by Fay Sampson
‘Yes, poor Gavin,’ Veronica exclaimed. ‘Oh, I know, what he did was absolutely rotten. But you imagine him, starting out with high hopes, just like Jo. Getting his first mystery accepted. And then seeing it all fizzling away. Low sales. Hardly anybody’s heard of him. Just another hack writer, only surviving because crime fiction is today’s favourite genre. And then seeing this brilliant opportunity, knowing that this was the big one. I’m sorry!’ She spread another scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam. ‘I know I shouldn’t make excuses for him. But it’s going to be awful for him now. It’s all going to come out. Jo will get her revenge, though at a terrible price. It’s not just the shame. Gavin will know for the rest of his life that what he did cost Melissa hers.’
Hilary got up. ‘I think I’ll go into the abbey church for a while. I need to be quiet.’
David walked across the sunlit grass beside her, with Veronica following. His voice was comforting.
‘You will go back to Morland, you know. Totnes. All that. You’re a historian. You know that violence is never the end of the story. Some things fall. Others survive. The scene changes. Sometimes for the better, in ways you can’t imagine.’
She knew he was thinking of the places he’d worked in. Gaza. Yemen. Stricken countries.
They stepped into the cool shadows of the nave. Tall Romanesque arches led the eye to the high altar. Hilary looked around her, marvelling. ‘To think that half a dozen monks with wheelbarrows and wooden scaffolding did this. Less than a hundred years ago. Think of all the scores of people who must have told them they couldn’t do it, that they were mad to dream of it. And here it is.’
‘And in a smaller way, that’s what Dinah Halsgrove does, year after year,’ said Veronica behind them. ‘Puts one stone upon another, day after day, to build a beautifully crafted book. Right into her nineties.’
Hilary swung round, a smile chasing away the serious set of her face. ‘Is that what you’re going to do now? Write that crime novel about your lovers in the tiltyard?’
Veronica’s laugh answered hers. ‘I don’t think my mind’s devious enough for that. And I never even managed to complete the first exercise, remember? I got sidetracked by hearing Gavin and Theresa. You were the one …’ She stopped dead.
‘No,’ Hilary said firmly. ‘Not the Leechwells. That’s one crime novel that’s definitely not going to get written.’
