Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘You’re not wanted – can’t you take a hint?’

  ‘Look, Cara, I only need a brief chat about the night of Harry’s accident – just once, and never again,’ I said reasonably. ‘I was explaining to Simon that—’

  ‘Go away,’ Cara interrupted rudely. ‘Get off my property and stop bothering me.’

  ‘I paid my two pounds to see the garden, like anyone else,’ I pointed out mildly, ‘and I don’t want to upset either of you, only get a better understanding of how things happened.’

  ‘It’s all in the past,’ she snapped. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘It won’t be over for me until I know everything there is to know.’

  Simon and Cara exchanged glances. There was no mistaking the body language, or the look of slavish devotion in Simon’s eyes. So Foxy had been right, but whatever was going on, Cara was in charge.

  ‘Dad told me not to talk to her, raking up old stuff,’ Simon said, looking troubled. ‘When she didn’t die like we thought she would, but started getting better, he didn’t want me to talk to her then, either.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t, Simon, when you nearly had a nervous breakdown over it at the time,’ Cara said, taking a grip on his arm that was more custodial than possessive. ‘Anyway, you remember nothing and I said everything I knew at the inquest.’

  ‘But I’m not sure if I do recall little bits of what happened, or if I’m imagining it,’ he said. ‘I was just telling Izzy that—’

  ‘Then don’t. She’s simply trying to offload the blame onto us.’

  ‘That is so not true!’ I said indignantly. ‘I accept that I was driving, I’d just like to know why on earth I agreed to it and what caused the actual crash.’

  ‘You insisted on driving back – you were a right little bossyboots – then you ran the car off the road, killed Harry and ruined my life, that’s what happened!’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, Cara,’ Simon began.

  ‘Shut up, Simon!’ she said, turning a Medusa face on him.

  ‘I can just about believe Harry persuaded me to drive,’ I said, ‘but there’s no way I would have insisted on it, or that it could have been my suggestion, so I’ve always wondered why you said that?’

  ‘Are you accusing me of lying?’ she snarled, narrowing her eyes at me, then added in disgust, ‘God, how could a man like Kieran ever fall for you?’

  ‘Who’s Kieran?’ Simon asked, baffled.

  ‘My ex-fiancé,’ I told him. ‘It turns out he used to know Cara in Oxford.’

  ‘And he knows the truth about the accident, too, now,’ she said spitefully.

  ‘He certainly fell hook, line and sinker for your version,’ I agreed.

  Simon was looking puzzled. ‘You didn’t mention any Kieran to me,’ he said to her.

  ‘Cara, all I want is for you to tell me the truth,’ I said. ‘What you heard and saw, how Harry persuaded me to drive and how I came to run the car off the road where I did, rather than stop at the Lodge and let Harry take over. Then that’s it – I’ll drop the whole thing.’

  ‘Then you’re out of luck, because I’ve said all I’m going to say. Now, I think you’d better go, before I have you thrown out!’ She glared at me implacably.

  ‘I can see I might as well,’ I said, but as I turned to leave I saw Simon’s troubled expression and wondered if he was having doubts about Cara’s version of the story. Or maybe he was just worried by some other man’s name coming up.

  ‘We’ve nothing more to say to you, ever,’ Cara said for both of them, and again she shot Simon a look that was both proprietary and illuminating. Here’s my creature, my plaything, it said.

  I wondered if the elderly and irascible Sir Lionel Cripchet, a small, red-faced baronet, prone to picking arguments with everyone he came into contact with, had any idea there was a whole Lady Chatterley thing going on practically under his nose.

  Walking back, I pondered what had been said … and what hadn’t, for of course I was sure they were keeping something back. I suspected Judy and Tom were, too, but at least I thought I knew what that was.

  But Cara had definitely told one lie and it was interesting that Simon seemed as troubled by dreams and recollections of that night, which might or might not be true memories, as I was.

  I was a mile down the road and the sky was clouding over in an apocalyptic kind of way, much like my thoughts, when a familiar large green van pulled up.

  The window rolled down and Rufus said, ‘Going my way?’

