When Harry Richmond Sold His Cottage

It came as quite a nasty surprise to Harry to discover the great gulf between deciding to move house and actually accomplishing it. A multitude of people had to be confronted, their numbers burgeoning as time went on. His house – he preferred to think of it as a cottage – was unarguably desirable. As he understood things, almost everyone wanted a Cotswold cottage built from local stone in 1903. Garden. Views. Easy access to Cirencester and the motorway. But the phrase in need of modernisation was apparently a deterrent to buyers, despite everything in the building being perfectly functional.

So his shock was profound when after a whole month only two sets of people had shown even a glimmer of interest in buying it. The estate agent was an impatient young man festooned with gadgetry, who chewed his lower lip and repeatedly warned about the slackness of the market just now. The endlessly vaunted shortage of housing bore no relation to the desirability or otherwise of a three-bedroomed cottage in an area largely populated with the affluent and the retired. A young family could not afford it, and the rest might find it too isolated. ‘It’s a minority taste,’ said the young man rudely.

He was plainly puzzled as to Harry’s reason for wanting the sale in the first place. But Harry of course could not tell him. He could hardly even bear to rehearse to himself the details of the incident that was driving him out of the home he had loved. He turned his thoughts away from the blood that now tainted it. All he knew was the guilt that followed him night and day, from which the only possible escape was to go and live somewhere else.

But what if he couldn’t sell it? A month had already been far too long to wait. If there had been any choice, he would have gone to stay with a friend or relation. He would have rented a room in a small hotel, or taken a caravan to the Peak District. Instead he was forced to stay there, the guilt eating away at him. Surely, he demanded of himself many times, a normal person would have got over it by now. Instead it intensified day by day. Every item on the radio seemed to remind him. He would be caught unawares by a casual word and be wrenched back into his unhappy thoughts. It deprived him of sleep and gnawed at his self-respect.

One of the potential buyers was a young wife sent by her busy City financier husband to choose them a handy hideaway for weekends. She had three children under five, left in London with the nanny. Harry found himself feeling sorry for her when she came alone for a second viewing. ‘I’m sure to get it wrong,’ she said worriedly.

Harry’s habitually sympathetic manner quickly had the story pouring out – how they had so much money since Scott’s latest bonus that the only sensible thing to do with it was to buy another property. Somewhere safe and civilised for the children. ‘He says we should get a dog as well,’ she sighed. ‘He thinks an Irish setter would be nice. I have no idea what I would do with an Irish setter.’

Harry entertained a vision of a large dog digging up his garden and shuddered. ‘It would be a pity to keep such a big animal in London,’ he said. ‘I think they like to run free, miles every day.’ Privately he thought his cottage deserved better than occasional visits from an urban family who would have little idea how to make it feel loved, with or without an Irish setter.

‘I know,’ she said wretchedly. ‘But Scott thinks because I don’t go out to work I have all day to exercise a dog and teach a two-year-old his alphabet and keep in touch with all his relatives. And just for good measure, I’m to refurbish a country cottage in the latest style.’ She looked again at the narrow utilitarian staircase and the dado running around the dining room and sighed.

‘Three children, did you say? You might want a bigger garden, in that case.’

She smiled. ‘It sounds as though you’re trying to talk me out of it. Why are you moving, anyway? I think I’m supposed to ask you that.’

He had prepared an answer in advance. ‘My sister tells me the time has come to reduce my horizons. That’s the phrase she used.’

‘Are you going to live with her, then? Where is she?’

He flinched at the very idea. ‘Oh, no. That would never work. I expect I’ll get a flat.’

‘With no garden? Wouldn’t you miss it terribly?’ She had already detected his fondness for the well-stocked flower beds and borders and natural area at the bottom, despite his efforts to be casual about it. At least she had ignored the padlocked shed, to his relief.

‘The rheumatism won’t get any better,’ he said with a sigh.

‘Well, I should tell you I’ve got two more properties to consider. I’ve been to all of you twice now and it doesn’t get any easier.’

He had no answer to this, but simply looked at her. She was early thirties, fair in her colouring, and nicely spoken. The sort of off-the-shelf wife you would expect a City financier to choose. Biddable, presentable, fertile. She would fit quite readily into Cotswold society, with the coffee mornings and book groups and fundraising dinners. Harry flinched again at the way the world had gone when he wasn’t looking. He still had friends who worked the land, planted trees and fashioned stone walls. He actually had no intention of moving into a flat. His plans were both vaguer and more ambitious than that. He was going to atone for what he had done – somehow or other, that was his goal.

