COPYRIGHT

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Collins Crime

Copyright © Emma Page 1990

Emma Page asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780008175801

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175818

Version [2016-02-18]

DEDICATION

FOR CHRISTOPHER

with much love

(To say: Well done!)

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

About the Author

By Emma Page

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

On this Friday morning in mid-November the long spell of golden autumn weather showed signs of coming to an end. Swirls of cloud, gunmetal grey, slipped along through the lower sky, the freshening wind held a threat of rain.

In the scattered hamlet of Overmead, a mile or two to the east of Cannonbridge, lights shone out from isolated homesteads. Three-quarters of a mile beyond the silent, shadowy expanses of Overmead Wood, a neglected stretch of open woodland, a side road, scarcely more than a glorified lane, branched northwards from the main thoroughfare running out of Cannonbridge. Some five hundred yards along the side road stood Jubilee Cottage, the home of Ian and Christine Wilmot, in a sizable garden still bright with Michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums, yellow poppies.

The cottage had been converted a few years ago from a pair of semi-detached Edwardian dwellings set at right-angles to each other. It was now a handsome, substantial, many-gabled residence with ornamental windows and ornate chimneystacks, its mellow, rosy brick elegantly set off by cream-coloured paintwork, brilliant swags of scarlet pyracantha berries round the doors and windows.

In her comfortable bedroom on the first floor, furnished, like the rest of the house, with carefully chosen Edwardian furniture bought from auctions and salerooms, Karen Boland, a cousin of Christine Wilmot, was up and dressed, washed and groomed, ready for her day’s studies at the Cannonbridge College of Further Education. She had been a student at the college since September, following a full-time course in general education.

Karen was sixteen years old, slightly built, delicately pretty, with small, soft features and a smooth, rounded forehead that gave her a lingering look of childhood innocence, a little at variance with the veiled expression of her wide hazel eyes; they held a suggestion of wary containment, the look of one who has already learned some of the harsher lessons of life.

She was dressed in a sweater and slacks, ankle boots. She wore no make-up; her fine, clear skin had a peachy bloom. Her wavy, shoulder-length hair, a shining golden brown, was taken back and secured with a fashionable clip on the crown of her head.

Across the landing she heard her cousin Christine leave the bedroom she shared with her husband, Ian, and go downstairs. Karen crossed to the door of her own room and opened it a fraction. She could hear the muted tones of the kitchen radio giving out the morning’s information and opinions, the sounds of Christine preparing breakfast. Along the corridor she could hear Ian splashing in the bathroom.

She closed her door quietly and went to her desk. On a shelf above her books were neatly ranged. She took down an old maths textbook and opened it. The last few pages had been pasted to the back cover along the outside and bottom edges, forming a concealed pocket.

She fingered a snapshot out from the pocket and sat down at the desk, gazing intently at the likeness. After some moments she opened a desk drawer and took out a magnifying-glass. She sat closely studying the photograph.

Along the corridor the bathroom door opened, she heard Ian’s footsteps going back to the bedroom. Karen at once replaced the photograph, restored the book to the shelf and put the magnifying-glass away in the drawer.

A delicious fragrance of percolating coffee greeted her as she entered the kitchen. On the radio a weatherman spoke of lowering skies, falling temperatures, strong winds springing up, scattered showers and rainstorms later in the day, some of them heavy.

‘That sounds like the end of the fine weather,’ Christine said with a grimace. She was a markedly competent-looking woman of thirty-four, with an air of vigorous health, of all her energies being strongly directed towards clearly defined ends. She ran a mail-order agency and also acted as a party organizer for more than one enterprise.

She cut bread for the toaster. Everything done swiftly, with economy of movement. She was sturdily built, somewhat above average height. Her naturally straight hair, of an indeterminate brown, was becomingly curled, cut in a trouble-free, up-to-the-minute style. She was trimly dressed in distinctive casual clothes of good quality. She had few natural advantages in the way of features or colouring but where another woman, less determined, would have appeared decidedly ordinary, Christine achieved a result attractive to the eye.

Karen set about laying the table. Christine was her first cousin. Both Karen’s parents were dead and she was in the care of the Social Services Department of the local authority. She had come to live at Jubilee Cottage in July, when the school year ended. She had previously been living with foster parents in Wychford, a small town ten miles to the west of Cannonbridge. Difficulties had arisen and the foster parents had refused to keep her. She had been returned to the residential children’s home in Wychford from which she had originally been sent to the foster parents. It was from this residential home that she had been transferred at the end of term into the care of the Wilmots.

