The track was even more overgrown than I remembered, full of spiky young shoots at ankle height. In places where the soil showed through, however, there were clear boot tracks heading downhill. And I had to follow them. In running shoes. And with my calves exposed. I was about to regret this.
About fifty painful, scratchy metres down I heard the sound of other walkers: laboured breath, the occasional grunt, not much conversation. They were coming my way. Dave and Mazza. But side by side? On this track?
Then I realized Mazza was almost carrying Dave, who was struggling both with the steep slope and an injury. Ankle? Knee?
Dave raised a hand: I was to stay where I was. For once I was pleased to do as I was told, although I could see that his hand was streaming with blood, as if he had stigmata. It would be best if I simply turned round and made my way back up again; there was no way anyone could administer First Aid here. I did – and promptly stumbled so hard I nearly went base over apex.
Despite the running gloves, falling hands first into gorse was not a pleasant experience.
Clearly Dave hadn’t had even that minimal protection. I sat him down on the nicely greening grass on the edge of the path along the brow of the hill, from which we could see the steadily growing building in the valley below.
Like an obedient child, Dave held his hands out. However, as I tore open the first antiseptic wipe, he reached for the wipe himself, wincing as the alcohol touched raw flesh. But he declared bravely, ‘I think I’ll live.’
So did I.
‘What about that ankle?’ Mazza asked. ‘And how are we going to get you back down to the village?’
‘Why didn’t you buy a four-by-four, Jodie?’ Dave grunted.
‘Because I’m not in the habit of trying to ferry people up and down hills. And I don’t think four-by-fours are allowed up here.’
‘You don’t usually let minor considerations like rules and regulations bother you.’ He’d finished wiping the blood from his hands and was inspecting the deeper cuts. I passed him a selection of sticking plasters. ‘Or you didn’t till you became a vicar’s wife.’
Was that regret or anger? But this wasn’t the place to have a row, especially as Mazza was cocking an eyebrow.
I asked quickly, ‘How did you come to fall, anyway, Dave – someone who prides himself as being as sure-footed as a camel?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Didn’t I see you trip earlier? Mazza, you’ve got the sharpest eyes – go and check. Careful, mind!’
‘What’s he supposed to be looking for?’ I asked as Mazza moved cautiously down the path, stopping abruptly more or less where I’d tripped.
‘Yeah! Got it!’ Mazza bent, and then straightened, flourishing something over his head as he made his way back up, as slowly as a pensioner looking for a paper clip on a pavement. ‘And another one!’ he called. ‘Look, Jodie,’ he panted as he triumphantly laid some scraps of wire on my rucksack.
‘Tripwire,’ Dave said.
‘That’s how he got to be a DCI – recognizing wire when it trips him up,’ I observed. ‘Or are you reading too much into it, by any chance?’ But then, jeering no longer, I answered my own question with another. ‘Or is this the physical equivalent of all those CCTV cameras by the entrance to Elysian Fields and Double Gate Enterprises? The properties on the far side of the valley,’ I added impatiently.
Dave frowned, as if I were some rookie constable. ‘I didn’t know you’d been out there, Jodie. On your own?’
‘I was just enjoying my new car,’ I said. ‘And found my way there quite by chance.’
‘I wish you’d been enjoying a nice anonymous hire car instead,’ Dave said. ‘And don’t let that give you any ideas. Someone really doesn’t want chance visitors down there, do they? Are you sure you can’t summon up a chopper, Jodie?’
‘I bet Double Gate and co would have ground-to-air missiles to deal with it if I did.’
‘Have you really got mates with helicopters, Jodie?’ Mazza gasped.
‘Only in Dave’s imagination,’ I said, not quite truthfully. ‘Or I’d summon one to get him down this hill. I’ve got some serious strapping here, Dave. If we bind up your ankle, do you think you could manage to walk if you leant on the pair of us? Or shall I dial nine nine nine and see what happens?’
‘Air ambulance?’ Mazza gasped again. ‘Really?’
Dave eased his boot off and waggled his foot.
I watched carefully. ‘I don’t think anything’s broken – not that that’s any consolation: sprains can take as long as bones to heal.’
‘OK, avert your eyes – I’m about to take my sock off. Tape, please, Jodie.’
I’ve never been one for male feet, but I knelt in front of him, taking the weight of his leg on my lap and applying the strapping myself. ‘There, you look like second cousin to a mummy. Let’s get your sock back on. And your boot. And I’ve got paracetamol in here. Water?’
Down went the tablets. ‘I could have done with something stronger. OK, let’s get me upright.’ We took a hand each and got him vertical. And then it was time for the long stagger back, Dave’s height and weight making it hard for him and his human crutches. We were all glad to see my car. Until we realized it now sat heavily on four flat tyres.
‘Bastards. If I get my hands on …’ Mazza embarked on a diatribe that Burble would have been proud of.
‘I’ll call the Audi helpline,’ I said wearily. ‘Before that I’ll summon Theo. I’m sorry, both of you, to offend your sense of style, but it’s got to be the five-year-old Focus that rides to your rescue.’
