Early on the morning after his visit to Grange, Daniel was pouring cornflakes into his bowl when he became aware of water dripping on to the breakfast bar. He glanced upwards and saw a patch of damp by the light fitting. Above was the new bathroom. Miranda was taking a shower and the seal had failed. One problem swifly followed another. Within hours, they suffered a power cut and a van delivered the wrong kitchen blinds. Miranda was in her element. She had a flair for domestic crises, Daniel discovered, making frantic phone calls to beg for help and threatening legal action against unreliable suppliers. His own coping strategy when all else failed was to seek refuge in a book. He’d acquired a paperback RSPB guide and could now almost tell the difference between a coot and a moorhen. He’d also started battling through Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a parting gift from Gwynfor Ellis. Not the lightest read, Gwynfor admitted, but highly appropriate. Thoreau too had tried to live the dream.
‘Any good?’ Miranda asked. She was on her way upstairs, carrying mugs of steaming tea for Eddie and Wayne. They both took so much sugar that it was a wonder either of them had any teeth left.
‘I’m picking up tips,’ he said. ‘Thoreau opted out of corporate America a century and a half ago and made his home in a log cabin in the backwoods of Massachusetts.’
‘A role model, then?’
‘Not exactly. He only stuck it for a couple of years.’
‘And after that?’
‘Back to the city. The simple life wasn’t quite as simple as he hoped.’
‘What happened?’
‘He tried to cook a fish for supper and ended up burning down three hundred acres of woodland. Some people called him the Sage of Walden. To the locals, he was the fool who set fire to the forest.’
He wanted to learn more about the murder, but the tradesmen came from Kendal or further afield and none seemed to know anything of the Gilpins or the history of the cottage. Even in this day and age, Brackdale kept itself to itself. People in the village spoke of Carlisle as though it were as distant as Cairo. Few tourists seemed aware of the valley’s existence, although one morning Daniel had to slam on his brakes as he turned out of Tarn Fold. A huge coach full of Japanese Beatrix Potter fans was executing a perilous about-turn between sharp-edged stone walls. The driver had not realised how badly he had lost his way until the lane leading to the quarry workings narrowed to such an extent that he found further progress impossible. There was only one way in to Brackdale, only one way out.
Daniel followed the coach all the way to the village. From the back window, two beaming teenagers waved at him. One wore a Peter Rabbit T-shirt. His girlfriend’s bosom was emblazoned with a picture of Jeremy Fisher. On either side of the lane, grey-fleeced sheep gazed down at the vehicles with yawning indifference. Daniel couldn’t identify with the Herdwicks’ utter lack of curiosity, but perhaps it helped to explain their gift for survival. And he’d also been told that when they were hungry, they ate their own wool to stay alive.
Touching his brake, he stole a glance across the valley, knowing that the scene was much as it had been a hundred years before. Two hundred, three hundred, more. Brackdale might once have witnessed a murder, but at least it had escaped the plague of foot and mouth that a few years earlier had left hundreds of burnt and blackened corpses on smoke-shrouded Lakeland hillsides.
He found a space to park by the church and bought a few provisions in Tasker’s, where an elderly man and the proprietor were sharing a moan about the labyrinthine complexities of the latest traffic scheme in Kendal. Shopping done, he headed to the baker’s on the other side of the square. Godfrey’s was fast becoming a favourite haunt. The smell of bread freshly baked on the premises was as enticing as the scones that accompanied an unexpectedly adventurous selection of coffees. He was becoming addicted to a blend from Helsinki that made it easy to understand why the Finns are supposed to consume more caffeine than anyone else in the world.
‘Hello again.’
He recognised the musky perfume at the same moment as he placed the voice, then looked up from the menu to find Dale Moffat smiling at him. She was kitted out in the regulation Godfrey white blouse and black skirt. On her curvy frame the uniform had an unexpected allure.
‘I didn’t know you worked here.’
‘I only started last week and it’s just part-time. A month’s probation to see whether I can satisfy Mr Godfrey.’
She gave him a cheeky wink and he laughed as he ordered. ‘I bet you will.’
‘So you’re settling in?’
‘Fine. I guess it takes years to feel that you’re part of a place.’