As Karen took plates from the dresser Ian Wilmot came down the stairs and into the kitchen. Easy and unhurried, with his usual amiable, half-smiling expression. Good-looking, with fair hair and blue eyes; four years older than his wife. He worked as a planning assistant for the Cannonbridge Council.

He spoke a few good-humoured words to Karen and Christine, picked up a newspaper and glanced through it as Christine set a packet of muesli on the table. ‘There’s a cold chicken in the fridge for this evening,’ she told them. She wouldn’t be in for supper herself, Friday was always her busiest day, she would be out from shortly after lunch. Always important on a Friday to make sure she got her dues from the paypackets before the weekend spending began in earnest. And there were always a couple of evening parties she must look in on, sales parties she had helped to organize: clothes, lingerie, kitchenware, jewellery, make-up, toys, children’s wear.

Ian looked up from his paper. ‘I’ve got that meeting at seven-thirty,’ he reminded her. The meeting, to be held in a school hall in Cannonbridge, had been organized by a local action group drumming up opposition to a proposed building development. Ian had to attend as an observer for the Council.

Christine glanced across at Karen. ‘What about you? Will you be going to Lynn’s after college?’ Lynn Musgrove was a fellow student of Karen’s, on the same course. She lived close to the college and Karen sometimes went home with her after classes; they did their homework together.

‘I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.’ Karen reached cups and saucers down from the dresser. ‘I might go along to the library.’ The public library stayed open till eight on Friday evenings. ‘It depends what homework I have.’

‘Are you making any more friends at the college?’ Ian asked in an easy tone from behind his newspaper. She seemed to be settling into the course well enough but she hadn’t so far brought any friend home, not even Lynn Musgrove.

Karen shrugged. ‘There’s no one special.’ She took knives and spoons from a drawer. ‘You’ve no need to worry. I’m getting on fine.’

‘You know you’re always more than welcome to bring anyone here. For a meal, or to stay the night. For a weekend, if you like.’

‘Yes, I do know that. Thank you.’

Ian gave her a little nod by way of reply, an encouraging smile. Christine didn’t smile. She stood watching as Karen went into the larder and came out again with honey and marmalade.

‘Has Paul Clayton been in touch with you at all?’ Christine asked suddenly.

Karen came to an abrupt halt. She stood staring at Christine, holding the jars in a tight clasp. A bright flush rose in her face.

‘Has he been in touch with you since you’ve been here?’ Christine persisted. ‘Has he attempted any kind of contact?’

Karen drew a long, quavering breath. She moved again, went to the table and set down the pots. She didn’t look at Christine.

‘No, of course not.’ She put a hand up to her forehead, shielding her face. Clayton was a married man with a young family, a neighbour of Karen’s foster parents in Wychford. An association had formed between Karen and Clayton and had inevitably come to light; this was why the foster parents had refused to keep her, why she had been sent back to the children’s home.

‘You’re quite sure?’ Christine pressed her. ‘He’s made no attempt at all to get in touch with you?’

The colour ebbed from Karen’s cheeks. She remained motionless by the table. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sure.’ She still didn’t look at Christine, still kept her hand up to her brow. ‘He’s made no attempt.’

Ian folded his paper and put it down. ‘You would be sensible and tell us if Clayton did make any approach?’ he said gently.

Karen lowered her hand and grasped the back of a chair. Her head drooped. ‘Yes, of course I would.’

‘You know we’re only thinking of what’s best for you,’ Ian added in the same gentle tone.

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘You do realize,’ Christine put in with a quick frown, ‘that if you were foolish enough to start seeing Clayton again and it came out, the Social Services would consider we weren’t exercising proper control over you. You’d probably be moved from here, very likely back into another residential home. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’

Karen raised her head and looked her full in the face.

‘No, I would not.’ She spoke with fervour. ‘That’s the last thing I’d want.’

Ten miles away, in an exclusive, expensively landscaped development on the edge of Wychford, the Clayton family sat at breakfast. The house was large, as modern houses go, set among tall old trees, smoothly sculptured lawns, still emerald green.