‘Just go with your heart,’ he told her, hoping he didn’t sound fatuous. ‘Which one can you imagine yourself in most clearly?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. The thing is, they all have to be more or less gutted and remodelled. Scott wants a place where he can get some peace away from the kids. So that means four bedrooms, ideally. But they cost so much. Even with his bonus, it’s a huge amount to spend. I think you’re right, actually. This one isn’t quite big enough for what we want.’

At least she didn’t say need, he thought grimly.

 

The other prospective buyer was altogether different. A woman by the name of Mrs Langrish (he never learnt her first name) in her late fifties, with an eye to retirement with a husband named Edmund. Edmund featured in almost every sentence, until Harry felt he knew him intimately. Edmund had a troublesome knee. The replacement joint had never properly worked, and they were going to have to do it all again. Edmund had a very ancient mother who seemed set to live to a hundred and ten. ‘People do these days, you know,’ said the woman crossly. Edmund had a daughter by a brief early marriage who was always nagging him for money. ‘Just what right she thinks she has, at her age, I can’t imagine.’ Edmund belonged to a very active historical society which centred around the events of the Crimean War. He went to obscure places like Cappadocia and the Black Sea with a group, leaving his wife to hold the fort on her own. Their younger son, Alistair, had taken his time in leaving home, but now he’d finally gone, his parents wanted to start again on their own. Harry had a sense of an escape to a hideaway where Alistair would never find them.

‘I think it’s a bit near the main road,’ she demurred. ‘If we have a cat, it might get killed.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Harry judiciously. A cat was as unappealing a prospect as an Irish setter had been, bringing horrible images of the slaughter of small rodents and birds. Harry had possessed a cat himself until recently, but it had been a lazy, domesticated creature, antisocial and unadventurous.

Mrs Langrish was gracious enough to apologise for her reservations about the cottage. She hated to hurt his feelings, he could see. He could not disclose to her his much more complicated reactions to the dawning realisation that she was not going to buy the place. He really did have to leave it, and yet he cringed from the changes to the poor old cottage that would result. It served him right, he repeatedly told himself. He should never have done what he did.

 

He went to see his sister Muriel in Bisley, not to confess his crime, but to apprise her of his decision to move. It was a visit he had postponed too long, only increasing his dread with every passing day.

‘Move?’ she shrilled. ‘What in the world for? You’re not dying, are you?’ She gave him a close inspection, to see whether this might be the case.

He was tempted to invent a terminal condition, which would serve a useful purpose for the moment. But the implications were far too complicated for it ever to work. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he sighed. In his mid seventies, he supposed that he was more or less dying from natural causes. But it might take another twenty years.

‘So what in the world are you thinking? Have you gone mad?’

Again it was tempting to answer in the affirmative. Indeed, he thought it might even be true. His deed and the subsequent reaction to it would certainly seem bizarre to many people. ‘A bit, perhaps,’ he said.

‘What’s it worth, then? Do you need the money? Have you been gambling? Or is there an expensive floozie you’ve been hiding from everyone?’ She jittered around him, firing questions and hardly waiting for answers. Muriel had always been a nervous, restless creature, and the ageing process had yet to effect any changes.

‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘I was thinking it might fetch close to four hundred thousand, but it seems I have been unduly optimistic. Thus far, nobody has come close to mentioning a figure, because nobody seems to want the place. But I am determined to move, you know.’

‘But why?’ she almost screamed. ‘What about your precious garden? And all that stuff?’

He no longer took the same delight in the garden as he had for much of his adult life. But he could not explain that to Muriel. ‘The pub gets noisy,’ he said weakly. ‘Especially at weekends, when it’s full of children.’

‘Rubbish,’ she dismissed. ‘You like the sound of children.’

‘Not so much these days,’ he told her. ‘And I have to start disposing of much of the clutter. It’ll be very refreshing. I want a new start somewhere else.’

‘But where? You’re not leaving the Cotswolds, are you?’ They both looked out onto the little street that was the centre of Bisley. Colourful, quiet, serene – it was obviously the best place in the world to live. ‘You don’t want to move in here with me, do you?’ The thought plainly caused her acute horror. ‘That would never work.’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I was thinking perhaps a little town, like Tewkesbury or Bromsgrove.’

