From Peck’s Cottage she turned right, and headed into town. It was midafternoon, and traffic was light. She found a parking space in the center of town, using her blue Disabled Parking pass to avoid the unwelcome attention of the two traffic wardens who patrolled the area.
The pass was one of the few benefits of her condition, easily outweighed by the sheer inconvenience of the tiring and painful shift from car to wheelchair. Once she was settled she turned west, and wheeled herself along the street. Even now, after what sometimes felt like a lifetime, the simple act of using her arms to propel the wheels seemed like it was being performed by someone else and not her.
Falmer’s was a good two hundred yards along on the same side she was travelling. “Thank heavens for small mercies,” she muttered, as she passed the Victorian storefront. In between the photos and descriptions of properties for sale or rent she could see a middle-aged woman sitting at a desk, and an older man, probably in his early sixties, standing at a filing cabinet, rummaging through the files as an anxious-looking young couple watched. Of James Bartlett there was no sign. Damn! she thought.
She carried on along the street, deciding to turn around, when she ran out of shops and headed on back to her car.
The final shop in the parade was a bookmaker; the signs in the window offered generous odds on the next Ipswich Town football match. She spun the wheelchair round and started to retrace her path.
She nearly ran him down.
James Bartlett stepped out from a trendy-looking barber’s shop, brushing invisible hair clippings from his suit jacket, and nearly collided with her as she passed.
“Watch where…oh, it’s you,” she said, and blushed furiously.
“Beth,” he said, the delight in his voice obvious. “What are you doing in town?”
“A few errands to run, that’s all,” she said hurriedly; too hurriedly. She could see his gaze searching for evidence of shopping bags and finding none. “Haven’t done them yet,” she said, compounding the lie. “Shouldn’t you be in the office?”
“I had a viewing the other side of town, but it was a no-show. I thought I’d make the most of the free time.” He jerked his thumb back at the barber’s.
“Nice haircut,” she said. “Very smart. I suppose you’re going back to work now.”
He checked his watch. “I’ve a little while yet.”
“Then let me buy you coffee…to repay you for the picnic.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “Sounds good to me. There’s a Starbucks up the road. You must have passed it.”
“I did,” she said. “But I was thinking of something a little less…corporate. Is there somewhere else you can recommend?”
“I know just the place, but it’s in the next street. Are you up for it?”
“Lead the way.”
“I can push you.”
“You try and it’ll be you in a wheelchair. I can manage,” she said, aware of the irritation in her voice.
He shrugged. “Follow me.”
“I’m surprised you don’t get a motorized one,” he said, as they turned into the next street. It was on a fairly steep incline, and he could see Beth’s biceps bulging as she wheeled herself along.
“I looked at electric powered wheelchairs before I bought this one, and decided they weren’t for me. Too easy. I’d end up getting fat. Wheeling this thing around saves me a fortune in gym memberships.” It was a rehearsed response. There was a deeper reason than that.
Getting a motorized wheelchair would be an acceptance of her condition, an admission that this was her situation, now and forever, and she refused to believe that. Her doctor had said that there was a chance, slim perhaps, that the feeling would return to her legs. She clung to that assertion tenaciously. One day, she was sure, she would walk again.
Ye Olde Suffolk Tea Rooms was a double-fronted shop, set between a stationer’s and a building society. There was a low step up to the door. James took hold of the handles of the chair and eased her inside. This time she didn’t reject his help.
They found a table near the door. James removed a chair, and pushed her into the space, taking the seat opposite her, and passing her a laminated card menu.
“Hungry?” he said.
She studied the menu. The smell of toasted teacakes was wafting out from the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and her stomach was rumbling. “Now you come to mention it, yes. A sandwich maybe?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too. I recommend the tuna mayonnaise panini.”
“Sounds good.”
A freshly scrubbed waitress arrived at their table, pen poised above her pad, ready to take their order.
“Two tuna panini and two coffees. I take mine black, no sugar.” He looked across at her. “How do you take yours?”
“Skinny latte,” she said. “And I’m paying.”
He opened his mouth to protest.
“No arguments,” she said.
“She’s paying, Lucy,” he said to the waitress.
“Not on your tab then, Mr. Bartlett?”
“You heard the lady,” he said with a smile.
“It’ll be five minutes or so.”
When the waitress left, Beth sat forward, and said in a low voice, “You run a tab here?”
“Falmer’s does. It’s a useful place to bring prospective buyers. Relaxes them; makes them feel they’re in safe hands.”
“And of course they are.”
“I like to think so,” he said.
She studied his face hard, looking for the slightest sign that he was anything other than sincere. But his open, candid expression betrayed no cynicism, no exploitative agent talking about an easy mark.
“You’re an unusual man, James,” she said.
“In a good way, I hope.”
“We’ll see.”
