“Ah.” She seemed disappointed and Anne thought that at last she had found the reason for this invitation. Either Lily was too impatient to wait for the full report or she was so much of a control freak that she wanted to see the results before Peter Kemp got his hands on them.
“Well, you must come again. Perhaps when you’ve something interesting to report.”
It was because she felt she had been manipulated, because she didn’t want this confident young woman to think she’d had the conversation all her own way that Anne brought up the question of Neville Furness. She introduced the subject clumsily.
“We were talking about connections and relationships earlier. I suppose it’s inevitable in a county with a population as small as this that everyone’s connected somehow, but it does seem a coincidence.
Neville Furness working for you then moving to Slateburn. And having an interest in Black Law Farm. More than an interest now, I suppose.”
“Isn’t it dreadful!” Lily opened her eyes wide in a gesture of shock and sympathy. She ignored Anne’s point about Neville having moved from Holme Park to Slateburn. “Poor Neville. We do feel for him. When’s the funeral?”
“Tomorrow.”
“We were wondering if we should go. To support him. But we’d never met Mrs. Furness and we thought in the circumstances he might prefer just family and close friends.”
“I suppose he’ll take on responsibility for the farm,” Anne said.
“I suppose he will.”
“The estate wouldn’t be interested in buying it?” The idea had come to her quite suddenly. She wondered why she hadn’t considered it before.
“Then if you get planning permission for the quarry you would control the access.”
“I don’t know that we’ve even considered it,” Lily said easily. “That’s Robert’s territory not mine.”
Anne could sense that she was preparing to move the conversation on to something safer, back to the baby perhaps, or an enquiry after Jeremy’s health, so she got her question in quickly.
“How did you find Neville Furness?” she asked in a gossipy, all girls together voice. “He was your estate manager, wasn’t he? I’ve met him a couple of times but I’ve never been quite sure what to make of him.”
Lily was too wily to be thrown by that. “Neville?” she said. “Oh, he’s a terrific bloke. A star. We were devastated to lose him.”
Then she did move the conversation back to domestic matters. The boys had just gone back to school after the Easter holidays and she was missing them like hell. Really, if there was any sort of decent day school in the area she’d have them out of that place like a shot, no matter what Robert thought.
At twelve o’clock precisely the young woman Anne had seen earlier returned. First they heard push chair wheels on the gravel then they saw her through the long windows. The child was asleep, its arms thrown out in abandon, its mouth wide open.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I’ll have to go and retrieve the brat. It’s Arabella’s half day, but don’t feel you have to rush off.”
“That’s all right,” Anne said. “I should get back to work.” She knew that Arabella had been told exactly when to return with the child. Lily had allowed Anne an hour. No more.
She was reluctant to return immediately to Baikie’s. Rachael would want to know where she’d been and she supposed she’d have to confess to fraternizing with the enemy. She decided to call in at the Priory, pick up her mail, throw a few things into the washing machine. Perhaps phone Godfrey’s office and see if he was back from the conference.
The lane which led from Holme Park to the village had once been a private avenue bordered by trees, running through parkland up to the house. Now the fields on either side were fenced and farmed. At the end of the lane was a pair of semis, built in the twenties as suitable dwellings for senior estate workers and their families. By the side of the lane Grace Fulwell stood, staring at these houses, apparently transfixed.
Anne slowed down and pulled to a stop. Still Grace stared. She seemed not to have seen or heard the car.
Anne wound down the window, forced herself to keep her voice friendly.
“What are you doing here?”
Grace turned, came to life. “I was walking the stretch of river through the village. I’d heard about Holme Park. Vanburgh, is it? I thought I’d take a detour to look.”
From where she stood, if she had turned and looked up the straight avenue, there was a perfect view of the house, but it wasn’t Variburgh’s architecture which had Grace’s interest, but these modest cottages with their tidy gardens. More specifically, it was the left-hand semi with the child’s swing and the rotary washing line. Even now her eyes strayed back to it.
“Did you walk?” Anne demanded.
Grace nodded.
“It must be twelve miles from Baikie’s even over the hill. You should have asked me to bring you. Or Rachael. I’m surprised she didn’t offer when you told her where you were coming.”
Grace turned. There was a faint flush on her face.
“I wasn’t exactly sure then, where I was going.” “Tut tut,” Anne said. “You naughty girl.”
But Grace seemed not to hear.
“Well, at least I can give you a lift back.” “No,” Grace said. “That’s all right. I’ve not finished yet.”
So Anne left her there, still staring at the house, her eyes squinting slightly as if she were looking through a camera view finder.
Well, Anne thought. It’s her funeral.
Chapter Seventeen.
“Bloody hell!”
The woman coming into the crematorium chapel of rest might have tried to close the door quietly but a gust of wind caught it and blew it shut with a bang. Anne had been daydreaming, letting the pious words wash over her, and she started as if woken suddenly from sleep. Though she had muttered the expletive under her breath she could sense Rachael’s disapproval. With the rest of the congregation she turned to see the middle-aged woman appear in the aisle, apparently blown in like the door. Anne followed her progress to a pew with admiration. She seemed untroubled by the stares, the curious whispers. This woman certainly knew how to make an entrance.
Afterwards, waiting outside for Rachael, Anne saw the woman again. She evaded the other mourners, slipped past them with remarkably little effort although she had appeared so big and clumsy in the chapel. Then she let herself into a top of the Range Rover which had been parked close to the main gate for an early getaway. Not a tenant farmer then, Anne thought. Despite the poorly fitting clothes and the supermarket carrier bags this was a woman of substance. A relative of Bella’s perhaps. They would have been of a similar age, could have been sisters. There was a similarity too, not of looks but expression, off-putting, secretive, rather dour.
“Was that Bella’s sister?” she asked Rachael. “The show-stopper with the bags?”
“I didn’t know she had a sister.” Rachael sounded peeved as if she was the only person in the world with any right to know if Bella Furness had relatives.
“Nor do I. I was guessing. Asking.” She paused. “Look, I’m going. I can’t face a jamboree at the White Hart and it’s not even as if I knew her that well. Besides, it was her choice, wasn’t it? What she wanted.”
“If you wait a few minutes I’ll give you a lift.”
“That’ll be all right.” The crem was giving her the creeps and already she could feel one of Rachael’s lectures coming on.
She had started walking along the wide pavement towards the town centre when Godfrey’s car pulled up behind her. She presumed he’d got rid of his wife -perhaps she’d come in her own car and was about to climb into the front passenger seat when she saw that Barbara Waugh was already there. It gave her the fright of her life.
“Mrs. Preece, hello,” Barbara said through the open window. “Can we give you a lift into town?” Then