‘What could she possibly have meant?’ Meredith mused as they drove towards Lower Stovey that evening. ‘Didn’t she give any clue?’
There were few cars on this stretch of the early evening road. They must have hit that fortunate window between people hurrying home from work and those hurrying out again on evening pursuits. She thought Alan looked a little tired and definitely sombre. Sensitive to changes in his mood, she picked up on his inner tension and the not altogether successful way he was trying to disguise it.
She’d been on the train on her own way home from London when she’d received his call on her mobile. He suggested he drive over to her house and if she was willing, they’d go to see Ruth at her request. He’d explain when he saw her. She’d replied simply, ‘Of course I’ll come.’
She’d had no time other than to effect a quick change of clothes and run a brush through her thick brown hair, grateful for the amenable bobbed style which meant minimum fuss. He’d arrived as she’d just burned her mouth on a too-hot mug
of instant coffee. In the car he’d given her a brief account of the inquest and of his meeting with Daphne Hastings, followed by Ruth’s request. In answer to Meredith’s question, he now said, ‘Not directly. But as this urge to confess appears to have followed on the inquest I suppose it may have something to do with that. She was particularly anxious I bring you along.’
Markby slowed as they neared the turning which indicated ‘Lower Stovey. No Through Road.’ ‘There is one thing I should perhaps mention to you before we get there. There’s no need for Ruth to know I’ve told you if the subject doesn’t arise, but I fancy it will and I want you to be prepared.’
And as he turned down the single-track road and they bumped their way over the uneven pitted surface between high hedges, he told her about Ruth’s baby.
‘I didn’t mention it before because it was by way of confidential information,’ he added apologetically.
‘Of course I understand that!’ Meredith returned indignantly. ‘But why should Ruth want to talk about it now?’
‘Because she’ll have to be told we’ve spoken to Dr Fichett and it would be unfair and unwise to leave her in an agony of suspense over whether the old chap has let the cat out of the bag or not. And because I suspect that Simon Hastings was the father of her child. If he was, then I’ll have to ask her where she was the weekend he disappeared.’
‘So long ago, how can she be expected to remember?’ Meredith asked indignantly. ‘Alan, for goodness’ sake, be careful. The poor woman already thinks you’ve got her marked down as Hester’s murderer. Don’t make it sound as if you’re thinking she had a hand in another death.’
‘I don’t think it. I told you, I don’t think anything right now. We don’t know how Simon died. I’m merely observing and making notes to keep tucked away in a corner of my brain. I’ve made a note, for example, that two people have died in the neighbourhood of Lower Stovey and both were connected with Ruth Aston. But that’s all it is at the moment, a mental note. It was Ruth herself, I’d remind you, who told me she thought she might have committed a crime.’
Meredith was prevented from comment because at that moment they encountered a tractor coming towards them. As the banks were steep and there was no passing room, Alan was forced to back his car until he reached a spot where enough space had been scooped out of the bank to allow him to pull over. The tractor, its huge wheels caked in mud, grumbled its way past. It was being driven by a weather-beaten man in a pullover and a battered cap who raised a laconic hand in acknowledgement as he passed.
‘Kevin Jones,’ said Markby. ‘I went to their farm twenty-two years ago when we were investigating the Potato Man. Not for any particular reason, just routine. We called at all the farms and asked if they’d noticed any signs of anyone sleeping rough on their land. It was Martin Jones running the place then, Kevin’s father. Kevin was there, too, waiting to take over when his father retired. That must have happened by now. Martin must be—’ Markby frowned as he calculated. ‘At least seventy. Kevin must be forty or so now. He was a young man in his early twenties then and I guessed chafing at not being able to run the farm in his own way. I’ve run into him a couple of times since. I got the impression he was in charge now.’
‘He looked older than forty-something on that tractor,’ Meredith said. ‘Not that I got a good look at him.’
‘Farming’s a tough business these days with a lot of worries. I wonder if Kevin is as keen to run the farm now as he was in his twenties,’ Alan returned drily. ‘But perhaps we were both a lot keener on our chosen professions back then. I was only twenty-five.’