‘Decades, more like. I’m not even sure I feel I belong, and I was born a stone’s throw away. Trust me, Brackdale’s stuck in a time-warp. I live on my own, same as Leigh, but I have a boy and there aren’t too many single mums around here. Trouble is, I make waves, people think I’m dangerous to know. Most of the good folk of Brack don’t approve of me, never did, even when I was a skinny teenager. My skirt was always a bit shorter than all the other girls’.’ A candid grin. ‘Some things don’t change, eh? At least I give them something to talk about.’
She bustled off and he indulged in a little people-watching. He always chose the table in the front window if it were free, so that he could see the villagers come and go. This was so different from Miranda’s favourite café bar in Islington, where everyone in the streets outside was constantly rushing somewhere, too busy to take in the world around them. The pub door opened and Joe Dowling came out to water hanging baskets crammed with purple, white, and yellow pansies. He was wearing a bright blue sports shirt, tight trousers and mocassins of a sort that had been in vogue a couple of years ago. A fair-haired woman with a heavy shopping bag stopped to speak to him, but he gave a lascivious grin and said something that seemed to embarrass her. Cheeks flaming, she turned on her heel and scurried away across the square.
‘That’s Tom Allardyce’s wife.’ Dale was back with the coffee and scones. ‘She and her cousin are chalk and cheese. Joe’s as bad as her husband, in his way. And he’s got the dirtiest mind of any man I’ve ever met. Which is saying something.’ She sighed. ‘Poor woman, no wonder she looks like she has the cares of the world on her shoulders. She’d be better off getting out of here. She’s not bad-looking, she’d never be short of someone to share her bed when she was in the mood. I once made the mistake of telling her so to her face, but she looked at me as if I was mad. Or a trollop. Or both. Some women, they need a man in their lives, however mean he is to them.’
‘But not you?’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t mind having a man in my life every now and then. But on my terms, not his. I keep saying to my sister, there’s no point in spending your days waiting to find Mr Perfect. Even if he does come along, you can guarantee he’s not already spoken for.’
‘And what does Leigh say?’
Dale tossed her hair. ‘Oh she worries too much, does my big sister. God knows why, I’ve known her literally all my life and I’ve never understood what goes on inside her head. One thing’s for certain, she’s too fussed about doing The Right Thing. After we spoke to you in The Moon, she started fretting that she’d been unkind when she spoke about Tom Allardyce. They say he saw his best mate killed in front of his very eyes on the Shankill Road. I ask you, does that justify behaving like a brute?’
He said carefully, ‘So Marc Amos lives with this police officer, Hannah Scarlett. Can you tell me if she…’
‘I don’t know anything about Hannah,’ Dale interrupted. ‘I only ever met her the once, just after the murder and – well, it wasn’t a happy time.’
Her reticence was as disappointing as it was improbable and he wasn’t sure he believed her anyway. But he’d better move on; if he pressed her about his father’s sidekick, she might clam up altogether.
‘So what did you make of Barrie Gilpin?’
‘Same as with Allardyce. Barrie had problems, we all knew that, but some things you can’t excuse.’
&n
bsp; ‘Like murder?’
‘And being a Peeping Tom.’
‘Really?’
‘So the story went. There was talk about it after he died. Gossip. Don’t ask me for the details. And I can’t say that he ever peeped at me, though I don’t always remember to draw the curtains. Maybe I scared him, maybe the girl who was killed led him on. It wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘You knew Gabrielle Anders?’
‘She was staying at The Moon when I worked there as a cleaner. Oh yes, I could tell you a thing or two about her.’
‘I’m all ears.’
She treated him to a teasing grin. ‘Not just ears, I hope.’
‘What was she like?’
Someone coughed noisily. The stout and long-suffering Mrs Godfrey was standing behind the counter with her meaty arms folded. She was trying to direct Dale’s attention to an old lady at the next table, waiting patiently for the éclair she had asked for.
‘Just coming!’ Under her breath Dale added, ‘I knock off in half an hour. You can buy me a quick drink in The Moon if you like.’
