“Maybe.” She picked up a limpet shell and turned it over in her fingers. “We used to come and have dinner on the beach all the time.”
“Who-you and Toby?”
“The whole family. Mum and Dad, even my grandmother sometimes, when I was still just a girl.”
“Did she live with you then?”
“Yes, she did. She was like you-a city girl by birth. But she married into the family, and fell in love with life down here; with the coast. But it was a quiet kind of love. I think she was one of those people who find the sea melancholy. She died when I was still a grotty teenager, so I never got the chance to ask her about it.”
“There’s so much I’ve never asked my grandparents. Important things as well. Grandpa’s dead now, so that’s him off the hook.”
“Of course-the neglectful grandpa, embittered by rumors of Charles Aubrey’s unstoppable trouser snake,” said Hannah.
“You don’t buy it at all, do you?”
“That you’re one of Charles Aubrey’s bastard grandchildren?” She arched an eyebrow, mockingly, making Zach smile. “Who knows?” Hannah flung the shell away from her and leaned back into the welcoming circle of his arm. Zach kissed the top of her head, noticing the spring of her curls against his skin; the scents of the sea and of sheep’s wool in her hair. They caused him an almost painful stab of tenderness.
They stayed on the beach until it was fully dark, talking about the small things that made up their lives, and the big things that came along to scatter everything else into chaos. Hannah was halfway through describing the various problems she’d encountered with her flock since buying them, from an attack of scab to a ram that wouldn’t mate, when she cut herself off.
“Sorry. I must be boring you to death.”
“No, keep talking. I want to know everything,” said Zach.
“What do you mean?” She leaned away from him slightly so she could see his face.
“I mean, I want to know everything about you.” He smiled.
“Nobody ever knows everything about a person, Zach,” she said solemnly.
“No. I guess life would be pretty boring if they did. It’d be the death of mystery, after all.”
“And you do love a mystery, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Yet you’re determined to uncover the truth, as you put it, about Aubrey’s time here. About Dimity’s time with him. Won’t that kill the mystery?”
“It might, I suppose,” he said, puzzled that she should mention it. “But that’s different. And I wasn’t talking about Charles Aubrey. I was talking about you, Hannah, and-” He broke off and suddenly looked at his watch. “Oh, bollocks!” He rose clumsily to his feet.
“What?”
“It’s Saturday. I was meant to Skype Elise at eleven!”
“Well, it’s quarter to now. You’ll never make it back to the pub in time.” Hannah stood up and brushed her hands on the seat of her jeans.
“I have to try. I’ll have to run. I’m sorry, Hannah…”
“Don’t be. I’ll come with you,” she said simply, turning to kick the fire into embers.
“Really?”
“Unless you don’t want me to?”
“No, of course I do. Thanks.”
The pub was virtually empty, and while Zach turned on his laptop, Hannah sauntered over to the bar to greet Pete Murray, who’d been chatting to a solitary drinker perched on a stool. They’d missed last orders, but Pete still poured Hannah two fingers of vodka and put it down in front of her.
“Listen, Hannah,” Zach heard the barman say, “about your tab… I’ve really got to ask you to settle up.” Hannah took a swig of the vodka.
“I will soon, I promise,” she said.
“You said that two weeks ago. I mean, I’ve been patient, but the bill’s gone over three hundred now…”
“I just need a few more days. I’ve got money coming in, I promise. And as soon as it does, I’ll be in to settle up. I give you my word. Just a few more days.”
“Well, all right-as long as it won’t be any longer than that. You’re not the only one with a business to run, you know.”
“Thanks, Pete. You’re a diamond.” She smiled at him, and tipped her glass in salute before draining it.
Hannah waited at a tactful distance as Zach, slightly self-conscious at first, told Elise everything he’d been doing, and heard about everything she’d been doing-including tasting her first pumpkin pie. Then he told her a bedtime story, even though it wasn’t quite bedtime, that involved several silly voices and sound effects. He knew he was drawing attention to himself from the handful of people in the pub, but Elise was giggling uncontrollably, and he decided that as long as she found it funny, he didn’t care how mad he sounded. Afterwards, he smiled sheepishly as Hannah came and sat with him.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Don’t be. She sounds sweet. Not that I’m much of an expert on children.”
“Me neither, believe me. My learning curve has been as steep as hers these past six years.”
“Well, I should be getting back. Got a horribly early start tomorrow-the lovely people from the organic certification body are coming to do an audit at the crack of dawn.”
“Oh,” said Zach, disappointed. “That sounds important.”
“Big day.” She nodded. “Want to show me your room first?” she said. Zach paused, and glanced at Pete Murray, who was wiping a very dry glass behind the corner of the bar nearest to their table. The barman had a blank look on his face, all his attention on what he was hearing.
“Step this way,” said Zach. He led her along the corridor to the stairs, then looked back over his shoulder. “Well, that’s torn it. I get the feeling that once Pete knows something around here, everybody knows it.”
“So what?”
“Well, I don’t know. I kind of got the impression you didn’t like other people knowing your business.”
“What does anybody really know? I’m not worried about their opinion of me, if that’s what you mean. You’re a reasonably good-looking bloke. Clean. Youngish. Why should I try to hide the fact that I’ve seduced you?” she said. Zach shrugged, pleased.
“Well, when you put it like that…” He opened the door to his small room, wincing at the stuffy air that smelled of sleep and the lime air freshener on top of the wardrobe. Hannah shut the door behind them.
“Cozy,” she said, sitting down on the patchwork bedspread with a bounce.
“So, you’ve seduced me, have you?” said Zach.
Hannah hooked her fingers through his belt and pulled him onto the bed. “Now, don’t go pretending to anyone that it was the other way around. Not even to yourself.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” They made love almost without foreplay, hurried and intent. It was all over with breathless urgency; Hannah locked her ankles behind his back, arching her whole body away from him. Black spots danced in the corners of Zach’s eyes, and while he waited to catch his breath, Hannah extricated herself from his heavy limbs and pulled her jeans back on.
“I really do have to go.” She tied her hair into a ponytail.
“Not yet. Stay for a while. Stay the night.”
“I really can’t, Zach. I do have to be on the ball-and on the premises-first thing tomorrow.”
“Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” Zach put his hands through his hair and grinned at her.
“You’re welcome.” Hannah glanced at him, then leaned over, kissed his mouth.
“See you later. And thanks-this was just what I needed.” She smiled mischievously and left him there with his shirt still on, tangled threads where two of the buttons had been. “Without so much as a by-your-leave,” he murmured to himself, wondering briefly if this was what he’d needed, and deciding it was pretty close.
The following afternoon Zach set off to visit Dimity, wondering if she would consent to sit for him. He wanted to try to capture the ghost of youthful beauty that haunted her lines and wrinkles, and the way her eyes looked into other worlds, other times. But then, her reaction to seeing his work when she was used to seeing Aubrey’s might snuff out the fragile new spark of creativity he was so carefully nurturing. Zach’s eyes drifted down the hill to where the houses of Blacknowle petered out, ending with an unattractive, sixties-built terrace. A flash of color behind the fence of the nearest cottage caught his eye, and this time he recognized it at once. Lilac. Zach saw the head and shoulders of a large man above the fence, tall and thickset, with a fat neck and barrel chest. He had long brown hair tied back off his face, and an unkempt beard to mask his double chin. James Horne, one of the brothers who had such a bad reputation in Blacknowle. He was talking to somebody concealed by the fence, and it was clearly a serious conversation. The man’s face was like thunder, and he jabbed his finger on some words, to emphasize them. And yet his voice didn’t carry at all. Zach had stumbled upon a hushed argument.