I still had a key to the back door of Fencott Place but when I drove up on Saturday afternoon, I didn’t feel it was right to use it. I wasn’t staying there any more and Daniel was mobile again and perfectly able to open the front door to me. So I knocked loudly and waited under the portico while Trojan barked his welcome from inside.
As I had driven up onto the moor, that sense of timelessness, of the insignificance of my own problems in the scheme of the universe, invaded and soothed my troubled spirit as it always did. It was an amazingly still and balmy day for the third week of October, the sun smiling down warmly from an almost cloudless powder-blue sky. My nerves had been jangling on edge ever since I had started to read the diary on Tuesday evening, but Dartmoor was working its healing magic on me.
Daniel knew about the shocking revelation. I had rung him on Wednesday with the excuse of asking how he was getting on and that I had typed up another chunk of his book and would bring it up on Saturday. And then I had told him the bare bones of what Wendy and I had discovered the previous evening. There was silence at the other end of the phone when I finished, so I had to ask if he was still there.
‘I was just thinking what a dreadful shock for you,’ he replied ponderingly. ‘You might have been looking for answers, but you weren’t expecting that.’
He hadn’t gushed over with words of comfort, and I was grateful. It wasn’t sympathy I wanted. I needed someone to share my feelings with. Daniel had been through so much himself and I instinctively knew he would understand.
When he opened the door, he was smiling in that enigmatic way of his that had once unnerved me but was now strangely reassuring. He was looking particularly attractive in a blue shirt unfastened at the collar and tucked into some old cords at his slender waist. I had to pull myself back. He didn’t feel the same way about me as I did about him. At least it diverted my thoughts away from my other problems for a few seconds.
‘Come on in, Carrots,’ he said, raising a cautious eyebrow. He was testing my mood, but I no longer minded being called by the nickname I had once hated. Now it felt familiar and secure. ‘Come through to the kitchen. Kettle’s on the go.’
‘You managing all right?’ I asked as I crossed the hall. ‘How’s the leg?’
‘Fine, thanks. The muscles ached a bit at first but I’ve been taking Trojan for long walks without any trouble.’ He chuckled as the dog pushed his snout into my hand demanding some attention. ‘He misses you.’
‘I miss him, too,’ I answered, ruffling my hand in the thick fur underneath Trojan’s ear, a spot he loved. He pushed against me, tipping his head endearingly while I wondered if Daniel had missed me as well.
‘You can come whenever you like,’ he said quietly, throwing me a sideways look as he poured coffee into two mugs. ‘You’re always welcome.’
‘Thank you,’ I smiled in response, setting the manuscript on the table. ‘Here’s the next consignment of the book.’ I paused, feeling I should say something about it but not sure what. ‘You…you had a pretty hard time of it, didn’t you?’ I said lamely in the end. ‘No wonder you still have nightmares about it.’
‘It’s certainly not something I’m ever likely to forget. But it does seem to be helping me to come to terms with it, writing it down. And I really appreciate you typing it up for me. You don’t have to go on with it, though, you know. You sound as if you’ve enough problems of your own. I was sitting in the drawing room. It’s really warm in there with the sun. Shall we?’
‘Mmm, yes.’
I followed him back through the hall, noticing that he was indeed walking normally again. The sun was blazing into the drawing room through the French doors, one of which was wide open. It felt like summer. Daniel put both mugs on the coffee table in front of one of the sofas and so I sat down next to him.
‘You’d better tell me all about it,’ he invited, sitting back as if he was preparing to listen for hours.
I drew in a great long breath through my nostrils and released it in a sharp sigh. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ I began with a shake of my head. ‘Sidney tracked down my real father to admit to him that he’d lied about my being dead. He came to do the right thing, and then in a jealous rage—’
‘A drunken rage, didn’t you say?’
‘Well, both really. But certainly in a moment of madness, he totally lost his reason and deliberately ran my father over. He could so easily have killed him!’
‘He survived then, your father?’
‘I think so, yes. Although it suggested in the paper that he was likely to be permanently crippled. I’ve no idea what happened to him afterwards.’
I watched as Daniel reached forward for his drink, lips pursed thoughtfully. ‘And all this was in the diary?’
‘Yes. It was weird. Like a sort of confession. Sidney was deeply religious. His father was a Methodist preacher, strict, almost fanatical, I think, and it rubbed off on Sidney. In the diary, it’s sometimes really as if he’s talking to God.’