  ‘Judy always told me not to accept lifts from strange men,’ I said primly.

  He cast a glance up at the ominous sky. ‘The choice would appear to be to get in, or drown.’

  I got in.

  ‘Didn’t you find anything at that country house sale?’ I asked, as he pulled out into the road again.

  ‘Not much, because they’d sneakily bought in a lot of modern rubbish and arranged it in the outbuildings with a few old pieces, to try and make it look as if it had been there for years. I wasn’t fooled.’

  ‘So, a wasted trip?’

  ‘Not entirely, because I stopped at a contact’s house on the way back, and he had some more old chimney pots for me. People love them as garden decorations and planters. I got a couple of stone horse troughs from him, too.’

  ‘Judy has one of those by the kitchen door,’ I said. ‘She grows bay leaves for cooking in it, though I keep telling her some of the bigger dogs can pee that high.’

  ‘I expect she gives them a good wash first before she uses them,’ he suggested, and I hoped he was right.

  ‘How’s Foxy managing without you?’

  ‘She sounds fine. I’ve checked a couple of times, but I don’t think she’s had any problems.’

  ‘She’s very capable and so is her sister, Sandy. Her end of the kennel paperwork was immaculate, with full records on all the dogs that had passed through.’

  ‘So, did you have any luck at Grimside?’ Rufus asked, and I told him what had happened.

  ‘Cara’s sticking to her story, even though I know it isn’t completely true. I think Simon would open up if I got him alone, but I don’t know that there’s a lot of chance of that, or even that he remembers anything for sure.’

  ‘Frustrating,’ he said sympathetically.

  ‘You know, I’m sure they’ve got a whole Lady Chatterley/Mellors thing going on,’ I told him. ‘Though actually, with Cara, it was a bit more like Lady Macbeth; she was pretty snappy with him.’

  ‘That might be more fascinating if I’d ever met either of these star-crossed lovers,’ he said mildly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard yet how Pearl’s operation went?’

  ‘No, but you can come in and we’ll find out when we get to the Lodge,’ I suggested.

  Judy told Rufus that Pearl was fine and would be coming back next day. She’d be in the house while she recovered and then she could go up to Sweetwell after that.

  He went off relieved.

  We were all supposed to be going over later to the gallery to help Cam get ready for the next day’s opening ceremony, but Lulu, when she rang to find out how the Grimside trip had gone, said she would be too busy to get away that evening.

  So it was just me and Rufus helping Cam set out the borrowed champagne flutes and putting the final touches to everything, and when we’d finished, I showed Rufus the racks of swaying clothes in the storeroom. He seemed genuinely interested – so unlike Kieran had ever been.

  And, speak of the devil, just before I went to bed that night, Lulu rang again to tell me Kieran had returned to the pub and was staying that night. I quickly checked my phone for missed messages, but he hadn’t called me.

  It was very odd, because he seemed to have totally lost interest in our getting back together the moment he set eyes on Cara. And anyway, surely this time he would have rung me first?

  Perhaps he’d come back to see Cara? If so, then poor Simon might soon have his nose put out of joint!

/>   Chapter 23: Hidden Hoards

  ‘Just get in the driver’s seat,’ he coaxed. ‘I’ll be right next to you and you can pretend we’re on the Sweetwell drive again.’

  I woke up in the middle of the night calling out to my younger self, ‘No, Izzy – don’t do it!’ as if I was a time-travelling bystander who could change the future. It took me ages to get back to sleep after that.

  I had to dash down to the Screaming Skull early next day to drop off one of my Izzy Dane Designs outfits for Lulu. I’d decided that if she and I and Debo were all wearing them to the gallery opening, then Cameron could get lots of good pictures for my online catalogue and there’d be fewer to take later.

  She was busy with the hotel guests when I cautiously popped my head into the breakfast room, but there was no sign of Kieran. Lulu spotted me and, when she had a minute, told me he’d checked out right after breakfast and she’d seen him get into Cara’s car, leaving his own in the car park.