In the big breakfast kitchen the four Claytons ate almost in silence at a central table under the glow diffused from an up-to-date light fitting. The entire house was done out in the same impersonal, businesslike way: Scandinavian-type styling, clean lines, new materials, everything of good quality, functional, hard-wearing, trouble-free. As if someone had chosen the lot in a single rapid swoop on a high-class furniture store – which was indeed precisely what had happened, the someone in question being Paul Clayton, his wife Joan remaining at home, feeling herself unfitted to take part in the foray.

The Claytons were eating a cooked breakfast. Joan Clayton punctiliously cooked a good breakfast for them every morning, winter and summer, one area of endeavour in which she could feel in control.

Paul Clayton was an electronics engineer, with his own prospering, expanding business. He was just turned forty, a tall, handsome man with a rangy figure, chiselled features, thick dark hair, grey eyes. His look was intent, unsmiling, the look of a man with a quick temper, who didn’t suffer fools gladly. Beside his plate lay his usual pile of newspapers. As he dealt with his breakfast he glanced rapidly over the financial pages of each paper in turn, here and there marking something with his pen.

Opposite him, anticipating every need of her husband and two children, Joan Clayton sat drinking her coffee with a tense, frowning air, watching in simmering silence Paul’s brisk manœuvres with the newspapers.

The children ate their breakfast as always, without fuss or complaint. Ten-year-old twins, boy and girl, they carried on their customary running mealtime conversation with each other in subdued undertones. Well-disciplined and well-behaved, they knew better than to try any larking about in front of their father.

Clayton drained his cup and pushed it forward without so much as a glance at his wife. She at once refilled the cup and pushed it back to him, watchful that not a drop spilled into the saucer.

She was a plain woman, the same age as her husband to within a few weeks. She looked every year of her age and more, with her despondent, anxious air. Carefully dressed and groomed, but without any natural feel for clothes, the end result was invariably the same: dowdiness.

She had known Paul all her life. They had grown up next door to each other in a working-class street of small, rented, terrace houses in Wychford. They had attended the same schools, sat in the same class. Paul was the son of a factory hand with little money to spare, Joan the daughter of a building labourer content to drink his pint of beer in the pub at the end of his day’s work, invest his weekly few shillings in the football pools, an occasional flutter on a horse or dog.

By nature Paul was a clever, hard-working, ambitious lad with an interest in science, always experimenting in the garden shed. Joan was neither clever nor ambitious and she had no interest in any form of science. She was a plain, hefty child, asking no more than to run errands for Paul, clear up his many and varied messes, her greatest pleasure to be permitted to help in an actual experiment.

When Paul was ten years old his father died. There was now even less money to spare. It became very clear to him that his path in life was to work still harder, help his mother as much as possible, make his way in the world as best he could. He left school at the earliest opportunity, got a job in his father’s old workplace, went to night school, studied hard, but still spent many hours in the garden shed experimenting. Over the next few years he had several bright ideas which he passed on to his firm, receiving modest lump sums by way of token recognition.

As soon as Joan left school she went to work as a kitchen-hand in a working men’s café nearby. She still thought the sun rose and set with Paul Clayton, she was still ready to fetch and carry, lend a hand, in the evenings and at weekends. They never courted or dated in any conventional sense but neither of them ever had any other dates. Paul had no interest in any kind of social activity. He was interested only in getting on. His mother died when he was twenty but his goals and ambitions were undiminished. He remained in the same house, on his own now; he continued to live the same kind of life.

The years slipped by. Then, one evening in his garden shed, Paul had an exceptionally bright idea. He knew at once he was on to a winner. This one he didn’t pass on to his firm, this one he hung on to. He was by now twenty-eight; if he was ever going to amount to anything he must make a start soon. Joan knew what was in the wind. She took it for granted he would pass the idea on as before, but he told her no; this one he was going to develop himself.

He called on more than one bank manager, he approached other conventional sources of capital, but without success. The world was sunk in recession, it was no time for a young man from the back streets to be welcomed through the portals of finance houses, no one wanted to know.

And then one winter Saturday some months later, Joan’s father won a substantial sum on the football pools he had unsuccessfully patronized for decades. His immediate reaction was that he would give up work and enjoy himself, but Joan thought otherwise. She said not a word about the win to Paul but sat talking long and earnestly, first to her mother and then to her father; she talked more in the next few days than she had ever talked in her life.

