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‘Well, what have you been up to, then?’ he asked, a trifle heartily.

Melanie grinned shyly and Rachel led the way to the barn. She could sense an awkwardness between Richard and his daughter and this saddened her. If he was not at ease with the little girl how could he hope to help her?

In the barn Rachel explained how previously she had counted and labelled building bricks in the playroom for Melanie.

‘She didn’t seem to be paying any attention at all to what I was doing,’ said Rachel. ‘In fact, I thought I was wasting my time.’ She smiled and spread her hands, ‘but obviously she
was
taking notice. She’s got them all correct, too. Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘It’s a beginning,’ Richard said cautiously. ‘But no doubt Ben helped her.’

‘She says not.’

‘Says?’ He turned to her sharply.

‘I’m sorry. I meant she shook her head with some violence when I asked her if he did. Ben didn’t help you, did he, Melanie?’

Melanie shook her head vehemently. She was so obviously pleased with her achievement that it was impossible not to believe her.

Rachel bent down and kissed her. ‘I think you’re a clever girl and we’re proud of you. Aren’t we?’ She looked up at Richard for confirmation.

‘Yes. It’s very good.’ He made no attempt to embrace his little daughter, nor even to pat her head. But Melanie didn’t seem to notice. She skipped out of the barn and back to the house, her thick black hair, so like her father’s, bobbing as she ran.

Richard perched himself on the edge of a nearby sawing horse, in a beam of sunlight, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘You’re beginning to make headway, then?’ he asked.

‘Shall we say we’ve discovered the first chink of light,’ Rachel answered, matching his earlier caution. She traced a pattern in the sawdust with the toe of her sandal. Suddenly she looked up and was surprised to find Richard’s eyes on her.

‘You certainly seem to understand her,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Already you’ve made more progress than Miss Botham, the speech therapist, and she’s been going there over a year.’

Rachel frowned. ‘I can’t understand why she’s so terrified of going there. Speech therapists aren’t usually fearsome creatures.’

‘I can’t understand it, either. Although to be fair, she's always all right once we get there. It seems as if it’s just the thought of going that upsets her.’ He got up and went to the door. ‘It's not as though it’s helping her to speak, though.’ He sighed. ‘I have to take her again next Thursday; I think I’ll make this the last visit. It only wastes everybody’s time. But one likes to feel one’s making some effort .....’ He looked over his shoulder at Rachel. ‘Would you like to come too? Maybe you can shed some light on why she acts so strangely.’

Rachel followed him to the door, screwing her eyes against the light, ‘Yes, I’d like to come. But I think you’re probably wise to stop the visits as she finds them so upsetting.’

She reached his side as she spoke and they walked back to the house together. Richard opened the door and stood aside for her to go in. ‘I think the visits to Miss Botham are superfluous, anyway, now that we’ve got you,’ he remarked, closing the door.

Rachel turned, surprised at his last phrase ‘now that we’ve got you’, but he was not there and she saw him outside, passing the window on his way to the garage to get his car and go into Ardenbeg.

It was then that she remembered the previous evening’s parting and realised that facing Richard hadn’t been difficult after all, contrary to what she had feared. She also realised that she was not cured of her infatuation for him.

Pleased with her success, Rachel attacked Melanie’s education with renewed vigour. Progress was slow, but gradually she began to draw a little, odd tortured drawings that Rachel couldn’t understand at all. On good days, too, she would copy words and figures and even do simple sums. But on bad days she would spend the entire morning running to the window, looking for Ben, restless at being cooped up indoors. On those days Rachel would take her out if the weather was not too bad and let her ramble in the woods and over the Estate. Her favourite spot was the waterfall and she would stand watching the water cascading from boulder to boulder in rapt fascination until Rachel called her away. They often seemed to meet Ben on these rambles, and studying him Rachel wondered if Aunt Rose could possibly be right. Could Celia Duncan have been going to meet Ben on the night she was killed? He was certainly a very attractive and personable young man. But—a vision of Richard Duncan rose before her—surely no woman in her right senses would contemplate leaving Richard for Ben.

She was considering this as she walked home with Ben one afternoon. Melanie was behind them, chasing the rabbits who were so tame that they almost allowed her to catch them and seemed to enjoy the game as much as she did.