‘Tewkesbury? Bromsgrove?’ This time it was a real scream. ‘Have you ever even been there?’

‘Once or twice. They both have a good deal to commend them for somebody of my age. Groups, outings, interesting shops. I think either one would be most congenial. And then there’s Droitwich or Kidderminster. All with good buses and attractive countryside close by.’

‘Blimey,’ said Muriel weakly. ‘You really have gone mad.’

 

He went home feeling lonely, guilty and misunderstood. Who could he ever confide in? Not one person. He drove past a dozen idyllic stone houses, many built a century or more before his, but some a lot more recent. They were all beautiful. He had always taken pleasure simply from the appearance of the many-hued stone, from deep mustard to a particular yellowy grey that spoke of age. He had loved the gardens, and created one of his own that took a well-earned place in the picture. Many of these houses were only occupied at weekends or during school holidays. His might well become just such a one, if Scott-the-financier got his way.

Once home, he walked around his rooms, assessing the contents. Books, china, pictures, rugs – but no flowers. Until recently he had always maintained a fresh vase of flowers on the table in front of the window. Not any more. On one level he blamed the flowers for what had happened.

He could – he must – leave here without a backward glance. He had spent twenty happy years amongst people he had felt companionable towards, and who showed every sign of reciprocating. They accepted him without question, welcoming him into their own homes, confident of his good character and decency. The village of Duntisbourne Abbots was just across the main road from his cottage, close enough to walk to, but not so close that he felt observed or judged by the inhabitants. There were even one or two working farms in the area, where he had been known to go and buy eggs. He knew a farm where the daughter kept a small free-range flock in the traditional fashion. It was a relaxed way of life, on the whole. The double murder that had taken place so shockingly just a mile from his home, when he first met Thea Osborne, was well into the past now. The storm had abated and recriminations reduced to a trickle.

But he was undeniably solitary, for all that. His son was gone, living his own life and completely detached from his parent. He sent emails three or four times a year, and a Christmas card, all very friendly. He and Harry met rarely on neutral territory for strained lunches in country pubs, and reminded each other that they were father and son and that surely had to matter. But they quickly ran out of anything to talk about. Paul had married his beloved, a theatre designer called Bobby, and they lived a contented life in Hornsey – a place that had no real character for Harry. He had trouble even finding it on a map.

I am a poor lonely old man, he mumbled to himself, knowing as he said it that he was being disgracefully pathetic and self-pitying. He had his sister, and a very adequate set of good friends. He had his wits – although recent events gave rise to some doubt on that subject.

And he still had the number for Thea Osborne’s mobile.

Thea had arrived as if dropped from the sky, a few years previously; a young widow still suffering the acute effects of her sudden bereavement. The two of them, almost thirty years apart in age, had formed an instant bond. He had acted as protector, facilitator, confidant and liaison between her and the local people. He had observed her vulnerable state and been tempted to capitalise on it. He could have extended his role of protector, taking her into his arms and keeping the horrid world at bay. But he didn’t, and she stepped back, standing on her own two feet and visibly healing. The fact of a murdered man on the property she was responsible for gave her backbone and a sense of perspective. Harry was glad for her, at the same time as he was sorry when she left. He heard later that she had jumped into a relationship with a police detective only a few months after the Duntisbourne Abbots business. Could have been me, he said wistfully, while knowing he was far too old for her.

But it would do no harm now to call her. Assuming her number hadn’t changed, of course. There had been some talk about her movements over the past few years, with shocking events following her from one house-sit to another. Snowshill, Winchcombe, and the village of Daglingworth, only a little way south of where he lived – they and other places had all seen Thea involved in investigating violent crime. He had been aware that she was becoming a figure of some renown, encountering trouble on a regular basis. She was, it seemed, increasingly expert at getting to the heart of things. The local newspapers had begun to label her as ‘The House-Sitter Sleuth’ and such fatuous epithets as that. And then he had noticed a piece headed ‘From Sleuthing to Undertaking’, which told of Thea’s recent marriage to a man named Slocombe, and their opening of a burial ground near Broad Campden. An unusual event, by any standards, but all the more so for the fact that these were so-called ‘green burials’ with much less of the ritual and fripperies that went with a standard funeral.

