Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

‘Probably the same reason women have put up with bullying for centuries. Lack of options.’

‘At least we don’t have to schmooze with him when we visit the Dumelows. Maybe I’ll wear my little black dress. Just as well I didn’t throw it out to make more room for Aran sweaters and dungarees. Mind you, I get the feeling that whatever I wear, I won’t be able to compete with the lady of the manor.’

He reached out for her. ‘You don’t need to compete with Tash Dumelow.’

As she leaned towards him, a loud shot cracked the silence, transfixing them both for a second until they realised that no one was shooting at them. The noise had come from the other side of the woodland.

‘Jesus,’ Miranda’s face was white. ‘Was that a rifle? Who would be shooting around here?’

‘A farmer,’ Daniel said. ‘Presumably the tenant of Brack Hall Farm. Hope he wasn’t aiming at his wife.’

‘You don’t think…?’

‘No, no.’ It hadn’t been a good joke; her hands were shaking. ‘Happens all the time in places like this. Farmers shooting vermin.’

She frowned. ‘You mean — foxes?’

A current of air stirred the trees, otherwise everything was quiet again. But the mood was shattered and Miranda picked up her glass and trudged back to the cottage. Daniel stayed outside, wondering about the fox. Dead, presumably. The farmer must be a skilled marksman. He’d only required a single shot.

‘I thought I’d look up my father’s second wife this morning.’

Daniel was clearing the breakfast things while the Adonis with the unicorn tattoo and his colleagues competed in the hall to see whether an electric drill could drown out the noise of the hammering. He spoke casually, not wanting Miranda to guess how much this mattered to him, this attempt to make a connection with his old man, trying to figure out whatever had made him tick.

The previous evening she’d been tense and fidgety, even after dosing up with paracetamol because the shock of the rifle shot had given her a headache. A good night’s sleep was the best medicine. Now she was perched on a high stool, engrossed in a paperback about getting in touch with one’s inner self, learning how to tap into her spiritual chi and tune in to her seven chakras. It wasn’t entirely an indulgence: self-help manuals often sparked ideas for magazine articles; Miranda could do jokey as well as introspective, whatever was required. Editors loved pieces like ‘Men are from Margate, Women are from Venice’ or ‘Don’t Settle for the Small Stuff’. Half the time she wrote about how to get more done and pack one’s life with achievement, the other half about the work-life balance and techniques for cutting down on stress.

‘You’re going to see her right now?’ She put the book down. ‘What do you expect her to tell you?’

‘Not sure.’ He poured more coffee from the filter machine. ‘I suppose I want to fill in some of the gaps. Learn about what he was really like, find out what I missed. I was so young when he went away.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘It’s different, of course, but I never wanted…’

‘I know,’ he said as her voice faltered. Miranda was adopted, but she’d never attempted to trace her birth mother. She’d once said that she’d never come to terms with the idea of being given up. Her horror of rejection explained a lot. Why her ex-lover’s decision to stay married had hit her so hard, why she was so angry that Tamzin hadn’t hired her simply because of her literary gifts. ‘But what’s the worst that can happen?’

‘She might slam the door in your face.’

‘Fine, at least I’ll know where I stand. I don’t want to upset her. But I’d like to hear his side of the story.’

‘What makes you so sure she’d be willing to tell it?’ Miranda shook her head. ‘You know your trouble, Daniel? You’re too fair, you see two sides to every argument. What’s wrong with a bit of good old-fashioned one-eyed prejudice?’

He laughed. ‘I came across enough of that in Oxford to last a lifetime. Listen, if Cheryl doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s fine.’

‘Yes, but what if she talks and you hate what she has to say?’

The address he had for Cheryl — Cheryl Kind, as he ought to think of her, although he’d never associated her with his own name — was in Oxenholme. Spots of rain were smudging his windscreen as he arrived at his destination, a grey semi-detached at the end of a cul-de-sac crowded with sycamores. Painstakingly striped lawn, a bed of precisely spaced pink and white impatiens on either side of the front path, crisp floral curtains at the bay window. Disappointment stabbed him, although he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he’d expected a house with more character and found it hard to credit that that his father would have deserted his family for somewhere so utterly devoid of personality.

A ‘for sale’ sign stood next to the front wall. Presumably Cheryl was moving on. Understandable, after a bereavement. She must want somewhere easier to manage. A flat, maybe, although he reminded himself that she was much younger than his father. He’d conjured up unflattering mental images of her a thousand times, but he’d never even seen so much as a photograph of her. His sister reckoned that Cheryl was much younger than their father; she wouldn’t even be close to retirement age. Striding up to the door, he told himself to keep calm. This unknown woman had cast a shadow over his life, but his father had loved her, he had to remember that.

As he pressed the doorbell, someone called to him from next door. ‘You won’t find anybody in!’

A short bespectacled man in his late sixties, clad in a purple cardigan and grubby old corduroy trousers, had bustled out of the back garden of the adjoining semi. Rain had plastered strands of grey hair to his scalp. He had a garden trowel in his hand and he pointed it at Daniel, rather as a sheriff might threaten a snake oil salesman with his revolver.

‘Do you happen to know when Cheryl might be back?’

The neighbour scowled. ‘Said she’d be away for a few days. Left the key with us, asked us to water the plants if there was a dry spell. Fat chance of that in this country. Whatever happened to global warming?’

‘So she’s gone on holiday?’

‘I suppose you could call it that.’ The man’s tone was disapproving, for a reason Daniel could not understand. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Her husband was my father.’

The old man coughed; it seemed to be his way of showing astonishment. ‘You’re Ben’s son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Daniel? Good God.’ He stared fiercely. ‘I can see the likeness now. The eyes, anyway. Of course, he was burlier to start with and he did put on a few pounds after he retired. Who would have thought it? He used to talk about you. You’ve had a programme on the television, isn’t that right? Historical stuff, not my cup of tea. Gardening’s my thing. My wife watched it after Ben told us it was on.’

Daniel blinked. Somehow he’d never imagined that his father would have mentioned his name to anyone up here. He’d presumed that Ben Kind would have been determined to keep his first marriage a secret, too ashamed ever to reveal the existence of the family he’d deserted for the hedonistic pleasures of life in Oxenholme.

The rain was drumming against the roofs. The man took off his spectacles and wiped them with his handkerchief. ‘What did I say? Now then, you’d better come inside, have a cup of tea and a scone. You can say hello to Edna, she’ll shoot me if I let you go without introducing you. It isn’t every day that a celebrity turns up on our doorstep.’

‘The only mercy is that is was quick,’ Edna Whiston said. She was a dainty little woman whom Daniel and her husband had interrupted in the middle of knitting a Postman Pat jumper for an infant grandchild. ‘Another scone?’