‘No skin off my nose, as long as his lordship leaves me to it. It’s when he starts interfering that I get hot under the collar.’
‘And does he interfere?’ Daniel asked.
Allardyce snorted. ‘Just a bit. We had a few sheep get out a while back. Sort of thing that’s always happened, always will, but he went apeshit because the fence was broken. Just as well my lease is watertight, or he’d have me out on my arse. Though her ladyship might have something to say about that. She and the wife are as thick as thieves.’
‘Your wife helps on the farm as well?’
‘Jean takes care of the Hall, she’s head cook and bottle-washer. She’s already got her orders for your dinner at the weekend. The lovely Tash doesn’t like to dirty her pretty hands with cooking or cleaning. It might interfere with pretending to be an artist.’
‘She’s a bonny-looking woman.’ Joe Dowling smacked his lips in a parody of lust.
‘Out of your league, my friend,’ Allardyce said. ‘So, Mr Kind, you’ve bought Cissie Gilpin’s cottage?’
‘It was a stroke of luck,’ Daniel said. ‘Miranda and I were taking a break up here and we saw that Tarn Cottage was up for sale. I remembered it from my first visit, on holiday twenty years back. That was when I met Barrie Gilpin.’
‘You knew Barrie?’ The landlord seemed taken aback. ‘Bloody hell, it’s a small world.’
‘We bumped to each other on my first day here and became friends,’ Daniel said. ‘Most days, we played together.’
‘That must have been a first,’ Allardyce said. ‘He never had any friends as I can remember. Not right in the head. That was the excuse they always gave for him being such a bad-mannered bastard. You’d be in the middle of a conversation with him and he’d walk away, just like that, for no reason.’
‘Asperger’s Syndrome, they call it,’ Joe Dowling said.
‘Is that right?’ Allardyce scoffed. ‘They’ve got a name for everything these days.’
His derision provoked Daniel. ‘I liked him a lot.’
‘Then you won’t know what happened?’ Joe Dowling said.
‘I know he’s supposed to have murdered a tourist.’
‘No suppose about it,’ Allardyce muttered. ‘He battered her face and cut her throat so she was as good as beheaded.’
‘Stripped her naked,’ Joe Dowling added. The prurient gleam in his eyes made Daniel’s flesh creep.
‘Then he laid her out on the Sacrifice Stone, high above your own little cottage. So much for your boyhood pal, Mr Kind. Not that likeable after all, eh?’
‘He was never charged with a crime, let alone tried and convicted.’
‘You can’t prosecute a corpse.’
Daniel took a sip of beer. ‘Maybe his death was convenient for someone.’
Allardyce scowled. ‘And who might that be?’
‘Whoever really killed Gabrielle Anders.’
‘You serious?’ Allardyce demanded. As his voice rose, the bar area fell quiet. People turned to look, then quickly turned away again. Daniel guessed that locals didn’t fancy making eye contact with the farmer when he was in a temper.
‘That girl’s death caused a lot of upset round here,’ Joe Dowling said quickly.
‘Everyone agrees, Barrie Gilpin was as guilty as hell.’
Daniel glanced over his shoulder and caught Miranda’s eye. She gave a pointed glance at the glass of white wine he’d bought her, then mimicked downing it in a single gulp.
‘What if everyone was wrong?’ he asked. ‘Suppose Barrie was innocent, that in more ways than one, he was the fall guy.’
‘I never heard such a load of crap.’ With a contemptuous snort, Tom Allardyce banged his tankard down on the bar. Some of the beer sloshed on to the counter and trickled over the edge on to the floor.
Joe Dowling frowned. ‘Barrie Gilpin must have killed that girl. Who else could it have been?’
Daniel shrugged and picked up the drinks. As he wove through the crowd, a woman in an alcove looked up from her meal and smiled. Leigh Moffat. She was having dinner with a woman with shoulder-length auburn hair whose cast of features resembled Leigh’s so closely that she had to be a younger sister. He paused by her side, breathing in the rich aroma of a steak and kidney pie drenched in onion gravy.
‘I suppose that after serving food to your customers all day long, the last thing you want to do at night is stay at home and cook.’
Leigh smiled. ‘Joe Dowling doesn’t have any greater pretensions to haute cuisine than me. But I wouldn’t like you to think I spend all my evenings pigging myself with pub meals. My sister and I only come here once a fortnight, don’t we? Dale, this is Daniel Kind. I mentioned him to you, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ Dale gave him a teasing grin and offered a small ringless hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Daniel. In fact, the food in the pub down the road is at least as good as this, but The Moon has a nostalgic pull for us. We both used to work here.’
‘For Joe Dowling?’
Dale giggled and put her hand over her mouth as hiccups threatened. Where Leigh’s manner was thoughtful, considered, Dale seemed to have a mischievous instinct. She’d opted for a seat next to a poster depicting Ingrid Bergman getting up close and personal with Cary Grant in Notorious.
‘Casanova himself, yes.’
Leigh gave her sister a reproving glance. ‘I saw you, talking to Tom Allardyce.’
‘You make it sound like a hazardous sport.’
The sisters exchanged looks and Dale said, ‘Let’s just say he isn’t someone you’d want to meet in an alley on a dark night.’
‘I bet. We heard a rifle shot in the woods, or the fields beyond. Might that be Allardyce?’
‘Uh-huh. His trouble is, he still thinks he’s in the army.’
‘He was a soldier?’
‘In Northern Ireland, yes. His father and granddad farmed all their lives, but Tom joined up after school. He’s a rebel by nature. But Brackdale never prepared him for Belfast during the bombings. He saw some pretty grim things, so the story goes. One night he beat up a Republican suspect, and the powers-that-be kicked him out. So back he went to farming.’ Dale forked in a mouthful of beef bourgignon. ‘Even he decided there’s no point in fighting against Fate, I suppose. He likes animals right enough, better than people actually, but that doesn’t stop him shooting those that get in his way.’
When Daniel told her about the rifle shot he and Miranda had heard, Dale nodded. ‘That would be Tom. He likes letting the foxes know who’s boss. Tom’s not someone you’d want to fall foul of.’
‘Frankly,’ her sister said, ‘most people round here give him a wide berth.’
‘Except mine host?’
Dale smirked. ‘Tom’s wife is Joe’s cousin, but even Joe’s scared of Tom. See him quiver when Tom shouted at you? Not wishing to be nosy, but if you’ve never met the man before, what was that all about?’
In a few sentences he explained about his doubts over Barrie’s guilt. ‘It’s a long time ago, of course, but I just can’t imagine him as a murderer.’
Dale shrugged. ‘It’s not much to go on.’
‘The police didn’t look any further,’ Leigh said. ‘Hannah’s old boss was in charge of the enquiry. I don’t know whether her new job will cause her to re-open the case.’
Daniel caught Miranda’s eye. She looked with theatrical despair at her watch and he offered an apologetic smile. A waitress emerged from the kitchen, carrying their meals. But there was one more question he had to ask.
‘Hannah?’
Leigh nodded. ‘Marc Amos’ partner, Hannah Scarlett. She’s a police officer, one of the team that investigated Gabrielle Anders’ murder. Didn’t you catch her on the regional news the other night? She’s in charge of a team that’s been set up to investigate cold cases. You know, unsolved crimes.’
Chapter Eight
The renovation of the cottage was proceeding at a pace Daniel had believed impossible outside the fantasy world of TV makeover programmes. Surely it was too much to hope that their luck could last? Joiners, plasterers, plumbers and electricians came and went more or less as per timetable and the gleaming new kitchen equipment functioned with supernatural efficiency. Yet somehow there were always more jobs to be done.