  So, my suspicions were right and it was definitely off with the old and on with the new – or maybe that should be back with the even older? I could hardly feel hurt by this turn of events, considering I’d not only told Kieran I’d plummeted headlong out of love with him, but followed it up by saying we were finished.

  However, Cara was not only married, but appeared to be carrying on an illicit affair with Simon, too, so the course of true love – or whatever it was – was unlikely to run smooth.

  I can’t say I gave it a lot of thought, because I had to dash back to change and make sure Debo did the same.

  Of course, Debo made everything she wore look stunning. For the opening of Hidden Hoards she had on one of my Grecian-inspired sari dresses, a fusion of two cultures that must have worked, for it was much admired.

  Cameron photographed her before everyone arrived. Then he took some pics of me in my pleated jade-green silk-mix top and simple draped skirt, and Lulu, who was wearing an amber dress that matched the citrine earrings I’d given her.

  Rufus, who had also arrived early, said gravely that we all scrubbed up well and added that pixies should always wear that particular shade of green. But I knew by then when he was teasing me, and anyway, I’d realised that the words ‘Saxon warrior’ would forever have the power to silence him.

  The throng at the gallery opening included not only locals, but some of the hotel guests. Debo, well primed, made a little speech about how this was another step towards the regeneration of Halfhidden, which would put it firmly back on the tourist map.

  The local reporter took lots of details and ate his way through an entire plate of nibbles, without appearing to stop writing, though fortunately many of the guests who came into the gallery for a free glass of bubbly also bought things, or took one of the leaflets Cam had put out about the art classes he would soon be starting.

  When the numbers finally began to thin, Lulu returned to the pub, and Judy and Debo, who were keen to change into workaday clothes and then fetch Pearl from the vet’s, also left. Rufus, who had a delivery to make before heading back to the garden antiques centre, said he would call in later, on the way to the pub, to see how Pearl was.

  He simply couldn’t keep away – it must be love!

  Pearl was still a bit out of it when Rufus arrived, not to mention miffed about having to wear a plastic cone on her head to stop her licking her wounds, but she was still pleased to see him.

  When finally I managed to tear Rufus away from her and we got to the pub, Lulu gave us the next instalment in the Kieran/Cara saga.

  ‘He came back with Cara, then she transferred some luggage from her car into his and they drove off in it,’ she said. ‘Presumably overnight – and Dad’s mad, because she left her car here and he says they’re using us as a public car park. It’s not like either of them has even asked if it’s OK.’

  ‘So – you think they’re starting an affair?’ Rufus said.

  ‘It certainly looks like it. Cara seems to have become a bit of a goer, doesn’t she? Married, having an affair with the head gardener and now picking up with an old flame. I wonder where they’ve gone.’ Then she got up. ‘Oh, well, time to set up the storytelling session. Where did Jonas get to?’

  ‘Playing dominoes in the public bar with an old crony,’ Cam said. ‘I’d better go and fetch him.’

  Dan hadn’t been there earlier when we walked through to the snug, and I’d wondered if he was back in London with Fliss. Rufus was probably thinking the same, though neither of us said anything.

  In the end there was a good audience for the storytelling session, for several of the non-Haunted-Weekend hotel guests came. So, since we weren’t needed to pad the numbers out, Rufus and I retired to the snug to relax and chat over a drink.

  I don’t know how it came about that we’d so quickly become comfortable together, but as soon as we’d stopped being prickly with one another, we’d seamlessly slipped into friendship. Perhaps it was that, despite being brought up elsewhere, he was very much a Salcombe, and so belonged here in Halfhidden.

  Only his occasional mention of Fliss cast a slight blight on things for me, though he probably felt the same whenever I brought up the subject of Harry’s accident. Now I’d had time to think about it, although Fliss sounded like a dreadful woman, I didn’t suppose she’d set out to kill my mother on purpose, any more than I did Harry.

  ‘Tomorrow I’m going to help clear the path up to the Fairy Falls, or Boggart Falls, or whatever they’re going to call them, for an hour or two,’ I said. ‘Can you come, or will you be too busy flogging old rakes and wheelbarrows?’

