There are places where time seems to get lost. It meanders down crooked lanes, seeps into ancient stone, and haunts shadowed alleyways, never passing, always lingering, holding a small part of the world in stasis. Ipstones was such a place. A small village hidden in the Staffordshire hills, found by few who weren’t looking for it. Harri drove there soon after her meeting with Dr. Abiola, when she discovered the poem on her windscreen.
St. Leonard Church, an imposing red stone building, looked as though it had weathered a thousand storms. It stood to the north of the village, and Church Lane flowed south from it like the curved root of a tuber. Harri drove through the village, passing quiet residential cul-de-sacs that branched off the main road. She parked in a turnout beside St. Leonard and indulged in her habit of reading the headstones in the churchyard as she walked along the lane. She was often moved by how much love and celebration of a person’s life could be imparted by a short inscription, and this churchyard did not disappoint. She caught sight of an old headstone that was covered in text. It was just the other side of the gray wall, so she drew closer and leaned on the capstones to see better.
IN MEMORY OF ANNA CECILIA, SHE DEPARTED THIS LIFE JUNE 17TH 1812 AGED 31. SHE WAS DISTINGUISHED BY A MOST ADMIRABLE DISPOSITION OF THE HEART, THE DELIGHT OF HER PARENTS, AND THE ADMIRATION OF ALL WHO KNEW HER. AT 16, SMALL POX STRIPPED THE BLOOM OF BEAUTY, BUT HER AFFECTION AND TENDERNESS FOR ALL WERE UNDIMINISHED. SHE WAS FINALLY RELEASED FROM MORTAL SUFFERING AND RECEIVED INTO A WORLD WITHOUT PAIN, WHERE GOD HIMSELF WIPES THE REMNANTS OF LIFE’S TEARS FROM EVERY EYE.
Harri choked up a little, thinking of poor Anna Cecilia, disfigured by disease. Who knew what cruelties she had to endure in life and what strength it had taken to persevere and earn the admiration of all who knew her? Such kind words in death, the legacy of a life well lived. Harri wanted people to think well of her, both now and when she was gone. Could the ghost of this poor young woman be her guide? Could she find a better perspective? Harri’s own misfortunes seemed pale in comparison, and she walked on wishing she could be more like Anna Cecilia.
There was no one around and no traffic. Just the song of birds and the slightest wind in the trees. Maybe when she was old and grown-up she’d move to a place like this and live a peaceful life with a family. She might be on the wrong side of thirty, but she liked to kid herself that she still wasn’t a grown-up. That way all the missteps she’d taken didn’t matter. If she was still a child she could pretend she wasn’t supposed to know what seemed obvious to others: how to make a success of life.
Anna Cecilia lived and died in the time you’ve wasted trying to find your way, Harri thought darkly.
She tried to shake the sense of failure, and checked an address on her phone. She walked to the second of a row of three terraced cottages, 46 Church Lane, a narrow gray stone home that exuded warmth and comfort in every aspect of its tiny character. A vine grew up a trellis and over the apex of a porch roof, and bunches of late-harvest white grapes clustered here and there. Window boxes full of chrysanthemums hung beneath the upstairs and downstairs windows, and flowers fought bees and butterflies to see who could make the most vibrant contribution to the house’s color palette. Beneath a wooden awning, a small bookcase stood against the wall beside the front door, and a sign told people to Love and Lend, these books are free to borrow, provided they are returned. The shelves were lined with an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction, and if she’d been local, Harri would have been tempted by offerings from Mari Hannah and Anthony Horowitz.
She noticed the granite threshold slab had been worn to a shallow U and wondered how old the little home was and how many footsteps it must have taken to weather stone.
She knocked on the front door and a short while later was greeted by a rosy-cheeked woman in her early sixties. She had short brown hair with the occasional wisp of gray and wore black leggings and a loose floral top.
“Hello!” She beamed.
“Mrs. Hughes?” Harri asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Harriet Kealty. I’m investigating the death of Beth Asha.”
Dr. Abiola had mentioned Cynthia Hughes had been the Ashas’ housekeeper and thought her sufficiently interested in Elliot Asha to have hired a private investigator. She seemed a potentially rich source of information. Harri was going to have to work hard to get it, though. Cynthia Hughes’s mood curdled.
“I know who you are and what you’re doing.”
“How?” Harri asked.
“Mr. Elmys told me. He said you’d come prying.” There was a bitter chill in Cynthia’s words.
“You’re still in contact with him?”
“I look after young Elliot every now and again. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Not even if it protects Elliot?” Harri was gratified to see a crack in the ice, but it quickly frosted over.
“Protects him from what?” Cynthia asked. “People were always talking scandal and nonsense about Ben and David and Beth. You always look to the worst, don’t you? Why can’t you ever think the best?”
“I just want to find the truth,” Harri replied.
“Who do you think you are?” Cynthia countered. “Mr. Elmys says you’re not even a police officer anymore.”
Why had Ben been talking about her to the Ashas’ housekeeper?
“I’m a private investigator,” Harri lied. In truth she wasn’t really sure what she was.
“Then I don’t have to talk to you.”
Harri knew from experience that most people were too polite to shut the door in someone’s face, and if anyone had offered her odds on Cynthia Hughes being too well mannered to leave her on the doorstep, Harri would have gambled her meager police pension. And she would have lost it. Cynthia fixed her with an unflinching stare and closed the door on her.
Harri rapped her knuckles against it. “Mrs. Hughes?”
“Go away.”
Harri hesitated. Mrs. Hughes was right: she didn’t have the authority to question anyone anymore. Feeling impotent, Harri went back to her car. This time she kept her eyes firmly away from the headstones. She didn’t want inspiration and forgot her dreams of becoming a better person and shunned Anna Cecilia’s tale of suffering. She’d never measure up to the saintly woman, so there was no point.
Harri’s self-pity deepened when she neared her car and saw a piece of paper fluttering on the windscreen. Was it another note from Ben? Why was he doing this to her? She lifted the wiper blade and unfolded another note in the same typescript.
I long to return to that so real place
Where you took your hand in mine
Your fingers traced along my arm
Drawing maps of worlds to come
We walked the wisps of emerald green
By our forever elsewhere house
A new-laid path stretched on ahead
Diamond stars shone with high promise
I long to return to that so real place
Where you took your hand in mine
But your hand is gone, rolled over, rolled on
The stars are ill aligned
Our elsewhere house lies empty and still
What was is now no more
But when the high gems shimmer and the shutters fall
I still feel those worlds tenderly traced
The style was coarse, but it was heartfelt. Whatever its redeeming emotional qualities, it was wrong. Why was he leaving her notes? Why didn’t he just talk to her? How had he known she was here? And how had he managed to get the poem onto her car without her noticing when she was standing no more than fifty meters away? She looked around, but the village was as deserted as when she’d arrived, just the sound of birds and the gentle brush of leaves. Was Ben asking for her forgiveness? Was he trying to woo her? Did he still love her? It had taken Harri months to get over him, and fate had brought them back together at a time when she was vulnerable. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough for these games.
Wondering what she’d got herself into, Harri shivered in the warm sunshine and pocketed the note. She got into her car and drove away from the village as quickly as she could.