A Good Heart is Hard to Find

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘You made it up?’ he frowned. ‘But I bought a booklet about it from that general shop this morning. Emlyn’s, is it? All about the history of the well, going back centuries!’

  ‘Oh, Cass wrote that.’

  ‘I thought it seemed a bit over-imaginative.’

  ‘So, aren’t you afraid of all the ghosts, up there in your lonely old house?’ asked Jane sweetly, having another go. She’d been looking a bit miffed at his lack of interest, but perhaps the fact that he’d been equally brusque to me, too, had encouraged her. ‘Or – sorry, is there a Mrs Chase?’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly, scowling at me like I’d asked the nosy questions. ‘I’m a widower. And I don’t believe in that sort of supernatural rubbish, so I might have to take a leaf out of Cass’s book, and create an apparition or two to please my sister’s visitors.’

  ‘It wasn’t an apparition, just a haunted well,’ I said. ‘And our motives were pure.’

  ‘Yes, my husband had just left me, and I was desperate for money!’ Orla agreed. ‘Since then, of course, I’ve started doing B&Bs, and the singing telegrams, so I’m managing fine; but the Haunted Well is a permanent fixture.’

  ‘You mean, you just made a well in your garden and people come and throw money down it?’ demanded Jane, round-eyed.

  ‘Oh, there was an old well there, but it was covered over,’ Jason said. ‘We got some stones from an old garden wall and made it look a bit more interesting, then erected an information board, and off it went.’

  ‘Why didn’t you put it in your garden?’ Jane asked me. ‘You never have enough money either.’

  ‘I get the proceeds from the little booklet,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t have a well to start with.’

  ‘If you need the money, I told Orla just before you got here that I’d like to hire you for a couple of appearances over Easter weekend, when Rosetta intends to open for business … night-time ones,’ Dante told me, looking deadly serious.

  Mind you, with that face it must be hard to look any other way. I’d rate his chances of being voted Mr Congeniality at nil.

  ‘What, Crypt-ograms?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘No. No singing, no vampire teeth, just flitting around looking scary in the rose garden at night – and maybe the Long Gallery,’ he added, raising one eyebrow at me.

  ‘No way,’ I said hotly, rising to the bait. ‘I don’t do flitting, and if you have any idea that I’m going to run along the gallery at midnight, stark naked like poor blind Betsy …’

  I watched, fascinated, as his eyes filled with amusement, and one corner of his long mouth twitched upwards. ‘Kind of you to offer – and I certainly wouldn’t have any objections.’

  ‘You could make a couple of appearances,’ Orla said helpfully. ‘At the usual rate, of course … plus extra for unsociable hours.’

  ‘Orla! There’s no way I’m streaking down the corridors at midnight!’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that, just that you could—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh well,’ she said resignedly, recognizing that tone.

  ‘You know I’m only doing the Crypt-ograms until you find some other acts instead.’

  ‘Yes, and Cass knows I’m always willing to look after her when she’s doing them,’ Jason said jealously, exchanging a measuring look with Dante. ‘She only has to ask.’

  ‘Thank you, Jason,’ I said. ‘I can look after myself.’

  Jane, I could tell, was piqued by the lack of masculine attention, although she remained smiling serenely, our own little Buddha of Suburbia.

  Dante seemed singularly impervious even when she did the sort of fluttery eyelash stuff at him that I was not only incapable of, but would get me certified if I tried.

  ‘So you and your sister are going to run the weekend breaks thing together?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I’ll be there if Rosetta needs me, but running it will be her concern. I’ll be living and working in the west wing, mostly.’

  ‘What do you do?’ she persisted.

  ‘I’ve been travelling round the States for a year, making notes for a book I’ve been commissioned to write: sort of an autobiography. I used to be a foreign correspondent for a newspaper,’ he added tersely.

  ‘Oh?’ Clearly Jane had even less idea than me about the hostage-taking episode, but from Jason’s face it had all suddenly clicked.

  ‘Have you read any of Cass’s books?’ Jane asked.