‘You made inspector early,’ she observed.
‘They thought I had promise.’ He allowed himself a brief grin.
‘And they thought right!’ she declared.
He gave a snort of derision. ‘Did they? The very first case they handed me, the Potato Man, I failed to solve, didn’t even turn up a likely suspect. There must have been a few of the top brass who had second thoughts!’
They’d reached the village. The Old Forge looked attractive in the dying evening sun. The last rays caught the upstairs windows, making them sparkle, and even the garden, littered with leaves from the previous night’s storm, looked peaceful.
But it was clear Ruth herself wasn’t at peace. She greeted them nervously, twisting her hands and rushing her phrases.
‘Come in, do. Sorry to hustle you but the neighbours will have seen you arrive. I never used to worry about neighbours’ gossip, but now it’s different.’
She urged them ahead of her towards the ingle-nook hearth where seats had been drawn up round a low table on which stood a tray with a bottle of sherry and glasses.
‘It’s all I’ve got,’ apologized Ruth. ‘Except wine.’
‘Sherry would be very nice,’ Alan told her. ‘Shall I pour?’
She gave him a timid smile and followed it with a little laugh. ‘Is it that obvious I should be all fingers and thumbs?’
‘You do look as if something’s worrying you, Ruth,’ Meredith told her.
‘Yes, it is. Well, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t, would you? Thank you both for coming, by the way. You, Meredith, in particular are being very kind. I do realise you’ve probably been busy in London all day.’
They sipped at the sherry while Ruth sorted out her next words. ‘I understand you’ve found old Amyas Fichett, Hester’s uncle.’
Markby nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to him.’
Ruth looked reflective. ‘How odd, he must be ancient. I thought he’d be dead.’
‘He’s in his nineties but remarkably well for his age. He doesn’t leave his own house and garden, that’s the only thing. That has nothing to do with a mobility problem. It’s by choice. I don’t think,’ Markby smiled, ‘Dr Fichett has much time for the modern world.’
‘Oh, he was like that years ago,’ said Ruth dismissively. ‘He always spoke with contempt of the world outside his own little academic island. He had a very brusque, almost inquisitorial way with him, I remember. Hester used to say he was really very kind and I suppose he was. Certainly, when Hester’s mother asked him whether she was doing the right thing in helping me, he told her she was.’
Ruth looked full at them. ‘You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘The birth of your baby,’ Markby said gently.
‘That’s right. A very nice woman called Mrs Hatton got in touch with me and warned me old Uncle Amyas had told you about that. To use her phrase, “told the superintendent details of my personal life which I mightn’t have wished disclosed.” She was very embarrassed and apologetic. She felt, because she’d taken you to see Amyas, she was responsible. I assured her she wasn’t and that now Simon’s remains have been identified, it seems destined to come out, anyway.’ Ruth turned her head to look at Meredith. ‘Has Alan told you about it, Meredith?’
Meredith confessed that he had. ‘But only on the way here because he thought you’d mention it. He wouldn’t have told me otherwise.’
‘That’s very gentlemanly of you,’ Ruth said drily to Markby. ‘Though it’s not the scandal now it was then. Nobody cares about me now. Then it was different. Then I was the Reverend Pattinson’s daughter and that kind of behaviour wasn’t expected of me.’ She gazed sadly into the hearth where the fire had again been lit. The flames flickered up and sent pink fingers of light playing across her face. ‘I was very young, very stupid and in love. Or I ought to say, I’d been in love and I’d just found out that love plays some nasty tricks on you.’
‘And the father of the child was Simon Hastings?’ Markby prompted in the same quiet voice.
‘Yes. You heard his mother talk about him today in that café.’ Ruth glanced at Meredith. ‘You weren’t there to hear it, but she was going on about him as if he was Mr Perfect. She was right to say he was popular and very clever. But he certainly wasn’t without his faults! But then, I wasn’t without mine, if ignorance can be counted a fault.’