  ‘I might get away for a bit. Laurie’s becoming interested in the business after helping Foxy and he said if he was home he’d always cover the office while she sees to the customers. It’s going to be really handy when he’s retired.’

  ‘Yes, that’s working out well,’ I agreed. ‘It’ll be Cam’s first proper day of opening at the gallery tomorrow, so I don’t expect he’ll be coming and I think Lulu will be too busy. Still, it’s quite a short path and not very overgrown, so it shouldn’t take long to clear.’

  We got a lift back up to the Green in the car with Cameron and Jonas, since it had started to rain. Everything was quiet at the kennels, and when I let myself in after Rufus had walked off up the drive, the three dogs in the kitchen barely marked my presence with the opening of sleepy eyes.

  My night was untroubled by dreams and I woke to a newly rinsed, brighter morning. I had a swim and then, after breakfast, Rufus called at the Lodge to see Pearl and to offer me a lift up to the Summit Alpine Nursery, where the path-clearing volunteers were to gather.

  Babybelle, who had been lying in a comatose heap with Vic, Ginger and Pearl, insisted on coming with us and wouldn’t be distracted, so in the end Rufus put her in the back of the old Land Rover.

  ‘I didn’t even know you had a Land Rover! How many vehicles have you actually got?’ I asked, as we set off.

  ‘Only the Transit van, the big van and this … oh, and a motorbike,’ he added. ‘They’re all old. I don’t even have to pay road tax on this one.’

  ‘It’s certainly a no-frills ride,’ I said, for as we crossed the cattle grid at the entrance to the nursery, it felt as if my bottom had been passed over a cheese grater. ‘If it ever had any suspension, I think you’ve lost it.’

  Belle seemed to enjoy the ride and although I’d thought she might be a nuisance, she simply plodded after me to the bit of path I was assigned to clear, lay down in a patch of shade and promptly went to sleep.

  There were plenty of volunteers, but I was the token one from the Lodge, since Judy was keeping an eye on Pearl, while baking, and Debo was awaiting the arrival of yet another Desperate Dog. I had high hopes that the canine numbers would still balance at the end of the day though, for someone who wanted a brindle Staffie was visiting, and we certainly had a good stock of those!

  I’d been working for about an hour and was having a little rest in the shade with Babybelle when, to my surprise
, Simon climbed up the path and lowered himself onto the grass next to me. His expression was troubled. I hadn’t seen him earlier chopping back brambles, so I suspected he’d come specially to talk to me, rather than volunteer.

  ‘I’m sorry Cara was so rude to you on Friday,’ he began. ‘But any mention of the accident still upsets her.’

  ‘I expect it does, but I’m not going to stop asking questions until I know exactly what happened, so she might as well bite the bullet and get it over.’

  ‘She doesn’t even want me to talk to you,’ he said, then paused, before adding, with more than a hint of question in his voice, ‘She was out yesterday, then came back hours later with a strange bloke, put some luggage in her car and drove off with him again.’

  ‘I think that was probably Kieran, my ex-fiancé. Remember, she mentioned him while I was at Grimside? Apparently, they’re old friends.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered if it might be him. I was there when they came out of the house, but she left without a word. I might as well have been invisible,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘Lulu told me Kieran stayed Friday night at the Screaming Skull and then yesterday she saw Cara drive him back there, before transferring some luggage from her car into his and going off with him,’ I said helpfully. ‘Hers is still in the pub car park.’

  ‘Right …’ he said, his face like thunder.

  ‘Isn’t her husband ever home?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘No, and they lead very separate lives. He has a place in Scotland. He owns a small whisky distillery – that’s how he gets his money – or he’s off at his club in London.’

  ‘I’ve heard rumours that you and she are … more than friends,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t keep anything secret in a village. I hoped she’d agree to leave Cripchet, but she didn’t much fancy slumming it on gardener’s wages,’ he said. ‘But it seemed all wrong to me to be taking old Cripchet’s money while having an affair with his wife, so I’ve already applied for a job back with the National Trust and hope she’ll leave with me when I get one.’

  ‘How did you come to be working for Cripchet in the first place?’