At the end of this sustained onslaught her father caved in. He put on a clean shirt and went next door. He was a simple, direct man, anxious for his daughter’s welfare and future happiness; he put his proposition to Paul simply and directly: if Paul would marry Joan he could count on a good chunk of the winnings–at a fair rate of interest–to set up in business. It was by no means a fortune but he could at least make a modest start.

It took Paul thirty seconds to make up his mind. The wedding took place at a register office four weeks later. Joan moved into the little house next door and Paul began operations in a small rented unit on the local industrial estate.

Joan was overjoyed. She remained overjoyed for some years. After two years the twins were born and she was even happier and busier. Paul worked harder than ever, still going to evening classes, still studying, still spending hours in his shed, although she no longer joined him there but sat contentedly knitting or sewing in front of the living-room fire when the twins were in bed. She never felt herself neglected or lonely.

The business prospered. Paul moved into larger premises. The twins went to school. Paul decided that the time had come to leave the little house, move somewhere more suited to their improved position. Joan would have been happy to stay where they were but she fell in as always with whatever Paul decided. The new house was fitted out with every kind of labour-saving device; there was a good deal more leisure now for Joan, a good deal more money to spend.

She had nursed hopes that Paul might at long last begin to relax, they might branch out into a more social life together. But Paul brushed aside all such tentative suggestions. He looked on social life with contempt as the shallow activity of vain people without enough to do or to think about. ‘Find some outside interests,’ he told her. ‘Spend some money on yourself. Take things easy, enjoy yourself.’

She did her best. She joined the Parent-Teacher Association, took part in church activities, went to classes in cookery and flower-arranging. She made an effort to do something about her appearance, bought new clothes in the latest fashions at prices she could scarcely credit. But they never felt right on her. She settled in the end for upmarket versions of the plain, functional, serviceable garments she had always worn.

And still there remained a wilderness of leisure she didn’t know how to fill. Paul didn’t appear to notice as she began a slow slide into depression, punctuated by unnerving, seemingly random attacks of panic.

Now, on this November morning, she glanced about and saw that the children had finished breakfast. She sent them upstairs as usual to wash their hands and faces, brush their teeth, make themselves ready for school. It was always she who drove them to school; Paul’s works lay in the opposite direction.

She sat watching her husband with tense concentration. He looked at his watch, drained his cup and pushed back his chair. At once she nerved herself, launching precipitately into speech.

‘Will you be coming with me to the musical evening next week?’

He paused, surprised.

‘In the church hall,’ she added rapidly. ‘Tuesday, half past seven, it’s for Third World charities. I mentioned it to you last week. You promised to think about it and let me know.’

‘I’m afraid I forgot all about it,’ he told her amiably.

She twisted her hands together. ‘It’s a good programme, in a very good cause.’

‘I’m sorry.’ His tone was still easy and amiable. ‘I simply haven’t the time. We’ve got a rush on just now.’ He stood up, smiled down at her. ‘Anyway, it’s hardly my style. But don’t let me stop you going. You get out and enjoy yourself. There must be some woman from the church you can go with.’ He gathered up his newspapers. ‘I may be late this evening. Don’t bother about any supper for me, I can get a bite somewhere. If I want anything when I come in I can get it myself.’

She sat gazing up at him, her hands tightly clasped. ‘That’s three times this week you’ve been late home.’

He made a comical grimace. ‘Is that so?’ He patted his pockets, checked his keys. ‘You know how it is, the business won’t run itself. If there’s work to do, it’s got to be done.’ He kept impatience from his voice, kept his expression friendly and smiling. ‘Competition’s fiercer than ever these days. If you don’t keep pushing forward you very soon grind to a halt.’ He went round the table, stooped and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, straightened up, turned to go.

She suddenly overflowed with anger and resentment. ‘You’re seeing that girl again! That’s why you’re late!’

The muscles tensed along his jaw. He didn’t turn back to look at her. ‘What girl?’ he asked lightly.

‘What girl?’ she echoed fiercely. She was on the edge of tears, but she kept her voice low because of the children. She had an air of being astounded at her own temerity but she pressed resolutely on. ‘Have you got half a dozen girls on the go, then, that you don’t know who I’m talking about? I’m talking about Karen Boland.’

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ he said soothingly. He half turned, half smiled. ‘You’re upsetting yourself for nothing. I haven’t laid eyes on Karen since she left Wychford, months ago.’

