Reginald Hill - The Long Kill

She handed over a packet in gaily coloured wrapping paper.

Miss Wilson said, ‘I’ll look at it later. I’ve got to show Mr Hutton upstairs yet.’

‘I’ll show him,’ offered the younger woman. ‘You sit down and open your present.’

For a second the old woman looked doubtful, then she agreed. Jaysmith guessed that despite her independence, she might value her niece’s opinion of him as a prospective buyer, and he guessed also that Annie Wilson wanted a chance to check him out for herself.

He played William Hutton to the best of his ability as she showed him round the bedrooms, enthusing over the view from the main bedroom window. It looked out over the valley, across the lake to Town End with the great swell of Seat Sandal looming behind.

‘Yes it’s hard to beat anywhere in the world,’ she said. ‘Have you set your heart on Grasmere, Mr Hutton, or will anywhere in the Lakes do?’

He almost admitted that his knowledge of the area was limited to what he’d been able to garner in the past three days, but this would have sounded very strange from William Hutton, prospective resident and eager house-hunter.

‘I love it all,’ he said expansively. ‘But Grasmere best of all.’

‘And you walk, of course?’

He gestured towards the eastern heights.

‘It’s the only way to get up there, isn’t it?’

She nodded, and suddenly thirsty for more of her approval, he went on, ‘I wouldn’t like to count the happy hours and the glorious miles I’ve passed on the tops.’

Which was quite true, he told himself ironically. The reward for his boast was to make her laugh and shed those years once more.

‘You’re as keen as that, are you?’ she said, gently mocking his grandiloquence. ‘You’ll be telling me you’re Wainwright next.’

He didn’t know if he succeeded in not registering his shock. Wainwright was a cover name he’d used on the Austrian job. How the hell did this woman know …? Then it came to him that, of course, she didn’t. The name had some significance he didn’t grasp, that was all.

He smiled and said lightly, ‘Just plain William Hutton. Is this the last bedroom?’

She nodded, her face losing its rejuvenating lines of laughter and settling to the stillness of a mountain tarn, momentarily disturbed by a breeze. He wondered if she’d noticed something odd in his reaction after all. But when she opened the bedroom door and motioned him in, something about her stillness focused his attention on the room itself. It was small with a single bed and a south-facing casement window with a copper beech almost rubbing against the glass. On the walls hung several photographs of what he saw were early climbing groups, young men, often moustachioed and bearded, garlanded with ropes and wearing broad-rimmed hats and long laced-up boots, standing with the rigid insouciance required by early cameramen. The background hills were unmistakable. Even his limited acquaintance enabled him to recognize the neanderthal brow of Scafell and the broad, nippled swell of Scafell Pike. The pictures apart, there was no sense of the personality of the occupier of this room, or indeed any signs of recent occupation. But twenty years of nervous living had honed his sensitivity to atmosphere and suddenly he heard himself saying, ‘Your aunt brought up your husband, didn’t she?’

She looked at him in amazement and said, ‘Why? What has she said?’

‘Nothing,’ he assured her. ‘She said nothing. I just got the feeling that once this had been his room, that’s all.’

Now there was anger alongside the surprise and all her initial distrust was back in her eyes.

‘What are you, Mr Hutton?’ she demanded. ‘Some kind of policeman keeping his hand in on holiday?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive. I just …’

But she was walking away.

‘That’s all up here, Mr Hutton,’ she said coldly. ‘We’d better get back downstairs to my aunt. She’ll be wanting to get lunch ready. I hope you’re as quick with decisions as deductions.’

He was very angry with himself. The remark had just slipped out and Jaysmith was not accustomed to anything but complete self-control.

Miss Wilson was holding a small pot replica of Big Ben in her lap.

‘Tell Jimmy it’s very nice, dear,’ she said. ‘Now, Mr Hutton, what do you think?’

He hesitated. When he’d arrived, he’d had it all worked out. A delightful house, but not quite what I was looking for. But now this formula would cut him off from Miss Wilson and her niece for ever. That was something he discovered he didn’t want to do, at least not without a chance for further thought.

He said, ‘Would it be possible to come back this afternoon? It’s hard to take everything in at a single viewing. You can often get mistaken impressions at a single encounter, can’t you?’

He glanced at Annie Wilson as he spoke, but got nothing in return.

Miss Wilson regarded him thoughtfully, then turned to her niece.

‘Well, I daresay we can put up with you trampling round again, can’t we, Annie? But give us time to enjoy our lunch. Three o’clock, let’s say.’

‘Fine,’ said Jaysmith. ‘Three o’clock.’

The old lady showed him out, Annie Wilson having disappeared with a perfunctory farewell into the kitchen.

‘One thing,’ said Miss Wilson on the doorstep. ‘You’ve not asked me price, young man. It may be too high for you.’

He rather liked her directness. It also occurred to him that he would rather like her good opinion.

He said, ‘If you really think of me as a young man, Miss Wilson, then I’ll be happy to accept any estimate of the house’s value based on the same principle.’

A sunbeam of amusement warmed the old face. Then she closed the door. There was a little red Fiat in the drive, presumably belonging to Annie Wilson. Carefully he backed the BMW past it and drove down the hill to the Crag Hotel.

Jaysmith ate a snack lunch in the hotel bar and told the openly curious Parker that he had liked Rigg Cottage, but needed a second look.

‘Quite right, old boy,’ said Parker. ‘Never rush into these things. On the other hand, don’t hang about either. There is a tide and all that.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Jaysmith, finishing his beer. ‘By the way, who is Wainwright?’

‘Wainwright? You mean the walking chappie?’

‘Probably.’

Parker was regarding him with considerable surprise.

‘How odd,’ he said.

‘Odd?’

‘That someone as keen on the Lakes as you hasn’t heard of Wainwright! He’s the author of probably the best-known series of walkers’ guides ever written. You must be pulling my leg, Mr Hutton. Every second person you meet on the fells is clutching the relevant volume of Wainwright!’

‘Of course, I know the books you mean,’ lied Jaysmith. ‘Me, I’ve always managed very well with the OS maps.’

He left the hotel a few minutes later and strolled through the sun-hazed village to a bookshop he had noticed on a corner. There he found shelves packed full of the Wainwright guide books. He bought Book Three, entitled The Central Fells, which included much of the terrain around Grasmere. A glance through it explained its popularity: detailed routes, pleasing illustrations, lively text; there was possibly something here even for the man who lived by map and compass.

It was after two-thirty. Slipping the book into his pocket, he set out to walk up the hill to Rigg Cottage. It was a good distance and a steepish incline and he found himself admiring the old lady for having stayed on so long.

At the house he was relieved to see the little Fiat still in place, but there was no sign of Annie Wilson as Miss Wilson showed him round the ground floor once again.