“He panicked. It had always been his style to run away. He went into hiding. First with Nancy Deakin and then in the house on the estate.
How did Barbara know he was there? A guess perhaps. He’d probably told her that he’d lived in one of those houses before he got married.
“The phone number and the back door key she got from Neville. Not directly… ” as Rachael was about to object. “She had access to the Slateburn offices through her husband and I think she regularly went through both their desks looking for anything which would help in her fight against the quarry. She phoned Edmund to check that he was there. And to frighten him. She knew him well enough to realize that if he was scared he’d probably start drinking. On the afternoon of the birthday party when the estate was overrun with strangers she let herself into the house. Edmund had already drunk himself into oblivion. It was easy enough.”
Rachael stretched her hands towards the fire. “Did Barbara ram my car on the track that night?”
“Oh, yes. She was desperate. She was trying to frighten you away.” Vera paused, pulled a face. “And one of our people stopped her. Can you believe it? She told him she was visiting her sick mother and he was taken in. The fight to stop the quarry was an obsession. Perhaps she was just trying to save herself but I think it was more than that.
She saw it as a desecration of the little boy’s grave.” Vera sighed, leant back, took a deep draught of wine. Ashworth shuffled restlessly. He’d heard all this before and he had his lass to get back to and a warm bed, and at last the baby had started to sleep through the night.
Anne asked suddenly, “What’ll happen to the quarry now?” Vera shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought Godfrey would have much stomach for it. But you’ll have to talk to him about that.”
She left the three women talking about it, so engrossed that they hardly noticed her leaving.
Ashworth drove carefully up the track and through the ford towards the forest.
About the Author
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.
Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.
www.anncleeves.com
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