Harry had been intrigued. And very slightly repelled. What was that lovely woman doing getting herself into such work? She ought to concern herself more with the living, free of death and all its trappings.

He wanted to call her. He had wanted to for the past three years. But he could never think of a pretext that could justify so doing. Nor could he now – except a threadbare idea of asking her if she knew anybody who might like to buy his cottage. He wanted to tell her he was moving, just in case she decided to pay a sudden visit. It would be a shame if she found new people in the house. He hated to think that this might happen.

So he did it. With a shaking hand he pressed the buttons, feeling himself grow hot with anxiety as he listened to the odd burring that replaced the usual ringing tones of a proper phone. He disliked mobile phones on principle. Was it not obvious that the things ought never to have been invented?

It dawned on him that there was a clear danger to what he was doing. Thea Osborne – or Slocombe as she must be now – was gifted with an almost uncanny ability to sniff out wrongdoing. Did he perhaps hope that she would do the same with him, exposing his transgression and thus providing some sort of absolution?

She answered with a slightly wary ‘Hello?’ Her phone, of course, had failed to inform her of who was calling. He was a ‘caller unknown’ and that itself was unnerving, he supposed. Even Thea, who was so fearless, might be bracing herself for an unwelcome shock.

‘Thea? You might not remember me. Harry Richmond, in Duntisbourne Abbots. It’s three years ago and more now, I suppose …’

‘Harry!’ The tone was unreservedly warm. ‘Of course I remember you. How nice that you’ve called me. I’m living in the Cotswolds permanently now, you know.’

‘So I understand. I was wondering … the thing is … would you like to come over one day, for tea or something?’

‘That would be lovely. How are you anyway? It does seem an awfully long time.’

‘I’m older,’ he said, with a strangled little laugh.

‘And wiser?’ she said teasingly. She sounded free of care, settled, confident. She sounded older and very much wiser herself.

‘Definitely not wiser. I’m a foolish, fond old man these days. I’ve put the cottage up for sale. It’s a month ago now, at least. Nobody wants to buy it.’ Again the painful laugh, which carried very little humour.

‘That sounds bad,’ she said.

‘Bad that I’m selling it, or bad that nobody wants it?’

‘Both.’

This time his laugh was more like the real thing. It was funny. An unfamiliar sense of delight flashed through him. Had he been a fool to let this woman go? Wasn’t she something deeply precious, to be treasured and kept and enjoyed, regardless of what people might think? ‘When can you come?’ he asked.

‘Tomorrow?’

It was like a wonderful gift. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Come at three, and I’ll have cake. Can you remember how to find me?’

‘I think so. Head for that pub, and you’re just past it.’

‘Exactly. Will you bring the dog? I have fond memories of the dog.’

‘What about your dog-phobic cat?’

‘Gone. She’d be very welcome.’ The dog had been an integral part of Thea, he recalled. A soft, patient spaniel that made few demands and offered a unique companionship that Harry could scarcely comprehend.

‘She’s enjoying her new life here. Drew’s got two children and they take her for walks across the fields. Actually, three isn’t a very good time. I have to be here when they get home from school. There are still a few more days of term, before they finish for the summer. Drew has to go and see someone about a funeral. Would the morning be any good for you?’

‘Of course. Coffee instead of tea. Biscuits instead of cake. Ten-thirty?’

‘That should be fine. And why not have cake? Such rules are made to be broken.’

He laughed, marvelling at how much better he felt.

 

But another phone call ten minutes later ruined his mood. It was the estate agent calling to tell him that Mr and Mrs Armstrong-Beavish wanted to come and look at the house again that evening.

‘Really?’ said Harry. ‘I thought they’d decided against it. You do mean the City trader bloke and his nice little wife, I suppose? It that really their name? Armstrong-Beavish?’ His contempt was startling even to himself.

‘I believe we informed you of their name before the first visit,’ said the young man stiffly.

‘I expect you did,’ said Harry, feeling defeated.

 

The couple arrived at seven that evening. The sun was just disappearing, leaving the garden in shadow and making all the rooms seem gloomy. Harry did none of the recommended tricks involving grilled coffee beans or lavender-scented sachets. The kitchen was its usual self, an unwashed saucepan in the sink and a cobweb over the window. Harry was tidy, but not obsessively so.

