The memory of the door slamming jerked Laura back into a consciousness of her present surroundings but her recollections had served to kindle the flame of her hatred for Bella and keep it burning. Life had been so good until the birth of her sister. Driving Patrick away, to his death, had changed everything once and for all and it was all Bella’s fault. More so even than when her father was alive, Laura had seized every opportunity to antagonise and belittle her sister to the point where her mother had once taken her to see a psychiatrist. But Laura was devious, cunning and very bright and acted absolutely normally showing no signs of the truculent, disturbed child her mother thought her to be. Now, the rancour lingering from more recent events was eating away at her, demanding that she act in some way to exact retribution. She mulled the situation over in her mind, thinking about the cottage and her sister. Her and that smartass lawyer she was obviously having an affair with. How dare she flaunt him under her nose like that, knowing she was coming to visit? And then lock her out of the house while they’re away getting up to God know’s what. An idea came to her, right at that moment. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing her sister was having an affair with the lawyer who was the executor of Rupert’s will. What was it the Yanks said? Leverage. In her mind she pronounced it the American way rhyming it with beverage. That’s the word. It might just give her a bit of leverage.
Chapter Sixteen
True to his word Samuel Handysides had got someone to come up and fix the windows at Willow Cottage. The damage hadn’t been severe as each window comprised twelve small panes of glass and only a single pane had been smashed in two separate windows. The man had arrived at about 4-o-clock, apparently having been earlier to measure them up. Bella had heard the sound of his vehicle arriving and went down to speak to him briefly, mindful of how her every action appeared to be communicated through the village. Close to sixty, one way or the other, he was dressed in an old grey suit which hung baggily on his spare frame. Tall with a craggy weather-worn face he wore a permanent, morose expression and had a slight stoop, as though he’d been leaning into a strong wind all his life. Where Samuel Handysides had found someone in Knapthorne she had no idea but he had finished the job in less than an hour and Bella had heard him leave in the old Bedford truck which he had parked next to her car. The fact that the windows had been broken didn’t greatly concern Bella. What did occupy her thoughts, however, was the distressed state Alfie had been in when she had found him. It was an image she found difficult to dismiss. After she had left The Lamb Bella had decided to walk to the shops, leaving her car in the pub’s car park. While everything was fresh in her mind she wanted to think over what Samuel had told her, unable to shake the niggling feeling that it didn’t add up in some way.
Happy to be out in the fresh air and enjoying the warm embrace of the sun she walked in an unhurried fashion looking at her surroundings absent-mindedly and not really seeing them. They registered on her consciousness in a fleeting, ephemeral way as though her mind were a spinning disc, the images touching the surface only to be tossed away. The dun-coloured cottages, over a century old, the tall plane trees with their patchwork bark, the uneven pathway along which she walked and the broad strip of road with its steep camber. Everything imprinted itself briefly on her vision as she rummaged through the details of her conversation in the gloomy atmosphere of the pub’s parlour. An evocative smell caught her attention, breaking Bella’s train of thought as she searched to identify it. Then she saw the little black, shiny bubbles on the road’s surface. The blisters of melting tarmac gave off a pervasive, sweet odour reminding her of holidays on the Adriatic coast, when she was a child. And then, while her mind was diverted, it came to her. A slow smile formed on her lips. What had been so obvious it was staring her in the face she hadn’t been able to see. There was nothing at all wrong with Samuel’s story or with Cora’s explanation about the flowers but the very thing that had prompted her to speak to Cora in the first place, her recurring dream, had no place in the landlord’s version of events. It was, Bella thought, rather like looking at a completed jigsaw that had one piece missing. In this case the piece she was missing was far too large to fit into the puzzle which she had so recently had explained to her. The realisation was like a breath of fresh air except it meant either that Samuel and Cora had been lying or there was more to the story than she had been told. Whichever was the case it added an air of mystery to the whole situation. Bella had, by this time, found herself opposite the small parade of shops and crossed the pavement to the kerb. Checking either way for traffic she set off across the road and it occurred to her that there was another option to think about. It could just be that her dream was the result of an active imagination and had no basis in fact whatsoever. Paul Aristides was out the front of his shop cleaning the windows and she gave him a friendly wave. “I wonder what he dreams about, at night? Perhaps I ought to ask him,” she murmured.
As so often happened when she had her day neatly planned out something came along to upset things. The quick trip into the village had turned into something of a marathon effort taking the best part of two hours. With the mysterious glazier now having departed Bella took the opportunity to relax for ten minutes before going upstairs to start work. Only now was she beginning to get excited about the fact that Kyle Lucas would be turning up the following day. Would it be a brief visit, she wondered. If not, could she tempt him to take her out somewhere far away from the village. Somewhere where there were lots of people. People she didn’t know. She relished the thought of becoming absolutely anonymous for a time and certainly was in no mood for lunch at The Lamb. Ubix crept quietly down the stairs and padded silently towards the kitchen.
