I went home, and spent a week strenuously chasing up business, sending out leaflets, even approaching a few groups such as Probus and Inner Wheel with a view to doing one of my talks, which had fallen into abeyance after Karen’s injury.
Thea Osborne phoned me after a week or so, asking how I was feeling, and whether I’d made any long-term decisions.
‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘It’s far too soon. How about you?’
‘I’ve agreed to do another house-sit in Cranham, in July,’ she said. ‘It’s in a lovely old manor house, apparently. I’ll go and see them next week. I’m really looking forward to it.’
Karen never asked for details about my Broad Campden experience. I abandoned the blood-soaked clothes and never told her where they’d gone. I did tell her I would have to give testimony in a murder trial, at some future stage, but not for several months. Then I carefully broke the news that I had inherited a house, with some very stringent conditions attached.
It showed how changed she was, the way she failed to grasp the implications. Her headaches were becoming more severe and more frequent, and we had an appointment for a brain scan within a few days. ‘We can’t move house, though, can we?’ she said, her expression bland and open. ‘The children wouldn’t like that.’
I thought of the wide fields and the footpaths and the lovely Cotswold buildings, and wondered. On the face of it, Somerset had just as much natural freedom as did Broad Campden, but the roads were bigger and faster, the crime rate was increasing, and the weather turning wetter. If Maggs could take charge of the burial ground, I thought a move might just work out. I could not shake myself free of Greta Simmonds and Jeremy Talbot and the story I had blundered into.
‘We’ll have to see, then, won’t we,’ I said.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright Page
Available from Allison & Busby
About the author
Dedication
Map
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four