Theo insisted on staying with the Audi while I ferried Mazza home, and Dave, protesting loudly, to the nearest A&E, where he received the promptest and most courteous treatment one could wish for. They even provided him with free elbow crutches, though he was instructed firmly to keep the offending limb off the floor for at least five days. ‘And elevated above head height for the rest of the day,’ the casualty nurse said by way of valediction.
And to think that Theo had been urging him, almost literally, to get on his bike and take himself off home. Truly, the dear man would need the patience of a saint for the next few days.
It wasn’t until Dave was settled for the night that Theo and I had a chance to catch up on our day, which we did in the privacy of our own room. I thought Theo would be concerned by my hilltop adventure, but he was far more interested in my conversation with Elaine.
‘So you’re going to pay any kids you manage to recruit out of your own pocket?’
He sounded more stern than delighted, I thought, as he relished the last drop of the red wine I’d prescribed as a nightcap.
‘Not me. A trust fund. It’s helped young musicians, actors, artists … Now it can help a few waiters.’
‘What if it won’t play ball?’ He seemed determined to see the bleak side I was coming to associate with the rectory. Or was it with Lesser Hogben?
‘It will. It might be quite independent of me legally—’
‘Ah, so you are involved!’ he exclaimed, with a quizzical smile.
‘Did I ever deny it? It meets every last Charities Commission regulation, but since I set it up and help fund it, I can nominate up to ten applicants a year.’
Back to stern again. ‘And if people find out?’
‘You’re saying they won’t like it? In any case, they’d be hard put to discover anything. The trustees are household names, the accounts immaculate. And the name Jodie Welsh doesn’t appear anywhere. Josephine Diana Harcourt, yes. So unless someone nips up to St John’s Wood to check the names in the register of marriages, I’m in the clear.’
‘You make it sound as if you’re committing a crime!’
‘You make me feel as if I am.’ Heavens, where had that come from? Theo looked as shocked as I was. ‘And I’m not. I’m trying to do good by stealth, that’s what, and if I can’t cook and I can’t garden, and I can’t even paint my own fingernails properly …’ I wasn’t sure how I was going to round off that lot, but I didn’t need to.
‘Why do you want to do any of those?’ Since he was kissing the messed-up nails in question, it didn’t feel like an interrogation.
‘Because I’ve never been a wife before. I’ve never even lived with anyone before, or at least not for twenty-five years when I was young and adaptable. But now I am a wife, I want to be a good one. And being a rich one with no talents doesn’t seem to endear me to your parishioners.’
‘No talents? You’re the most amazing— Oh, bloody, bloody phone! I’m not here and you don’t know where I am,’ he hissed as I reached reluctantly for the handset. ‘Unless it’s the children’s hospice – poor Carol and Wayne’s kid. Not expected to live through the night.’
It was. He dressed without a word and left.
Finding the bed miserably cold, I did what I should have done earlier: using the council website I reported the extensive presence of wire on the hillside, and the injuries it had caused. I asked for immediate action, adding the rectory address by way of a spuriously authoritative bonus.
Still no sign of Theo or of sleep. So I switched on our trusty fan heater and spent the next hour giving myself the best pedicure I could – which was not great given that the distance between my eyes and my toes was just wrong for my contact lenses. Eventually I fished out the lenses and drowsed off. At one point I registered the sound of a car door slamming: he must be back. Should I go down? If the child had died, would he prefer to be left on his own to pray? Would he like to have me beside him, or would he consider it an intrusion? We’d never faced anything as serious as this in our short time as a couple.
Theo had always said that in a tricky situation he asked what Jesus would do. I found myself asking what Merry would do. Sometime, while I was agonizing, I must have fallen deeply asleep.
Then I awoke suddenly. What was that? There was still no Theo beside me – but from somewhere in the house came unmistakable bedroom noises.
By now thoroughly awake, I found slippers and dressing-gown once more and headed to the kitchen – making far more noise than I needed, I admit – in search of hot chocolate and those good biscuits. The kitchen door was closed, but light showed underneath, so I went in. Theo, head in hands, sat at the table staring blindly into space. He switched his gaze to me, staring in what looked horribly like disbelief. And then relief.
‘Don’t dare say you thought that involved me,’ I hissed, jerking a thumb up the stairs.
‘I wondered whose the car was.’ Which didn’t seem to be an answer to anything.
‘My secret lover’s, for goodness’ sake?’
‘Whose, then?’
Arms akimbo, I said, ‘I should imagine it’s some friend of Dave’s, shouldn’t you? His forensic science mate, perhaps. I just hope whoever it is has come to sweep him back into his or her arms on a permanent basis. It’s bloody freezing in here. I’ll make some chocolate. You go upstairs. Put the fan heater on – oh, and Classic FM. Loudly.’
He was deep in prayer when I got upstairs, but it didn’t seem to bring him any joy. I knew better than to ask him how he felt. Here in the rectory he’d simply clam up. I’d have to wait till he was safe in my apartment before he’d talk. But at last I felt him relax in my arms, and then we slept the sleep of the just.