‘Did Celia often walk in the woods with Melanie?’ Rachel asked.

‘Now and then. Not often,’ Ben replied.

‘What was Celia really like, Ben? You’ve told me she was beautiful, Alistair says she was “bonny”—that was his word, too. But I can’t discover much about her as a
person.
I don’t think my aunt cared for her much,’ she added as an afterthought.

Ben smiled. ‘No, Celia didn’t exactly make a hit with Rose. But then you’d hardly expect her to, would you? Rose was not likely to welcome any girl who wanted to take her precious Richard away from her, was she? Old nannies can be more possessive than mothers, you know.’

‘Mm. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘As to what Celia was like, have you never seen a photograph of her?’

‘No, never.’

He fished in the pocket of his jeans and brought out a tattered wallet. From it he drew a snapshot of a flaxen-haired girl, sitting on a gate, in a figure-hugging white sweater with a scarlet spotted scarf knotted at the neck, her long legs encased in scarlet trousers. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing. She looked radiant.

‘I took that,’ Ben said proudly. He replaced it in his wallet lovingly. ‘Beautiful, wasn’t she? Why such a lovely girl had to die .....’ He shook his head. ‘It was wicked.’

‘My aunt says... .' Rachel hesitated, half afraid to go on.

Ben took her arm and smiled down at her as they emerged from the trees and approached the house. ‘Take my advice and don’t pay too much attention to what Rose says, Rachel, my dear. Oh, I know she’s your aunt and perhaps I shouldn’t say it to you, but when Richard married Celia Rose had to take a back seat. She even had to leave the big house and move to the cottage. After twenty something years do you think she would take kindly to that? Do you imagine she
liked
being deposed? She’s only human, when all’s said and done. She resented Celia, she was jealous of her. You could hardly expect her to welcome her with open arms. I’ll bet you’ve not found anyone else who’s disliked Richard’s wife.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘No, that’s true, I haven’t.’

‘There you are, then.’ Ben smiled down at her and squeezed her arm affectionately. Rachel smiled back at him. He was really rather like a big brother, she thought happily.

Richard was at the corner of the house. Plainly he had watched them come from the woods and was waiting for them.

‘Where’s Melanie?’ he said curtly to Rachel.

‘Chasing rabbits, I believe,’ Rachel said with a smile.

‘You’re supposed to
know
where my daughter is and what she’s doing,’ he snapped. He turned to Ben. ‘And my father pays you to work on the Estate, not to take leisurely rambles with every pretty girl in sight.’ He turned to go. ‘Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,’ he threw over his shoulder to Rachel. ‘That’s when Melanie has to be at the speech therapist’s. I'll pick you both up here at two. Don’t be late.' He marched off into the house.

Ben grinned. ‘Don’t mind him. I expect he’s had a bad day at the fishing,’ he said.

But Rachel hardly heard. Richard had called her a pretty girl.

Thursday was one of Melanie’s restless days. Rachel suspected it was because of the impending visit to Dunglevin, but she made no comment. Instead, she took the little girl for a walk up to the waterfall after barely an hour’s schooling. Ben did not make an appearance, which seemed to disappoint Melanie slightly, but even so she seemed calmer when they returned to the house.

After lunch, at which Richard did not appear, Rachel sent Melanie to her room to put on her prettiest dress while she, Rachel, changed into a smart cream suit trimmed with coffee and cream check to match the blouse she wore with it. She even tied her hair back with the same colour ribbon, then stepped back to survey her appearance. Scraping her hair back made her look far too stern, she decided, pulling off the ribbon and shaking her hair free. That was better. She picked up her handbag and went to find Melanie.

Richard had just come in with the car when they arrived at the garage.

‘I’m not late, am I? I was having lunch with Moira,’ he said, giving his hair a quick comb with a glance in the driving mirror. ‘It’s her birthday today. No, don’t get in there,’ as Rachel began to open the back door of the car, ‘there’s room for both of you in front here.’ He leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. Melanie hung back. ‘Oh, heavens, child, you’re not going to be tiresome, are you?’ he snapped impatiently.

Rachel took her hand and got in beside her. It was obvious that Richard was not in the best of tempers.

