Since Rob and Will approved of Annelise’s fiancé, they didn’t mind in the least when he spirited her off before church the following morning, although the questions they asked while we were in church made me wonder what kind of comic books Clive Pickle had been bringing to school lately.
Peggy Taxman’s head snapped in our direction when Will inquired, loudly, if Annelise and Oliver would have babies, and the vicar faltered in the middle of his sermon when Rob announced, after some thought, that Annelise would have lots of babies, because she had such a nice, soft tummy. I could do nothing but bow my head, not only to hide my blushes but to give heartfelt thanks to God that Annelise wasn’t there.
The boys and I trooped over to the vicarage after church, to apologize to the vicar for interrupting his sermon and to meet the white kitten he and Mrs. Bunting had adopted the night before. While Will and Rob played with Angel, Mr. Bunting took me to his study to admire the armchair his wife had given to him for his birthday.
“Your birthday!” I exclaimed, mortified. “It was last month, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry. I forgot all about it.”
“I didn’t bring you in here to make you feel guilty for forgetting my birthday,” said Mr. Bunting.
“I know, but I feel guilty anyway,” I said. “How could I have missed your birthday?”
“You haven’t been to see us since the boys started school,” he said gently.
“You’re kidding,” I said, gazing up at him in surprise.
“I’m not.” He smiled. “You’ve also been rushing off after Sunday services as if the church were on fire. We’ve hardly had a chance to say hello.” He ran a hand across the back of his new armchair. “I do understand, Lori. It’s not an easy transition for any mother to make, and you’ve had more reasons than most to worry about your little ones. My wife tells me, however, that the boys are doing wonderfully well at Morningside. Perhaps the time for worrying is over?” He smiled again. “It’s for you to decide, of course. I simply want you to know how pleased the whole village will be when you find time for us again. Now, let’s see if the boys have taught Angel a trick or two—or vice versa!”
I was grateful to Mr. Bunting for turning his attention to the kitten’s antics, because I was so choked up I couldn’t speak. I hadn’t believed my neighbors when they’d told me that I’d been gone for “an age and an age,” but the vicar’s kindly remonstrance had made me realize, finally, that they’d been telling me the truth.
It had been six weeks since the twins had started school, six weeks since I’d dropped out of village life to obsess about their safety, and in a tightly knit community six weeks was an age. I wondered how many other birthdays I’d forgotten, how many neighborly duties I’d neglected. Every role was vital in a tiny place like Finch, and I’d failed to play mine for six long weeks.
“Thank you,” I said to the vicar as the boys and I prepared to leave the vicarage. “Your message came through loud and clear. I’ll be at the nativity-play committee meeting on Friday evening, and everyone will know I’m there. And,” I added as we reached the doorstep, “I will most definitely stay for tea and buns afterwards.”
I stopped to chat with everyone I saw as I drove through the village, and instead of taking the twins back to the cottage for breakfast, we filled up on bacon and eggs—and plenty of gossip—at the tearoom. By the time we returned to the cottage to change out of our Sunday clothes, I felt as if I’d made up some of the ground I’d lost since the boys had started school.
We had a wonderful time at the Cotswold Farm Park, feeding the friendly, curious goats and petting the rabbits and sheep. My prayer for rain had evidently run its course, because the weather was fine enough for us to eat our picnic lunch at the park’s outdoor tables.
After lunch, we paid our respects to the oxen, the pigs, and the chickens. I said hello to the Gloucester Old Spots for Bill, and they grunted their best wishes back to him. The highlight of the boys’ visit was, of course, the stately Shire horses, and we spent the entire homeward journey discussing the many ways in which horses had served mankind.
Annelise floated into the cottage shortly after we’d eaten dinner. She was so love-drunk after her day with Oliver that she did nothing but smile seraphically when I informed her, very cautiously, that her tummy had been mentioned in church.
When Bill called, I spoke to him freely and without restraint, because for the first time since he’d left for London, I’d made it through an entire day without thinking once about Rendor.
“Look at it!” I expostulated as I climbed into Kit’s pint-size pickup truck on Monday morning. “Look at the sky! Bright sunshine, no clouds, not a hint of rain!”
“The old folks would tell you that St. Luke’s Little Summer has arrived,” said Kit, turning the truck toward the Upper Deeping road. “I believe it’s called Indian summer in the States.”
“I don’t care what it’s called,” I said grumpily. “What use is a beautiful day if we’re not outdoors to enjoy it?”