There was a brief silence. ‘Is that the truth?’ She looked beseechingly up at him.

He patted her shoulder. ‘Of course it is.’ He glanced again at his watch. ‘I may have been a fool but I’m not a damned lunatic. That’s all water under the bridge, best forgotten.’ He gave her shoulder another encouraging pat and left the room. She heard the front door open and shut, his car starting up, moving off down the drive.

She got slowly to her feet, shaken and trembling. From force of habit she began to gather up the breakfast things, set them down on the draining-board. She stood beside it with her head lowered and her eyes closed, fighting back the tears.

When the children came running downstairs again a few minutes later she looked her normal self. She cast an eye over them, gathered up her purse and shopping-bag. ‘Come along, then,’ she said in her everyday tones. ‘Mustn’t be late for school.’

In Jubilee Cottage also breakfast was coming to an end. Ian Wilmot was pouring himself a last cup of coffee when he heard the postman. He rose with controlled haste and went into the hall, coming back with a handful of mail which he put down in front of his wife. ‘All for you again,’ he remarked cheerfully.

Christine glanced quickly through the post and laid it aside. All business mail, to be dealt with later. She looked up at Ian. ‘Nothing from your application?’ He had applied for a better job in the South.

He picked up his cup. He remained standing by his chair, drinking the coffee. He shook his head, smiling. ‘No, not yet.’

She continued to gaze up at him. ‘If you’re on the short list, surely you’d have heard by now?’

‘Possibly.’ He kept his amiable look, his light, dismissive tone.

She frowned. ‘You had real hopes of this one.’ Until six months ago he’d been confident of promotion in due course in his own department in Cannonbridge where he’d worked for the last twelve years. He believed he’d given satisfaction, he’d always got on well with his head of department. But six months ago the head had died suddenly and a new man had been brought in. The easy-going atmosphere altered overnight. The new man was a good deal younger than his predecessor, a good deal sharper, far more critical. He began a relentless drive for efficiency, singling out in uncomfortable ways those members of staff whose performance struck him as less than satisfactory. Ian’s name figured well up on this list.

Christine tilted back her head. ‘That’s the fifth job you’ve applied for in the last few months,’ she observed.

He moved his shoulders but said nothing.

‘Is there anything else on the cards?’ she pursued.

He drank his coffee. ‘Not at the moment.’ He smiled again. ‘Something will come along one of these days.’

She made no reply but sat gazing up at him.

He finished his coffee. ‘Are you nearly ready?’ he asked Karen.

She nodded, ate her last morsel of toast, drained her cup.

Ian went into the hall to put on his outdoor things. Christine stood up and began to clear the table.

Karen followed Ian into the hall. She reached down her brown quilted jacket from the hallstand and slipped it on. She gathered up the long tresses of her wavy gold-brown hair, twisting it loosely into a coil on top of her head before pulling on over it a knitted woollen cap of bright daffodil yellow.

Ian took her long matching scarf from its peg. ‘You’ll need this,’ he warned. ‘It’ll be a cold day.’ He draped the scarf round her neck and shoulders, tucking in the ends as if she were a child, smiling tenderly down at her. She stood in docile silence, smiling up at him.

In the kitchen Christine, returning from the fridge, paused by the door leading into the hallway, left slightly ajar. She caught sight of the two of them through the narrow aperture. She stood motionless, watching as Ian adjusted Karen’s woollen cap, touched her cheek, bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips.

‘Ready, then?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I’m ready.’ She picked up her shoulder-bag, a fashionable affair of cream-coloured macramé, pulled on a pair of woollen gloves. She suddenly paused and exclaimed, ‘Oh–I was forgetting. The theatre scrapbook. I borrowed it from one of the students. I promised faithfully I’d return it today. It’s up in my room. I’ll run up and get it, I won’t be a moment.’

Behind the kitchen door Christine remained silent and motionless, studying the expression on her husband’s face as he stood watching Karen run swiftly up the stairs.

CHAPTER 2

The morning was now a little more advanced. The carriage clock on the study mantelpiece at Hawthorn Lodge showed nine twenty-five. The lodge was a pleasant Victorian villa not far from Overmead Wood, half a mile from the Wilmots’ cottage. It stood in an attractive rambling garden full of twists and turns, unexpected vistas.