‘Religion can have a lot to answer for.’
‘But without the diary, I’d never have known the truth. It explains so much. Why Sidney was so angry when I suggested he got a car. I suppose he never trusted himself to drive again. And why he was teetotal. He nearly killed me once when he smelt alcohol on my breath. I’d only had a mouthful and it was beer. It was horrible.’
Daniel laughed softly and I realised I was pulling a face. It was a brief diversion before Daniel’s expression became serious again.
‘It was an explanation you could have done without, though.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But I understand even more now why he hated me so much at first. But it’s all, I don’t know…’ I paused, trying to think of how to express the turmoil of my feelings while Daniel waited patiently. ‘I’d come to accept that I wasn’t Sidney’s daughter after all,’ I began again after a few moments. ‘But I lived with him for over a year, never knowing that because of me, he nearly killed my real father. It’s pretty hard to take.’
‘And even though it wasn’t your fault, you feel that it was. You feel as if you’re treading water and your feet are trying to find the bottom, only they can’t.’
His voice was low, intense, his eyes trained on the mug in his hand, and I knew he understood in a way nobody else did. Everyone had been so kind, supporting me and saying that it didn’t matter what had happened in the past, I was still the same person they loved. They meant it, of course, but the fact was that, inside, I could never be the same. And only Daniel knew exactly how that felt.
‘I feel lost,’ I croaked, the words scraping in my throat. ‘Incomplete.’
‘Yes, I know.’
It was a simple statement of fact. Yes, he did know. And suddenly the surge of locked up emotion broke open and there was no stopping it. I knew I was going to cry. Through my tear-blurred vision, I saw Daniel swiftly put down his coffee and for the second time in a few months, I found myself sobbing against his chest. He felt warm and strong and safe, and I didn’t hold back. I think I cried for everything that had happened to me over the past few years, from Ellen’s death to the devastating revelation in the diary. Daniel held me, not saying a word, not uttering any soothing inanities, but knowing the hurt would only pass in its own good time. And when my tears finally dried, I still lay against him on the sofa, quietly and calmly, and talking into his shirt.
‘I’ve read the rest of the diary since,’ I said in a small but steady voice. ‘He couldn’t find the courage to give himself up or to face the world again. He was riddled with guilt. So he cut himself off, living a life as close to being a recluse as he could. He got the job at Merrivale and living in the isolated cottage at Foggintor was ideal. It was a sort of self-imposed penance. I think he only wrote to Ellen again then as a kind of self-torture. To increase his fear of being discovered. And the real reason he agreed that I could go and live with him wasn’t that he felt it was his duty, like he said. Although, of course, at that point he hadn’t told me I wasn’t his daughter. No. The real reason was that he believed it was his punishment sent by God. Every time he looked at me, he was reminded of what he’d done. I was his hair shirt. His purgatory. The way to pay for his sin and purify his soul. It was no wonder he despised me so much. You know, when I read the first part of the diary, I was really scared. If he could have done that to my father, I wondered if my own life had been in danger. But when I read on, I don’t think it was. But to think that I befriended him in the end. Even felt sorry for him in an odd sort of way. And all along, I didn’t know that he’d tried to kill my father and all because of me.’
There. I’d said it. What had been pressing on me like a huge, dark cloud. Now it was out in the open.
Daniel had been listening in silence and without moving except for the steady rise and fall of his chest which felt solid and comforting. His left arm was around me and now it merely tightened slightly.
‘It doesn’t matter, does it, what anyone says? What you tell yourself? You still feel guilty. I tried to stop them shooting Tommy, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t my fault, but I still blame myself.’
I considered for a moment, and then sat up, meeting Daniel’s brooding eyes that had turned almost cobalt with emotion.
‘We’re two of a kind, really, aren’t we?’ I suggested in a near whisper.
It made him smile. ‘If you mean we’ve both let our coffee get cold, then, yes. I’ll make some more. You stay here. I won’t be a minute.’
I waited in the silent room that was now so familiar to me. My eyes took in its elegance again, the huge fire place, the worn upholstery, the fine wooden furniture chosen by the beautiful woman in the portrait. And Daniel owned it all. It was part of him, what he was, and I loved it the more for it.
‘What are you going to do about it then?’ he asked when we were sipping at some fresh hot coffee.
‘Do?’ I questioned him in surprise. ‘There’s nothing to do, is there?’
