It wasn’t a long drive. Manette’s home in Great Urswick was closer to Margaret Fox School than the homes of any of Tim’s other relatives. It was, she thought not for the first time, the most logical place for Tim to reside during the school terms, and she’d mentioned this to both Ian and Niamh shortly after they’d enrolled the boy there. But Niamh wouldn’t hear of it. There was Gracie to consider. It would devastate her to be without her brother in the after-school hours. Manette had reckoned that there was more to the matter than Gracie’s devastation, but she had not pressed it. She would, she’d decided, see the boy when she could.
Great Urswick wasn’t much of a village, one of those collections of cottages that had grown round the intersection of several country lanes, a distance inland from Bardsea and Morecambe Bay. It possessed a pub, a post office, a restaurant, two churches, and a primary school, but it had the added feature of sitting on the edge of a somewhat large pond. The posh district— as Manette and Freddie liked to call it— consisted of the houses built along the banks of this pond. They were situated near to the road but their large back gardens comprised lawns giving onto the pond itself. Reeds formed occasional barriers between the gardens and the water, and where there were no reeds, miniature jetties allowed residents access to rowingboats or places to sit and watch the ducks and the two resident swans who lived there throughout the year.
Manette and Freddie’s house was one of these. Manette pulled up to it— leaving the garage for Freddie’s use— and she said to Tim, “Come and look. Here’s where I need your help. Back here.”
“Why isn’t Freddie helping you?” Tim asked abruptly. He didn’t move to unhook his seat belt.
“Freddie?” She laughed. “Impossible. He’d have to read instructions and there’s no way he’s about to do that. The way I reckon it, I read and you build. And afterwards we cook burgers and chips.”
“Build? What? I can’t build nothing.”
“Oh yes you can. Wait and see,” she said. “It’s round the back. Come on.” She set off towards the corner of the house, without waiting to see if he would follow.
The project was a tent. Of course she could have put it up herself, with or without help from anyone. But this was not the point. The point was doing something to engage Tim and to get him talking or at least to get him relaxing enough that he might allow her a modest inroad into his suffering.
She unpacked the tent and laid it out on the lawn. It was a large affair, more suitable for a family of four than for what she had in mind, but as it wasn’t the season for tent buying, she’d had to make do with what was on offer. She was sorting through various stakes and cords when she heard Tim finally come round the side of the house. She said, “Good. There you are. Need a snack before we begin?”
He shook his head. He looked from the sprawl of canvas to her to the water. He said, “What’re you setting this up here for, then?”
“Oh, this is just practice for you and me,” she told him. “When we know what we’re doing, we’ll take it up Scout Scar.”
“What for?”
“For camping out, silly. What else would we use it for? Your mum told me you’re walking on the fells now and as I’m walking on the fells as well, we c’n do it together, soon’s you’re ready.”
“You don’t walk on the fells.”
“A lot you know. I take all kinds of exercise. Besides, Freddie doesn’t like me running along the roads any longer. He thinks I’ll be hit by a car. Come on, then. What’re you waiting for? Sure you don’t want a snack? Custard cream? Jaffa cake? Banana? Marmite toast?”
“I said no!” He sounded fierce. “Look. I already told you. I got to meet someone.”
“Where?”
“It’s important. I said I’d be there.”
“Where?”
“Windermere.”
“Windermere? Who on earth are you meeting in Windermere? Does your mum know you’re meeting someone in Windermere?” She’d been crouched among the items intended for setting up the tent, but now she stood. She said, “See here, Tim. What’s going on? Are you up to something?”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“You know very well. Drugs, drink, some sort of naughty nonsense that— ”
“No. Look, I got to be there. I got to.”
She could hear his desperation, but she couldn’t tell what it had to do with or why he was feeling it. Any idea she had in the matter was not a good one. But there was something in his eyes when they flashed in her direction, a form of suffering looking out at her and begging for her help. She said, “I can’t take you there without speaking to your mum,” and she headed in the direction of the house, saying, “I’m going to phone her and make sure— ”
“You can’t!”
“Why not? Tim, what’s going on?”
“She won’t care. She doesn’t know. It won’t matter. If you ring her… oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” And he stalked across the tent and down to the little wooden jetty that stretched into the pond. There was a rowingboat tied there, but he didn’t get into it. Instead he dropped heavily down onto the jetty and his head fell into his hands.
Manette could tell he was crying. Her heart went out to him. She crossed the lawn and went out to join him on the dock. She sat down next to him but didn’t touch him. She said, “Buster, this is a bad time for you. This is the worst. But it’s going to pass. I promise you. It is going to pass because— ”
“You don’t know anything!” He swung round and shoved her. She fell onto her side. “You don’t know shit!” He kicked her, and she felt the force of the blow in the region of her kidneys. She tried to say his name but could not get it past her lips before he kicked her again.
3 NOVEMBER
LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Lynley arrived at Ireleth Hall in the afternoon. Given the choice among flying, driving, or taking the train, he’d opted for driving, despite the length of the trip. He left London long before dawn, stopped twice along the way, and spent the time in the Healey Elliott deep in thought.
He hadn’t been with Isabelle on the previous night. She’d asked and he’d wanted, but he reckoned it would be better for them both if he stayed away. Despite her words to the contrary, he knew she intended to get to the bottom of where he was going and why, and he equally intended not to tell her. The conflict between them that this would have doubtless caused was something he wanted to avoid. Isabelle had cut back radically on her drinking in the months they’d been together, and he didn’t want anything— like an argument with him— to set her on the path to the bottle again. She needed to stay sober and he liked her sober, and if avoiding a conflict encouraged her to maintain sobriety, then he was happy to avoid anything resembling a conflict with her.
Darling, I had no idea you’d become such a coward with women, Helen would have said about this. But it wasn’t cowardice as far as he was concerned. It was the course of wisdom and he was determined to follow it. Still, he thought about this and about Isabelle and himself most of the way to Cumbria. Compatibility was on his mind.
When he reached Ireleth Hall, the great iron gates stood open as if in anticipation of his arrival. He drove beneath the shelter of ancient oaks, winding in the direction of Lake Windermere, and finding himself ultimately pulling up to an impressive many-gabled affair of stone dappled with grey lichen, its central feature a boxy pele tower of enormous proportions that announced the age of at least part of the building. Thirteenth century, Lynley thought. It predated his own home in Cornwall by more than four hundred years.