The study was a cosy room on the ground floor, furnished with unpretentious comfort and due regard for the period of the house. The walls were hung with old theatrical mementoes; the bookshelves were filled with theatrical biographies, memoirs, reminiscences, histories, texts of plays, postcard albums of the Victorian beauties of the old music halls.

Desmond Hallam stood before his desk with a pen in his hand, nervously glancing through the essay on the nineteenth-century novel he had written yesterday evening, making minor alterations as he read.

Still a few years from fifty, of medium height, sparely built; a mild-looking man with nondescript features, thinning hair of uncertain brown brushed back from a lined forehead, hesitant eyes of the same indeterminate brown. He was nattily dressed, carefully groomed.

He had begun attending classes at the Cannonbridge College of Further Education in September. He had worked as a personnel clerk in the town until the takeover of his firm by a large national group at the beginning of the year. The negotiations leading up to the takeover had been a well-kept secret until the last possible moment and Desmond had been taken totally by surprise when the news broke. Not that he had been harshly dealt with; like all the other redundant employees he had been put out to grass on generous terms.

He had lived at Hawthorn Lodge a good ten years. His father had been the manager of a high-class menswear shop in a town some distance from Cannonbridge. After his death Desmond’s mother suggested joining forces with her son; she had been left well provided for.

The arrangement suited them both. Desmond was more than happy to leave his Cannonbridge lodgings to set up house with his mother, with whom he had always got on well. Mrs Hallam bought Hawthorn Lodge and the two of them lived a tranquil, self-contained life in harmony and content until Mrs Hallam’s death a few months after Desmond had been made redundant by his firm.

The clock struck the half-hour. Desmond blew out a resigned breath and laid down his pen. Good or bad, the essay would have to stand now. The literature class was at ten and he wouldn’t dream of being late. Better go up and see if Aunt Ivy was ready – he was giving her a lift into Cannonbridge. She rode in with him three or four times a week to do the shopping, making her own way back by bus.

He put the essay into his briefcase. His aunt, Miss Ivy Jebb, was his mother’s older sister, a retired assistant nurse. She had been staying at Hawthorn Lodge since the late spring when she had been urgently summoned by Desmond, alarmed at the lowered state of his mother’s health after a bout of influenza.

The two sisters had never been on close terms, Desmond’s mother finding Ivy bossy and manipulative. Over the years Desmond had laid eyes on his aunt barely half a dozen times. But his alarm at the deteriorating condition of his mother swept aside such minor considerations.

‘I’ll be along on the next train,’ Aunt Ivy had at once assured him. She had been delighted to leave her bedsitter in the northern town – eighty miles from Cannonbridge – where she had spent her working life, delighted to step out of the restricted existence that was all she could manage on her pension and dwindling savings, delighted to entrain for the rural peace of Overmead, the substantial comforts of Hawthorn Lodge. What was a little nursing in return for such rewards? She would have her sister on her feet in no time at all.

She had immediately taken over the running of the house. She nursed her sister with energy and competence and for some time Mrs Hallam appeared set on the road to recovery, but her weakened heart suddenly gave way.

Desmond had been devastated by his mother’s death. Coming so soon on top of his unexpected redundancy, it had thrown him completely off balance. There was now not even the familiar nine-to-five routine of work to distract his mind and he fell into a state of despairing grief.

Ivy Jebb was more than willing to stay on to deal with everything, take care of him, look after the house when he finally ended up for a short stay in the psychiatric unit of a local hospital, in a condition of total collapse.

‘You must make a new beginning,’ the psychiatrist advised him when he began to mend. ‘Enlarge your horizons, broaden your mind, find new interests.’

Desmond had dutifully nerved himself in due course to enrol at the college, choosing classes in local history, literature, play-reading. He broke his days up into segments, creating tiny points of interest to get him through the next hour or two, a book to be returned to the library, a cup of coffee in the college canteen, weaving little by little a web of activities that might gradually expand to fill the days and weeks, the months and years, warding off emptiness, bleakness and desperation.

Now he left the study, went up the stairs and gave a light tap on the door of Aunt Ivy’s bedroom.

‘I’m just coming,’ she called back. A moment later she threw open the door. A short, dumpy woman with a good deal of curly white hair and a soft, pink-and-white, indoor skin; she wore fashionably rimmed bifocal spectacles. She was dressed in a fawn-coloured jumper and skirt.