He hesitated, fixing me with his eyes. ‘Well, you could try and trace your father. If you wanted to, that is.’
I blinked at him pensively. The idea had been too enormous to contemplate before. ‘I don’t know. It would be a terrible shock to whoever he is. He thinks I’m dead, and he might not be too happy to learn that it’s because of me that he’s in a wheelchair. Or at least, so we believe. He could hate me.’
‘No one could hate you, Lily.’
His eyes bore into mine, sending a shiver down my spine. I chose to ignore it. We were just friends.
‘Anyway,’ I said, tossing my head dismissively, ‘I’ve nothing to go on. I don’t even know his full name. It wasn’t in the newspaper cuttings and Sidney just refers to him as Kevin. And it was ten years ago. I expect he was taken to Greenbank Hospital after the accident, but they wouldn’t divulge any details even if they still had it on record. And who knows what might have happened later. He might have moved away or died since then.’
‘Or maybe not. The Navy would have records of what happened at the time, but there again, they probably wouldn’t release any information. Pity Ed’s Uncle Michael was Merchant rather than Royal Navy, or he might have been able to find out something. But what about Uncle Artie?’ Daniel suggested with sudden inspiration. ‘He’s lived in Plymouth all his adult life and knows loads of people. I remember he had a cleaner once. One of those busy-body types who had to know everybody’s business. That was the sort of incident she’d have relished. She’d have gone to the ends of the earth to find out all the details. She had a lifetime of working for people all over the city. She was pretty elderly when she gave up working, but if she’s still alive, I bet you she’d remember something about it.’
‘Do you think so? Oo…oh,’ I wondered, biting my bottom lip and feeling as if I was standing on my head. ‘Uncle Artie’s coming to dinner tomorrow.’
‘Then you could ask him.’ And then Daniel pulled in his chin. ‘If you want.’
I felt my heartbeat quicken. I was all tangled up inside like a piece of knotted string. Could I ever unravel it? But I was rescued by Trojan bounding up to us with his lead hopefully in his mouth and his eyes gazing balefully up at us.
Daniel laughed and stood up. ‘Looks like it’s walkie time. Will you come with us, or do you need to get back?’
‘No, I’d love to come with you!’ I replied, bursting with enthusiasm. ‘A walk on the moor is just what I need. My wellies are in the boot of the car.’
‘Still haven’t bought yourself some proper walking boots, then?’ His tone was gruff, but I could see the teasing light in his eyes.
‘No, not yet,’ I grinned back. ‘But I must.’ I didn’t add that as I had thought I might be moving away, I probably wouldn’t need any boots. But I’d learnt the previous day that I hadn’t got the job at Greenbank. And in a way, I was glad. What I needed now was normality, not a new life.
We set out westward to the area I myself knew fairly well by now. The Devonport Leat stretched along the side of a gently sloping hill with granite slabs set across at intervals to act as footbridges. There were numerous streams and springs that met up to form Newleycombe Lake, the brook that ran into the top of Burrator Reservoir, and littered everywhere were the curious remains of disused tin workings. It was a bleak and savage part of the moor, but beautiful in its isolation as the sun was setting in a glorious, orange-flamed ball of fire.
‘Let’s go over to the stone row. You know, where we met,’ Daniel suggested after a while. ‘We can make a circular walk and come back along the track.’
I frowned at him dubiously. ‘That’s quite a long way and it’ll be dark soon. And what about your leg?’
‘My leg’s fine. And I’ve got a torch,’ he said, slapping the pocket of the jacket he’d put on over his shirt. ‘Besides, it’s going to be a full moon and the sky’s perfectly clear.’
‘Well,’ I hesitated, but I felt safe with Daniel and his intimate knowledge of the terrain. It would be quite an adventure to be out on the moor at night. I used to have that short walk in the dark from King Tor Halt to Foggintor when I came home from work on the train during that first winter. I used to follow the path and came to appreciate those few minutes’ solitude before facing Sidney. So to be out in a remote region of the moor in the dark could be quite inspiring. ‘All right,’ I gave in. ‘As long as you don’t get us lost.’
He raised a mildly affronted eyebrow but said nothing as we changed direction. The sun had disappeared and the sky almost instantly deepened to a murky grey, the autumn air suddenly cool and damp. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, glad that I had worn slacks and a thick cardigan over my blouse when I had driven up earlier that afternoon.
