The Prodigal Wife

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PART TWO

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

PART THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The wind was rising; it plucked restlessly at the storm-weathered stone walls and breathed in the chimney. It stroked the sea's glittering moonlit surface to little peaks and rustled drily amongst the stiff broken bracken on the cliff. The row of coastguard cottages turned blank eyes to the long rollers that creamed over the sand, sinking away to a delicate salty froth at the tide's reach. A cloud slid across the moon's round bright face. On the steep, slippery, gorse-plucking cliff path, a yellow light flickered and danced and disappeared.

Drifting between uneasy sleep and wakefulness, Cordelia startled wide awake, eyes straining in the darkness. As she slipped out of bed and crossed to the window the moon rose free of the cloud, laying silver and black patterns across the floor. Out at sea, the brilliance of its shining path, fractured with light like splintered glass, cast the water on each side of it into an oily blackness. Once she would have pulled on some clothes and climbed down the steep granite staircase to the tiny cove below the cottage; now, common sense prevailed: she had a long journey to make in the morning. Yet she lingered, bewitched as she always was by the unearthly magic; watching the black swirl of the tide round the shining rocks.

Was that a figure on the path below or clouds crossing on the moon? Alert, she stared downwards into the shifting, shadowy darkness where shapes thickened and dislimned as vaporous mist drifted and clung along the cliff edge. Behind her the bedroom door swung silently open and a large pale shape loomed. Sensing a presence, glancing backwards, she muffled a tiny scream.

‘McGregor, you wretch. I wish you wouldn't do that.'

The tall, gaunt deerhound padded gently to her side and she laid her hand on his rough head. They stared together into the night. To the west, beyond Stoke Point, the squat, bright-lit ferry from Plymouth edged into sight, chugging its way to Roscoff. No other light showed.

‘You would have barked, wouldn't you? If anyone were out there, you would have barked. Well, you can stay here now. No more wandering round the house in the dark. On your bed. Go on.'

The great hound obeyed; collapsing quietly on to a blanket of tartan fleece, his eyes watchful, glinting. Cordelia climbed back into bed and pulled the quilt up high, smiling a secret smile; thinking about the morning. Even after thirty years as a journalist she was still excited by the prospect of journeys and new assignments, and this one promised to be fun: a drive into Gloucestershire to find an ancient soke and to interview its almost equally ancient owner – and a meeting on a narrowboat with her lover.

She slept at last but the deerhound raised his narrow head from time to time, listening. Once or twice he growled deep in his throat but Cordelia was sleeping soundly now and didn't hear him.

She woke early and was away, travelling north, by a quarter to eight. It was raining hard. McGregor reclined gracefully on the back seat of her small hatchback. He stared with regal indifference at the drenched countryside and when they turned on to the A38 at Wrangaton, heading north towards Exeter, he sighed and put his head down on his paws. Clearly the brief run on the cliff he'd had earlier was to be his ration for a while. Cordelia chatted to him between bursts of song – she needed music whilst she was driving – and noticed in the mirror that something had been caught under the rear-screen wiper. She switched it on and the fragment – a leaf? – was dragged to and fro across the window but wasn't dislodged.

Cordelia switched it off, hummed a bar or two of ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye' with Ella Fitzgerald and thought about the soke and its elderly owner, who was clearly thrilled at the prospect of being written up for
Country Illustrated
. She'd spoken to him on the telephone and he sounded an absolute sweetie. She did a quick mental check-up: had she remembered to pack the spare batteries for her tape recorder? She pulled off at the Sedgemoor service station and got out so as to give McGregor a run. Whilst he paced elegantly along the hedge line, Cordelia removed the small square of sodden paper from behind the windscreen wiper. It almost came apart in her fingers but she could see patches of bright colour and she tried to smooth it flat on the bonnet of the car, squeezing out the moisture, puzzled as to how it could have become wedged. She guessed that it might be an advertisement, tucked there by somebody in the supermarket car park, but she was surprised that she hadn't noticed it before. The rain had done its work and it was impossible, now, to guess at what it had been. She scrumpled the fragment and put it into her pocket. The rain had stopped and gleams of watery light slipped between the rags of cloud that were blown before the south-westerly wind. She opened the door for McGregor to scramble on to the back seat and then went to get a mocha and a
pain au chocolat
.

