The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  Stop it, she chastised herself. He’s on your side. He was free-range Russ, who hated red tape, acted first and justified afterwards, just as his aunt Babs had said. He believed he had right on his side, like Will Kane in High Noon, standing up on his own against the bullying and repression of a lawless gang and a kowtowing community. Mags was his Helen Ramirez, an old lover who had forsaken him for too many others since, whereas Kat was his Amy. She wished they could enjoy the heartfelt, intimate passion of Dougie Everett and his co-star. Instead they were hamstrung by inhibitions, needing to recite their nine times tables in pyjamas to feel safe with sex.

  Kat splashed through the ford, kicking up rainbow arcs, her dark, wet enemy reduced to teardrops. It seemed ridiculous that she tackled so many gutsy tasks without a second thought – she could handle agricultural equipment, mend fencing, coppice trees, manage large animals, start a generator, ride a horse – yet her two greatest fears remained: sex and deep water. She dared herself to approach one of them now, walking along the riverbank, dropping down to the gravel edge and stooping to collect a stone to bounce ducks and drakes along the water.

  Cross it! She heard Constance’s voice in her head and smiled with relief at its deep, heartening familiarity.

  You can do it, Katherine! Feel the adrenalin, for goodness’ sake. I didn’t put you in Lake Farm to rub your stomach while patting your head or whatever this Tantric nonsense is about. Your riding is frightful and you must swim in the lake soon. It’s warming up.

  Still deep in thought, Kat followed the river to the edge of the lake and stared across its smooth black surface, trying to imagine Constance swimming it on horseback more than seventy years ago in a desperate bid to save the estate. When war broke out in Europe, her father, Charles ‘Hock’ Mytton, had wanted Eardisford to pass into the hands of his brother in the absence of male heirs, his intention being to stay on in India indefinitely, but his only daughter Constance had been determined that she should take the reins. The estate was not subject to primogeniture so she had every right to inherit. To prove her worth, she’d agreed to take on the Bolt, the three-mile gallop from Duke’s Wood to the Hereford road, crossing all obstacles in between, which must be completed within the two strikes of the church clock quarter to win the Eardisford Purse and, in Constance’s case, the right to run the estate.

  I was frankly terrified, but it was such fun! One has never lived until one has risen to a challenge like that, Katherine, racing because one’s very future depends upon it. You will feel it, and nobody will betray your trust as they did mine.

  Riding side-saddle, Constance had been the first Mytton to make the time in over a century and take the Purse. Nevertheless her father had stoutly refused to sign over the estate to her care until she married, which at nineteen Constance worried she was too young to do. Her heart was already lost to a young RAF officer she’d met a year earlier at a shooting party and with whom she was wildly infatuated, exchanging passionate letters, but marriage seemed a long way off. She wrote to him explaining the situation and telling him that she loved him, only to learn shortly afterwards that he had been killed in one of the first Allied raids.

  I have no idea if he read my letter before he died. I prefer to think not. I loved him so very much and it felt such a frightful thing to ask; easier to treat it as a business deal, like Daddy did.

  Not long afterwards, a heartbroken Constance was summoned to India to find her father gravely ill, the cancer he had kept secret ripping the life from him. In an extraordinary deathbed deal, he told her that a young officer in his regiment was willing to become her husband. Major Gough’s family owned a modest country house in the Borders, he explained, but he ‘knows his hunting better than any man’. Constance and Ronnie were married just two days before Hock Mytton died. Their marriage had lasted six decades and borne five children, and she’d told Kat how love had grown slowly within it. I adored my darling, gentle Ronnie, but I confess I always wondered what it would have been like to marry for love and not duty. I think it must be such a frightful gamble. Yet if one gets it right, the jackpot is simply magnificent: a lifetime of love. You are a gambler like me, Katherine. One of us should get it right.

  Kat watched a pair of swans gliding towards her across the water and remembered Russ telling her that they mate for life, along with wolves and barn owls. He had then spent a long time explaining why this was bad for genetic diversity and species survival. He preferred the harem-band model, where family groups were ruled by a matriarchy with one alpha breeding male protecting them and mating with multiple females.

  Snarling under her breath at the thought of being part of Mags’s matriarchal Eardisford group, Kat looked up as a helicopter swooped low over the woods, coming in to land by the main house. There were no builders on site over the bank holiday, and she couldn’t imagine any of the new owner’s many advisers, lawyers and architects working through Easter weekend. Her curiosity intensified when she guessed it had to be Seth himself.

  She was dying for a closer look. The boat mooring was just a short walk away, but there was still no way she had the nerve to take the short-cut across the water to the parkland, particularly with several ancient dogs in tow, so she hurried along the path that cut through the woods to the west of the lake. The water in the ford was near her welly tops as she waded through, carrying the old terriers under each arm, then dropping them on the far bank and racing on. Snuffling Maddie bounded ahead, low-slung Daphne falling behind.