One of the half-burned logs in the hearth fell in with a crackle and sent a shower of sparks into the air.
‘I realise now,’ Ruth went on, ‘that I’d had a peculiarly sheltered, isolated sort of life until I went to university. When I was young I lived here at Lower Stovey and then they sent me to boarding school in the West Country. That was out in the sticks, nothing much around for miles. I got through it all right. I made friends of a sort but the first real friend I ever made was Hester when I got to university. One sort of person I’d never had anything to do with was young and male. I didn’t know any boys. Most of the girls at school had brothers or male cousins and as they got older they claimed to have boyfriends at home wherever that was. Some got letters which they carried round hidden in their junior bras because they were afraid a member of staff would find them.’
Ruth sighed. ‘Not me. I was quite incredibly green and ignorant. I thought some day the right man would just appear in my life and after some initial sparring, it would all end happily, like a Georgette Heyer novel.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Meredith soberly and felt Alan’s gaze rest on her.
‘No, of course it doesn’t! But I didn’t know that. When I met Simon I just fell in love. He seemed to return my love. I didn’t doubt him, why should I? It was immensely flattering to have his attention. He was quite a catch. Other women students envied me. It was all very heady while it lasted. It ended quite abruptly the moment I told him I was pregnant. I’d been living in a fantasy where we’d get married and it would all be fine. But when I saw his face—’ Ruth broke off and swallowed. It was a moment before she continued and they waited in silence.
Only the fire whispered softly to itself in the background.
‘He was horrified,’ said Ruth baldly. ‘No other word for it. He suggested I “get rid of it somehow”. That was his phrase. He was talking about his own child. I realised, when I heard him speak those words, that not only did he not love me and never had, but that I didn’t love him any more. From thinking him Mr Wonderful I went to despising him in an instant. He went on to make it worse, obviously terrified he’d be forced into marriage. I wasn’t going to tell my parents, was I? he asked. He’d no intention of telling his. I assured him I’d make no claims. I’d hide it from my family somehow. I had no idea how.’
Ruth looked up at them, her eyes huge and tragic in her pale face. ‘You can’t imagine the state I was in. I got to the end of the academic year somehow. To this day I don’t know how, perhaps by concentrating desperately on my books to keep my mind off the one great problem. But then it was the end of term and time to go home. My pregnancy was beginning to show. I wore big floppy sweaters and loose shirts. It got me a reputation for being eccentric because everyone else was in mini-skirts. Sooner or later, someone would twig.
‘I confided in Hester. I was at my wits’ end. Hester, bless her, came to the rescue, taking me up to Yorkshire. The baby arrived, it was a boy, and put up for adoption. I went home and – and life continued. The strange thing is that a part of me still wanted to believe Simon had loved me once, that it was only the pregnancy which had frightened him off because he hadn’t been prepared for that. That was my pride at work, I dare say. I didn’t want to believe I’d been a complete idiot from the beginning! I even kept his letters until the other day. I used to
read them from time to time. They’d lost their power to hurt but I kept thinking they must hold some clue to his real feelings. I was like an archaeologist trying to make sense of an ancient inscription. If I could just find the key word, the rest would fall into place. I burned them the day the bones were found. I panicked. I didn’t want my link with Simon known. But I knew it would be, if ever the bones were identified and the police are so clever about that sort of thing nowadays, aren’t they?’
‘Not us,’ said Markby wryly. ‘The scientists.’
Ruth looked thoughtful. ‘You know, I honestly think he did love me for a little while before he got bored with me. He was a very shallow type. In his defence – there, you see – I’m still seeking to defend him!’ Ruth gave a mirthless laugh. ‘On his behalf, then, I know that being so popular, so clever, good at sports, everything, he was surrounded by people who wanted to be his friend and who never, ever, would have criticized anything he said or did.’
‘Turned his head,’ said Meredith.
‘Yes. He’d never had to overcome any kind of obstacle or adjust his thinking to anyone else’s needs. I believe he felt that by putting an obstacle in his path, I was behaving unfairly by him.’