“I see you!” she exclaimed, accusingly. “Thought you could creep past unnoticed, eh?” Another piece of the puzzle as yet unexplained. At least she had found out how the cat got in and out, solving that little mystery. There was one set of double windows in the laundry, facing the back garden. Against the wall outside was a stack of firewood which must have been there for years, Bella presumed. One day she had been coming back from a walk across the fields and, as she came down the garden, saw Ubix leap up onto the woodpile and disappear through the closed window, as if by magic. Closer inspection had revealed that the bottom panel of the window on the left was in fact perspex and not glass, cleverly hinged to give the cat access to the house. If only she could come up with some other answers quite as easily but no doubt, she imagined, it would all become clear in time. Kyle filled her thoughts again and she recalled the detail of his face and the sound of his voice but her mind wouldn’t settle and it flitted on to memories of Ben and the previous weekend finally alighting on the image of Laura as though it was the terminus for her train of thought. Laura! Bella could never have imagined that she would come back into her life so blatantly. It was impossible to think about her in any sort of rational way because there was absolutely nothing about her sister that did justice to the word. Gloomily, she had to admit that, if it wasn’t for the cottage, their relationship would have stumbled on as it always had with its infrequent, strained meetings harbouring the ever-present threat of acrimony. How she would have loved to have had a sister she could have got along with. Shared secrets and intimacies with. Argued over boyfriends. Borrowed each other’s clothes. What on earth had she done to deserve Laura? They were more like members of two warring Mafia families than children of the same parents. Wasn’t there a saying about being able to choose friends but not your family? If only! But that was enough, there was work to be done, she reminded herself, and it was no good becoming depressed about Laura. Getting up from the armchair she knew she had to remain philosophical and take things as they came and she couldn’t afford to get obsessed by thoughts of what her sister might do. It was plain from her recent phone call that Bella had really put her nose out of joint by locking her out and also it was clear that Laura was convinced she and Ben were having an affair. Climbing the stairs she reflected on the fact, as she had many times b
efore, that circumstances which occurred in life would hardly seem credible if read in the pages of fiction. At least the thought served to get her mind back onto her writing.
The following day Bella awoke in a most positive frame of mind feeling totally refreshed after an undisturbed night’s sleep. At last she was making real progress with the book and was exceptionally pleased with the previous day’s work, not finishing until nearly midnight. So pleased, in fact, she was almost tempted to ring Jane and give her a progress report but thought better of it. The prospect of Kyle’s visit put her in a good mood and she had yet to decide what to wear. It was still early, before seven, so there was more than enough time without getting in a panic. Something with a bit of style and a touch seductive she thought. Maybe a complete change of image might be the thing. Whether it was living in the village, or not, she wasn’t sure but she felt the need to break the mould of her existence of the past few weeks and spread her wings. Such an urge was typical of her and often resulted from a dislike of becoming embedded in routine. Bella’s boredom threshold was very low and Maria used to despair of her as a child because she became distracted so easily. These days only the creativity of writing kept her chained to the computer but it was often a battle.
