‘Ruth Merriweather drowned at Wolf Tarn.’
‘That’s right. The poor girl died, and her unborn baby too, of course…’
He blinked in surprise. ‘She was pregnant?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘How do you know?’
‘My grandmother was the village midwife. She told me about Ruth’s affair with her French sweetheart.’
‘There are people who believe that Ruth’s drowning was no accident, and that she wanted to die because Vaillant had abandoned her.’ That was what Cassie believed.
‘Suicide was indeed put forward at the time, but there were other rumours too.’ She sighed. ‘It’s such a long time ago. It wouldn’t do any good to raise the ugly ghosts of the past now.’
‘I’m not sure it would do any good,’ he said, ‘but Ruth’s family – and Vaillant’s relatives if he still has any – might be interested to know what really happened.’
The woman munched on her shortbread, looking thoughtful. ‘I shall think about it. There is another family to consider, you see, and I don’t want to stir up bad feelings in the village.’
She was making him even more curious. Whom might she be talking about? It was however obvious she wouldn’t say anything now, so he finished his tea and rose to his feet.
‘If you change your mind, please let me know. Thanks for the tea and biscuits.’
She looked at him and chuckled. ‘You don’t like tea much, do you?’
He was about to shake his head in denial, but something told him that Miss Parker would see straight through him. He nodded. ‘Not much. I prefer coffee. Black. No sugar.’
She didn’t look in the least offended. ‘I’ll make sure I remember.’
Back in Red Moss, he wandered around the streets for a while. Nestling in the valley and surrounded by snowy peaks, the village looked pretty and welcoming. Christmas garlands dangled from lampposts, almost every door was adorned with festive wreaths, and posters stuck in shop windows announced the Christmas Fair. The cold breeze smelled of snow, wood smoke and pine trees. Children ran around laughing in the courtyard of the small primary school. Passersby smiled or nodded at him, some he’d seen in the pub and others he had never met before.
The warm, fuzzy feeling he’d had since waking up with Cassie in his arms returned, only stronger. It was as if the wind had blown away the thick, stifling grey fog that had weighed down on him for months and he could see clearly for the first time. Perhaps he could stay at Red Moss, find a house, and make the place his home?
He glanced at a few shop windows as he walked around the village. One of them offered an eclectic mix of clothing and jewellery, expensive stationery and artwork. A display of quirky necklaces in the window attracted his attention. Among them was a tiny, delicate white swan, carved in what looked like porcelain, hanging from a fine gold chain.
A swan… It was perfect for the woman who had rescued him from his black moods, and given him a reason to smile again, to hope again.
The door chimed when he pushed it open. A petite woman with pink hair looked up from a book she was reading behind the counter and smiled.
‘Hi! It’s nice to see you. How are you doing?’ she asked, as if she knew him.
He frowned. He was sure he’d never seen her before. ‘Fine, thanks… I’d like the swan necklace in the window, please.’
Her smile widened. ‘These necklaces are made by a local artist. She made several of the others, but only one swan,’ she said as she bent down to reach out for the necklace in the window.
She brought the necklace to the counter and held it up to show him. ‘Did you know that in Roman mythology, the swan was associated with Venus, the goddess of love?’
His face heated up. ‘I didn’t… but it sounds about right.’
She cocked her head to one side and gave him a wistful smile. ‘There is also a local legend, a rather lovely one, I don’t know if you heard of it. The Swan and—’
‘The Hunchback,’ he finished. ‘Yes, I know of it.’ Pity the artist hadn’t made a porcelain hunchback. He could have bought it for himself…
Ten minutes later, with the necklace all wrapped up in pretty pink paper and safe in the breast pocket of his coat, he decided to call at the garage to ask Mason if he fancied a bite to eat at the Eagle and Child. The fact that he, who had come to Red Moss to be alone, was actively seeking someone else’s company didn’t hit him until he walked into the garage and smiled at Brenda in response to her enthusiastic wave from behind her office’s glass window. What a difference a night filled with the love of a gorgeous woman made…
Mason welcomed his suggestion with eagerness. ‘I’ve been up to my neck with breakdown calls since dawn. I need a beer and an hour of peace and quiet. Give me a minute to scrub my hands and make myself presentable.’
Fifteen minutes later, both men ordered pie and chips and half a pint of beer, and sat down at a table near the window overlooking the main street.
‘Ah… That’s better.’ Mason smacked his lips after drinking a long gulp of his beer. ‘How did you get down from Belthorn? I would have thought the road impassable.’
‘Tim cleared the snow with his tractor so that Cassie and I could drive down. Without him we would have been snowed in, especially as I had crashed the Range Rover on the lane last night.’
Mason looked up, an incredulous glint in his eyes. ‘Again? It wasn’t that Grey Friar or one of Belthorn’s other ghosts that scared you off the road by any chance?’
‘No. It was only the snow and my bad driving.’
‘Don’t worry about it, mate. The lane to Belthorn is notoriously treacherous. How did Cassie take it – having to spend the night at Belthorn? She loathes the place.’
‘Well… no, she seemed completely… ahem… fine about it.’ His ears and cheeks felt hot suddenly. Damn. He was blushing again…
Thankfully, Mason didn’t appear to notice. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘By the way, do you know how Cassie is getting on with her new tyres? I can’t believe I didn’t check what was wrong with her old ones. It turned out they weren’t even punctured.’
Stefan put his pint down. ‘They weren’t?’
‘No. They were only deflated. The valves must have been faulty or damaged.’
Could Morse have been fiddling with the valves that Saturday afternoon at Belthorn? And could he confide his suspicions to Mason and ask for his help, or should he keep them to himself and deal with Morse in his own way?
He looked out of the window, and watched people go in and out of the shops for a minute or two. Much of the snow had been cleared from the roads, and a narrow path had been dug out on the pavements, but the scene was still very wintry. It couldn’t be a bigger contrast with where he had been the previous year. Then there had been only scorching heat, vast planes of red or golden sand, grit and rocks… and war. He knew and accepted the risks, even though he had never truly believed that anything would happen to him. He had got out unscathed from too many perilous situations before, and that had made him arrogant and over-confident.
His fingers tightened around his glass. Because of him people had died. Good, innocent people. Women, elderly people, children… and Isa, who would never have another Christmas.