‘I thought you’d decided against it,’ he said to the wife, who had greeted him like a close friend.

‘Scott wanted to see for himself,’ she said, with a minimal roll of her eyes.

Scott was fortyish, with elegant black hair and a twitchy, darting glance. He resembled an actor given a part he felt unequal to, after striving desperately to attain it. He avoided Harry’s eye and stared impertinently into the corners of the hallway. ‘Could I see the garden?’ he asked. ‘I understand there’s a shed. Does it have a secure lock?’

‘Not really. Just a padlock,’ said Harry. ‘Why – what are you planning to keep in it?’

‘Tools. You realise we shan’t be here during the week. The place will be vulnerable. It’s very close to a main road, after all.’

Harry made no attempt at a smile. He was visualising security cameras, keypads, bars on the windows. What sort of relaxing country retreat would that be for his wife and children? Or even for himself, come to that. ‘I would have thought that the road worked in your favour, in that respect. Any intruders would be seen by people driving past.’

‘Complete myth,’ snapped Scott. ‘Nobody would bother to stop, would they? And it’s convenient for criminals to make an escape.’

‘I see,’ said Harry, trying not to catch the eye of the wife. He was also trying not to feel sorry for her. She’d married the man, after all, presumably not at knifepoint. ‘Well, let’s have a look at the shed, then.’ He very much did not want to visit the shed, but if it was unavoidable, the sooner it was over with the better.

Scott and his wife followed close on his heels, politely admiring the borders full of colour. Harry grew dahlias, gladioli, lupins, carnations. He liked tall things, and packed them in closely together. There was garden both front and back, and everywhere there were flamboyant blooms at almost every season of the year. It never felt like work to him, the snipping and feeding, weeding and transplanting. The rewards far outweighed the effort, sometimes to the point of making him feel mildly guilty. Admiration was generally misplaced, he felt. Six weeks ago he had decided to clear an overgrown area at the far end of the garden, preparatory to making new beds for yet more colourful flowers. Crocosmia, perhaps, with some alliums to keep it interesting in the early summer.

That wasn’t going to happen now.

Scott peered through the window of the shed when Harry failed to offer to unlock it for him. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Looks to be a good size. Is that one of those brushcutter things? I always fancied one of those.’

‘I got it for the bits the mower can’t cope with,’ said Harry. ‘I could leave it for you, if you like. I won’t need it again.’

‘Looks good as new,’ said Scott, suddenly showing a much more human aspect. ‘I’d pay you the proper price for it.’

‘As you like,’ shrugged Harry.

In the house again, the couple exchanged a few words, showing no inclination to exclude Harry from their deliberations.

‘I think this will be ideal,’ said Scott. ‘I don’t know why you were dithering.’

‘I thought it might be a bit small. And the road …’ defended the wife. ‘We’ll be able to hear the traffic.’

‘We’ll replace the windows, of course.’ He looked around the sitting room. ‘And it might be an idea to move the staircase. That way we could make another room upstairs.’

Move the staircase? Harry almost screamed aloud. How could such a thing even be possible? He made a choked, snorting sound, which attracted two very different responses. The wife expressed silent sympathy, while Scott just smiled. ‘It’s not as hard as you might think,’ he said. ‘If it opened into that second bedroom, we could turn the existing landing into a room – do you see? It takes a certain sort of imagination, I suppose,’ he finished immodestly.

‘I see,’ said Harry weakly. He didn’t see at all. Where would the bottom of the staircase be, he wondered. How very odd the hallway would look without it. He closed his eyes against the images of devastation. It wouldn’t be his problem, he told himself. He’d have a nice town house somewhere, easy to maintain and close to the shops. It was all his own fault. He had brought it on himself. This was his punishment and he must take it like a man.

‘Well, I think you’ve got a sale,’ said Scott heartily, determined not to recognise the pain before his eyes. People made their own destiny, in his opinion. Harry had put the house on the market, after all. Why should he be sorry when the logical result took place? It was the same with his wife. She’d been more than happy to marry him and have all those babies. It was exactly what she’d said she wanted. Why did she sometimes seem so gloomy about it these days? It was past his comprehension.

Harry took a deep breath, fighting the sudden vertigo that gripped him. Was it really happening? Would he pocket the hundreds of thousands of meaningless pounds and walk off into the sunset to enjoy his final years in futile comfort? It made him angry to think of it. Angry? He paused, listening to himself. Where was the guilt that had impelled the move?