As Lynsey, the prospective Mrs Dowling, served him with a second orange juice, he tried his hand at gentle inquisition, but she turned out to be a native of Penrith whose parents had moved to Whitmell eighteen months earlier and she’d never heard of Barrie Gilpin. Within a couple of minutes he’d concluded that, whatever talents she might possess, Joe Dowling wasn’t marrying her for the benefit of sparkling conversation.
Dale was very late and he amused himself by moving to a table in an alcove with a poster from The Lady Vanishes. When at last she arrived, complaining that Mrs Godfrey was a slave-driver and predicting that her employment in the baker’s would be shortlived, he supplied her with a Bacardi and Coke and said, ‘So you’ve never found it claustrophobic, spending your whole life in an enclosed valley like Brackdale?’
‘Never known any different, have I? It must seem peculiar to someone like you, someone who’s appeared on television and travelled the world. Unsophisticated, what’s the word…parochial?’
‘One or two of Oxford’s most sophisticated people are utter shits, in my experience. As for parochial, I find that kind of appealing. The Lake District is so small. I never realised an imaginary line was drawn between the lakes in the north and those in the south.’
‘Dead right. There’s an invisible passport control at Dunmail Raise.’
He laughed. ‘When I went into the paper shop next door it dawned on me, they stock Le Figaro for the tourists, but not The Keswick Reminder. So…you were going to tell me about Gabrielle Anders.’
‘Not much to tell, really.’
‘Give me a hint.’
‘Well, she was supposed to be touring the area, but my impression was that she wouldn’t have minded settling down, if she could have found a man to hitch up with. Provided he had a few bob. She knew Tash Dumelow, maybe she wanted to follow her example and team up with someone like Simon. Though I don’t think she was as choosy as Tash.’
He drained his glass. ‘She wasn’t interested in Barrie Gilpin, then?’
‘You must be joking. If she did give him a come-on, it would just have been for fun. She had bigger fish to fry.’ As if led by a particular train of thought, her gaze travelled to the bar. Joe Dowling had appeared and slung his arm around Lynsey’s waist. ‘Maybe not that big, though. Look at that slimy toad, thinks he’s such a charmer. It’ll serve him right when the girl’s forty and the size of an opera singer. It’s a fat family, cellulite’s in the genes, you mark my words. She’s put on a stone since Christmas. Ten to one, she’s pregnant and he hasn’t even realised yet. Joe’s not the sort who believes in doing the decent thing.’
Daniel refused to be diverted by her pleasurably malicious speculation. ‘Did he fancy Gabrielle?’
‘He’d fancy the creature from the black lagoon if it wore a thong and was into leather and handcuffs. Trust me, Daniel, there are things about Joe Dowling and his tastes you really don’t want to know. Yet he fancies himself rotten, thinks he’s God’s gift to women. At least he met his match years back when he tried to flirt with Tash one night at closing time. In the nicest way, she gave him the brush off good and proper, made him look such a fool in front of everyone. For once in my life I felt like flinging my arms round the woman.’
‘But you don’t care for her?’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad, isn’t Lady Muck. But obviously, I’m jealous as hell.’ She gave him an unexpectedly disarming smile. ‘Our paths haven’t often crossed, but she tries hard to fit in around here, to act like a native. She’s always wanted to be One of Us, I think. Maybe it’s the foreign ancestry, something in the blood, I’ve never known anyone so single-minded. Let’s face it, it’s paid off. If ever a woman had everything she wished for, it’s Tash.’
‘And her husband’s a property developer.’
‘Who knows better than to shit on his own back doorstep, if you’ll pardon the expression. He’s never tried to build on Brackdale’s green and pleasant, even his farm is a bit ramshackle. All you need to know is that he’s absolutely loaded and he worships the ground Tash walks on. Sickening, really. Mind you, I used to be cynical about her motives, but even I’m prepared to admit, it can’t just have been Simon Dumelow’s bank balance that was big enough to catch her eye. The clincher is, even after all these years, they still seem besotted. Matter of fact…’
‘Yes?’
She guzzled her drink. ‘Tash is lucky in more ways than one, trust me on that. Simon might not mind a bit of mild flirting, but give a hint of going any further, and he backs right off. Worse luck. Whenever I meet a decent bloke, he’s always spoken for. By the way, I didn’t catch the name of that pretty wife of yours.’
