Night Music (11 page)

‘Stop it!’ she yelled, her scarf falling away from her mouth. ‘Whoever you are! Stop shooting!’ Her heart was racing. She tried to run, but the earth had stuck in huge clods to her feet.

‘Stop!’ she shrieked, hoping the unseen hunter could hear her. She tried to push the mud off one boot with the toe of the other. The stag appeared to have got away, but her heart still thumped as she waited for the next shot.

It was then that she saw the man striding across the field towards her, apparently unhampered by the mud. She saw his rifle, now cocked downwards towards the ground, resting in the crook of his arm.

She pulled at her scarf, so that her mouth was free.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Shock had made her louder than she had intended.

The man slowed as he reached her, his own face flushed as if he had not expected to be interrupted. He was probably not much older than her, but his height gave him authority and his dark hair was brutally shorn. His face had the winter colour of one who spent his time outdoors. contours whipped by the wind into precise planes.

‘I’m shooting. What do you think I’m doing?’ He seemed shocked to find her there.

Isabel had managed to free her feet, but adrenalin still washed through her. ‘How dare you? What are you – a poacher?’

‘Poacher? Hah!’

‘I’ll call the police.’

‘And tell them what? That I was trying to scare away the deer from the new crops?’

‘I’ll tell them you’re trespassing on my land.’

‘This isn’t your land.’ His voice held a faint burr.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘It belongs to Matt McCarthy. All the way up to those trees. And I have his permission to clear it of anything I want.’

As he spoke, it seemed to Isabel that he looked meaningfully at his gun. ‘Are you threatening me?’ she said.

He followed her gaze, then glanced up at her, eyebrows raised. ‘
Threatening
you?’

‘I don’t want guns so close to my house.’

‘I wasn’t pointing it anywhere near your house.’

‘My son comes out here. You could have hit him.’

The man opened his mouth, then shook his head, turned on his heel and walked back across the field, shoulders hunched. His parting words floated to her: ‘Then you’re going to have to teach him where the boundaries are, aren’t you?’

It was as she watched him go that she remembered the last part of the von Dittersdorf symphony. The stag was in fact a young prince, who had been transformed into an animal when he had strayed into the wrong part of the woods, then been torn to pieces by his own dogs.

Asad was checking the eggs, removing one or two from each box and using them to fill others. The organic eggs from the farm down the road were all very well, but they tended to be covered with . . . organic matter, which did not always go down well with ladies of a sensitive disposition. He was cradling the dirty ones in his hands, about to clean them, when the woman came in.

She stood in the doorway for a moment, casting around her as if she were looking for something. She was wearing a long blue velvet coat, whose hem was splashed liberally with mud. Family resemblance told Asad who she was.

‘Mrs Delancey? Would you excuse me while I put these down?’

Her eyes widened when she heard her name.

‘Not too many casual passers-by around here,’ he explained, wiping his hands as he returned to her. ‘And you’re very like your daughter.’

‘Oh. Kitty. Of course.’

He hesitated. ‘Are you all right? You seem a little . . . startled.’

She lifted a hand to her face. Beautiful pale hands, he observed. Long white fingers. She was trembling. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘do many people around here own a gun?’

‘A gun?’

‘I’ve just been threatened . . . well, perhaps not threatened, but confronted by a gun-wielding man on what I thought was private land.’

‘That would be startling . . . yes.’

‘I feel a bit shaken. I’m not used to meeting people with guns. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even
seen
a gun up close before.’

‘What did he look like?’

She described him.

‘Sounds like Byron, Mr Pottisworth’s land manager. He’s doing some work for Matt now. But I believe he only uses an air rifle.’

‘Matt McCarthy.’ The woman appeared to mull this over, then deflated.

‘I was about to put the kettle on,’ he said. ‘I believe a cup of hot sweet tea is very good for shock. Let me introduce myself. My name is Asad Suleyman.’

She bestowed on him a sad, sweet smile that expressed all manner of gratitude for his offer. She was not conventionally good-looking, thought Asad, but she was undoubtedly beautiful. And her hair, when most people’s was neatly cut and coloured, was extraordinary.

‘I suppose it must have been him, which is reassuring. But I hate the thought of someone with guns roaming so close to us. And it’s difficult,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where my land ends and Mr McCarthy’s begins.’