She greeted Desmond with the wide smile of determined motherliness which had been her most constant expression since she had walked in through the front door of Hawthorn Lodge, a smile somewhat at odds with the shrewd, detached, assessing regard of her pale blue eyes behind the lenses. Desmond gave her in return his nervous, placatory grin.

Ivy stepped back into her room and picked up a lightweight jacket of navy-blue woollen material from the back of a chair. She put it on, tugging a matching beret over her curls, picked up her gloves and shopping basket. She glanced out at the overcast sky.

‘I could do with my good Harris tweed coat, now the weather’s turning cold,’ she observed as she came out on to the landing and closed the door behind her. They set off down the stairs. I think it’s time I went back to fetch my winter things.’ She rather liked that remark, it set exactly the right tone of being in charge.

Desmond made no reply, he felt his heart give a nasty lurch. A couple of months ago, shortly after he had left hospital, he had casually raised the matter of when Ivy might be thinking of returning home. He had had no particular reason for mentioning the subject, there was no thought in his head other than that she wasn’t likely to be staying with him much longer.

To his immense astonishment – and consternation – Ivy had blandly informed him that she had given up her bedsitter just after he had gone into hospital. She had phoned her landlady who had quite understood that Ivy’s place was now with her nephew. The landlady had obligingly agreed to store Ivy’s belongings until Ivy could deal with them.

Desmond had all at once realized the inescapable truth: having got herself nicely bedded down in Hawthorn Lodge, Aunt Ivy hadn’t the slightest intention of ever letting herself be uprooted again.

‘I could pop there and back by train,’ Ivy mused aloud as they reached the foot of the stairs. ‘I could sort through my things, decide what to keep, give the rest to Oxfam. I shan’t want to keep a great deal, clothes mainly, a couple of pictures, a few books and ornaments.’ She gave him her open, guileless smile. ‘There’s no point in bringing any bedding, any pots and pans, crockery or cutlery, you’re more than well supplied with all that kind of thing here.’

He could manage only a vague murmur in reply. He felt himself borne along on an irresistible current.

They went out through the front door into the sharply scented autumn air. As he locked the door behind them he was assailed by a surge of guilt. He had cause to be eternally grateful to Aunt Ivy, she had been indispensable during the last few terrible months. But to live with him here for good – and she gave every sign of having a good many sprightly years left to her–that was something he hadn’t bargained for.

He backed his car out of the garage.

‘I’d have to stay overnight, of course,’ Ivy pondered as she got in beside him. ‘I couldn’t manage both journeys in one day, not by train.’

Still he could find nothing to say. She settled herself in beside him, fastened her seat-belt. ‘It would be a lot quicker by car, of course. But it would be a dreadful imposition to ask you to take me, I wouldn’t even think of suggesting it.’ She gave him her resolutely maternal smile. Behind her glasses her eyes gleamed like pale blue gimlets. ‘If only I could drive, I’d hire a little van myself and shoot up there and back. I’d quite enjoy it.’

Still he said nothing but started up the engine. She flicked a glance at his face in the mirror. She could see her shots had gone home; he looked wretched, guilty, indecisive.

She turned her head and looked out at the blowy morning. She need say nothing more now, it could all stew quietly on its own, she was totally confident of the outcome.

The day grew steadily colder, with a gusting wind. Rain fell intermittently across the region.

The clock over the impressive entrance to the Cannonbridge College of Further Education showed twenty minutes to six. The college was housed in a tall turn-of-the-century building near the town centre, not far from the public library.

Much of the building lay in darkness; most of the daytime classes were over by this time and the evening classes weren’t due to begin for the best part of two hours.

Light shone out from a second-floor room where a class in English language was being held for the first-year General Studies group. In the third row Karen Boland sat beside Lynn Musgrove, chewing her lip over a particularly tricky grammar question.

The classroom door opened and a middle-aged woman clerk came softly in. She went up to the desk and spoke to the lecturer in a low murmur; the class worked diligently on. By way of reply the lecturer gave a nod and a jerk of his head at where Karen sat.

The woman went over to Karen, stooped and spoke to her in the same subdued tone. Karen laid down her pen, rose and followed her from the room.

A few minutes later Karen returned and resumed her seat. Before she again began to wrestle with the grammar questions she scribbled something on a scrap of paper and slid it across to Lynn Musgrove who ran her eye over it and then slipped it into her pocket.

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