A Rural Affair (40 page)

‘Day after his twenty-first birthday, aye. We’d tied one on the night before, make no mistake. Look at our eyes – like piss
holes in the snow.’ He gave a quick bark of a laugh. ‘We had a lot of fun together, Sam and me.’ He sipped his tea thoughtfully.
‘His father was the master, just as Sam is now, and my dad the huntsman.’ He pointed to a black and white photo of two men
in hunting coats, taken outside a manor house years ago. ‘This cottage was part of the Mulverton estate then. Not now, though.’
He smiled. ‘I bought it off him, didn’t I? Sam was grateful too, he’s that strapped for cash. Death duties hit that family
hard,’ he said grimly.

‘Oh. I didn’t know.’

‘That’s why he went back to America, to make some dosh.’

I held my breath. Somehow I felt if I was quiet, I might hear more. I was aware there was a lot I didn’t know and wanted to.
But Mark was a taciturn man, and eventually I had to prod.

‘You knew him when you were little?’

‘Oh yeah, Sam and I grew up together. Played every single day as kids, and then he went away to school. Boarding, you know.
But we rode and drank in the pubs all holidays long when he was back, until he went to New York, that is. It was one of them
relationships the liberal luvvies wouldn’t understand; too feudal for them. They wouldn’t get their anxious little brains
round me being in hunt service and him being lord of the manor. But it worked. Still does. He’s a good man, Sam. One of the
best. Too bad his wife pissed off with that Chad Armitage.’

I turned. Stared at him. ‘What?’

‘I said too bad his wife did a runner with his best friend. There, that’s her, see?’ He jabbed a finger at a photo, and I
turned back as if in a trance. He pointed out the pretty girl in the dark glasses. Very short hair, an elfin cut. Of course,
it was Hope. Smiling coolly, confidently at the camera, two hungover lads beside her grinning sheepishly. Her chin was raised,
her weight on the back foot. I turned back to Mark.

‘Hope was Sam’s wife?’

‘Briefly, yes. They were all at Harvard together. Sam and Hope got married very young, not long after that photo was taken,
in fact, then she fell for his best friend, Chad. He took that picture. Anyway, she divorced Sam and married him instead.’

‘But …’ I was flabbergasted. Tried to marshal my thoughts. ‘But they’re all such friends. They all live near each other, ride
out together, hunt –’

‘Oh, it all happened years ago. Chad and Hope have been together for ages now, got two kids, and Sam didn’t want to lose Chad’s
friendship. When he was in the States, Chad’s family was like his own. He stayed with them in the holidays – the Hamptons
and all that. And he’s a nice guy, Chad. But that Hope. She reels him in occasionally, you know?’

‘Who – Sam?’

‘That’s it.’

My mind raced. ‘But – why come back here, then? Why be near her?’

‘Perhaps he needs to be.’ He gave me that steady look again. ‘The Armitages came over here first because of Chad’s work. Bought
a house in London, then a weekend cottage out here, because of course Hope knew the area from her days with Sam; it was only
natural. Then Sam announces he’s
leaving London too, dismisses the tenants, and takes over the reins at the Hall again, something he said he’d never do. Funny
that.’

‘Because he can’t bear to be away from her?’ I breathed.

Mark shrugged. ‘Who knows? Not my business.’ He winked. ‘You learn a lot on the hunting field, though. Surprised your mate
Angie hasn’t told you all this, but then again, she probably doesn’t know. She wasn’t about in the old days, although she
acts like she was born and bred in the saddle.’

I licked my lips. ‘How long were they married for?’

‘Only a couple of years.’

‘So … a bit like going out with someone, really?’

‘Except he loved her enough to put a ring on her finger. Commit the rest of his life to her. And Sam’s not a man to do anything
lightly.’

‘No.’

I returned my gaze to the photo again. God, poor Sam. That laughing, carefree young man, with his childhood friend, Mark,
and his American girlfriend, who he’d brought home, soon to be his wife, looking about sixteen. Who he still loved? And who,
as Mark had so eloquently put it, reeled him in occasionally. No wonder he’d looked haunted when her name was mentioned.

‘Was it Sam who told you about Peddler?’ I asked suddenly. He’d said Dad had rung to tell him, but that he already knew. ‘That
it was my horse who kicked?’

‘No, Emma Harding did.’

‘Emma Harding!’

‘The one that was shacked up with your husband, love.’

