The day of Bella’s funeral Grace saw Rachael and Anne off, then waited for her father. He appeared, surprisingly, on foot, walking down the track to Black Law with a small rucksack on his back. The track through the farmyard was a public footpath and at first she thought he was just another walker. He moved very fast, though once, as she watched, he turned to look over his shoulder. He seemed jumpy, restless. She put the kettle on because she knew he would want coffee as soon as he arrived and went out to wait for him.
“You’ve not walked all the way from the village?”
“I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’m fit for my age.”
“Not that fit.”
“All right,” he admitted. “A friend dropped me at the gate.”
“You should have brought her down for coffee.” She had guessed that it would be a woman. Rod was his only male friend and he still had the ability to attract.
“I asked but she’s a bit shy. Besides, she’s got things to do. She’ll wait for me up there later.”
She took him into the house. She expected comment about the state of the kitchen but he seemed too preoccupied to disapprove.
“I’ve seen this place from a distance but I’ve never been inside. A bit primitive, isn’t it? But I don’t suppose you mind that, do you, Gracie? You’re used to roughing it.”
In the rucksack, carefully wrapped, were homemade biscuits to have with the coffee and an asparagus flan for their lunch.
“But no booze, Gracie. I hope you’ll give me the credit for that.”
She thought then it would be all right. When she’d read his letter she’d worried that there’d be tears. A scene. She wasn’t sure she had the energy. He insisted on a guided tour of the cottage and all the way round he was asking questions, to most of which she had no answers.
He asked about Bella and Dougie and how they’d managed. About Constance Baikie and the Trust, and the students that came and the research they did.
She laid the table in the living room for lunch. He always thought food should be treated seriously. He hated picnics.
“You look as if you need feeding up,” he said, only half joking.
She managed to eat the flan. Most of it.
“I want to see where Bella lived,” he said.
“You’ve seen it. You walked past the farmhouse to get here.”
“I want to see it properly.”
She shrugged. It didn’t seem worth fighting over. They stood in the empty yard with the house on one side, and in the other the shed where Bella brought the lambs in to ewe. It was a gusty, sunny day. The shadows of small clouds blew across the hill. Edmund went over to the shed, unbolted the top half of the door and looked in. Inside were some wooden pens, a pile of mucky straw. He turned round quickly.
“I want to go in the house,” he said.
“You can’t. It’s locked.”
“You must have keys. For an emergency.”
“The police locked it all up when Dougie left.”
“I need to see where she lived. She talked about it all the time but I never came here.”
“You kept in touch then?” She hadn’t realized.
“A few of us from the old group met up occasionally. You know, for encouragement, support, it helps.”
“It must have done.” He still had bouts of depression but he’d never had to go into St. Nick’s again.
“So you can understand why I need to go inside.” “I’m sorry,” she said, starting to lose patience. “It’s not possible.
I told you I haven’t got the keys.”
“We’ll have to break in then.”
“Don’t be daft,” Grace yelled, thrusting her face close to his in an attempt to make him see sense. “How are you going to get away with that? And don’t you think I’ve got enough to lose here already?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” He seemed close to tears. “It’s just that you don’t realize… You have to have been through that sort of desperation. And then I feel responsible. Perhaps I should have guessed.”
“When did you last hear from her?”
A few of us met in the restaurant about a month ago. Rod lets me cook for them sometimes when it’s closed to the public. And I phoned her the week before she died.”
“Why?”
He seemed shocked by the question. “It’s personal. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“The police might want to talk to you. Rachael said they were wanting to trace people who might have some idea why she killed herself.”
“Rachael?”
“Rachael Lambert. She’s supporting the project. Bella was a friend of hers.”
“I didn’t realize Bella had any friends except us.” So much, Grace thought, for Rachael’s notion that she and Bella were closer than mother and daughter. Bella hadn’t even considered her worth mentioning.
“Anyway,” Edmund said suddenly, “I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the police. Bella would hate it. She’d left all that behind long ago.”
“All what?”
But he shook his head and turned away. He walked round the house, looking in each window in turn, occasionally holding his hand between his forehead and the glass to shield the reflected light from his eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting to find.”
“I can’t tell what went on here,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her.
“What was she like?”
“How should I know?” Grace snapped. She thought it was morbid, this peering into the house of a dead woman and she was worried in case Rachael or Anne came back early and caught them at it. “She killed herself the night before I arrived.”
“Yes,” Edmund muttered resentfully, as if somehow Grace had been responsible for that, as if her imminent arrival had been the trigger of Bella’s suicide.
“Shall we go back inside then?” Grace touched his arm gently, her way of making peace with him. “We can’t do any more out here and I’m cold.”
She shepherded him back toward Baikie’s. He went ANN CLEEVES
without argument, and sat quietly while she made tea. Later he looked at his watch. “I’ll have to go soon. She said she’d be there about five.” She. No name. Perhaps he couldn’t even remember it. Since Sue he’d tried not to get too involved.
“I’ll walk up the track with you.” “No,” he said quickly, so she thought perhaps he’d made up a fiction about this trip. Perhaps he hadn’t admitted to a daughter. “I told you she’s shy.”
“I’ll say goodbye here then.” They stood awkwardly in the cramped kitchen.
“So?” he asked, an attempt to fatherly good humour. Now he seemed reluctant to go. “How’s the project working out?”
“It’s not easy. Doing what you ask.”
“No, well, I appreciate that. But you wouldn’t want it, would you? A great scar out of the hill. On my land.” He hesitated, looked at her significantly. “Our land.”
“I’m not even sure it’ll do any good in the end.”
“What do you mean?”
“A few otters. What do they matter compared with all that money, all those jobs. That’s what people’ll say!”
“More than a few.” He paused again. “According to your survey anyway.
Significant numbers. That’s what you promised.”
“I’m not sure I can keep that up. Rachael’s already started to question my counts.” And anyway I’m no good at lying, she thought. Not when it comes to science. To the important stuff.
“Do your best, eh? For me.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a strain.”
“I know.” But he didn’t know at all. Like a spoilt toddler he couldn’t recognize anything beyond his own needs, his own distress.
“Look, I’d better go.” “Can’t keep her waiting,” Grace said sarcastically.
“No.”
She went outside with him then turned in the opposite direction, towards the old mine. Deliberately she didn’t turn back to wave. She sat among the debris of the mine close to the stream which seemed very fast and deep channelled in the culvert, and began to brood again. She knew it was dangerous, this obsession, this desire to find meaning and connection. She almost believed that all the events which were troubling her were linked in an elaborate web Bella’s death, Anne’s hostility, the quarry, the person who seemed to be following her. And she was the spider in the centre of it, causing the events without understanding why.