Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

For a moment Anne thought she would change the subject again but she took a deep breath. “I think Neville Furness has a vested interest in the quarry being sited on Black Law. His family own the adjoining land.”

“Yes,” Anne said, “I know.”

“And now I understand his stepmother is dead.”

“She committed suicide.”

“Did you know Bella Furness?” Barbara demanded.

“Not well. I’d met her.”

“She ran that farm. It’ll pass to Neville.”

“You knew her then?” Anne wasn’t surprised. In these scattered communities the Waughs and the Furnesses were almost neighbours.

“I knew of her.”

“What do you think? That Neville would sell out to Slateburn if planning permission was granted? That’s why he’s so keen for the quarry to go ahead? There’s not much demand for hill farms otherwise.”

“I don’t think he’d sell. He’s too canny for that. The most convenient access is through the farmyard and he’d charge for that. Any other route in is going to mean building a new road. In effect he could almost hold Goff to ransom, charge well over the odds for allowing machinery down the track!”

“Godfrey must be aware of that danger.”

“You’d think so, yes.”

“But?” Anne wiped buttery onion juice from her plate with a piece of bread. Barbara seemed distracted by this. Felicity must already have acquired immaculate table manners.

“But where Neville Furness is concerned he seems to have lost all his business sense. I’d like to know why Goff s so willing to accept Neville’s advice. It’s not like my husband. He’s usually a cautious man. He comes to his own decisions in his own time.”

“What exactly are you afraid of?” Reluctantly Anne pushed the empty plate aside and sat with her elbows on the table. “Blackmail?”

Again Barbara seemed disconcerted, though whether it was by the elbows on the table or the notion of her husband being blackmailed, it was hard to say.

“No,” she said uncertainly. “Of course not.” That at least, Anne thought, was a relief.

“All I wanted to say,” Barbara went on, ‘ that if you, or one of your team, were to find something which would have an impact on the planning inquiry, if you could recommend that after all the development shouldn’t go ahead… ” She paused. “Well, it would certainly be in all our interests, wouldn’t it?”

This was said in such a gentle, unassuming way that it wasn’t until Anne was at the front door, poised to run out into the rain, that she realized that what had been going on here, if not blackmail or bribery, had certainly been some form of corruption.

She was driving back through Langholme when she saw Lily Fulwell in the Holme Park Range Rover coming towards her. Lily stopped abruptly and flashed her headlights. Anne wondered for a moment if something vital had fallen off the grotty Fiat, but it seemed that Lily wanted to be friendly. Anne was surprised. They weren’t usually on those sort of terms. Of course Lily knew who she was. They’d been introduced when Anne had first arrived at the Priory and Lily, newly married, had taken over the running of the big house. Occasionally they bumped into each other. Lily would give her a wave from the Range Rover if she was feeling charitable or exchange a few words in the post office after collecting her child benefit. But intimacy had never been encouraged.

Anne was adept at picking up social signs and knew better, for example, than to invite the Fulwells for dinner.

Today, however, Lily was unusually chatty. She got out of the Range Rover, leaving the door wide open, though it was blocking the lane, and a toddler, strapped in the back, was howling blue murder. Robert and Lily had three children and Lily prided herself on being a real mother.

There was always some sort of nanny in the background but Lily had done the play group shift, taken them to buy their own shoes, organized birthday parties. Now the two older ones were away at school, but she was always there for them in the holidays. That was the impression that was given. Anne had overheard Robert talking to Jeremy at some charity do. “We’re off to Austria. Lily adores skiing, but she insists on taking the little buggers with us. I think she’s a bloody marvel!”

Lily was younger than her husband, still only in her early thirties.

Apparently she’d been a child bride of impeccable pedigree. She had the complexion of a schoolgirl now, short curly hair which looked as if she’d just come out of the shower and a wide friendly smile which made people trust her. People who knew the family well said she was ruthless, very much the brains behind the Holme Park operation.

“I’m so glad to have seen you.” Lily was wearing a hand-knitted cotton sweater over jeans and a Barbour. The rain had stopped and the Barbour was unzipped. There was a stain on the front of the sweater which looked as if a child had been sick. “I’ve been meaning for ages to say you must come round for coffee.”

Before the start of the project Anne would have been delighted to receive this invitation. Now she wondered what Rachael would say if she accepted. The Slateburn quarry would be developed on Holme Park land. It was a joint venture. Liaising with the developers was Peter’s job. Or Rachael’s. Certainly not a humble contract worker’s.

Lily gave one of her generous smiles.

“I wanted you to know how much we appreciate what you’re doing. Robert and I both admire it. I mean the Priory seems so cosy and you’ve given it all up to camp out in that cottage in the hills. I mean we feel we’re on the same side as you, really. Holme Park’s the children’s inheritance, isn’t it? If you find something important up there we’d be the last people in the world to want to destroy it.”

The cries of the toddler reached a crescendo.

“Oh God, we can’t talk now. I always knew we should have stopped after Harry. Two’s enough for anyone. Or perhaps it comes so hard because there’s such a big gap.”

But it really didn’t seem to come very hard. She scooped the infant out of its child seat and fixed it onto her hip, jiggling it gently while she continued to talk. The cries subsided.

“Can you make it tomorrow? Elevenish? Or doesn’t that fit in with your work?”

By now Anne was curious. Sod Rachael.

“No,” she said. “Eleven will be fine.”

“Great.” Lily gave another smile. This time of relief? Or of a successful mission accomplished? Then she deftly strapped in the baby and drove off, hitting the horn in farewell.

On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons Holme Park was open to the public.

Anne had paid her three quid once to have a nose at the gardens, which frankly weren’t up to much, but she’d never been inside. Approaching the house the following day she wasn’t sure where to go. Perhaps she should go round to the back. She imagined that this coffee party would be an informal affair. They’d probably be in the kitchen, with the toddler doing something constructive and messy with paint and dogs sprawled on the floor.

But Lily was at the front of the house chatting to a plump young woman and when Anne hesitated, not sure whether she should park in the field which the public used, Lily waved her on. They didn’t use the grand front door with the stone steps and the porticoes, but she wasn’t shown into the tradesman’s entrance either. There were two wings, lower, less daunting than the main house, built at right angles to it, and she was taken into the entrance hall of one of these.

“I’ve just asked Arabella to take the horror out for a walk,” Lily said, ‘ we can talk in peace.”

Today Lily was more smartly dressed, though not, Anne suspected, just for her benefit. She had heard that Lily carried out most of the business on the estate. There would be meetings. The deal with Slateburn had been her idea. Robert had worried that it might affect the shooting and hadn’t been too keen. He was considered a soft touch, a financial liability.