by Ann Cleeves
At first she encouraged the opposition. She spread rumours that her husband had come under the evil influence of Neville Furness and Olivia Fulwell. She thought that if the public inquiry came out against the quarry everything could continue as before. She wound up her old friend Edmund Fulwell about the project. He was an easy target. She played on his love of his ancestral estate and he played on Grace’s affection for him to rig her otter counts.
“She put pressure on Bella too. The three of them kept in touch. Bella was in a difficult position. The farm was verging on bankruptcy. She’d hoped to get money from her brother to save it but that never materialized. Her only hope was to do a deal with the development company over access to the site. She wouldn’t have liked the idea but it would have been better than losing the farm. She arranged for Peter Kemp to come to Black Law to discuss possible ways forward.”
“Someone else was there that afternoon,” Rachael said. “Dougie heard someone.” “Barbara. Godfrey had told her what was going on and she came to turn the screw. Blackmail. She knew what had happened when Bella’s father had died, knew it had all been planned. That had come out at one of the group therapy sessions. She threatened to make the whole thing public. Bella was under so much pressure that she couldn’t see straight. She told Peter she couldn’t make a deal and she committed suicide.
“For a while it looked as if Barbara was safe. She thought the report would come out in her favour. After all, she’d become chummy with Anne and had indirectly nobbled Grace. Then she heard from Edmund that Grace was having cold feet. She was talking about seeing a shrink or a social worker. She couldn’t face lying any more. She knew it was making her ill. I’m not sure yet if Barbara planned to kill Grace to stop her telling the truth about the otters. She says not. She says she went to the engine room as she did on Friday night to try to move the remains of the little boy’s body and Grace surprised her.
“When he first heard about his daughter’s death Edmund was too shocked to work out what might have happened. He stayed at his flat, carried on helping in the restaurant. Then I think he probably remembered a story Barbara had told to the group, a story nobody believed because she was mad at the time and full of fantasies. This one was about a boy she had found on the hill. A boy she’d taken for her own. Her baby.
“He panicked. It had always been his style to run away. He went into hiding. First with Nancy Deakin and then in the house on the estate.
How did Barbara know he was there? A guess perhaps. He’d probably told her that he’d lived in one of those houses before he got married.
“The phone number and the back door key she got from Neville. Not directly … ” as Rachael was about to object. “She had access to the Slateburn offices through her husband and I think she regularly went through both their desks looking for anything which would help in her fight against the quarry. She phoned Edmund to check that he was there. And to frighten him. She knew him well enough to realize that if he was scared he’d probably start drinking. On the afternoon of the birthday party when the estate was overrun with strangers she let herself into the house. Edmund had already drunk himself into oblivion. It was easy enough.”
Rachael stretched her hands towards the fire. “Did Barbara ram my car on the track that night?”
“Oh, yes. She was desperate. She was trying to frighten you away.” Vera paused, pulled a face. “And one of our people stopped her. Can you believe it? She told him she was visiting her sick mother and he was taken in. The fight to stop the quarry was an obsession. Perhaps she was just trying to save herself but I think it was more than that.
She saw it as a desecration of the little boy’s grave.” Vera sighed, leant back, took a deep draught of wine. Ashworth shuffled restlessly. He’d heard all this before and he had his lass to get back to and a warm bed, and at last the baby had started to sleep through the night.
Anne asked suddenly, “What’ll happen to the quarry now?” Vera shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought Godfrey would have much stomach for it. But you’ll have to talk to him about that.”
She left the three women talking about it, so engrossed that they hardly noticed her leaving.
Ashworth drove carefully up the track and through the ford towards the forest.
Table of Contents
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE Vera