“If you’re going to start playing the imponderable-questions game, I have one for you,” Kit retorted. “Where’s Leo? I went to Gypsy Hollow twice yesterday and again early this morning, and I’m willing to swear that he hasn’t been back there since you and I saw him on Friday. So where is he? Where has he been for the past two days?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m fairly sure we can rule out both Finch and Aldercot Hall.”
I told Kit about my foray into Finch and my visit with the Pym sisters, then outlined for him the scenario I’d revealed to Aunt Dimity on Saturday evening. When I finished, he gave a low whistle.
“No wonder Charlotte reacted so strongly when she heard Leo’s name,” he said. “She’s a woman scorned.”
“She was scorned an awfully long time ago,” I pointed out.
“Which means,” said Kit, “that she’s had an awfully long time to brood over it. She was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Leo’s name set her off.”
“Why did he come back?” I asked pensively. “He said he was on a sentimental journey, but what kind of sentimental journey takes you back to a place where you broke someone’s heart?”
“Perhaps he didn’t intend to break Charlotte’s heart,” Kit suggested. “Perhaps he came back to explain.”
“I seriously doubt that Charlotte will listen to any explanation Leo has to offer,” I said. “But I will. We have to find him, Kit.”
“I’ve asked Emma to keep an eye on Gypsy Hollow,” he said. “If Leo turns up while we’re in Upper Deeping, she’ll ring me on my mobile.”
“Charlotte must have felt so lonely after he walked out on her,” I said. “All those years, stuck in that house with her invalid father and her snooty mother and her crazy brother…” I sighed. “It’s not hard to understand why she’s still so angry with Leo.”
“She did have one friend, apart from Leo,” Kit said. “While you were running around Aldercot Hall in your bare feet, Charlotte told me that my mother rode to Aldercot almost every day, after she married my father and moved into Anscombe Manor. She and Charlotte used to walk along the river and talk about everything under the sun, the way women do. She went there less often after she became pregnant with me, and when the car accident happened, Charlotte lost her best—her only—friend.”
“And you lost your mother,” I said. “How old were you when the accident happened?”
“I was barely a year old,” said Kit. “My mother was twenty-four.”
“So young,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you remember much about her?”
“I remember her smile,” Kit answered. “I think she must have been a very happy young woman, because her smile stands out so clearly in my memory. I’m almost glad that she didn’t live long enough to see my father…deteriorate.”
“Some blessings are extremely well disguised,” I murmured. I gazed somberly at the passing scenery for a while, then turned to Kit and asked, “Any luck with the online search?”
“Ah,” he said, giving me a sidelong glance. “I didn’t actually do an online search. Emma spent the weekend reformatting all the computers in the manor.”
“The new stable hands must have their own laptops,” I said. “Why didn’t you borrow one of theirs?”
“I didn’t wish to inconvenience them,” Kit said stiffly.
I suspected that I would be an Olympic equestrian champion before Kit would ask one of Nell’s rich young swains for a favor, but I said only, “Don’t worry about it. There’s always the Despatch. I had a brilliant idea about the Despatch, by the way.”
“Only one?” Kit said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s a good one. I want to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rendor is alive and well and menacing my children, right?”
“Right,” said Kit.
“I want solid proof that I can take to the police,” I said. “So instead of searching the Despatch for articles about the DuCaral family in general, I think we should focus on finding articles about the troublesome brother with the shameful desires. The police will laugh at me if I tell them a vampire’s on the loose, but I don’t think they’ll laugh about a missing person.”
“They might even try to find a missing person.” Kit reached over to pat me on the head. “Brilliant.”
“I told you so,” I said smugly, and watched through the windshield as the church spires of Upper Deeping came into view.
The Upper Deeping Despatch offices took up the first two floors of a four-story building just off the main town square. Kit had to settle for a parking space six blocks away, but the weather was so mild that I didn’t mind the walk. We’d just reached the square when Kit stopped short and announced that he’d had his own brilliant idea.
“I know how we’ll talk our way into the archives,” he said. “You, my American friend, have come to Upper Deeping to do genealogical research, and you hope the Despatch’s archives will help you with your project.”
“I always wondered where Aunt Penelope came from,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. Then I reached up and patted Kit on the head. “Brilliant.”
I felt a pang of regret when we left the sunshine and balmy breezes behind and stepped into the newspaper’s utilitarian and fluorescently lit front office. A chest-high counter separated a waiting area—two plastic chairs, a low table, and an upright rack filled with dog-eared copies of the Despatch—from a large, untidy desk and a swivel chair that was, at the moment, unoccupied.
“Hello?” Kit called.
A muffled bellow sounded from afar. “Coming!”
