A Place of Secrets (7 page)

Glancing around she saw the wire was part of a vicious-looking fence, but here it had been cut and bent back. There was another sign, like the one that said “Private Land,” hanging off a fence post. “Keep Out, dangerous structure” this one read. Everywhere shouted “Go away” at her. How horrible this place was. She fumbled a packet of tissues from her jacket pocket and clamped one over the wound, trying
vaguely to remember the date of her last tetanus shot.

While she waited for the bleeding to stop she spotted something caught in a coil of fence a few feet away. She hobbled over to look. It was an animal, a small deer, and it was dead. A baby perhaps, she thought, or one of those little muntjacs; yes, a muntjac, she decided, from the gray markings on its face, a young one at that. She’d seen
a picture of one in a newspaper. It hadn’t been dead for long, poor thing. Its eyes were just glazing over. She put out a finger and touched its shoulder—the body was still warm. When she brought her hand away it was sticky with blood. She wiped it off hastily on the grass and studied the corpse more closely. Its head hung at a strange angle and there was a gunshot wound in its side.

Anger surged
through her—anger and fear and sadness. How could someone do this to such a fragile creature? Wound it so it fled, terrified and in pain, and caught itself on the wire, as she had.

A noise made her look up. From around the side of the tower came a man swinging a spade. She couldn’t see his face against the light and suddenly she caught a remnant of the muntjac’s terror.

He stopped when he saw
her. “What are you doing here?” he said roughly.

She got to her feet, her heart pounding, and all the rage and fear of the last few minutes rose in her like hot lava.

“Why the hell’s it your business?” she cried. “How could you do this to a defenseless animal? And I nearly got shot myself.”

“Oh, for goodness sake. What are you doing here when everything’s marked private? You look old enough
to know better.”

“I saw the signs, but I took what I thought was a public footpath. What if I’d been a child? Does a ‘Private’ sign give you the right to be cruel? And that gibbet, it’s … medieval.”

“Do you always shout at complete strangers?” he said. The man was monstrous. He ignored everything she said.

“I do when they shoot at people,” she cried. “And animals. You did shoot this deer, didn’t
you?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But I did put it out of its misery, poor bastard, and now I’m going to bury it.”

“How incredibly kind of you,” she sneered, still angry, “when it was your barbed wire it was caught up in.”

“It isn’t my barbed wire. You really are extraordinary,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re accusing me of all sorts of things I haven’t done. I think you’d better go. No, not
that way!” he cried, as she turned back the way she’d come. “You’ll get shot at again!”

“Don’t you threaten me!”

“I wasn’t. You’ve misunderstood.” His voice was gentle. “Look, you have nothing to fear from me. But you really ought to go. Not least to get that cut dealt with.”

She examined the wound. It was an awful mess.

“What are you doing here, anyway, dressed up like a dinner?”

“Looking
for this,” she replied, nodding at the tower, and starting to feel a little foolish.

“The folly?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It interests me, that’s all.”

“Because…?”

“It’s complicated.”

“OK, well you’ve found it now. And believe me when I tell you it would be sensible to go. I don’t know who’s been out shooting, but they might be along any moment.”

She really hadn’t much choice and she didn’t feel
like exploring now anyway.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the quickest way back to the road. Do you have a vehicle?” She nodded. He set off across the clearing and she had to hurry to keep up, the throbbing pain in her leg only just bearable.

As they passed out of the dazzling light and under the trees at the other side of the tower, she was able to view her companion more clearly. He was
big, powerfully built in a way that reminded her of Caspar, but his dark, curly hair was longer, more unruly than Caspar’s and where Caspar’s skin was boardroom pale, his was tanned. He glanced back at her occasionally to make sure she was following and though he didn’t smile his dark-fringed eyes were not unfriendly.

After two or three minutes they reached a wider path, marked with vehicle tracks.

“Walk down there, turn left at the T-junction and after a few hundred yards you’ll be back where you started,” he said briskly. “Are you all right with that cut? I can take you back to mine and—”

“I’ve got some Band-Aids in the car,” she interrupted. “Thanks,” she added grudgingly, and set off down the path. He called out something and she turned. “What?”

“I said, come and find me another time
and I’ll show you the folly. You shouldn’t go up it on your own.”