I caught my breath. Who was this Mark Harrison? This countryman in his isolated cottage with his hounds, who
seemed to have no domestic life of his own, but knew everything about everyone?

‘You knew my husband?’

‘Couldn’t miss him. They were down the road. Across that field over there, in the flint cottage.’ He jerked his head out of
the window across the meadows, and I realized that, as the crow flew, Emma’s cottage, which I’d passed on the road, was surely
not far. ‘I’d exercise my hounds in the summer past her back garden – how could I not know? Many an evening I’d go past with
twelve couple and see him arrive at her back door on his bike, six o’clock, head to toe in blue nylon. Nothing subtle about
his entrances.’

Six o’clock. The children’s bath time. Which Phil never made it home in time for. ‘It seems the whole world knew,’ I said,
swallowing. ‘Except the wife, of course. Always the last.’

‘Ah, but you’re well shot of him now, aren’t you?’ he said gently, with a small smile. ‘And he surely got his comeuppance.’

‘He did,’ I agreed, and couldn’t help but smile back. I’d forgotten this man had a philosophical take on death.

‘She said she saw you look guilty as sin when Peddler was mentioned, and that she knew your horse kicked. Couldn’t come running
across the field quick enough that evening to tell me, still in her hunting coat, she was. But when she bustled back to her
own house, she got a nasty surprise herself. The police were on her doorstep.’

‘The police? Why?’

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. Thought you’d know, love. Apparently it’s all over the village. Fraud of some sort. White collar. The
kennel girl’s brother is a cop down at the station and says it’s something to do with business. Where she worked.’

‘Where she worked? You mean, at the bank?’ I said, in astonishment.

He made a non-committal face again. ‘No idea.’

I sat down slowly on the sofa behind me, bewildered; dimly aware of a very plump cushion in my back. But even more aware of
something else. The investigation into the bank by the FSA. I’d thought it purely routine. Had told Sam as much. Ted Barker
had assured me so. Although … he’d been worried enough to write to me about it, I realized suddenly. To alert me. Something
Ted said months ago, at a dinner party at his house in Esher, came winging back; something about how the female high-flyer
in the office sailed close to the wind. He’d said it with a smile as he’d mixed me a gin and tonic, but I’d detected a worried
tone. It hadn’t meant much at the time. I’d never met the high-flyer. But they’d dropped her pretty smartly, hadn’t they?
The bank? The moment Phil had died? I was aware of Mark looking at me.

‘She was dishonest,’ I whispered.

‘That’s what they say. And whatever it is she’s done, I can believe it. She’s a wrong ’un, that one. Anyway, she’s in police
custody now.’

I stared up at him. ‘Emma Harding is in
custody
?’ I said incredulously.

‘I just said so, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, but …’ I struggled with the concept. ‘She can’t be in
custody
, not actually being
held
. She’s a successful businesswoman!’

He shrugged. ‘Thieving’s thieving, whoever you are.’

‘They took her in that night?’

‘No, just questioned her. Came back for her this morning. Seven o’clock they was on her doorstep. If you don’t believe me,
love, ask Rob, the kennel boy. We was out back with the
bitch pack, at the far end of the meadow. Watched as she answered the door in her dressing gown, then disappeared, white-faced,
to get dressed. When she came back down the path to the police car she looked like she’d been shot.’

‘I bet she did.’

‘Her husband looked pretty grim too. He was in the hall, behind her. Rob said if ever a man needed a drink it was him.’

‘Oh, God.’ I inhaled sharply. ‘Simon. He must be devastated!’

‘I’d say so.’

My mind whirred as I tried to assimilate all this. Emma Harding, arrested. ‘He’s a good man, you know.’

‘Aye, but a foolish one. Not the first to fall for a pretty face, though, I’ll grant you.’

‘He fell years ago,’ I muttered.

‘I know he did. Thinks he’s getting the same girl. And in a way he is. She was a bitch then and she’s a bitch now.’

I looked at him, surprised. ‘You knew her then?’

‘I went to school with Emma Harding. The local village one, for all her airs and graces. She’d take the sweets from your desk
and the rubbers from your pencil case. She was on the make then and she’s still on it now.’

We were silent a moment. I thought of her down at the police station. In a bare interrogation room, perhaps; a plain-clothes
officer questioning her, a solicitor beside her. Or perhaps parochial stations like ours didn’t deal with fraud? Elsewhere,
maybe. Somewhere distant. Was she frightened? No, defiant, I imagined. Ice cool. Head high, lips pursed. My heart began to
beat. It certainly didn’t bleed for her, though.