The door behind the untidy desk sprang open, and a pudgy young man in a tweed jacket and twill trousers bustled up to the counter. He had a round, shiny face, thinning brown hair, a ballpoint pen parked behind his right ear, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses perched halfway down his nose.
“Sorry,” he said. “Our receptionist is…um…” He peered nearsightedly around the reception area, as though the receptionist might be playing hide-and-seek. “Not here, apparently. No idea where she’s got to, but never mind, I’m here. Desmond Carmichael, at your service. How may I help you?”
Kit gestured toward me and began, “My friend is—”
“I know who your friend is,” Desmond broke in, staring avidly at me. “You’re the lady who was shot by the stalker on Erinskil Island, aren’t you? I read about you in the Times.”
“That’s me,” I said. “Want to see my scar?”
“Whoops. Sorry,” Desmond said, with an apologetic grimace. “It must have been a harrowing experience for you, but to be perfectly honest”—he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose and leaned his elbows on the counter—“reading about it was a thrill for someone like me, who spends his life writing about church fetes and gymkhanas.” His eyes brightened, and he pointed a finger at me. “I’ve seen you at gymkhanas, too! Your sons ride with the Anscombe Manor team, don’t they?”
“The junior team,” I admitted modestly.
“The Willis twins,” said Desmond, nodding, but his knowing look was rapidly replaced by one of puzzlement. “But your name is—”
“Lori Shepherd,” I said. “That’s right. I didn’t change my name when I married, but we decided to reduce confusion all around by giving my husband’s last name to the boys.”
“Well, I’m delighted to meet you,” said Desmond, straightening. “What brings you to the Despatch today?”
“As you’ll know from the articles in the Times,” said Kit, “Lori is an American. She’s doing genealogical research, and she thought she might find some pertinent information in your archives.”
My hard-won celebrity status had its uses. Desmond bounced into action as if he’d been shot from a cannon, ushering us around the counter and through the door behind the desk, past several offices, and down a stairway at the rear of the building.
“The archives are housed in the cellar, I’m afraid,” he said, pulling a ring of keys out of his pocket and inserting one in the door at the bottom of the stairs. “We were afraid the upper floors wouldn’t take the weight.”
The cellar wasn’t too bad, as cellars go. It had a high ceiling and finished walls, a tiled floor and ample lighting, which Desmond turned on with the flick of a switch near the door. A computer sat on the large metal desk that occupied the only floor space that wasn’t filled with shelves, and a single plastic chair sat facing the computer.
“How far back would you like to go?” Desmond inquired. “We’ve got the last ten years on disk, but it’s bound volumes before that, six months per volume. We’re trying to put it all on disk, of course, but we never seem to have the budget or the manpower to make much progress. We do have indexes to each year’s run, though, going right back to the beginning. They’re not as detailed as I’d like them to be, but you might find them helpful.”
Desmond showed us how to use the computer, explained how the bound volumes were organized, fetched an extra chair from upstairs, and gave us his cell-phone number, in case we needed to call on him for further guidance. After wishing us the best of luck, he closed the door and left us on our own.
“What a helpful young man,” I said.
“I’m surprised he didn’t ask for your autograph,” said Kit.
“I’m surprised he didn’t want to see my scar,” I said. “Well? Shall we get to work?”
“I don’t see the point of consulting the indexes if they’re incomplete,” said Kit. “The computer files won’t help us either. I don’t think much news about Rendor has come out of Aldercot Hall in the past ten years.”
“Charlotte looks as though she’s in her late fifties or early sixties,” I said. “Let’s go back seventy years and work our way forward.”
We turned to face the heavily laden shelves.
“I’m glad we got here early,” Kit murmured.
An hour passed, then two, the silence broken only by the ruffle of turning pages and the shuffle of our shoes as we retrieved fresh volumes from the shelves. Although I resisted the temptation to read every single article that caught my eye, I couldn’t help noticing that the function of a small-town newspaper hadn’t changed much over the years. For more than a century, the Upper Deeping Despatch had faithfully kept its readers abreast of local births, deaths, marriages, accidents, inquests, court cases, fashions, competitions, and celebrations.
“Gymkhanas and church fetes,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.
“Sorry?” said Kit, peering blearily at me across the metal table.
“Time for lunch,” I said, more loudly. “We need a break.”
We rang Desmond, and he came down to lock the cellar door after us. He recommended his favorite café to us as well, but we bought sandwiches at a nearby bakery and ate them on a bench in the town square, surrounded by sun-starved townspeople who’d also decided to take advantage of the fine weather. Then we plunged back into the dusty fray.