She heaved a deep sigh and sat back in her chair.
‘How,’ Markby asked her, ‘did you know – or what led you to suspect – the bones belonged to Simon Hastings? I assume that by the time he disappeared, you’d already been out of touch with him for years. He lived and worked in London. Why should he turn up in Stovey Woods?’
She poured another sherry which she picked up with a trembling hand. ‘You’re right. I hadn’t seen him for years, not
until August, 1978. I was by then thirty-five, unmarried, teaching English. It was the summer vacation and I came here to Lower Stovey to visit my father. I was worried about him. My mother had died six months earlier. He was a very unworldly man and had always depended on her. She did everything, not only ran his house but ran his parish affairs, kept his diary. She was a sort of general factotum in our house. She was very capable, you see, and he wasn’t. So when she died, he was lost. He couldn’t keep his own diary. He kept forgetting to turn up at PCC meetings or for baptisms or even weddings. There was a frightful hoohah on one occasion when he had to be fetched from his study while the poor bride waited at the church door! Her father was most upset and wrote to the bishop. The bishop got in touch with me. He thought perhaps my father was in need of rest and recuperation. He suggested he go on retreat and sent me the address of a convent where they made a speciality of running restorative breaks for harassed clergy.’
Ruth made a gesture of resignation. ‘I knew what was wrong with my father and that it would take more than a week in secluded surroundings with meditation and plain cooking to repair it. It wasn’t something that could be repaired. I knew he could never manage alone. I made the mistake of expressing my doubts to the bishop and that got me another letter, hinting that it might be the answer if I could find it in my heart to return home, give up my teaching career, and stay here as my father’s housekeeper.’
Ruth smiled. ‘Hester talked me out of that. She said it was a Victorian idea. She pointed out, quite rightly, that if I agreed, within weeks I’d be in need of rest and recuperation myself. I’d
probably have a nervous breakdown. So there I was, not knowing quite what to do, staying with my father while I tried to find a solution which would suit us both. He, poor dear, was oblivious of any problem. I had to stop him wearing odd socks.’
Ruth broke off and in a sudden change of subject asked, ‘You won’t have eaten dinner, will you? Would you like something? I could do us all scrambled eggs on toast.’
‘I’ll do it later,’ Meredith said. ‘When you’ve finished.’ She thought Alan gave her a slightly apprehensive look. She wasn’t noted for her culinary expertise. Still, she ought to be able to manage scrambled eggs.
‘It was late summer,’ Ruth began her story again. ‘The weather was very hot, I remember. My father was calmer now I was there but still getting muddled. He sometimes called me Mary, my mother’s name. He’d had a terrible upset in addition to her death. There had been some attacks on women in the area of Stovey Woods and the old drovers’ way. Really vicious attacks, rapes. The police had been to the village asking everyone questions and they’d come to visit my father and ask him if there was anyone who’d been acting strangely or anything he’d noticed or been told that was odd. My father assured them it was out of the question that anyone living in Lower Stovey could have anything to do with it. He thought the police accepted his word but he was badly shaken.’
‘I’m the officer who spoke to him,’ Alan said. ‘I remember our conversation. I’m sorry if he was upset by my visit, but it’s the nature of police enquiries to upset people. It wasn’t a question of accepting his word. I’d no doubt he quite genuinely believed no local man was involved. He may even have been right. But we didn’t know that and we still don’t.’
‘Was it you? How odd,’ Ruth said. ‘It is a small world, isn’t it? Just like they say.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ Markby added, ‘I found your father a little eccentric but coherent. He defended his parishioners with great energy.’
‘You didn’t know him as well I as did. You couldn’t be expected to notice the deterioration. After your visit – I’m not blaming you, please don’t think that, but it sort of tipped him over the edge. After that, it was downhill all the way, I’m afraid. He got worse and worse. Despite everything Hester had said, I began to think I would have no choice but to stay on. My father had a dog, a labrador, which had been my mother’s pet. That afternoon when it happened—’ Ruth paused again.