Darjeeling. She looked like a Darjeeling woman. Asad put a mug into her hands, and cocked his head to one side. ‘Have you not thought of asking your solicitor for the deeds?’

‘Would they show me?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘Thank you so much. I’m pretty hopeless at judging these things. I haven’t had much experience of . . . land.’

They sat in companionable silence, sipping their tea. Asad stole surreptitious glances at her, trying to register the details that Henry would demand from him later. Rather exotically dressed – in the muted browns and greens favoured hereabouts. The pale, slender hands. He could easily imagine them on some magical instrument. The long, rather unkempt tangle of dark blonde hair tied back chaotically – the antithesis of her daughter’s glossy bob. Eyes that strayed off to the side, their downturned corners perhaps betraying her recent sadness.

‘This isn’t what I expected,’ she observed.

‘No?’

‘Your shop. It’s beautiful. You have things I’d want to eat. Parma ham! Sweet potatoes . . . I thought village shops were all crates of apples and synthetic cheese slices, run by fat, middle-aged women. Not tall . . .’ She was suddenly discomfited.

‘Black men,’ he finished. ‘Actually I’m Somali.’

‘How did you end up here?’ She blushed, perhaps conscious that her question might be considered intrusive. ‘Sorry. I haven’t had much in the way of conversation lately.’

‘Not at all. I came here in the 1960s. I met Henry, my partner, and when we could afford to we decided to escape the city. It’s a quiet life here . . . better for my health. Asthmatic,’ he explained.

‘It’s certainly quiet.’

‘And are you surviving, Mrs Delancey? In the big house?’ He reached under the counter and lifted out a tin of biscuits, which he opened and offered to her. She took one.

‘Isabel. We’re getting there. Slowly. Hot water and heat are a luxury. We’ll have to get lots of work done. I have a little put away, but I didn’t realise the scale of what we were taking on. What
I
was taking on,’ she corrected herself. ‘It was very different the last time I visited.’

He wanted to say something then, to warn her that her presence might have upset people other than a land manager, that it might not only be men bearing guns she should beware of. But she seemed so vulnerable that he hadn’t the heart to add to her troubles. After all, there was nothing he could say with any certainty.

‘You will always be welcome here, Mrs Delancey – Isabel,’ he said. ‘Any time you want to stop by, I’ll be glad to have a cup of tea with you. You and your family. We want you to feel welcome.’

‘You haven’t noticed.’

Matt lifted his eyes from his pint to meet Theresa’s slanting green ones. She was so close that he could smell her perfume, even over the pub food and beer. ‘Noticed what?’

‘That there’s something different about me.’ She leaned back, keeping her hands on the bar, her painted fingernails outspread before him. Behind her, two young men in tracksuits were exclaiming over the fruit machine.

‘You got your nails done?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘No!’

She was wearing that bra with the purple lace. He caught glimpses of it peeping over her low neckline as she moved. ‘Try again,’ she commanded.

He let his gaze wander across her body, as she had known it would. ‘You shouldn’t have to look
that
carefully,’ she said, mock-offended.

‘What if I like to?’ he said quietly.

‘Keep trying,’ she said, with an edge, but he knew he had unbalanced her. Theresa was easy to read, always had been.

‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘Flatterer.’

‘New lipstick?’

‘Nope.’

He gulped his drink. ‘I don’t know. I’m no good at games.’

Their eyes locked. Oh, no? hers said, and he remembered what she had felt like the previous week, writhing beneath him in the bedroom at her low-beamed cottage. He felt his groin tighten, and glanced at his watch. He had told Laura to expect him home at seven thirty.

‘Matt.’

He spun round to find Byron climbing on to the stool beside him. ‘All right there? Pint, is it?’

Byron nodded, and Matt gestured towards Theresa. ‘Stella, please,’ he said.

‘Do you give up?’ She pouted.

‘Can’t a man enjoy a pint in peace?’ Matt had turned to Byron. ‘All right. I give up. I’ve forgotten what the question was.’

‘My hair,’ she explained, one hand lifted from the pump. ‘I’ve had highlights. Two colours. Look.’ She dipped her head as she passed the glass over the counter, fanning out fronds to show them.

