Hearing footsteps, Horton turned to see a tall, athletically built man with fair shoulder-length hair approaching him. His weather-worn face and the name on his green sweatshirt told Horton he was a landscape gardener, either called Jonathan Anmore, or he worked for Jonathan Anmore. The former was confirmed after a brief introduction.
'I look after the gardens at Scanaford House,' Anmore explained. 'Sir Christopher was a real gent and his daughter, Arina, was a lovely lady. Sad to think they're both gone now. She came here in July to look after the professor when he got ill. Are you a friend of Arina's or the Prof's? I don't remember seeing you at their funerals?'
'I didn't know either of them. I was a friend of Owen Carlsson's.'
Anmore looked surprised before his expression deepened into one of concern. 'I heard about his death on the radio.'
Which was more than Danesbrook had. Horton said, 'I had hoped Arina's relatives might tell me something that would help me find out why Owen died, but I met a man called Danesbrook at the house who said there aren't any relatives.'
Anmore ran a hand through his hair and nodded. 'That's right.'
'So who inherits?'
'No idea.' After a short pause Anmore added, 'Do the police know how Owen died?'
'Probably, but they're not saying much to me. Could be suicide, could be murder?'
'But who would want to murder him?'
Horton shrugged. 'How did Owen seem at Arina's funeral?'
'Upset, like we all were.'
'And was that the last time you saw him, Tuesday week?' Horton tried not to sound like a policeman.
'Yes. What about his sister? Can't she help?'
So he knew about Thea. 'I don't want to upset her any more than she already is.'
'No. I guess not.'
'Did you meet her at Arina's funeral?'
'No. I heard Owen tell Bella Westbury that she was staying with him for a few days.'
And who else had heard this, Horton wondered? He asked who Bella Westbury was.
'The professor's housekeeper. She lives in the village.' Anmore glanced back towards Scanaford House. 'It's that house, you know. It's cursed. Everyone who comes into contact with it ends up dead. Except me and Bella. It's haunted, you know. No, it's true, all documented fact. A father killed his daughter there in 1865 and threw her body in the lake. She's said to walk the house before a death.'
Anmore's words had pricked Horton's memory. He recalled the book by Thea's bedside, The Lost Ghosts of the Isle of Wight, and the inscription inside it, 'To Thea who has the gift — Helen.' It must have been given to her by her mother and now that book, like all the others in the house, and Owen's environmental papers, were ashes.
'Did Arina see this ghost before her father's death?' he asked, not particularly seriously.
'She never said.' Then Anmore grinned. 'I don't believe in ghosts either, but the murder bit's true.'
And that was one murder that Horton didn't have to solve.
Anmore's mobile phone rang. There was nothing more to be gained by hanging around here. Maybe this Bella Westbury could provide him with more information.
Horton headed for the village but not before he paused at the top of the driveway and looked back at Scanaford House. The driveway curved to the left and was screened from the road by evergreen trees. It was as he had thought. Whatever Danesbrook had come here for, it hadn't been to check out Horton's Harley — because unless the man had X-ray eyes there was simply no way he could have seen it.
EIGHT
' Tea?' asked Bella Westbury crisply.
Horton accepted with alacrity, even though he would have preferred a cold drink for his still sore throat. But if it meant he'd learn something that could help them with the investigation then he'd swallow caster oil and like it.
He stepped into the narrow terraced cottage a few yards along from the village shop where the sales assistant had given him Bella Westbury's address. He hadn't expected her to be in or so friendly, a decided bonus after Danesbrook's evasiveness. He'd introduced himself as a friend of Arina's, saying that he had lost touch with her over the years and had only just learnt of her death. She accepted it readily.
'Sling your jacket down anywhere and come through to the kitchen. It's warmer.'
The room felt warm enough to Horton with a wood-burning stove belting out heat but he wasn't going to argue. Bella Westbury was not the type of woman to mess with.
Horton did as instructed and followed her short, sturdy figure through a small living room crowded with an assortment of old and worn furniture, which appeared to have been thrown together without any regard to design, space or colour. It reminded him of his childhood days spent in rented accommodation before the council flat had become his and his mother's home.
'Arina's death was tragic,' she tossed at him over her shoulder. 'Such a bloody waste of a life.'
Horton ducked his head to avoid the wind chimes in the kitchen doorway and didn't quite succeed. Their musical tingling was accompanied by a feline chorus. Horton counted five cats crawling over the small kitchen, which was five too many for his liking. Bella Westbury lifted one from the table where it had been licking at a plate of Ginger Nuts.
She said, 'Arina was cultured, educated, gentle, kind and intelligent. But of course, you'd know that, being an old friend.'
Shrewd green eyes examined him out of a weathered face of about fifty-five years. Horton gave what he considered to be a sad smile of acknowledgement, which she seemed to accept as genuine. Quickly, to forestall her asking any questions about his relationship with Arina, he said, 'I was talking to Jonathan Anmore in the churchyard. He spoke very fondly of Arina.'
'He would. No one had a bad word to say about her. Why should they when she was one of the best? Jonathan always fancied his chances there. But then Jonathan fancies his chances with any female under forty. Arina would joke with him, but that's as far as it went. Biscuit?'
Horton politely declined.
Maybe she saw his distaste because she said, 'I'll just let the cats out.'
The wind rushed in as she threw open the door, setting off the wind chimes. Horton let his eyes roam the cramped, untidy kitchen. They came to rest on the wall beside him that displayed several framed newspaper cuttings.
'Is that you?' he asked, trying to keep the surprise from his voice as he stared at a young woman with long auburn hair and fire in her eyes.
'Greenham Common, September 1981,' she answered crisply and proudly, throwing a tea bag into two mugs. 'Twenty-five and full of ideals. Still am, thank the Lord. Not like the namby-pamby kids these days. They're too intent on climbing the greasy pole to the top of a corporation that is as corrupt as they are.'
Horton thought that a bit harsh but didn't say so. She filled the mugs with hot water and plonked them on the table. Gesturing him into a seat she said, 'I met Ewan there.' Her brow puckered.
Horton hoped he wasn't about to hear the gory details of a troublesome relationship. But then it was his own fault for raising the subject.
'He was a miner from South Wales,' Bella continued, sitting down opposite Horton. 'His mother was one of the first women who marched for ten days to set up the Greenham Common Peace Camp. I heard about it on the news and went there like a shot. I was there until 1983 when I married Ewan and went to live in South Wales and we all know what happened after that. I will never forgive Margaret Thatcher and the Tories for their treachery and the police for their brutality.'
Her voice was harsher and Horton's eyes flicked to the framed newspaper cuttings of a crowd of miners being beaten back by the police. He was rather glad he hadn't come here as a police officer. He certainly wouldn't have been offered tea and biscuits. Although only a teenager at the time and more interested in playing football, he'd seen films of the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985 during his police training. The conflict had produced clashes between the state and the miners in epic propor tions, eleven miners had died, tens of thousands had been arrested, and scores of police had been injured. The mines the colliers had been fighting to keep open were all eventually closed down. The miners lost, big time.