We took another break at two o’clock. When Kit suggested that we walk over to Morningside, to look in on Will and Rob, I steeled myself and suggested that we walk to the park instead.
“I’m sure the boys are just fine,” I said, with only a slight tremor in my voice.
Kit put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a sideways hug. “Well done, Lori. Let’s go and feed the ducks.”
We buckled down to our task after the ducks, flipping through volume after volume without discovering one word about the DuCarals. It didn’t dawn on me until nearly four o’clock that the Upper Deeping Despatch was exactly the wrong place to look for news about them. At which point I closed the volume I’d been scanning, leaned my weary head in my hands, and groaned.
“We’re not going to find anything about Rendor here,” I said dejectedly. “Maurice and Madeline were too arrogant to announce their children’s births in a local rag. They’d place an ad in the Times. The same goes for anything the kids might have done in school, and I’ll bet they didn’t go to local schools, because local schools wouldn’t have been good enough for them. And after Rendor went bonkers, they shut up shop completely. They wouldn’t let the milkman near the house, so I doubt that they put out a welcome mat for reporters and photographers. We’ve spent a whole day barking up the wrong tree.”
I released another groan, expecting to hear an echoing groan from Kit, or at least a disappointed sigh. When I heard nothing, I lifted my head from my hands and looked at him.
He wasn’t scanning the page before him. He was staring at it, with an arrested expression on his face.
“Kit?” I said, suddenly alert. “Have you found something?”
“Yes,” he said, still staring down at the page. “It’s a police report about a nineteen-year-old young man who was brought up on charges for being drunk and disorderly. It happened thirty-eight years ago.”
“Some things never change,” I said, shaking my head.
“The young man’s name was Leo Sutherland,” said Kit.
“Leo?” I leaned forward. “Do you think he might be our Leo?”
Kit lifted his gaze from the page and said wonderingly, “Sutherland was my mother’s maiden name. Before she married my father—thirty-eight years ago—my mother was known as Amy Sutherland.”
“Whoa,” I said, falling back in my chair. “Now, there’s a coincidence.”
“Is it a coincidence?” A slight frown creased Kit’s forehead. “Our Leo told us that he spent a lot of time near Anscombe Manor when he was young, and we know from the Pym sisters that he was going to elope with my mother’s closest friend.” He rapped the page once with his knuckles. “Now I find a Leo with my mother’s maiden name, written up in the local newspaper around the time my mother came to live at Anscombe Manor. It’s entirely possible that our Leo is…was…related to my mother.”
“And to you,” I said. “How much do you know about your mother’s family?”
“I don’t know anything about them,” Kit admitted. “My father remarried less than a year after my mother’s death, and he never talked about her. I grew up knowing my stepmother’s family, and my father’s, but not my mother’s.”
I glanced toward the shelves. “Have you found any other references to Leo Sutherland?”
“No,” said Kit. “Just the one police report. But Ruth and Louise said he was unreliable. Perhaps it was their polite way of saying that he had a drinking problem.”
“I’d expect to find more than one police report if he had a drinking problem,” I said, “and I didn’t see any liquor bottles in Leo’s motor home.”
“Even so…” said Kit, tilting his head to one side.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “The rest of it does seem to stretch the boundaries of mere coincidence. We have to talk with Leo.” I picked up the bound volume I’d been scanning. “Call Desmond. Tell him we’re leaving. We’ll call Emma on the way back and find out if anyone’s seen Leo.”
I returned the bound volumes to their proper places on the shelves and thanked Desmond sincerely when he showed up to escort us out of the building. Kit telephoned Emma on the way to the pickup truck, but she had no joy to report. Leo hadn’t yet returned to Gypsy Hollow.
Since Leo was still on our missing-persons list, Kit dropped me off at the cottage, where I ate warmed-over macaroni and cheese and listened distractedly to the twins’ chatter. They were in the midst of describing the rat Clive Pickle had brought to school for show-and-tell when the telephone rang. I jumped up from the kitchen table to answer it.
“Lori?” Kit said, sounding rather breathless. “Smoke’s rising from Gypsy Hollow.”
“Don’t you dare go there without me!” I cried, and slammed down the phone.
I pulled on my hiking boots and a warm sweater, grabbed my rain jacket from the coatrack in the hall, called to Annelise that I didn’t know when I’d be back, and dashed out to the Mini.
I couldn’t explain why my hand shook as I turned the key in the ignition or why I gunned the tiny engine all the way to Anscombe Manor. I was going purely on instinct, and my instincts were telling me that the man in Gypsy Hollow held the keys to more mysteries than the ones swirling like river mist around Aldercot Hall.