‘Miranda. And we’re not married.’
She stretched and yawned, in a seen-it-all manner. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re not into long-term commitment? Even though you’ve both run off from the city to live together in a tiny place like Brackdale?’
He shrugged. ‘Miranda and I haven’t known each other that long.’
‘Early days, then?’
As he nodded, she stood up. ‘Better stop at one. Alcohol goes straight to my head, terribly. I start talking out of turn and after three drinks I’m an utter disgrace. Anyway, I’ll rack my brains, see what else I can remember about Gabrielle Anders, if you’re that interested in a dead lady. My number’s in the book, by the way. If you ever want to get in touch.’
He watched her walk up to the bar and speak to Joe Dowling and his fiancée. Whatever she said succeeded in causing Lynsey’s face to flame and the landlord’s vulpine smile to dissolve into a hard line of anger. But Dale didn’t seem to care. On her way out, she threw Daniel a smile. As if to say: see, it’s like I said, I do make waves. She was no fool, he thought, but she liked playing a part, was turned on by the idea of being dangerous to know.
Chapter Nine
It might be too late to put things right with his old man, but Daniel still needed to put his own mind at rest. Achieve closure, as Miranda liked to say. She often wrote about the importance of achieving closure. Of course he must tread with care. In Brack, it would be as easy for a newcomer to put a foot wrong in conversation as to stumble off a fellside track in the fog. He and Miranda would have to work hard for a long time if they were ever to become part of this community. Bad enough to be an off-comer, far worse to be disdained as a ghoul.
Did they even want to become part of the community? As they drove to Brack Hall on the Saturday evening, Daniel asked Miranda and she had no doubts.
‘Of course. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Forsaking the city for village life.’
‘We’re a mile from the village. Days could pass without our seeing a single soul, if it weren’t for all the workmen tramping in and out.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
‘Not in the least. All I ever wanted was to run away with you.’
She put her hand on his thigh. ‘T
hat’s a lovely thing to say, but I don’t want to be a hermit. Okay, we have our writing, but we can’t want to hide away from the world forever.’
‘Round here, it takes a generation before people really accept you as one of them.’
‘Relax, we can always bond with the other off-comers. How about the people in that mobile home park in the next valley?’
He grinned. ‘So this is our first toe in the water, so far as integrating with the community goes? A dinner party with the local squire and his wife. Very traditional. Except that he only keeps a farm as a write-off against tax and she’s a townie who plays at being an artist.’
‘Tash is in love with the Lakes. She rang up this afternoon, while you were outside, to check we were still okay to come. We talked for a couple of minutes and she told me she could never bear to leave. She was trying to persuade me that coming here was the best decision I ever made.’
‘Did she need to?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you sure?’
The hesitation before she replied chilled him more than any simple nostalgia for city life. ‘It’s just that – sometimes I wonder. What will we do when the cottage is sorted?’
They pulled up outside the electric gates guarding the Hall and he forced a smile. ‘Why worry? After everything that’s gone wrong this past few days, we’ll be old and grey before all the work is finished.’
‘Feel that wall,’ Simon Dumelow said. ‘See how thick it is?’
After greeting them with champagne, Tash’s husband had insisted on taking them for a guided tour. He was a bluff Lancastrian with an extravagance of grey hair, expensively cut. His black short-sleeved shirt and matching designer slacks probably cost twice as much as Daniel’s best suit. Daniel guessed he was in his mid-fifties, but he had the boyish enthusiasm of a kid showing off his model railway set.
First stop was the Virginia creeper-festooned pele tower that had once provided a refuge from Border raiders. Underground were the cellars, air-conditioned and lined with racks crammed with vintage wine. Now they had arrived in the tunnel-vaulted room occupying the ground floor. In the fourteenth century a windowless and fetid home to the livestock, today it was a games room with dazzling overhead lights. The only battles it saw were fought on a full-sized Thurston billiard table. A dutiful guest, Daniel thrust his hand against the stone and murmured with appreciation. The wall was undeniably solid.
The Coffin Trail Page 10