“What…?” she said again, though she’d heard him that time, she was just surprised at the offer.

“I said it’s not safe. The house at the bottom of the hill. That’s where you’ll find me.”

“All right,” she said. “Maybe.”

The trudge down the slope jolted her weary body and she reached the car feeling terribly weak. She collapsed
in the driver’s seat for a few moments, then remembered there was a chocolate bar in the glove compartment. She dug it out from among the CD boxes and old pens, glad to find her small first-aid kit there, too. When she’d eaten the chocolate she peeled off her wrecked tights and cleaned up the wound. It didn’t look very serious, though it still hurt.

Feeling better, she drove up the hill, wondering
about the house he mentioned. She must have passed it in the car earlier, further back toward Starbrough Hall. Noticing the junction with the lane where she’d parted from him, and wishing she’d found it rather than the overgrown footpath, she continued toward Felbarton.

Jude closed the rickety garden gate of Blacksmith’s Cottage and walked up the path, then stopped, amused by the sight of a small girl periodically rising and falling above the level of the back-garden wall, to the rhythmic accompaniment of thuds and squeaks. Summer’s eyes were closed as she bounced on her trampoline and her lips moved as though she were lost in some chanting song. How
ethereal she seemed, Jude thought tenderly. In her pink capri pants and embroidered crop top, with her fine hair flying about her face, her niece was as light and supple as the swifts that dipped and soared in the evening air.

As though sensing she was watched, Summer’s eyes flicked open. “Auntie Jude,” she shouted. She launched herself off the trampoline and disappeared from sight, but Jude
could hear her calling, “Mummy, Mummy, Auntie Jude’s here,” in the depths of the cottage.

As Jude waited for the front door to open, she admired the mass of white roses growing over the porch and the window boxes of geraniums and trailing lobelia. Her sister had a natural ability with these things. She remembered the solitary, straggling spider plant on her own kitchen windowsill in Greenwich.

“Well, aren’t you coming in then?” Claire called from the doorway. Slim, blonde and elfin pretty, Claire had a brusque way of speaking that had long been part of her armor against the world. “What the hell have you done to yourself?” she cried.

Jude looked down at her crumpled jacket and skirt. Blood was seeping out from under the plaster on her shin. “It’s a long story,” she said.

Summer ducked
beneath her mother’s arm, danced out and grabbed Jude’s hand, drawing her inside. The three of them stumbled together into the tiny living room. “Will you come upstairs, Auntie Jude?” commanded Summer. “I want to show you my doll’s house. I’ve just made some pictures to go on the walls.”

“Let your poor aunt rest a moment,” Claire said, glancing again curiously at Jude’s cut. “I’ll put the kettle
on, shall I? Have a shower and change, if you want.”

“I don’t mind making the tea,” Jude said tentatively, but what she meant as a genuine offer of help was, as usual, interpreted wrongly.

“I can manage, thank you,” Claire said firmly. “It’s you who’s in the wars today.”

Jude watched her push herself upright and limp into the kitchen. Although all the operations on her leg had made a difference,
they had never entirely solved the original problem. After she was sixteen, Claire refused to endure any more treatment.

“Come on, Auntie Jude.” Summer ran ahead upstairs.

Claire called from the kitchen, “I put some bedding out. Find yourself a towel in the bathroom cupboard.”

“Thanks.”

With more than Claire and Summer in it, the cottage felt crowded, but Claire, who bought it two years ago,
when the Star Bureau started to come into profit, had made the best of its quaintness, staining and varnishing all the beams herself and painting the lathe and plaster walls a soft China white. As Jude picked up her overnight bag and mounted the stairs she noticed something new. “These collages on the landing,” she called down, “they’re lovely. Are they from the shop?” There were two bright, almost
mystical scenes of trees and stars made of bark and painted paper, the detail drawn in pen and ink.

“Do you like them?” Claire replied. “Summer’s got a friend called Darcey. Her uncle makes them. We took some for the Star Bureau and I couldn’t resist doing a deal for a couple of extra for myself.”