  ‘No, I’ve managed to resist their dubious charms so far.’

  I scowled at him and he raised one black brow: ‘I’ve just ordered your backlist off the internet in case an acute need for a prolonged period of bad taste comes over me. It only surprises me that you write that sort of stuff yet you’re too scared to come back to the Hall and brave the ghosts. I thought you told me you didn’t believe in that sort of thing?’

  ‘No, I said I knew they couldn’t hurt me. And I’m not afraid, even though I know there are things out there, either echoes of the past, or maybe the dark things from our own minds.’

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ Jane shuddered theatrically. ‘I know none of them exist, but it still frightens me.’

  ‘That’s how most people feel, or say they feel, Jane,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s why horror sells so well.’

  ‘When you thought I was a ghost you took to your heels fast enough,’ Dante said to me.

  ‘You thought I was one, too!’ I snapped, glaring at him. ‘And you’re supposed to be the sceptic, not me!’

  ‘When was this?’ Jane said curiously, looking from one of us to the other.

  Jason, glowering suspiciously, said: ‘Yes, when did all this nocturnal activity take place? You didn’t say you knew each other that well.’

  ‘We don’t! I told you we only met the other night, ghost-hunting,’ I said defensively, then blushed hotly. Considering how pale-skinned I am I might as well have raised a red flag.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t wander about in the middle of the night like that,’ Jason grumbled, looking from me to Dante narrowly. ‘Who knows what might happen to you?’

  Who, indeed?

  ‘You make a habit of it?’ enquired Dante.

  ‘Oh, everyone knows Cass walks about the graveyard and Hanged Man Lane at night for inspiration. She will do it,’ Orla said, and gave me a sideways look that meant: I know you’re holding out on me with some vital information, friend of mine.

  ‘Cass won’t be doing that this Friday, though, because her mind will be on other things!’ Jane said sweetly, and smiled generally round at everyone. ‘Max – do you all know Max, Cassy’s lover? – well, he’s coming to see her.’

  Jason looked gloomy. ‘I suppose he’s returning for good before long?’

  ‘When his sabbatical year ends in July,’ I agreed uncomfortably. ‘He’s just coming over to see me for a couple of hours tomorrow, after the funeral.’

  ‘The funeral?’ asked Dante, frowning at me darkly like Thor about to toss the hammer.

  ‘His wife died recently, in America. He’s bringing her back.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, then rose abruptly to his feet leaving half his drink untouched. ‘I’ll have to go, I’m meeting my sister at the station. But I’ll try to bring her in to meet you all soon, if you’re here?’

  ‘Some of us will be here,’ Orla assured him, with her special smile. ‘We meet here most evenings … unless something better offers?’

  Good old Orla, always willing to give it a go.

  ‘And if you want any advice about the B&B business—’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and with a brief arrow-head smile, strode off.

  Orla sighed after him. ‘He’s so gorgeous, but he only seems interested in Cass’s possibilities.’

  ‘Her haunting possibilities,’ Jane amended. ‘I’m sure he’s not interested in her personally. Maybe he’s gay.’

  I don’t think so, Jane.

  ‘He’s not,’ Orla said definitely. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Just a thought. So what’
s he running a guesthouse for? Does he need the money?’

  ‘No, but I think his sister’s been in hotel management and she thought the idea up. Luckily the Hall is pretty well ready to take visitors now, because Miss Kedge had it all modernized over the years, so it’s in good order.’

  ‘Yes, though hiring big outside firms to do the work didn’t endear her to the local tradesmen,’ I agreed. ‘It was all pretty well kept up until she died, too. There can’t be much to put right.’

  Except the odd broken window-catch in a walk-in cupboard …

  ‘Why won’t you do his ghost act for him?’ Orla asked me. ‘I would, and it will be easy money compared to the Crypt-ograms.’

  ‘You look too healthy to be a ghost. And I’m not going to mock the spirits in person, only in my books,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I think Cass’s quite right,’ agreed Jason, who’d gone into a gloomy trance over his beer mug. ‘She should avoid the Hall entirely. I didn’t like the way Dante spoke to her, as though he only had to offer money and she’d come running.’