I kept by Daniel’s side as we crossed the uneven, rising ground. We had both slowed down with the uphill climb and the dusk was making it more difficult to see where we were stepping. The usual sounds of the moor, the stonechats and wheatears chattering among the rocks, buzzards mewing overhead or the occasional cry of a curlew, ceased abruptly, and we were plunged into a shadowy, fading twilight. I don’t think I’d ever smelt the peat so strongly as I did then in the evening damp, and when I glanced over my shoulder, a fragile, pearly mist was rising in the little valley we had left behind.
Daniel had been right. A full moon was rising towards its zenith, its silvery incandescence more radiant as the sky deepened to sapphire velvet scattered with twinkling stars. It was breath-taking, eerie, mysterious. And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Daniel suddenly stopped and put a restraining hand on my arm. ‘Trojan, heel!’ he commanded in a hoarse whisper, and the dog obediently came to Daniel’s side and he clipped on the lead. ‘Look!’ he grated, and jerked his head to the long, low dip in front of us. ‘There’s something going on down there.’
I squinted into the moonlit darkness. I could make out the long sweep of the row of standing stones and followed them up to the circle surrounding the burial mound. I couldn’t see anything else. It was too far away. And then I saw movement. Yes. There was someone, something, moving about the sacred site.
‘Come on,’ Daniel urged, but to my horror, he was leading me towards the stones. ‘Keep down low. We need to see what’s going on. It could be to do with the sheep. A sacrifice.’
I was petrified, my heart exploding with each rapid beat. ‘Daniel, it could be dangerous!’ I protested in a muted squeal.
He turned to me, the whites of his eyes flashing in the moonlight. ‘This could be the best chance we get,’ he hissed. ‘We’ve got to stop all this. Look, you don’t have to come. You can stay here with Trojan.’
‘What!’ The idea of waiting there all on my own was more terrifying than going with Daniel. And he was right. There had been some horrible ritualistic sheep-killings on the moor. It didn’t do to think what the poor creatures had suffered, and then there were the farmers like my friends, the Colemans. ‘No, I’ll come with you. But promise me. No heroics, Daniel.’
‘Don’t worry. I want these people properly prosecuted.’
I followed him, crouching down low as we crept through the long, grey-green grass. My heart was beating so hard that I felt faint and I was stifling one long, terrified whimper. We stole nearer, dropping on our hands and knees to crawl until we were less than a hundred yards away, but keeping on the same contour so that the stone row was still slightly below us. We stopped then, lying on our bellies. Trojan lifted his head, growling softly, until Daniel shushed him and he fell instantly silent.
A dozen figures were moving, gliding like apparitions, inside the circle, their bodies pale and ghostly in the gloom. With the air so still, I could just catch some murmured chanting, and I shuddered. My God, this was definitely some sort of ritual! But it was 1956, not the Middle Ages! I couldn’t believe it, but here was something going on before my very eyes!
Beside me, Daniel fumbled in his pocket and pulled out some binoculars which he proceeded to train on the ceremony below us. I waited literally with baited breath, shaking like a leaf. Daniel gave a wry grunt and his mouth curved at the corners before he handed the binoculars to me.
‘See if you recognise anyone,’ he whispered in my ear.
I wasn’t used to binoculars, especially in the dark, and it took me some moments to adjust the focus. If it hadn’t been for the full moon, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all. And then I snatched in my breath. The figures were naked as they swayed about in a circle, and one of them was more than familiar.
‘Oh, good Lord! Gloria!’ I gasped.
‘You know I had the feeling she was trying to warn me off,’ Daniel all but chuckled beside me. ‘Didn’t want me to see her prancing around in the buff. And no sacrificed sheep, of course. All quite harmless.’
‘I do hope she doesn’t catch cold,’ I said in all seriousness, and I heard Daniel splutter as he fought to contain his amusement.
Almost as if they had heard me, the ring of naked, moonlight dancers came together, arms uplifted and holding hands. And then they broke away and wandered over to where they had evidently left their clothes. They dressed quickly and hurried off in the direction of Norsworthy Bridge where we imagined they had parked their cars. I presumed someone must be giving Gloria a lift as she didn’t drive. It all seemed incongruous!
‘Well, then.’ Daniel scrambled to his feet. ‘Come on, Carrots. We’d better get back. If you don’t fancy driving home, you can stay the night if you’d like. Just give Deborah a ring to let her know.’
But at that moment, I was so astounded that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I didn’t think I could ever look Gloria in the eye again!