Ah – there it was, sitting like a malevolent spider in his middle. It hadn’t gone away, after all. He was in its thrall, and there was no escape.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

Scott laughed. ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m offering? I’m knocking twenty grand off your asking price, given that there’s so much work to be done on it. That’s generous,’ he added, pushing his face forward to emphasise the point. ‘You’d be very lucky to get that much from anyone else.’

‘I expect I would. Thank you,’ he repeated. ‘What happens now?’

‘I’ll phone the agent tomorrow. We’d be looking at completion by Michaelmas.’

Michaelmas? When was that? Harry had a dim memory of his father referring to the date as one by which rent must be paid and accounts balanced. It was never mentioned these days. Then he remembered the daisies of the same name, which flowered in the autumn. ‘That’s September, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Twenty-ninth. That gives us over two months. Should be time enough, wouldn’t you say? No chain, as I understand it.’

‘That sounds an awfully long time,’ said Harry worriedly. Another two months in the cottage struck him as unbearably long. ‘Couldn’t you make it quicker?’

Scott sucked his lower lip for a moment. ‘Sooner might be awkward. Cash-wise, I mean. I’d lose by it, you see.’

Once again, Harry did not see at all. The man was a banker or stockbroker or fund manager or something equally incomprehensible. His instincts were going to be to maximise investments and juggle interest rates and play all kinds of unwholesome games with numbers. And good luck to him, Harry thought, with a glance at the wife, whose eyes had grown round with something that definitely wasn’t excitement.

‘Well, perhaps I could move out before that,’ he said.

Scott tilted his head like a disappointed schoolmaster. ‘Really? Before you get the money? That would be very rash. What if I change my mind? Nothing’s sure, you know, until the contracts are signed. My advice to you would be—’

‘Come on, Scott. Let him do what he wants.’ The voice was startlingly firm. The wife, the dithery, unhappy little wife, had spoken. ‘You won’t change your mind, will you? Let’s just shake hands on it, and get home.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I want to see how Laurie’s cold is. I know he had a temperature when we left.’

‘All right, then,’ said the husband affably. ‘Mission accomplished. We’ll soon have this place licked into shape. I always wanted a pad in the Cotswolds. Well done, kid. You did well to find it for us.’

Harry watched them go, his heart sagging unhappily in his chest. It was all his own fault, he reminded himself.

 

Thea was on the doorstep just before ten-thirty next morning, minus her spaniel. She was eyeing the For Sale sign by the gate when Harry opened the door. ‘Funny how they always make you feel sad, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I suppose nobody really enjoys change.’

That gave him pause. He had never regarded himself as a person resistant to change. There was nothing virtuous or admirable in such an attitude. And Thea herself had just undergone a very large change in her life. ‘I’m not sure that’s the problem,’ he said slowly.

‘So what is?’ she asked directly.

He looked at her, matching the reality with the memory of a woman not seen for three years. She was small and slim and beautiful as he remembered her. The style of her haircut had changed, and something about her clothes struck him as different. Hadn’t she been ever so slightly scruffy before? Now she was neat and clean, although the garments did not look new. He gave this a moment’s thought, concluding that it had been the disarray and personal neglect of grief in that earlier encounter, in which hair was not cared for and shoes were not brushed. She was recovered, then, insofar as a person ever truly recovers.

‘You look wonderful,’ he told her.

‘Thanks. Are we going in? Or shall we sit out in the garden? I do love your garden.’

‘The kitchen,’ he decreed, trying to ignore the stab of regret at the mention of his garden. ‘Coffee in the kitchen.’

‘Okay.’ She was giving him the same close inspection that he had given her. He turned away, trusting her to follow him down the hallway and into the room at the back.

‘The new people are going to move the staircase,’ he said, almost too softly for her to hear him. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘What? That’s ludicrous,’ she said. ‘I never heard of such a thing.’

‘I suppose anything’s possible,’ he said.

‘I need you to explain the whole business. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Where are you moving to? What about your sister?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll never forget your sister.’

‘Nobody does.’

‘Well?’