  Kat climbed up on to the ridge that ran around the oxbow’s end. From here, she had a good view through the trees to the main terraces and could see a figure wrapped in squashy furs stalking across them, pausing occasionally to look up and hold out a tablet computer on which they were taking photographs of the scaffolding-covered house. Russ would go mental if he saw that fur coat, thought Kat, then stopped midway over a stile in surprise. It was definitely a woman. Did Seth have a wife?

  ‘That’s as far as you go, young lady!’

  It was one of Dair’s gamekeepers, a trio Russ had nicknamed Meat and Two Veg. While Spud and Turnip were well-meaning, if slow-witted, local lads, Meathead, the senior keeper, was a particularly nasty ex-squaddie whose main brief was to keep out trespassers, a task he took very seriously.

  ‘You and your dogs better turn round right now, Kat.’

  ‘This is a public footpath,’ she reminded him smugly.

  He pointed at the sign that read, All dogs must be kept on leads. ‘Can’t be too careful with new lambs, and there’s game birds loose.’

  Kat felt in her pockets for a lead, but she didn’t even have a loop of baler twine. She could have pointed out that the nearest Eardisford flock was at least half a mile away, and that most of the estate’s game birds were hanging around Lake Farm right now, hoping for Russ’s brown rice leftovers, but she couldn’t be bothered to argue with Meathead. ‘I was just trying to get a closer look at your new boss and my new neighbour.’

  ‘Nothing to see here,’ he replied, spreading his arms wide as though controlling a large crowd eager to witness a grisly crime scene, not a small redhead with two elderly dogs.

  But before she turned to walk home, Kat did see something. Another figure had appeared in front of the house and was walking towards the woman in the furs, tweed-sleeved arm thrust out in welcome, his flat cap pressed down low over his nose.

  ‘Dair knows exactly what’s going on round here.’ He’d told her that her future was riding on it.

  What was it he had said yesterday? Things round here take a long time to figure out. They are never as simple as they first seem.

  Kat thought it looked completely straightforward from where she stood: Russ was bonking Mags. Dair was double-crossing everybody. And Seth’s wife had arrived.

  Chapter 16

  There was no sign of Russ at Lake Farm, although one of Mags’s most recent road-kill pheasants had given up the fight, stiff with rigor mortis in its pen, and Usha had escaped into the lake again. Anger still co
oking, Kat got on with the late-afternoon yard tasks, bringing in the three horses that were still being stabled at nights, feeding and haying them before checking over the field stock and finally coaxing Usha out with a bucket of nuts. Then she gathered the chickens, geese and ducks into their respective fox-proof homes. Trevor the peacock, who was feeling lovelorn, followed her about, calling anxiously. Finally, she checked on Russ’s hutched wildlife casualties in the barn, thankful that they were all still alive, staring back at her with black-eyed fear and confusion.

  The range needed relighting, and there was no kindling in the house, so Kat went to raid the wood store and groaned when she saw only huge uncut sections. Russ had come outside to chop some last night, but he seemed to have sliced no more than a few toothpicks of kindling. Her anger bubbled hotter as she reflected on the number of hours he spent outside star-gazing with no practical purpose. If he could identify the smaller constellations, predict the weather or give her some horoscope guidance, it might at least seem worthwhile, but she sometimes suspected it was his way of avoiding hard work. Whenever he did knuckle down and cut some wood, he insisted on doing it the old-fashioned way, with an axe, which took for ever and meant they were always running out. Kat checked that there was some fuel in the chain saw and, donning ear protectors and goggles, set about splitting the wood to size in a small-scale timber massacre. It was the perfect vent for her burgeoning fury.

  Which was why she didn’t hear the Range Rover roaring into the yard, or realize that Dair was standing beside her until he pulled the emergency cord and cut the fuel, making the saw putter to silence.

  ‘What the bloody hell d’you do that for?’ She swung round furiously and saw that the woman in the fur coat was with him. Close-to she looked no older than Kat herself, with extraordinary dark, melting eyes and the most expressionless face Kat had ever encountered.

  ‘You are Miss Katherine Mason?’ the woman asked, in a deep, modulated voice.

  Kat knew that Russ would recommend muttering, ‘Who wants to know?’ but there was no point in denying her identity with Dair there.

  ‘Yes – hi!’ She flashed the big smile and thrust out a hand, noticing too late that it was covered with chainsaw oil and log moss. ‘Call me Kat.’

  The woman shook it by the fingertips, her face deadpan. ‘I prefer to keep this formal, Miss Mason.’

  ‘Of course.’ Kat adopted her most formal face. ‘May I call you Mrs Seth?’

  For a nanosecond, the dark eyes sparked. ‘I would prefer it if you do not. I must apologize for this intrusion on a sacred holiday, but my decision to come was made at short notice. This has been my first opportunity to visit Eardisford, and my priority was to meet you in person.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’ Kat shifted uncomfortably. The woman was staring at her, unblinking. It was very disconcerting. She stooped to pick up the log basket. ‘Come in and I’ll make a cup of tea.’

  ‘That will not be necessary.’ Her eyes lingered Kat’s face, forensic in their detailed examination of each freckle and laughter line, followed by a lengthy assessment of her body, which felt even more intrusive than Dair’s habitual boob-leers. ‘I have been advised that you cannot be financially motivated to leave Lake Farm. Is this right?’