“I ran into Derek earlier. He told me that he’d sorted out your plumbing problems.”
“Yes, he did. After a fashion.”
“Yeah, he told me about Teddy. Beth, I’m so sorry.”
She stared down at the table, unshed tears pricking at her eyes. It often took someone’s genuine sympathy to break the resolve, and James’s words were getting close to it. “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said.
After a brief, uncomfortable silence he said, “So, are you enjoying Stillwater?”
“The writing’s going well,” she said, deflecting.
“Great,” he said. “A new best seller on the way?”
“Hope so,” she said, and went on to tell him about Mirror Ball and the American TV adaptation. “Of course they’ll probably balls it up as most TV companies do.”
“I bet you’re still excited about it though,” he said.
She gave a shy smile. “Over the moon, truth be told. It will raise my profile in the States.”
“That’s no bad thing. Huge market.”
The waitress arrived with the panini and coffees, set them down on the table, and slid the bill discreetly under Beth’s plate. “Anything else I can get you?” she said.
“No, that’s fine,” Beth said.
“Enjoy your meal,” the waitress said by rote, and slipped away to another table to serve two elderly women taking a respite from their shopping trip.
“Did you ever get to meet Dolores Franklin, Jessica’s mother?” Beth said, taking advantage of the waitress’s interruption to radically change the subject of their conversation.
If James was shocked by the sudden switch in direction then he didn’t show it. “Yes,” he answered smoothly. “A number of times.”
“Were you surprised when she left Stillwater?”
“No, I can’t say I was. Her relationship with her husband, and with Jessica, was volatile to say the least. To be quite honest, the atmosphere in the house lightened considerably once she’d gone. Jessica in particular seemed happier. I can’t make a judgment on her father though; he never seemed happy, whatever his situation.”
“Arthur Latham described him as a surly devil.”
“Yeah,” James said. “That’s just about right. Anyway, what’s with the third degree?”
“It’s not an interrogation,” she said defensively. “I’m just curious, that’s all.”
“And nothing’s happened to pique your curiosity?”
“What makes you say that?” she said. It was obvious he thought there was more to it.
He sat back in his chair, picked up his panini, bit into it and didn’t answer her. “Eat yours,” he said. “It’ll get cold.”
“I’m starting to think you’re being deliberately evasive,” she said.
“And you’re being deliberately vague.” He looked at her for a long moment, and then let out a prolonged sigh. “You’re right,” he said. “There are things about Stillwater that we chose not to tell you. Now I’m doubting the wisdom of that decision.”
“We?”
“Me and Edward Falmer—you would have seen him when you passed the office earlier. He’s old school; doesn’t believe in full disclosure when it comes to property. His attitude flouts government regulations, but sometimes that’s not such a bad thing…and I don’t say that from an agent’s point of view. I think sometimes a prospective buyer or someone like you, a long-term tenant, can be unfairly biased against a property by something that will never affect them.”
“Like a tragic history,” Beth said.
James shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“I see,” Beth said.
“Well, would you have been put off Stillwater if you’d known its history beforehand?”
“Well, as Mirri set the whole thing up for me, and I didn’t actually have anything to do with it, I can’t say, but I think Miranda might have had second thoughts. She was horrified we visited the lake where Jessica drowned, so it’s possible she might have pulled out of the deal. She’s quite superstitious.”
“Then I can only apologize. We made a judgment call and maybe it was a bad one. Listen, Beth, if you want me to find somewhere else for you I’ll get on it right away.”
She shook her head. “I’ve started the novel now. In my own way I’m as superstitious as Mirri. I started it at Stillwater, I intend finish it there. If I stop the flow now I might never get it back.”
“Well, is there anything I can do to make amends?”
She was silent for a moment. She bit into her panini, chewed, swallowed and took a sip of her latte. “Yes, there is,” she said. “You can start by being honest with me. I want to know the full story of the Franklins. No bullshit, no omissions. I want to know everything you know.”
He drained his cup, and glanced at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “I owe you that. But…”
“But?”
“It will have to wait for another time. I have to get back to the office.” He rose to leave.
“Tonight. What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Then come round. Half seven. I’ll cook.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure that I want you to come round, or sure I can cook?”
“Either. Both.”
“I cook a mean chili, and if I didn’t want the pleasure of your company I wouldn’t have invited you. Well, that and finding out more about the house.”
“Half seven,” he said. “And now I must dash. I’ve got another appointment, and I’m already five minutes late.”
She watched him leave, finished her food, paid the bill and made her way back to her car.
As she wheeled herself past Falmer’s, she glanced through the window and saw James sitting at a desk deep in conversation with an elderly man dressed in tweeds. He looked to be in the middle of a sales pitch. Beth hurried on by. She was smiling and humming a tune to herself. For some reason she was feeling extraordinarily happy.