The interior smelt of dust and damp. It was shadowy, its only window so badly smeared by weather grime it was virtually opaque. He could make out what looked like well-used gardening tools—a rake, hoe, shears and other implements—hanging from the wooden wall opposite the window, and a couple of plastic sacks that may have contained fertilizer or weedkiller, or both, resting on the stone floor, while at the back, behind a lawnmower, an old Flymo hover-mower leaned on its side against the wall, its rotor blade missing. On a shelf above the hooks was a petrol can (gasoline, to Gabe) and a half-sized chainsaw, probably used for trimming tree branches and cutting up logs for Crickley Hall's fires. There were also cobwebs, plenty of cobwebs, dusty nets draped from corners and ledges. The shed needed a good clean-up, which Gabe thought he'd probably do himself rather than ask old Percy who, no doubt, was too used to the dirt to notice. Many gardeners were like that.
Gabe spied what he had been looking for: a length of rope dangled from a shelf hook at the far end of the row. Moving round the lawnmower occupying the centre floor space, he unhooked the rope and carried it back to the daylight coming through the open door. The rope was thin and almost black with dust, but it was long and strong enough to serve his purpose. After scraping the shed door shut and pushing the slot of the locking arm into the metal hasp, he returned to the oak tree where Loren and Chester were waiting.
Loren frowned as Gabe threw one end of the rope round the tree trunk and deftly caught it when it came round the other side. 'It's wicked, Dad,' she complained, holding Chester closer to her.
'Can't be helped, Slim,' Gabe responded, feeling only a little guilty. 'If he won't come into the house, this is all we can do. If we left him untied, he'd scoot again. We don't want to lose him, do we?'
'But we can't leave him out all night.'
Gabe tied a knot so that the rope was looped securely round the tree. He knelt beside Chester and slid the free end through the dog's collar. As he tied another knot, he said, 'He'll wanna play house after he's spent the rest of the day on his own. You hear me, mutt.' He playfully poked Chester's ribs. 'You want company again, you gotta learn to love Crickley Hall.'
'He'll get soaked if it rains.' Loren clung to Chester more fiercely.
'If it rains, I'll haul him inside and if he howls or whines he goes down to the cellar. I don't like it much myself, Loren, but it's the only solution.'
Gabe took his daughter by the elbow and brought her unwillingly to her feet. She stroked Chester's head a few more times before following her father towards the house. When they both looked back, Chester was standing stock-still, his tail in the air, watching them as if expecting their return. Gabe put his arm around Loren's shoulders and gently urged her on.
'Chester's gonna be okay. Wait and see—he'll decide life indoors in comfort and with good company is a lot better than time alone, trussed to a tree.'
'But why doesn't he like Crickley Hall, Dad?' Loren's voice was woeful.
'Well, I guess he'd rather be in his own home, like the rest of us,' he told her. 'Being somewhere strange gives him the jitters. He's a jumpy kind of mutt anyway, always has been.'
If Loren was satisfied with the reply she wasn't saying. She walked alongside Gabe in silence, a troubled look on her young face. He wondered if he'd been wrong in bringing his family down here to Hollow Bay. Hell, even the dog hated it here. But Gabe thought he'd been acting for the best: the anniversary of Cam's disappearance would soon be on them and Gabe hadn't wanted them all—especially Eve—to face it in the house where their son had been born and raised, and where there were so many heart-stabbing memories of him.
Father and daughter bypassed Crickley Hall's main door, Gabe tapping on the kitchen window as they walked past, Eve turning round from the table where she and Cally were setting places for lunch. She gave Gabe and Loren a short wave and a smile.
The door to the kitchen was unlocked, as Gabe knew it would be (irrationally, some impulse deep within Eve caused her constantly to leave the front door of their London house unlocked as if she were afraid that Cam might suddenly appear only to find himself locked out), and they stepped inside, stamping their boots on the thick doormat to shake off loose rainwater and mud. To Gabe's surprise, Eve was still smiling.
'You found him easily enough,' she said, having watched Gabe tether their wayward pet to the tree from the window.
'Yep,' agreed Gabe as he shrugged off his reefer jacket. 'Way up the hill, heading for the city lights.'
To his further surprise Eve gave him a peck on the cheek, and then did the same to Loren. There was a sudden brightness to his wife that had been absent for a long time. Puzzled but pleased, he studied her face with some confusion.
'Daddy, why didn't you bring Chester inside?' Cally looked up at him, a clutch of tablespoons held in one podgy little hand. Eve obviously had lifted her up to the kitchen window so that she could see they'd found Chester.
'Because he told me he wanted to catch some fresh air for a while. He's tired of being cooped up in the house all day long.'
'Chester can't say words, Daddy.'
'Sure he can. You just never seem to be around when he says 'em.'
'Doh,' she said meaningfully.
'You don't believe me? When I was a cowboy back in the States I had a horse that gabbed to me all the time.'
Eve and Loren rolled their eyes at each other.
'Woody hasn't got a talking horse,' Cally responded doubtfully, referring to another favourite cartoon character. Bart and Homer Simpson were not the only guys in town.
'That's because he hasn't even got a horse.'
Eve intervened. 'Gabe, you're going to be in trouble when she wises up to you. You know she believes everything you tell her.'
Gabe only grinned back at her. 'Loren seems to have adjusted well enough.'
'You weren't there, Dad, when my friends laughed at me. I'm still disappointed about Father Christmas.'
Cally's head swung round to her older sister. 'Father Christmas?'
'You're too little to understand, Cally,' Loren informed her patiently. 'Daddy makes up stories.'
Cally's head swivelled back to Gabe.
'Well, look who's all growed up all of a sudden,' he teased Loren.
Eve intervened again before Cally became disillusioned. 'But it seems you haven't,' she said to Gabe, and amazingly her smile was genuine.
Gabe stared at her. Had some of her lustre come back? He felt a lifting of his own spirit.
'You had a good morning?' he asked, probing her. When he and Loren had picked up the car, Eve had looked her usual beaten self. Had something happened while he and Loren were out? If so, was Eve saving the explanation for when she and Gabe were alone? He would just have to wait and see.
•
But Eve gave nothing away, even though the sadness that she had worn like a shroud all these months appeared to have lifted—not entirely, it was true, for there was still an unshakeable air of melancholy about her, but this was now subdued, her manner more alert, her voice a little lighter, her movement not quite so leaden. It gave him a glimpse of her real self, the woman he had loved for so many years, and he was afraid to say anything that might change the mood. The difference in her was not great, but to Gabe it seemed significant. Maybe a turning point.
He hadn't even pressed her when they were on their own, the girls off somewhere playing, Loren probably texting her friends on her brand-new cell phone, but at one point he had softly ventured, 'You okay, hon?' and she had merely turned to him and said, 'Yes.' No more than that.
So he let it be. Maybe her mind had taken all the misery—and guilt—it could handle. If so, he guessed the change probably wouldn't last long; but at least it might be a step towards her recovery. He hoped that it was.