It will be so disappointing if Kyle only calls in for a short time, she thought, swinging her legs out of bed and sitting on the edge of the mattress. What she really wanted to do was to go somewhere nice for lunch and celebrate. After the business with Alfie yesterday, for some inexplicable reason Bella experienced a sense of relief that was difficult to articulate. It was something innate, buried so deep in her emotions that it was impossible to identify its source. A gut feeling, would be the best way to describe it. There was no doubt in her mind that it was associated with becoming accepted as part of the village community, being seen as less of an outsider. Why the events of yesterday should have made her feel that way she could not explain but it added to her sense of well-being as she contemplated what the day was like beyond the bedroom curtains. Not for the first time, she studied the heavy brocade material with its red floral pattern thinking how awful the curtains were and wondered why she hadn’t done anything about them. Likewise the wallpaper. She hated wallpaper. Especially this wallpaper. It was creamy white with a strange pinkish tinge to it which could have been just its age and it was lightly embossed with a ghostly pattern of very dated floral arrangements. Each vertical strip of pattern alternated with a slimmer and slightly more heavily embossed vertical frieze of whimsical design. Overall, Bella felt, its effect lay somewhere between innocuous and insipid. Whoever would have thought of putting paper like that on the walls? Cruelly she pictured Cora Flint then mentally reprimanded herself for being petty. There and then she decided to redecorate the room, as time allowed, and the prospect filled her with an almost child-like excitement. Being Bella, now that she had come up with the idea she wanted to start on it right away but was sanguine enough to realise she would probably need to get decorators in if she wanted it done quickly. With a sigh that indicated her disappointment she drew back the curtains and was treated to a panorama of wispy, herring-bone clouds overlaid like a delicate lace tablecloth on the vast expanse of a cornflower blue sky. She couldn’t recall ever having taken so much notice of the sky and its moods. Not in Italy, as a child, and certainly not in London where it was accepted as simply another element of the chaos that was city life and largely ignored. Here she had marvelled at the dawn, been enthralled by the sunset and continually amazed at the ever-changing vista in between. Perhaps she’d caught the country mood, Bella mused, watching the slow drift of the clouds across the sky. Weather that would be considered merely a nuisance in urban areas could be the arbiter of success or failure to a farmer. In the countryside weather was as important to daily routine as e-mail to the city office and clouds were the harbinger of fortune, their messages blazoned across the sky for the knowing reader. The pace of life here allowed her to appreciate such things, not having to rush from one place to the next, head down, at a hundred miles an hour. Time was what made the difference. She immediately thought of Jane then looked at the ever-present display of the radio alarm. It couldn’t be coming up to eight-o-clock! In a trice she was out of the bedroom and heading for the shower.
Being on her own at Willow Cottage gave Bella no concern. Like many people who had never been exposed to a break-in or personal attack, she harboured no fears for her own safety or security. It was as though the constant headlines featuring a daily diet of crime and violence related to another dimension, the world outside that was a world away from her life and its comfort zone. If there was a worry it was that perhaps she was becoming too insular, too reliant on her own company which, she had to admit, she enjoyed and it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for her work. It was in her mind to go back to London soon, for a short break, to see her hairdresser for one thing and to catch up with friends, several of whom had rung since she’d been at the cottage, and issue invitations to come visit. Company at weekends would provide the ideal balance to her hermit-like existence during the week. This seclusion suited her admirably but she had discovered the week held small highlights she looked forward to with excessive enthusiasm given their mundane nature. Even the routine appearance of Cora and Joshua fell into this category but one event in particular stood head and shoulders above the rest. Encouraged by her mother, Bella had become something of a letter-writer as a child. Growing up in a bi-lingual environment she had taken a greater interest in language than most and, long before she became aware of it, the seeds of a literary career had been sown. As she grew up and technology improved the art of communication Bella continued to keep in contact with friends and family by letter. This enjoyment of writing was more than matched by the thrill of receiving letters so the arrival of the post generated an exclusive level of excitement. Never more so than at Willow Cottage where the delivery of post was generally of a much more personal and intimate nature than in London. Mickey Partridge was young and effervescent, there was no other way to describe him. And he was in love with Bella. Hopelessly and completely in love with her and she looked forward to him arriving more than he would have ever realised. To his eternal embarrassment he would go as red as the post van he drove if she ever said anything personal to him or paid him a compliment which just made Bella tease him all the more. The friendly toot of the van’s horn would announce his presence and he knew that, if she were in, it would bring her out to meet him.
“Morning Mickey!” Bella had been painting her fingernails when she’d heard the van arrive and was shaking her hands gently, arms held away from her, as she walked to his van. She had chosen to wear a pair of linen slacks and a silk shirt in a soft caramel colour which complemented her hair. As usual, he had driven the vehicle around through three hundred and sixty degrees so that he was facing the way he had come in and the driver’s door was nearest the cottage.
“Expectin’ comp’ny, are you?” He couldn’t take his eyes off her as he slipped down from the driver’s seat. Not only did she look stunning but as she got closer the delicate, subtle fragrance of her intoxicating perfume wafted all around him, enticing his thoughts to matters far removed from delivery of the mail. To Mickey’s credit, his grin remained in place, masking the turmoil going on in his head. Bella had more than a sufficient knowledge of the workings of the male mind, especially the young male mind, to guess what was going on in Mickey’s. She ignored the question. For her part, she was thinking that if she were ten years younger she might have enjoyed having a fling with Mickey. There was no question she looked forward to his visits because he was always so cheerful and full of life. Of medium height and solid build there was an energy about him that spoke of fitness and vitality. His eyes were startlingly blue in a round, open face and contrived to make him good-looking in a down-to-earth sort of way. His tousled blond hair was already receding though he was not yet twenty-five. Mickey came across as being honest and uncomplicated and it all added up to giving him a s
ort of puppy dog quality which Bella found immensely attractive.
The Knapthorne Conspiracy Page 26