‘Will he stand by her, d’you think?’

‘Simon Devereux? No idea. But as you say, he’s all right, so
I imagine he might. Perhaps not the publicity he was looking for, though, eh?’ He picked up the empty mugs and made for the
kitchen. ‘MP’s wife in police custody?’

‘No. No, I’m sure it wasn’t.’

As I pulled out of the farmyard, my mind was churning. Emma Harding, the career woman, the one who rode to hounds, and who
I now knew to have a painted face, a sharp manner, and a way with men, was in police custody. But why? What had she done?
Taken a quick backhander? Made a bit on the side? Got greedy? Except … she was well off, doing well, why take the risk? I
couldn’t believe it was worth it. But perhaps she got her kicks from not getting caught? Like she did with my husband. He
hadn’t been worth it either. I purred down the lane, hands gripping the wheel. And was that why she’d dropped her claim on
Phil’s will, I wondered suddenly. Because she knew she was about to be investigated? She wouldn’t want to attract even more
attention, would she? Oh no, she’d drop that like a hot potato.

Shaken, I turned onto the road that ran alongside the common. I paused briefly, engine running, outside the brick and flint
cottage where Emma and my husband had shacked up for years. Where she’d cavorted with him under the eves in that bedroom,
perhaps. I glanced up at the window. Sashayed downstairs in a dressing gown – silk, no doubt. And on occasion – when he’d
come home from work and told me he wasn’t hungry – had made him supper, wine glass in hand, humming along to a mellow CD,
no fractious children to put to bed. The house, where she’d not only cooked his supper, but his books too. And from whence
she’d finally been led away. In handcuffs? No, unlikely. Should have asked Mark. And I’d been married to a man who loved her.
How
bad a decision maker did that make me? Just as Sam had been married to a woman who went off with his best friend, I thought
suddenly, which didn’t make him much of a decision maker either. Safety in numbers, perhaps.

I drove on, my gaze fixed steadily on the road ahead; behind me, it seemed, a shattered landscape. My past. Which I was finally
taking leave of. No Radio Two broadcasting cheerily as usual; instead I hunched over my wheel, pensive. But I was moving on.
Getting my life back. I was pretty sure, for instance, that the pill I’d taken yesterday had been the last one. I’d felt it
with a quiet certainty as I’d swallowed; had known there was nothing premature about it this time. And somehow, everything
Mark Harrison had just told me confirmed it. There was a lot to digest, though; he’d divulged a great deal in the space of
half an hour, and not just about Emma, about Sam too. My brain was still filtering it, wondering where it left me, when my
phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I whispered into my hands-free on the dashboard, not too loudly so as not to disturb Archie, who was still sleeping
soundly in the back.

‘Hi, Poppy, it’s Luke.’

‘Oh – hi, Luke.’ For some reason I started guiltily.

‘Why are you whispering?’

‘Because Archie’s asleep in the back. I’m in the car.’

‘Oh, OK, I’ll whisper too,’ he lowered his voice. I smiled, liking that. ‘Have you heard the news about Emma Harding?’

‘I have, actually. Mark the huntsman told me. Apparently it’s all over the village.’

‘Forget the village, it’s all over the City!’

‘Really?’

‘The Internet is positively buzzing!’ He sounded thrilled, but then weren’t we all? ‘False accounting, they say. Plus a bit
of fictitious trading thrown in for good measure, oh – and theft from a client’s account too. Well, why wouldn’t you? Word
is she was even brazen enough to take a few secret commissions on share deals while she was at it – un-bloody-believable!
Massively risky too. There’s talk of her doing unauthorized trading in her own name. I mean, bugger me!’

‘But how do they know all this?’ I whispered, glancing at Archie in the mirror.

‘They don’t; it’s pure speculation, pure swinging-dick talk. But there’s never smoke without fire in the square mile, Poppy;
some of it will be true, I promise you. And the thing is, once you’ve got away with something, you get bolder and go for the
next trick, so it’s all very plausible. I’ll say this for her, she’s got nerve. Particularly when you think she was sleeping
with one of the partners.’

‘Quite,’ I said grimly. My partner. Did I detect a touch of awe in his voice?

‘Anyway, she’s been comprehensively caught with her fingers in the till now.’