Markby prompted, ‘The afternoon Simon Hastings disappeared.’
She flushed then gave a rueful grimace. ‘You’re ahead of me, aren’t you? There’s me trying to explain and I dare say you half know what I’m going to tell you. I wanted to get out of the vicarage for a while, give myself some space to think. I took the dog and walked up towards Stovey Woods. I knew about the attacks but I didn’t intend to go into the woods, just amble round the perimeter across Mr Jones’s fields. But the dog ran ahead. She ran into the woods and I had to chase after her. I’d called her until I was blue in the face and she took not a bit of notice. Poor dog, I think she was so delighted to be out and running around. My father never remembered to walk her.
‘So I followed her into the woods and after a few minutes I heard someone talking to her, a man. There, ahead of me, was someone sitting on a fallen trunk, a rucksack by his feet. The dog was standing in front of him and he was scratching her
head. One of the hikers who walk the old drovers’ way, I thought, and I called out a greeting. It never occurred to me it might be the rapist, in case you’re wondering, because it was so obviously a hiker. He looked up and I saw it was Simon. For a moment we just stood there, staring at one another. The dog stood between us, panting. It sounded so loud, I remember. Then Simon said, “Ruth? What are you doing here?”
‘I told him my father lived nearby. He said he was walking the old way. He’d got a business in London making natural beauty products from plants and was doing very well. He was looking around in the woods for ideas for new preparations. He was a botanist by training. Eventually – after he’d talked extensively about himself – he remembered to ask what I was doing. I told him I was teaching. I waited for him to ask about our child but he said nothing. So then I got angry and asked him, “Don’t you want to know about the baby?” He said, “Baby?” in a blank way which really riled me.
‘“Yes, baby. I had him adopted,” I told him. And do you know what he said? He said, “Oh, that’s all right, then.”
‘And then,’ said Ruth. ‘I really lost my temper.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Meredith couldn’t prevent herself commenting.
‘It surprised him,’ Ruth told her. ‘He stood there while I ranted and raved at him. I can see his face now. He looked stunned, foolish, even a bit frightened. I can’t remember all I shouted. “Don’t you want to know what happened to your son?” was one of the things I yelled. “Don’t you even remember he’ll be twelve years old now?” Eventually I ran out of steam, turned and fled. I just couldn’t bear looking at his face with that stupid, gawping expression. I think he might have called
after me but he didn’t run after me. He let me go. I went running on until I was out of puff and found myself way out in the middle of Jones’s fields with a surprised-looking horse staring at me. The dog was running alongside me, jumping up and trying to get my attention because she could see I was unhappy. It was almost funny in a grotesque way. There I was in the middle of nowhere with a worried dog and a puzzled horse for company. I found I was crying, tears of rage, running down my face. There was a stream running along the edge of the field so I made my way there, knelt down and splashed my face and tried to repair the damage. The dog and the horse followed me. The dog, being a labrador and loving water, jumped in and began to swim about. Eventually, I got up and said to the horse—’
Ruth broke off and added apologetically, ‘I know this sounds quite mad, but that’s what I did. Perhaps I had gone just a little mad for a while. So I said, “I’m all right now.” And the horse gave a little snicker as if he understood. I called the dog and we started to walk home. I prayed we wouldn’t meet anyone but of all people, we met old Billy Twelvetrees, only he wasn’t so old then. He worked for Mr Jones. He asked me if there was anything wrong and I said very sniffily, “No, of course not!” He gave me a knowing sort of look and said, “That right, then?” So, to make an excuse for my red face and puffy eyes, I told him I’d been thinking about my mother. He said he’d been very sorry to hear about Miss Mary’s death. Miss Mary was what he and all the villagers called my mother. He made a little speech saying she’d been a proper lady of the old school and presented me with his condolences, very formally. I said, “Thank you, Mr Twelvetrees,” and then I went home.’
Ruth sat back exhausted. ‘I now know I was the last person to see Simon alive.’
