As I parked outside her gate Rosie asked me if I was coming in for a cuppa.
"Is there any chocolate cake left?"
"There might be."
"In that case, yes please."
The weather was changing and the temperature had dropped. Rosie shivered and switched on the gas fire, and went somewhere to turn up the thermostat. I stood behind her in the kitchen as the kettle came to the boil, wanting to put my arms around her. She cut the remains of the cake into two uneven halves and gave me the larger one.
"How long have you lived here?" I asked when we were seated in the lounge, her on the settee, me in an easy chair. She gave me a potted history of her movements, first of all living in a succession of rented accommodations before splashing out, rather late in life for a first-time-buyer, on the bungalow.
"You did the right thing," I said. "The only advice my dad ever gave me was to get on the housing ladder, as soon as possible. It was good advice."
But a stupid thing to say, I thought, even as the words came out. It killed the conversation for a few moments.
"I bought at a bad time," she said, eventually. "Prices were high."
"There's never a good time," I told her. Profound words straight from the financial pages. "Just think of all those grotty flats and bedsits, where your rent goes straight to pay for the landlord's villa in the Bahamas."
"Yes, I had a few of those." She refilled our cups, then said: "When… when I left Gary — he was called Gary — I moved to Derby, landed a teaching job there. Supply teaching, not permanent. I had a horrible bedsit. Peeling paper, damp walls, the lot. Why I stayed so long I can't imagine."
"What was Gary's problem?" I ventured.
"Gambling. He was a gambler. You don't back horses, do you?"
I shook my head. "It was a courageous thing to do," I told her. "Making the break like that, moving on. It's a pity more women don't do it."
"They're trapped, Charlie, that's why. And it didn't feel courageous at the time." She put her cup down and sat in silence for a while. I was about to mention that we might have had a breakthrough with the dog fighting saga when she said: "I had a breakdown, Charlie. I lost the plot, completely."
"What sort of a breakdown?"
She heaved a big sigh that said she'd let the genie out of the bottle and there was no getting it back in. "I don't know. What sorts are there? I moved to Derby, into this awful bedsit, with nothing but the clothes I wore and what I could stuff into a Ford Fiesta. I worked one term as a supply teacher and then it was the summer holiday. I didn't know if I'd have a job when it was over. I was so lonely I just… gave up. I sat in that ghastly, smelly room and cried my eyes out for three weeks. I didn't wash, didn't eat, didn't take any interest in the outside world. I just let everything close in on me. I wanted to die, Charlie, but wasn't brave enough to do anything about it."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. One day, I thought, what am I doing? Nobody was going to come and sort me out, I had to do it myself. There was nothing organically wrong with me, I wa's fairly young, had a brain, could find work almost anywhere. I took a shower and found some clean clothes, went out and did some shopping. I telephoned the headmaster and he said he couldn't offer me a permanent position just yet but there was plenty of work for me. I took him at his word and had an expensive hair-do, complete with silver streaks. Oh, and I put the deposit on a new car. Watch me go became my creed."
"And eventually you moved to Yorkshire."
"I landed a permanent post, and it was further away from him. I told you I came with baggage, Charlie. Now you know what I meant."
"That's not baggage, Rosie," I assured her. "It's what gave you those tiny little creases in the corners of your eyes when you smile, that's all. It's what goes towards making you a caring human being. It's… it's all part of the recipe that made Rosie Barraclough, and why I find her so damned attractive."
She looked at me, her chin trembling. "Do you, Charlie?"
I moved over to her, engulfed her in my arms, held her tight. "Yes," I said. "Yes I do. All that's behind you. You're with me, now."
We sat like that for a long while as it grew dark around us. I tipped her face towards mine and kissed her on the lips. I wanted to stay the night, but didn't ask. There was a ghost watching us, the ghost of her father. Soon we'd dig him up, do the tests and discover the truth. Win or lose, we'd come through it together. I drove home praying that he'd not done the deed, just so I could see the happiness it would bring Rosie. If he really were the murderer then it would be up to me to make her happy. I could do it, I was confident of that. It would just take a little longer, that was all.
I always go into the office on a Saturday morning, to clear up any paperwork and prioritise any jobs that came in overnight. Friday night brings out the worst in some people. I hadn't left home when the phone rang. It was Dave.
"Have you heard?" he asked.
"Heard what?"
"About us, last night?"
"Us? Who's us?"
"Me, Pete, Jeff and Don."
"You went to the brass band concert."
"That's right, but we had a spot of bother on the way home."
"Oh no," I sighed. A spot of bother could only mean one thing: drinking and driving.
"It's not that," he assured me, reading my mind. "It's something else."
"Go on."
"Well, we didn't stay until the end. We'd heard the set piece three times and that was enough. We decided to come a bit nearer home and have a drink. Heading along the Heckley Road, towards the Babes In The Wood, Pete just happened to notice that we were following a convoy of four-wheel-drives. Three of them. Suddenly they all slowed and turned off into this little lane that didn't look as if it led anywhere. We called in the Babes and had a couple of pints. When we came out Pete said 'I wonder what they went up that lane for? Let's go see what's up there.' He was driving and Don encouraged him so off we went. After about a mile we found the three off-roaders, parked and empty."
"Aliens," I said. "They'd been abducted by aliens."
"You're nearer than you think," Dave replied. "We assumed they were poachers, but then we saw these lights in a corn field, wandering up and down. We waited for ages but they just kept on wandering up and down, so we telephoned Dewsbury and told them all about it. We thought that maybe they were looking for badgers."
"What did Dewsbury do?"
"They sent in the heavy mob, and the helicopter, and they were all arrested. Seven of them. They thought it was great fun, laughing and joking and taking the piss."
"So what were they up to?"
"Crop circles. They were making crop circles in the corn. Said it would create interest in the area, generate publicity, help the tourist trade and all that."
"Ha ha! And what did your colleagues from the Dewsbury force have to say to you?"
"They suggested, very politely, that in future we restrict our activities to Heckley and district."
"They can do them for criminal damage. It's a face-saver. Not much of one but a result just the same."
"No they can't."
"Why not?"
"Because it was their own chuffing field, that's why."
We get a fair number of UFO sightings around Heckley. Apparently there's a vortex somewhere up in the hills. That's a fault in the structure of the Earth that allows magnetic energy to leak out, providing a source of power for alien spacecraft. They hover overhead and recharge their power packs. Foggy nights are particularly propitious, as this allows the energy to flow more freely. It also conveniently blurs the evidence. Anybody with more than half a brain puts the sightings down to the police helicopter with its Night-Sun searchlight on, or airliners groping their way towards Manchester airport, or to too many Carlsberg Specials, but they could be wrong. The Great Crop Circle Massacre was destined to be written into the annals of Her Majesty's East Pennine Police Force, and those involved would be spoken of in hushed tones for the rest of their careers. I had a couple of hours in the office and went home to work on the paintings.