 

Angus phoned just after she'd turned off the M5 at Junction 13 and was heading towards Stroud. She pulled in at the side of the road and picked up her mobile.

‘Where are you?' she asked. ‘Have the boys gone?'

‘Yes, they're safely
en route
. Don't worry. The coast is clear. I'm on my way to Tewkesbury, hoping to moor up overnight in the marina. You've got the map?'

‘Yes. I'll phone when I've finished at the soke. I've no idea how long it might take. Did they love the narrowboat?'

‘It was a huge success. We've all agreed that we want to do it again. Speak later then? Good luck.'

She drove on through Stroud and into the lanes that led to Frampton Parva, stopping once or twice to check the directions. As she turned into the lane signposted to the village she saw the soke at once and pulled on to the verge under the hedge. It stood across the fields at the end of its own drive; golden stone, three storeys high, mullion windows, and, only a few yards further along the lane, a tiny, beautiful church. The combination of church and house was quite perfect and she wondered if the photographer had spotted it.

Cordelia let McGregor out, knowing that he might have to wait in the car for some while, and stood enjoying the scene and the warm sunshine. Now she could see two figures moving outside the soke: one gesticulating, the other slung about with equipment. So the photographer had arrived; she hoped it was Will Goddard. She liked working with Will. She put her hands into her pockets and her fingers came into contact with the ball of paper. She took it out and tried to flatten it into some kind of identifiable shape. It was drier now and she could just make out a picture. It looked like a poorly photocopied photograph; two people in an imposing doorway, at the top of some steps – a hotel, perhaps? – turning towards each other. She half recognized the embroidered denim jacket as her own, but why should it be? Cordelia turned it over to see if there might be some clue on the back of the paper. There had been something written there but the ink was smudged and illegible. She folded the paper more carefully this time and dropped it back into her pocket.

McGregor came loping towards her and she coaxed him into the car with the promise of a biscuit and settled him again. She checked her bag: tape recorder, notebook, pencil; ran her eye over a list of questions to refresh her memory and drove down to the gateway of Charteris Soke.

 

Three hours later, on the narrowboat, while Angus made tea, she described the soke: the courtroom with its beautiful judge's seat set within an ancient, barred window, the carved stone fireplace with its coat of arms, and the secret door to the tower, which had once been a fortified treasury; and its charming owner whose family had lived there for centuries.

Presently she stretched and looked about her appreciatively.

‘This is fun,' she said. ‘And we've got all day tomorrow to ourselves. What bliss.'

‘I thought we'd go upriver to Pershore,' he said. ‘Let's hope McGregor likes being a water-gypsy. Does Henrietta know where you are? How is she acclimatizing to house-sitting on the Quantocks after her busy life nannying in London?'

Cordelia made a face. ‘With difficulty. My poor daughter is in shock but coping.'

‘I know you told me about it on the phone but I've lost the plot a bit. What exactly happened?'

‘Oh, it's just so sad. Susan and Iain–that's the couple Henrietta works for – have split up. Apparently Iain's been having an affair for ages and poor Susan hadn't the least suspicion until he said he was leaving. It's been a frightful shock for everyone. Well, Susan's parents were planning to go to New Zealand to see their other daughter and they decided that the best thing was simply to take Susan and the children with them to give everyone a breathing space. They all went off last week.'

‘And where does the cottage on the Quantocks come in?'

‘That's where Susan's parents live. Maggie and Roger. There was no room for Henrietta at the daughter's house in New Zealand, you see, so she's gone down to look after the dogs and the old ponies while they're all away. I've sent her a text and told her I'll be home on Sunday night. And no, I haven't told her I'm here with you – but you knew that. She'll expect me to be in a B & B. That's what I usually do.'

‘You'll have to tell her one day, especially now that I've moved down to Dartmouth,' Angus said – and grimaced at her exasperated expression. ‘OK, OK. I promise not to mention it again. Not this weekend, anyway. I thought we'd have supper at the White Bear. Then we'll get away early in the morning and I'll cook breakfast somewhere upriver.'

‘Sounds wonderful,' Cordelia said. ‘Look, d'you mind if I just make a few notes while today's all still so fresh in my mind? Then I can put the soke out of my head and relax, and we'll take McGregor for a walk along the towpath.'