He postponed his replies until the coffee was poured and a fruity farmhouse cake was sliced and proffered. He was mentally rehearsing his opening lines, unable to judge what to explain and what to leave out. Inside him somewhere a juddering panic was building. What had he been thinking of, to invite this lovely inquisitive woman into his tainted home? Didn’t he know that she would extract the truth from him? Had confession been his intention all along?

‘Are you ill?’ she asked with devastating directness. ‘Is that it?’

‘Oh no. There’s nothing the matter with me. Not physically, anyway.’

‘So what? You’ll have to tell me, you know. Isn’t that why you phoned me?’

‘I’m not sure. I was just asking myself the same thing.’

‘Come on, Harry. It can’t be anything too terrible.’ Then she caught herself, with a quick little shake of her head. ‘That’s a stupid thing to say,’ she reproached herself. ‘Of course we both know that things can be absolutely terrible. They come out of the clear blue sky at us, don’t they. Just when we’re minding our own business.’

He had no advance warning of his reaction. The flood of tears was at first bewildering. He couldn’t think when he had last cried. It felt as if it hadn’t happened for about fifty years. The heat and damp and impossibility of control were overwhelming. He could hear the small explosions emerging from inside his face and marvelled that he could make such sounds.

Thea laid a gentle hand on his arm and waited.

‘I wasn’t minding my own business, though,’ he said thickly, after a few minutes. ‘I was going where I should not have gone. And I killed. I did a wicked, horrible thing, and it won’t leave me alone. I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t get it out of my mind while I live here.’

‘Who did you kill?’ She looked out of the window at the garden, as if knowing the answer. And yet, she couldn’t know – not the horror of it, the blood and screams and bone-deep guilt and sorrow.

‘You might not understand,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t think anyone could understand. It was just one small unimportant life. One of countless that die every day. You’ll think I’ve gone insane.’

‘An animal,’ she realised.

‘An animal,’ he agreed. ‘Whose deaths we seldom even mark as of any meaning. I never marked them myself. I have witnessed hundreds of little deaths, been responsible for some of them, eaten their flesh and worn their skins. And then, as you say – from a clear blue sky, it all changed. It was like having a blindfold torn off.’

‘Because you did it yourself, without intending to. What was it?’

He blinked away the last of the tears, the emotion too deep for weeping. ‘I was using my new brushcutting machine on a patch of nettles and brambles at the end of the garden. I wasn’t doing it carefully. Just charging at it like a brainless old bull. I couldn’t really see what was in front of me, with the flying debris and dust. I didn’t even hear the scream at first. It was the blood that alerted me. It sprayed all over the machine.’ He felt the contents of his stomach heaving upwards, his throat burning with disgust and shame.

‘You killed a hedgehog,’ she finished for him. ‘Any other creature would run away, but the poor thing just rolled into a ball and hoped for the best.’

‘Just as they do in the road,’ he nodded.

‘I’m guessing it didn’t die right away.’

‘Two legs were sliced off, and a great gash down its side,’ he said thickly. ‘I picked it up, but the prickles hurt my hands, so I dropped it again. Its little face – have you ever looked closely at their faces? They’re desperately sweet. And I dropped it because it pricked me. It died, but not right away. I did nothing to assuage its suffering. I see that pathetic wounded thing every time I close my eyes.’

‘And you think by moving away that’s going to change?’

‘It will be better,’ he said with certainty.

‘I hope so.’ She looked dubious. ‘Though it might take more than that.’

He gave her a look. ‘You’re going to suggest I open a hedgehog sanctuary – atone in some way. I thought of it. But it’s too big a matter for that. I have come to abhor the whole human race, you see. There’s a bottomless pit of cruelty and exploitation and unimaginable guilt. I could so easily have left that wild area to its own devices. I should have known there were creatures living in there, whose well-being I ought to have cared about. Do you know – if I could be granted one wish, it would be to reduce the intelligence of human beings to about one per cent of what it is. The world would be so much better if we could manage that.’

‘The world is what it is,’ she said. ‘That sounds trite, but it’s true.’

‘And I intend to tread upon it as lightly as I can. I shall find a little house in a row in a town, eat no meat and perhaps find my way to some kind of acceptance. I shall have plenty of money, at least. Perhaps I’ll find some constructive use for it.’ He gave a wan smile. ‘The new people might have a dog. Man’s accomplice in subduing and tormenting other species.’

She sighed. ‘I wish you luck, Harry. I fear you’re going to need it.’