‘Lovely,’ said Matt, dismissively, and then as she stalked off, he rolled his eyes at Byron, as if they were complicit in the incomprehensible ways of women. ‘Everything all right?’

Byron drank some of his lager. ‘Not bad. I’ve sprayed the low paddocks. I wasn’t sure about the soil quality but it doesn’t look too bad. Maybe lying fallow all that time has done it good.’

‘Great. Means nothing to me, mate, but Laura will be pleased.’

‘There’s deer in the hollow between the bridleway and the small copse. I saw a stag today, and a few does yesterday. I’ve scared them off for now with a few shots, but they’ll be back.’

‘That’s all we need. They’ll eat their way through the seedlings. Keep an eye on them.’

‘Your new neighbour came out shouting at me for scaring the animals.’

‘She did, did she?’

‘Virtually accused me of shooting at her.’ Byron seemed uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know if she’s going to make anything of it. I should have told her it was just an air rifle.’

A bellow of laughter escaped Matt. ‘Ah, blessed townies! Wants to rescue all the little Bambis, does she? Oh, that’s marvellous.’

Theresa was edging her way back round the bar.

‘Next time you see her,’ Matt went on, ‘say we’ll set her up a little nature reserve. She can have all the bunnies and deer she wants off that land. We’ll even throw in some birds – a few crows and starlings, say – for her to feed. She can be a regular Snow White.’

Byron smiled uneasily, as though mockery did not come naturally to him.

‘Tell you what, we’ll have a chat later, about you working for me on a more permanent basis . . . I reckon Pottisworth’s land’ll need a fair bit doing over the next year and I could use an extra pair of hands. You’re twice the size of my son. I know it’s not much in the way of forestry, but what do you reckon?’

Byron coloured, and Matt guessed that the younger man had been more concerned about his lack of a job than he had let on. That, and his history, could work in Matt’s favour – he wasn’t likely to ask too high a wage. Pottisworth could only have paid him a pittance.

‘That . . . would be good,’ he replied.

Matt caught Theresa’s eye, and winked recklessly. He would ring Laura and tell her he was running late. It would be a shame to waste the evening. After all, he was in a very good humour.

Seven

‘As you can see, it’s in need of decorative repair, but you’re really paying for the potential. This area, as you know, is becoming quite desirable.’ Nicholas Trent smiled encouragingly at the young woman beside him as she contemplated the crack running up from the corner of the window frame, like a bolt of lightning. ‘It may be new plaster,’ he said, following her gaze. ‘You get a fair amount of shrinkage with it. Nothing a decorator can’t fix.’

She peered down at the details and muttered something to her partner. Then she said, ‘Where’s the third bedroom? We’ve only seen two.’

‘The third bedroom.’ Nicholas pulled open a door and fumbled for the light switch.

‘That’s a bedroom?’ the man asked, incredulous. ‘It’s got no windows.’

There was nothing Nicholas could say to this. In former days, it would have been described as a large cupboard.

‘It’s very small,’ said the woman.

‘It
is
on the economical side,’ he agreed. The baldly illuminated little space couldn’t have been more than six feet by four. ‘But to be fair, Miss Bloom, there are very few examples of this type of property with a third room. Most are only two-bedroom. I believe those lucky enough to have a third tend to use it as a study or computer room, where natural light isn’t such an issue. Now, shall we view the kitchen?’

It took twenty minutes to show them the rest of the little flat, despite its limited size. And for each of those twenty minutes Nicholas Trent heard himself praising its limited advantages, and his inner voice contradicting what he was saying. This is a revolting flat, he wanted to tell them. It’s right next to a main road, sits above a tube line underneath a flight path in a street that has a crack-den at both ends. Quite possibly it has subsidence, the rooms that don’t have Anaglypta wallpaper have rising damp, and there isn’t an original feature left in it. It is ugly, badly designed, poorly adapted and not worth a third of the asking price.

And yet there was little point. He knew that by the end of the day the couple would have put in an offer, and that in all probability it would not be so far below the asking price that negotiation was impossible. That was the way it was at the moment. Properties that would have gone for peanuts five years ago were being snapped up by people happy to sign themselves into debts that made him giddy.