  Kat glanced at Dair, who still had his flat cap pulled right down over his nose, his expression impossible to read. ‘Yes.’

  The woman let out an irritated tut. ‘Then you have not been offered the right price, Miss Mason.’

  ‘I was told the new owners of the Eardisford Estate have no legal objection to the sanctuary.’

  ‘That is correct, although there is an open offer to relocate it somewhere more practical. There would also be significant remuneration for you personally.’

  ‘The Mytton-Gough family already offered that, but this really isn’t about money. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted trip.’

  She was examining Kat’s face again. ‘Everybody has their price, Miss Mason.’

  ‘Sure.’ Kat smiled. ‘Mine’s a billion.’

  Beside her, Kat heard Dair’s sharp intake of breath.

  The dark eyes regarded her for a long time, unblinking in that oh-so-still face. ‘You have a child-like quality.’

  Kat snorted with laughter.

  ‘It is not unappealing. Thank you for your time.’

  Kat gaped at her. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Mason,’ she said, turning to walk back to the car. There were no threats or counter-offers. The conversation had taken less than a minute.

  To Kat’s surprise, Dair reached out and gave her elbow a squeeze before hurrying to open the passenger door for his companion.

  ‘Turncoat,’ Kat hissed, under her breath.

  Watching as the Range Rover bounced away, she caught the reproachful eyes of Dair’s two ultra-obedient pointers through its rear windscreen.

  When Mags’s elderly Citroën finally bounced along the track belting out the Buzzcocks, Kat marched out to meet it, noticing how the pink-haired one reached across to play-cuff Russ’s ears and fake-punch his chest before pulling up the handbrake, the big-sisterly affection taking on a whole new perspective in the light of Dair’s revelations. Tattooed, pierced and fierce, Mags’s reputation for fighting might be formidable, but she had a soft side that men found irresistible. She was an earthy, ever-laughing flirt, absolutely doted on animals and, now Kat thought about it, Russ.

  ‘You missed such a drama, Kat!’ her rasping, laughing voice called, as she spilled from the car. ‘We almost lost him twice. He’s one tough little bastard. We called him Heythrop.’ She went round to the boot and pulled out a cross-eyed, stunned pheasant.

  ‘That’s Heythrop?’

  ‘No. I hit this poor sod coming back. Think it’ll be okay after a night’s kip. That,’ she pointed to the back seat where Russ was stooping over a battered cardboard box, ‘is Heythrop.’

  ‘He’s still a bit groggy from sedation.’ Russ drew out the box with great reverence and held it under Kat’s nose. The smell of rank old dog fox and antiseptic was not a winning combination. ‘Lucky I caught him when I did because the snare was already deep in his throat and he was struggling like stink – a couple more minutes and his windpipe would have been cut open. This skin condition’s sarcoptic mange.’

  Kat regarded the scabby old fox unenthusiastically. It looked positively leprous. ‘Isn’t that highly contagious?’

  ‘We’ll have to be vigilant and quarantine him.’

  ‘The vet gave him a dose of Stronghold,’ Mags said reassuringly, ‘so it should clear up by the time he’s back on the road.’ She pushed away the dogs, all snuffling round the box with interest.

  ‘He can go in the old dairy so he’s close to the house,’ Russ announced. ‘Fetch some bowls and bedding, Mags, and I’ll get a hutch – here.’ He thrust the fox box at Kat. ‘Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. The dope he’s just had is even stronger than Mags’s home-grown happy herbs.’

  She could feel the anger bubbling again, indignant at the insouciant way he acted as though he owned the place. I’m the custodian here, she wanted to rage, and why the hell didn’t you tell me you and Mags were once an item? But she bit her tongue, biding her time as she watched them bustle about, arranging Heythrop’s new quarters, suspicion and jealousy creating an uneasy bass chord to her heartbeat. Looking down at the manky, sedated new patient, she saw the box was lined with an old Sunday newspaper business section and in one corner, beside one of Heythrop’s back paws, there was a shot of a man in dark glasses playing polo, captioned Arjan Singh. She set the box down hurriedly and reached inside. But the accompanying story was too shredded and covered in fox pee to make out.

  She was so distracted, she didn’t spot the fox’s vulpine eyes widen as he struggled to gather his wits for a moment before springing out and legging it across the yard, hotly pursued by the lurchers.

  ‘Shit!’ Paper flying everywhere, Kat rushed after him, but by the time she’d squelched through the barn
arch, he’d vanished into Usha’s wood.

  Russ was livid. ‘He’ll never survive in that state!’

  Before Kat could get a word out, Mags had sprung to her defence. ‘You told her he wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘I didn’t mean “Put the box down.”’

  Kat bit her lip guiltily. ‘I’m sure he’ll be —’

  ‘Foxes are hard-core, Russ,’ Mags intervened again. ‘He’ll be fine. Leave the girl alone.’

  ‘The wound will almost certainly get infected. Kat’s just sentenced him to a slow and lingering death.’