Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

WHEN MEREDITH FINALLY found Robbie Hastings, he was standing in the car park behind the Queen’s Head in Burley. This was a village at the junction of three roads, arranged in a line of buildings undecided between cob, half-timber, and redbrick, all of them possessing roofs that were equally undecided between thatch and slate. Midsummer, there were vehicles everywhere, including six tour coaches that had brought visitors to this place for what would likely be their only New Forest experience outside of riding through the lanes and seeing it in air-conditioned comfort from well-padded coach seats. This experience would consist of snapping photos of the ponies that wandered freely through the area, of having an expensive bar meal in the pub or in one of the picturesque cafés, and of making purchases in one or more of the tourist shops. These last largely defined the village. They comprised everything from the Coven of Witches-proudly the former home of a bona fide witch who’d had to leave the area when her fame exceeded her willingness to have her privacy invaded-to Burley Fudge Shop and everything in between. The Queen’s Head presided over all of this, the largest structure in the village and the off-season gathering place for those who lived in the area and who wisely avoided both it and Burley itself during the summer.

Meredith had phoned Robbie’s home first, although she knew how unlikely it was that he’d be there in the middle of the day. As an agister, he was responsible for the well-being of all the free-roaming animals in his assigned area-the area that she’d told Gina Dickens was referred to as the Hastings-and he’d be out on the Forest either in his vehicle or on horseback making sure that the donkeys, ponies, cows, and the occasional sheep were being left in peace. For this was the biggest challenge that faced anyone who worked on the Forest, especially during the summer months. It was appealing to see animals so unrestricted by fences, walls, and hedges. It was even more appealing to feed them. People meant well, but they were, alas, congenitally stupid. They did not understand that to feed a sweet little pony in summer conditioned the animal to think that someone was likely to be standing in the car park of the Queen’s Head ready to feed him in the dead of winter as well.

Robbie Hastings was apparently explaining this to a throng of camera-wielding pensioners in Bermuda shorts and lace-up shoes. Robbie had them gathered by his Land Rover, to which a horse trailer was attached. It seemed to Meredith that he’d come for one of the New Forest ponies, which would be unusual at this time of year. She could see the animal, restless, in the trailer. Robbie gestured to it as he spoke.

She gave a glance at her chocolate cake as she climbed out of her car. Its frosting had melted into it on the top and begun to pool viscously at its base. Several flies had managed to find it, but it was like one of those insect-eating plants: Whatever landed upon it was becoming mired in sugar and cocoa. Death by delight. The cake was done for.

It no longer mattered. Things were wildly out of joint, and Robbie Hastings had to be informed. For he’d been his sister’s sole parent from her tenth year onward, a car crash catapulting him into this position when he was twenty-five. That same car crash had also catapulted him into the career he had thought never to attain: one of only five agisters in the New Forest, replacing his own father.

“…for what we mustn’t have is the ponies hanging about one spot.” Robbie seemed to be completing his remarks to an audience looking rather guilty for what they apparently had stowed on themselves: apples, carrots, sugar, and whatever else might appeal to a pony otherwise meant to forage. When Robbie was finished with his remarks-made patiently while visitors continually snapped his picture although he wasn’t wearing his formal attire but rather jeans, T-shirt, and a baseball cap-he gave a sharp nod and opened the Land Rover’s door, preparatory to driving off. The tourists drifted towards the village proper and the pub, and Meredith worked her way through them, calling Robbie’s name.

He turned. Meredith felt the way she’d always felt when she saw him: warmly fond but nonetheless terribly sorry for what he looked like with those huge front teeth of his. They made his mouth the only thing one noticed about him, which was a shame, really. He was very well built, tough and masculine, and his eyes were unique-one brown and one green, just like Jemima’s.

His face brightened. He said, “Merry Contrary. It’s been donkey’s years, girl. What’re you up to in this part of the world?” He was wearing gloves, but he removed them and spontaneously held out his arms to her, as he’d always done.

She embraced him. They were both hot and sweaty, and he was acrid with the mixed odours of horse and man. “What a day, eh?” He took off his baseball cap, revealing hair that would have been thick and wavy had he not kept it shorn close to his skull. It was brown flecked with grey, and this served as a reminder of Meredith’s estrangement from Jemima. For it seemed to Meredith that his hair had been completely brown the last time she had seen him.

She said, “I phoned the verderers’ office. They said you’d be here.”

He wiped his forehead on his arm, replaced the cap, and tugged it down. “Did you, now? What’s up?” He glanced over his shoulder as the pony within the horse trailer clomped restlessly and bumped against its side. The trailer shuddered. Robbie said, “Hey now,” and he made a clucking sound. “You know you can’t stay here at the Queen’s Head, mate. Settle. Settle.”

“Jemima,” Meredith said. “It’s her birthday, Robbie.”

“So it is. Which makes it yours as well. Which means you’re twenty-six years old and that means I’m…Blimey, I’m forty-one. You’d think by now I would’ve found a lass willing to marry this heap of manhood, eh?”

“No one’s snapped you up?” Meredith said. “The women of Hampshire are half mad then, Rob.”

He smiled. “You?”

“Oh, I’m full mad. I’ve had my one man, thank you very much. Not about to repeat the experience.”

He chuckled. “Damn, then, Merry. You’ve no idea how often I’ve heard that said. So why’re you looking for me since it’s not to offer your hand in marriage?”

“It’s Jemima. Robbie, I went to the Cupcake Queen and saw it was closed. Then I talked to Lexie Streener and then I went to their place-Gordon and Jemima’s-and there’s this woman Gina Dickens there. She’s not exactly living there or anything but she’s…I s’pose you’d call it established. And she didn’t know the first thing about Jemima.”

“You haven’t heard from her, then?”

“From Jemima? No.” Meredith hesitated. She felt dead awkward. She looked at him earnestly, trying to read him. “Well, she must have told you…”

“’Bout what happened ’tween the two of you?” he asked. “Oh, aye. She told me you had a falling out some time back. Didn’t think it was permanent, though.”

“Well, I had to tell her I had doubts about Gordon. Aren’t friends meant to do that?”

“I’d say they are.”

“But all she’d say in return is, ‘Robbie doesn’t have doubts about him, so why do you?’”

“Said that, did she?”

“Did you have doubts? Like me? Did you?”

“Oh, that I did. Something about the bloke. I didn’t dislike him ’xactly, but if she was going to have a partner, I would’ve liked it to be someone I knew through and through. I didn’t know Gordon Jossie like that. But as things turned out, I needn’t have worried-same applies to you-because Jemima found out whatever she needed to find out when she hooked up with him and she was clever enough to end it when it needed to be ended.”