  Actually, the way he’d spoken to me absolutely slayed me.

  ‘And he came out of that hostage situation half-starved and half-mad,’ Jason said. ‘I’ve remembered all about it now. He looks unbalanced to me, Cass: you’d better avoid him, especially when you’re on your own.’

  ‘Which hostage situation?’ Jane wailed plaintively.

  Later that night, refreshed by a jolly good blood-letting, I decided to try my hand at a haiku before retiring to my blameless bed:

  Spring flushes out new life.

  How green the frogs that gaily leap

  into the white bowl.

  And that was my best shot.

  Writing them was much more difficult than I’d expected, and I now realized that every three-line poem is not automatically a haiku.

  I wasn’t going to give Jane any credit, though. She just naturally has a brain that takes a perceived view and turns it on its head in seventeen concise syllables.

  She does much the same with gossip.

  Doesn’t syllable sound like something delicious made with sugar and cream?

  … Keturah smiled like a fanged angel. ‘But I am not the innocent, trusting creature you left behind you, Sylvanus,’ she said softly. ‘Look again!’

  My personal fanged angel woke me up at some gruesome hour of the morning from a brief and inadequate slumber in order for me to drive her to the train, but she wasn’t smiling, especially when she discovered that she had to pour mug after mug of strong coffee down me before I could even hoist my eyelids more than halfway.

  As the sky grew slowly lighter beyond the kitchen window she got impatient. ‘Come on, Cassy!’ she said at last, twitching the curtains aside to peer out. ‘I’m going to miss the—’

  She stopped and gasped: ‘Cass, there’s a disgusting old van parked right next to your car at the bottom of the garden, all painted up with big daisies like one of those New Age Traveller things! Before you know it, the whole lane will be jammed with them – hordes of noisy children, dogs, loud music, rubbish, crap behind every hedge …’

  Yawning, I got up and looked blearily over her shoulder. ‘Don’t panic, it’s only Eddie.’

  ‘Eddie?’ she said blankly.

  ‘Your youngest brother, remember?’

  ‘You mean my brother actually lives in that – that heap?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t you know?’

  ‘No, I thought he was living in some sort of commune. I haven’t seen him for ages, because last time he stayed Gerald found him stark naked at dawn in the garden, playing his flute, and he won’t have him any more. The neighbours all complained.’

  ‘He still does that, winter or summer. He must be much tougher than he looks – or perhaps the demon weed makes you impervious.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s grown out of doing it now,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘What, the nude flute playing, or the weed?’

  ‘Both.’

  The van looked deserted as we made our way down the path towards the car, but at the rumbling of Jane’s suitcase wheels Eddie stuck his head of flaxen dreadlocks and naked shoulders out of the window and said cheerily: ‘Hi, Cass! Hi Sister Immaculata! Long time, no see. Did you get your Christmas present?’

  ‘If you mean a bundle of twigs with knitting wool wrapped round it, then yes,’ she said icily. ‘Excuse us: I’ve got a train to catch.’

  She edged past and wedged her suitcase into the car with some difficulty.

  ‘Eddie, I’m just taking Jane to catch a train to Cornwall, but I won’t be long. You know where the key is – help yourself to anything you want. See you later.’

  I drove off, the corner of Jane’s suitcase sharply nudging my back through the seat, and Jane’s disparaging commentary about Eddie and his mode of life buzzing around me.

  At least Mrs Bridges enjoyed a naked Eddie in my garden. She said he was a lovely boy, and if he wanted to mend her washer taps next time in the rude nude, she’d no objections.

  Were it not for Mr Fowkes, I expected Chrissie would say the same.

  While Jane and the Giant Suitcase pursued the road less well travelled to a destination that might not be quite what she was imagining, her car remained parked on the verge at the front of the cottage, solid metal proof that she is in residence, should anyone care to come and do a visual check.

  She had dispatched two long missives to Gerald and the parents giving the Gospel according to St Jane, so I expected they would swallow it down like they usually did, and Gerald at least would be beating a penitent path to my door before we knew where we were.