Summer’s room was decorated fit for a fairy-tale princess. Pale plastic stars dotted the ceiling.
Jude knew they glowed green-white in the dark. Claire had painted the walls with shy woodland creatures that seemed to peep around the vertical beams with large gentle eyes. Under the eyes of a fawn, Summer sat cross-legged on the floor, playing with a painted plywood doll’s house. Jude dropped her bag on the mattress Claire had laid out and knelt down next to Summer to see properly. The house,
she was astonished to realize, was an exact replica of Blacksmith’s Cottage, down to the chimneys and the window boxes.

“Look, this is me,” Summer said, showing Jude a wooden doll dressed in an outfit rather similar to the one she now wore. “And this is Mummy.” The doll wore a replica of one of Claire’s long cotton skirts and tops and tiny dangling earrings.

“And this is Pandora.” The china
cat had been painted with her real-life counterpart’s exact black-and-white markings. Summer made them all dance through the doll’s house. The two dolls had jointed limbs and Summer could sit them on chairs or, in the case of the little girl, make her kneel on the floor.

“They’re amazing. Where did you get them from?” Jude asked, picking up a little kitchen chair to study it properly.

“Euan
made them for me. He’s Darcey’s uncle.”

“Did he make the pictures on the staircase, too?” Jude asked. Whoever the talented Euan was, he had clearly become something of a friend.

“Mmm,” Summer replied vaguely, lost in her game. “Now you go to sleep,” she told the little girl doll, laying her on the bed in the replica princess bedroom. “Or you won’t enjoy school tomorrow because you’ll be too
tired. Sweet dreams, my darling!”

Remembering what Claire had told her, that Summer’s dreams were anything but sweet, Jude reached out a hand and stroked the girl’s hair. Should she say something? But now Summer had moved the Mummy doll downstairs and was making her feed the cat. The moment had passed.

* * *

“Have you ever been inside Starbrough Hall?” Jude, now changed into jeans and long-sleeved
T-shirt, was watching her sister make supper.

Her sister, stirring a pan of risotto, shook her head. “No, just glimpsed it from the road. What did you say you’re doing there?”

“I’m valuing a collection of books and scientific instruments. They once belonged to an amateur astronomer. Look, I’ll do that.” She took the saucepan for the broccoli side dish from Claire to fill from the tap.

“Thanks,”
Claire muttered. “So is it valuable, this stuff?”

“Some of it, yes,” said Jude, placing the pan on the stove. “But it’s really interesting, too. This man, Anthony Wickham, he lived at the end of the eighteenth century and I think he built the folly in the forest. He used it for stargazing. And when I went to see Gran last night, she mentioned the folly, too. So that’s how I got myself in such
a mess just now. I thought I’d go and look for it. Have you seen it?”

“I nearly went with Mum once, but we didn’t quite make it. It’s a ruin, people say. Did you find it?”

“Yes, eventually, and it doesn’t look like a ruin. I found a footpath and thought it would be straightforward, but then some idiot started shooting right near me and I panicked and ran.”

“You have to be careful about that,”
Claire said, frowning. “They must be killing foxes or rabbits or something; the pheasant season hasn’t started yet. I hate it when it does—those poor birds, it’s barbaric. But at least most people involved act responsibly.”

“Not whoever it was today. Anyway, I found the folly, but I didn’t have a chance to get a proper look. There was a dead deer caught in barbed wire. Someone had shot it. And
this man appeared and since he was holding a shovel I put two and two together. I got quite cross, actually, but then he was quite unpleasant.” Jude stopped, and tried to remember. “Oh dear, it was a bit embarrassing. I assumed it was he who’d wounded the deer and perhaps I was wrong. He said he’d put it out of its misery. Told me it was private property and practically frogmarched me off his land.”

Claire laughed. “It’s like I said. You can’t go nosing anywhere you like round here. You city types, you think everything’s laid out for you.”

“I’m not a city type.”

“Yes, you are! Look at you. Going for a country ramble in a posh suit and stockings. Bossing some poor landowner who’s merely going about his business. You’re like that couple who’ve moved into the barn conversion down the road
and complain about the smell of the farmer’s fertilizer.”

“You’ve just said yourself the pheasant shooting is barbaric.”

“I know, and I wouldn’t do it myself, but the land wouldn’t be managed or the pheasants bred in the first place if people didn’t want to go shooting. People from the cities don’t see all that. And the government doesn’t care about the countryside because there aren’t votes
for them there.” Claire banged a lid onto the simmering broccoli.