‘I had wondered about taking Melanie somewhere for tea after she’s seen Miss Botham,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But if you’re in a hurry to get back I could bring the Mini, then we wouldn’t hold you up.’

Richard had his hand on the ignition as she spoke. For a moment his eyes rested on his little daughter, then he looked at Rachel. ‘That’s a very good idea,’ he said slowly. Rachel gathered up her things and made to get out of the car. ‘No, sit still.’ He started up the engine. Suddenly he smiled at her and Rachel’s heart did a little skip, much to her consternation. ‘We’ll all go. We’ll go to the Patisserie, it’s years since I’ve been there. Would you like that, Melanie?’

Melanie nodded, a queer, jerky little nod. Rachel could see that she was too tensed up over going to speech therapy to feel much enthusiasm for anything else. She clung tightly to the older girl’s hand all the way from Glencarrick and through Ardenbeg and as the road rose above the loch Rachel felt the tension increasing even more.

Richard glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve no time now, but we’ll come back this way and stop at the vantage point. I’ve got binoculars with me today so you’ll be able to see right across the Kyles to the mainland.’

‘Kyles?’ Rachel repeated.

‘Narrows. Straits. Strip of water between the islands.

Have you never heard that expression before?’

‘No.’ Rachel, her arm still comfortingly round Melanie, craned her neck to see what she could of her surroundings; but Melanie had her head buried and refused to look. However, as Rachel talked to her and soothed her gradually she began to relax and although she was clearly far from happy most of the tension had gone by the time they reached Dunglevin.

Miss Botham was a large woman smothered in jangly jewellery. It was plain from her manner that she considered Melanie a waste of her time. But she went through the motions while Rachel watched and Melanie patiently and unco-operatively waited for the lesson to be over.

‘Not an easy child to deal with,' Miss Botham said over Melanie’s head to Rachel. ‘I think, myself, that obstinacy plays a large part in her problem.’ She sighed. ‘But I'm inclined to agree with Mr Duncan that bringing her here to me is a sheer waste of everybody’s time.’

Rachel put her arm round Melanie. She was not going to discuss the problem in front of the child herself. ‘Thank you for trying, Miss Botham,’ was all she said.

She led the little girl from the room. Miss Botham was right, of course, Melanie had taken the whole thing with what could only be described as utter boredom. But, and this surprised Rachel, she had shown no fear or tension in the speech therapist's presence. In fact, there was no hint of the terror she had shown at the outset of the journey. It was as if she had simply resigned herself to the inevitable. Yet, and this puzzled Rachel more than anything, what was there about Miss Botham to frighten a child, anyway? She was a perfectly ordinary—if a trifle bizarre—woman, doing a somewhat difficult job. Without, in Melanie's case, any success whatsoever.

Richard, waiting outside, raised his eyebrows questioningly as they emerged. Rachel shook her head to indicate that she would discuss it with him later and he took the hint.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Are you ready for tea, then?’ He smiled at them both, obviously making a great effort to reach his daughter.

‘Yes, I’m starving,’ Rachel said, supporting him. ‘How about you, Melanie?’

Melanie patted her tummy and licked her lips. ‘You,’ Rachel laughed, ruffling her hair, ‘you’re always hungry! ’

Richard drove to the Patisserie and parked the car. ‘Do you think I’m smart enough to take two young ladies out to tea?’ he asked Melanie, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his suit and adjusting his tie. Melanie looked up at him and nodded shyly. Father and daughter found it very difficult to communicate in any way, Rachel realised sadly.

They ate toasted teacakes, scones and sticky buns, finishing with an enormous ice cream gateau which made Melanie's eyes light up with delight.

‘You’ll be sick and I’ll ruin my figure,’ Rachel laughed, giving Melanie a second helping and accepting one for herself.

‘I used to come here for a special birthday treat when I was a lad,’ said Richard, licking his fingers. ‘These things taste just as good now as they did then.’ He was enjoying himself, Rachel could see, and he was more at ease with his little daughter than she had ever seen him. Melanie, for her part, was sparkling with excitement, her cheeks flushed and her brown eyes dancing. Perhaps, Rachel thought, this was the moment to break through Melanie’s barrier of silence.

‘Melanie,' she said gently, ‘I think you should say thank you to your father for bringing us out to tea, don’t you?’