  If she was still away exploring Clint’s possibilities I was instructed to say that Jane was deeply hurt, stressed and incommunicado, but was just as likely to impart the information that she was deeply warped, selfish and a plausible liar.

  I told Eddie all about it when I got back from the station, but he just smiled vaguely and then wandered off down the garden to his van in a cloud of wonderweed.

  Eddie is well-meaning but not terribly bright (traits he shares with Jamie), so you never know whether he has taken in what you are saying. His eyes don’t register anything: the lights are on but there’s nobody home. He beams a lot though, having a happy and uncomplicated nature, and he is strangely practical and good with his hands.

  I wondered if he was inhabiting a parallel universe, and so only appeared to us on those brief occasions when there was a kink in the vortex of time?

  He did wander back in later, to watch the video I’d recorded about rock climbing. Not that I’m interested in that sort of thing, but it was pretty gripping watching my brother Francis swing under a mountain ledge like an insecurely attached spider.

  We already knew he’d survived the experience, because he was currently up in his little Scottish climbing shop regaling his customers with the tale.

  Eddie laughed whenever it looked like Francis might lose his grip as though he was watching a cartoon, which was disconcerting; but he does love us all, even Jane, in his way.

  And he’d found time to change the leaky washer on the bath tap and mend a wonky kitchen chair while I was out.

  Later, I discovered some folded papers in the side pocket of my bag: the printouts of articles about Dante.

  Orla must have pushed them in there at the pub, then forgotten to tell me.

  FIVE MISSING AFTER COLOMBIAN HOSTAGE RAID. Five men, including British journalist Dante Chase (on right in photograph), American TV cameraman Paul Vance (left), and three German agricultural advisers, were kidnapped yesterday while travelling to Bogota in the same vehicle.

  It is feared left-wing guerrilla group FARC are responsible …

  The photo of Dante showed a younger, less gaunt version of the man I’d met, leaning against a car in the middle of what looked like a desert. The one taken on his release showed a hollow-eyed, thin man with a haunted expression and hair even longer and shaggier than it was now – plus rather Che Guevara facial ha
ir.

  BRITON FREED IN COLOMBIAN HOSTAGE RAID SHOOT-OUT. Hundreds of soldiers yesterday took part in a raid on a former FARC safe haven, after the lack of progress towards peace talks …

  There were several articles, but most repeated the same facts: Dante and Paul had accepted a lift from the German agricultural advisers, who were there to encourage the growing of crops other than those for the lucrative cocaine and heroin trade. The left-wing guerrilla group, FARC, who derived a considerable income from drug production, promptly kidnapped them, and the other two men with them.

  From what I read, someone gets kidnapped and held to ransom by FARC practically every day there. Dante and Paul were just unlucky – in the wrong place at the wrong time – and Paul was doubly unlucky because he was killed, along with three soldiers and one of the Germans, in the raid.

  WIFE OF BRITISH HOSTAGE IN COLOMBIA DIES AFTER TV APPEAL FOR HIS RELEASE.

  A fuzzy picture of a pretty, dark-haired woman: Dante’s wife, Emma. So far as I could tell she didn’t look a bit like me, which was somehow a relief. After that, the last hostage story was a short piece in a Sunday paper written by Dante himself, giving a brief description of the conditions they were held in, and a glowing tribute to the two hostages who had been killed. The paper disclosed that he had received an advance to write his autobiography, and it would be serialized before publication.

  I thought that was it, but there was one more sheet with two small news items about Dante: in the first, police and an ambulance had apparently been called by neighbours after a fracas at his London flat. A Mrs Dufferin, the mother of his dead wife, was later released from hospital after being treated for a suspected heart attack.

  In the second Dante appeared to have been involved in a fight with his sister’s boyfriend, who seemed to have got the worst of it, although no charges were brought.

  That was it, the tantalizing bones of Dante’s past, already picked over in public and now on the internet, for anyone to see.

  I studied the before and after pictures for a while, but they didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.