Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

“How’s Robert?” Anne asked.

“Out on the estate. A crisis with one of the tenants. He sends his apologies. Really, he’s so sorry not to be here.”

They had coffee not in the kitchen but in a pretty little sitting room.

The sofa and the chairs were covered in a pale lemon fabric which would show every mark and Anne thought it unlikely that the children were allowed to play here. After Lily had carried in the tray there was a moment of awkward silence which she must have taken as a failure on her part, because she gave one of her smiles and said apologetically, “Crazy, isn’t it, that we’ve got so much in common and yet that we’ve hardly had a chance to meet.”

Anne didn’t reply.

“Anyway, I’m so interested in this survey of yours. How, exactly, does it work?”

“There are three of us,” Anne said. “Three women.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“Perhaps. I’m the botanist. Rachael Lambert’s doing the bird work and Grace is our mammal expert.”

“Grace?”

“Grace Fulwell. No relation, I presume, but quite a coincidence.”

“Oh, there are dozens of Fulwells in the Northumberland phone book.

We’re a common lot. I expect we’re all related one way or another too.

Where does she come from?”

Lily’s voice was light but she seemed genuinely interested.

“I don’t know. She’s not very communicative.” Anne realized that might sound bitchy. She didn’t want to give the impression that the project was falling apart. Not to Lily Fulwell at least. “When you live and work on top of one another like that privacy’s important.”

“Oh yes!” As if a great truth had been revealed. “I do see.”

Anne talked Lily through the process of the survey, explained the system of the poles and the quad rats Lily listened intently and encouraged Anne to expand. Anne realized how the managers of shooting syndicates, the tenants and the businessmen could be persuaded to invest in her.

And where exactly do you intend to survey?”

“I’d like to do a couple of moorland sites, the peat bogs of course and I thought one square close to the lead mine. Sometimes the spoil changes the acidity of the soil. There might be something unusual. You don’t mind?”

“God, no! Go wherever you like. Absolutely open access. I explained yesterday that I think we’re on the same side.” She paused. “I suppose it’s too early to have come up with any results yet?”

“Much too early. I haven’t started the detailed work yet.”

“Ah.” She seemed disappointed and Anne thought that at last she had found the reason for this invitation. Either Lily was too impatient to wait for the full report or she was so much of a control freak that she wanted to see the results before Peter Kemp got his hands on them.

“Well, you must come again. Perhaps when you’ve something interesting to report.”

It was because she felt she had been manipulated, because she didn’t want this confident young woman to think she’d had the conversation all her own way that Anne brought up the question of Neville Furness. She introduced the subject clumsily.

“We were talking about connections and relationships earlier. I suppose it’s inevitable in a county with a population as small as this that everyone’s connected somehow, but it does seem a coincidence.

Neville Furness working for you then moving to Slateburn. And having an interest in Black Law Farm. More than an interest now, I suppose.”

“Isn’t it dreadful!” Lily opened her eyes wide in a gesture of shock and sympathy. She ignored Anne’s point about Neville having moved from Holme Park to Slateburn. “Poor Neville. We do feel for him. When’s the funeral?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We were wondering if we should go. To support him. But we’d never met Mrs. Furness and we thought in the circumstances he might prefer just family and close friends.”

“I suppose he’ll take on responsibility for the farm,” Anne said.

“I suppose he will.”

“The estate wouldn’t be interested in buying it?” The idea had come to her quite suddenly. She wondered why she hadn’t considered it before.

“Then if you get planning permission for the quarry you would control the access.”

“I don’t know that we’ve even considered it,” Lily said easily. “That’s Robert’s territory not mine.”

Anne could sense that she was preparing to move the conversation on to something safer, back to the baby perhaps, or an enquiry after Jeremy’s health, so she got her question in quickly.

“How did you find Neville Furness?” she asked in a gossipy, all girls together voice. “He was your estate manager, wasn’t he? I’ve met him a couple of times but I’ve never been quite sure what to make of him.”

Lily was too wily to be thrown by that. “Neville?” she said. “Oh, he’s a terrific bloke. A star. We were devastated to lose him.”

Then she did move the conversation back to domestic matters. The boys had just gone back to school after the Easter holidays and she was missing them like hell. Really, if there was any sort of decent day school in the area she’d have them out of that place like a shot, no matter what Robert thought.

At twelve o’clock precisely the young woman Anne had seen earlier returned. First they heard push chair wheels on the gravel then they saw her through the long windows. The child was asleep, its arms thrown out in abandon, its mouth wide open.

“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I’ll have to go and retrieve the brat. It’s Arabella’s half day, but don’t feel you have to rush off.”

“That’s all right,” Anne said. “I should get back to work.” She knew that Arabella had been told exactly when to return with the child. Lily had allowed Anne an hour. No more.

She was reluctant to return immediately to Baikie’s. Rachael would want to know where she’d been and she supposed she’d have to confess to fraternizing with the enemy. She decided to call in at the Priory, pick up her mail, throw a few things into the washing machine. Perhaps phone Godfrey’s office and see if he was back from the conference.

The lane which led from Holme Park to the village had once been a private avenue bordered by trees, running through parkland up to the house. Now the fields on either side were fenced and farmed. At the end of the lane was a pair of semis, built in the twenties as suitable dwellings for senior estate workers and their families. By the side of the lane Grace Fulwell stood, staring at these houses, apparently transfixed.

Anne slowed down and pulled to a stop. Still Grace stared. She seemed not to have seen or heard the car.

Anne wound down the window, forced herself to keep her voice friendly.

“What are you doing here?”

Grace turned, came to life. “I was walking the stretch of river through the village. I’d heard about Holme Park. Vanburgh, is it? I thought I’d take a detour to look.”

From where she stood, if she had turned and looked up the straight avenue, there was a perfect view of the house, but it wasn’t Variburgh’s architecture which had Grace’s interest, but these modest cottages with their tidy gardens. More specifically, it was the left-hand semi with the child’s swing and the rotary washing line. Even now her eyes strayed back to it.

“Did you walk?” Anne demanded.

Grace nodded.

“It must be twelve miles from Baikie’s even over the hill. You should have asked me to bring you. Or Rachael. I’m surprised she didn’t offer when you told her where you were coming.”

Grace turned. There was a faint flush on her face.

“I wasn’t exactly sure then, where I was going.” “Tut tut,” Anne said. “You naughty girl.”