she told me to clear off.’
‘Charming!’ he said. ‘I remember you telling me about her and that she’s married to the owner of that big estate on the other side of the hill.’
‘Grimside. Yes, she’s Lady Cripchet now. He’s a horrible little man more than twice her age and I’ve heard they don’t get on. But she was certainly getting on with Kieran when I left. The minute she appeared, he dropped me like a hot potato.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Not in the least. My pride might be slightly dented, but that’s about it.’
It was still early when we got to the Screaming Skull, so thankfully there was no Dan infesting the public bar. For all I knew he could be shacked up in London for the weekend with the unsuspecting Rufus’s mother.
Howling Hetty’s skull, snugly tucked away in its backlit alcove, was today wearing a straw Easter bonnet decked with flowers, foliage, tiny painted eggs and fluffy yellow chicks. I detected Lulu’s hand in the work.
Rufus silently contemplated the skull for some minutes. It was stained a dark reddish colour and was very shiny, probably from being first buried and then washed downstream.
‘It’s not a cheerful sight for a pub, apart from the Easter bonnet, is it?’ he said eventually.
‘Perhaps not, but it has to stay exactly where it is, because they tried moving it a couple of centuries ago and there were horrible consequences.’
‘That’s quite a heavy jawline,’ he observed critically. ‘She can’t have been any beauty.’
‘You know, I’ve often thought that myself! Come on – let’s go through to the hotel bar. Cam’s car was outside, so he and Jonas must already be here.’
I checked that Lulu didn’t need us to help, but she and Cameron seemed to have everything well in hand. I introduced Rufus to Cam and Jonas, and then we had a drink in the bar until Lulu stuck her head through the doorway and announced, thrillingly, that anyone who would like to have their veins turned to ice and their marrow curdled should go through into the residents’ lounge.
Clearly she’d missed her vocation and should have been writing horror novels, but I’d heard many of Jonas’s stories before so I knew the evening was likely to be scary.
‘That went well,’ Lulu said happily, once the lights had been switched back on and the petrified punters had all exited back to the bar for stiff drinks. ‘Jonas, you were brilliant and scared them rigid! If they don’t see any real ghosts tonight, at least they’ll all think they have.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ Jonas said. ‘And I’ll be happy to do it all over again whenever you like, on the same terms.’
When I’d introduced Rufus to Jonas and Cam, they’d both eyed him as if he might suddenly go all lord-of-the-manor on them. But they’d soon got over that and now he was helping Cam pack up the sound equipment he’d hidden in the lounge.
‘Great sound effects,’ Rufus said. ‘I knew it must be your doing, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up anyway, especially that bit where there was an icy wind blowing and a hand tapping at the window.’
‘And mine,’ I agreed.
‘I’ve recorded the whole session tonight, too,’ Cameron said, ‘because I think Granddad ought to make a proper book out of his ghost stories. I know he’s got lots more to tell.’
‘I have that,’ Jonas agreed. He’d accepted a whisky from Rufus, on top of all the Mossbrown Ale he’d already consumed, so he was now looking very merry.
I was sure he had lots more stories, too, though one of tonight’s had borne a suspiciously strong resemblance to Cathy’s haunting of Heathcliff in an old film of Wuthering Heights I’d seen.
‘Come on, Granddad, finish your drink and I’ll take you home,’ Cam urged him. ‘I promised Mum I’d have you back by half-past ten and she won’t go to bed until you’re in.’
‘Lot of fuss,’ Jonas said, but he must have been getting tired because he drained the last drops of whisky and left without further protest.
We helped Lulu finish tidying up the lounge and then, when she went off to lay the tables for breakfast, Rufus said he’d see me home.
We went out through the snug and the public bar, the quickest way to get to the path, though when I saw that Dan was now propping up the bar with his cronies, I wished we’d gone all the way round instead.
Catching sight of us, he said something in a low voice that made his friends snigger. I was positive I’d caught the name ‘Fliss’, though I hoped Rufus hadn’t.
But whether he had or not, he stopped dead and gave them a look that wiped the smiles from their faces and had them turning away, pretending there was something rivetingly interesting behind the bar (other than Hetty’s skull, which they were so well used to that I don’t suppose it even registered any more).
Rufus turned and strode out, and I followed him into the fresh, cleansing night air. Under the lights strung along the path, he looked tight-lipped.
‘Judy says Dan is all mouth and trousers,’ I said, offering vague comfort for the curiously nasty little scene. ‘He’s certainly stupid if he thinks he can get away with making sneering remarks to his own employer.’
‘We had a bit of a set-to earlier when I got back from Ormskirk and found him hanging round the courtyard – or trying to, because Foxy was sending him off with a flea in his ear.’
‘I told you he’s not liked locally, so she wouldn’t want him nosing about,’ I said.
‘Well, seeing he was there, I took the opportunity to tell him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to keep his job, then he needed to put his back into his work,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t too happy about that. In fact, he insinuated that he’d got off with my mother when she came down and that meant he had a free pass to do what he liked.’
‘Judy did say they seemed thick as thieves that time they came down to the Lodge together,’ I said cautiously.
‘He implied it was more than that and when he’d told her how I was treating him, she’d sort me out. I can’t think why he would imagine telling me he’d got friendly with my mother would give him a get-out-of-jail-free card, but I only hope phone numbers are all they’ve exchanged,’ he added darkly.
‘I know Dan puts it about, but she wouldn’t go for a man like him … would she? He’s horrible.’
‘She very well could,’ he said, then caught sight of my face as we passed the last of the garden lights and stopped dead, staring down at me. ‘You know something, don’t you? Out with it!’
Seeing nothing else for it, I confessed. ‘Lulu said on
e of the barmaids overheard Dan bragging that he’d been to stay for weekends with your mother in London. But it might not be true.’
‘I suspected as much – and trust Fliss to muddy the waters! But I made it clear she had no influence over me, so he’d better buckle down and get the gardens and grounds back into some kind of order. I’m not standing for slacking – or impertinence.’
He both looked and sounded rather scary and I was glad it wasn’t me his anger was directed at.
I followed Rufus through the beer garden towards the car park, where the path up to the Lady Spring started and, as always, it brought back painful memories.
‘This is the way I came on the night of the accident,’ I told him. ‘I usually walked home with Cameron, but I’d left early because my dog was elderly and not very well.’
‘Wasn’t it too dark to walk up the path alone?’ he asked.
‘No, it was still just about light enough to see where I was going and it’s a shortcut.’
‘I’m still surprised you dared, now I know about Howling Hetty.’
‘But she only haunts the drive – in that dip round the first bend, where the accident happened, actually.’
‘Let’s hope she stays there, then. After tonight, I think I need someone to hold my hand in the dark anywhere on the estate.’
‘I feel a bit like that myself, because Jonas gave me goosebumps,’ I confessed.
‘Come on then,’ he said gravely, holding out his hand, and when I put mine into it he enfolded it in a warm, strong grip.
‘There are no ghosts here, really, or only the ghosts of memories,’ I said. ‘Baz’s old red Range Rover was parked right over there. He kept it mostly for Harry to drive, but he’d promised him if he wasn’t caught for speeding or drink-driving again before his nineteenth birthday, he was going to get a sports car.’
‘So, you were passing and they were already there?’
‘Yes – and that scene’s haunted my dreams ever since. Cara Ferris was sitting in the back – she’s the daughter of the local husband-and-wife vet team, who have a clinic in the village, did I say? Simon Clew was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat with his legs out of the car and his head down, as if he might be sick. Of course I didn’t know then that Harry had spiked his drink.’
Creature Comforts Page 17