An icy finger ran down Meredith’s spine. Could Alan be right to include Ruth on his ‘list of possibles’? In this same room Ruth had told her she had been the last person to see Hester alive. In Ruth’s case, lightning would seem to have struck twice in the same place. Or was it simply bad luck? Had Ruth in her own words ‘gone a little mad for a while’ and, in her anger, struck out at Simon? Had he slipped and struck his head on the tree trunk on which he’d been sitting? She tried to force these thoughts away, saying, ‘I’ll go and make those scrambled eggs now, shall I?’
She made her way into the kitchen and began to look around for the necessary utensils and plates. Ruth called out to ask if she needed help and she called back that she didn’t. After a moment she could hear Ruth and Alan talking again. The door stood open and their voices floated through.
‘Why?’ Alan was asking. ‘Why did you tell me you thought you’d committed a criminal offence?’
‘Because shortly after that, Simon went missing. Well, he went missing that day, didn’t he, the twenty-fourth? It was in the local press and on the news. I should have come forward and told the police I’d seen him, but I didn’t want to. I was afraid I’d have to make explanations. Anyway, I told myself, it wouldn’t have helped.’ There was a pause. Ruth added, ‘Would it?’
‘It might have done. We should have been able to pinpoint the exact spot he was last seen and narrowed our search to that area. Is that what you meant by your criminal offence?’
‘It’s half of it. When the bones were found, I had another
chance to come forward and tell about that day, but I still didn’t. There was an outside chance you wouldn’t be able to establish whose bones they were. So instead of coming forward, I burned his letters, destroying evidence, if you like. I hoped and prayed you wouldn’t identify him. But you did find out who he was.’
‘It was by the purest good fortune,’ Markby interrupted. ‘Because he’d had distinctive dental work and the jaw was one of the bones found.’
‘See? It was meant. So then I knew I really ought to come forward because what I knew was relevant to the inquest. But I didn’t want to testify at the inquest. I just couldn’t do it. Later, when I met his mother in that café and heard her talking about him, I felt so guilty. Poor woman, all those years wondering what had happened. Perhaps I could have shortened her agony if I’d come forward years ago. Morally, I shouldn’t have withheld my evidence and in practical terms I probably broke the law, did I?’
Meredith heard Alan say soothingly, ‘I’m not going to arrest you! I think you should have spoken up when he disappeared and we were appealing for any sightings of him. But as we didn’t then, nor have we now, evidence that any crime had been committed connected with his disappearance, you weren’t technically withholding evidence in a criminal matter. You were being unhelpful, that’s all, and possibly caused some waste of police time as the wrong areas were searched. I’m not saying we would have found Simon, mind you, had you given us your information. We don’t know the circumstances in which he died. The inquest is a little different. Strictly speaking, a lawyer would argue your evidence wasn’t relevant since the identity of
the bones wasn’t in dispute. We had forensic evidence they belonged to Simon Hastings. The fact that you saw Simon in the woods is circumstantial. It wouldn’t, in itself, have meant the bones were his, though it would’ve raised the possibility. But given the forensic report, we didn’t need it. In any case, don’t worry about it. Nothing you say now adds significantly to what we already knew, that he was walking the old way when he disappeared.’
Meredith heard Ruth heave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you. I’ve been so worried and my conscience has been troubling me.’
It was at that point Meredith realised that the eggs were sticking to the bottom of the pan. Her eavesdropping had distracted her from attending to stirring. She scraped the mixture off as best she could, leaving the brown burnt bits. The toast popped up obligingly from the toaster. She set it all out on the kitchen table and went to call the others.
She thought Alan looked a bit relieved when he saw the eggs, though he did glance towards the pan soaking in cold water. Ruth had disappeared into her larder and came out with a bottle of white wine. That a weight had been lifted from her shoulders was obvious. She looked quite cheerful.
‘This is the wine I mentioned earlier. We’ll have it with the eggs, shall we? Can you open it, Alan?’
After they’d eaten and had carried the remaining wine back into the sitting room, they settled themselves around the log fire. Meredith thought Ruth looked peaceful. It had been a relief, Meredith realised, for Ruth to have been able to speak at long last of something that had been a secret for so many years.
She heard herself asking, ‘Looking back, do you think now that perhaps you could have told your parents about the baby?
That they might have understood? Your father was a parish priest, he must have had people confide all kinds of things to him.’
‘Oh, he’d have understood. He knew about human frailty,’ Ruth returned. ‘But he’d have been deeply disappointed and worse, he’d have felt guilty.’
‘Why on earth should he do that?’
‘For failing to bring me up so that I could resist temptation!’ Ruth gave her a wry smile. ‘I don’t think he’d have coped very well, not with a scandal in his own family. Dealing with other people’s problems is so much easier than dealing with your own, I always think. That was my experience as a teacher. I was always ready with good advice for my pupils. But look what a mess I made of my own life!’
Markby, who’d been staring at the whispering logs, leaned forward and picked up the poker to push to safety a piece of charred wood which was threatening to topple from the grate. ‘You had one unsuccessful relationship. That wasn’t entirely your fault. It’s certainly hardly making a disaster of your life. You had a successful teaching career. You married later, someone else.’
‘And here I sit,’ said Ruth, ‘with nothing. All I had in the end, you see, was Hester.’
Meredith started to ask, ‘Have you never—?’ but broke off in embarrassment.
‘Never what?’ Ruth asked calmly.
‘None of my business, sorry.’
‘Let me guess.’ Ruth smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt. ‘Have I never tried to trace my child? Is that it?’
‘It was, yes.’
‘And what would I say to him, if ever I found him? No, I like to think he’s happy and successful somewhere.’
There was a long silence. It was broken by Markby, who asked suddenly, ‘What arrangement did you eventually come to about your father, Ruth?’
‘Oh, my father, yes, that was another problem I didn’t know how to solve. But then I had a bit of luck. I saw Mr Jones a few days after – after that business with Simon. That’s old Mr Martin Jones who farmed Greenjack Farm then, not young Kevin who farms it now. Only Kevin isn’t so young now and back then, Martin himself wasn’t so ancient. We were chatting and he told me he had a niece who’d just been widowed young and left in very difficult circumstances. No money, he meant. “She’ll have to get a job,” he said. “And find herself somewhere cheap to live.”
‘Do you know,’ Ruth said earnestly, ‘it was like being in one of those baroque ceiling paintings where a ray of sunlight streams out of clouds and strikes some kneeling saint. I said, “Mr Jones, if things could be worked out, do you think your niece would be interested in coming to live at the vicarage and keep house for my father?” He said, yes, he was sure she would. So I went to meet his niece and she was a good, practical sort with no children and very keen on coming to Lower Stovey to be near her uncle. So she did. She stayed with my father until he died and it made the world of difference to him. He got regular meals. She supervised his laundry. She kept a check on his diary and made sure he was where he ought to be. He was able to carry on being the vicar here until he died, entirely because of her.’
Ruth sighed. ‘In the meantime, though, the parish had dwindled. The school had closed. To leave my father in situ
looking after the remaining inhabitants had been all right. They knew him and he’d been so long here it would’ve been unreasonable to uproot him. But there was really so little for him to do. After he’d gone, the decision was taken not to replace him here but to join St Barnabas to Bamford church. In view of this, the church commissioners decided to sell the vicarage. As the housekeeper had remained living in it until a decision was made on its future, they decided that she could have it, if she wanted, on very generous terms. A knock-down price, in fact. They wanted rid of the place. It was a white elephant and in need of a lot of renovation. She’d been living there, bed and board supplied plus her wages, for some time and she’d been saving up so she was able to buy it. I think her Uncle Martin may have helped her out a bit with the asking price, too.’
Markby set down his wine. ‘Just a sec. The housekeeper bought the old vicarage? When was this?’
‘Yes,’ said Ruth. ‘It was in 1982 or early 1983 and she’s still there, Muriel Scott.’