‘What do you think, darling?’ he asked. ‘Is it worth taking them up to the sheep handling facility?’
She clapped him on the back. ‘It won’t take long. Then you can have a rest. You look as though you need it.’
‘Working too hard, that’s all,’ he mumbled.
The four of them made their way in the direction of the coffin trail and the slope of the fell, towards the small field near the beck. ‘This is where the sheep are gathered in,’ Tash said. ‘They are kept in those pens and there’s a dipper behind those dry stone walls.’
‘Twice a year dipping isn’t compulsory any more,’ Simon added. ‘Unfortunately, there’s been talk of an outbreak of sheep scab, so Tom dipped the animals the other week to give them protection.’
‘But the dipper isn’t enclosed?’
‘Not in a building. Sheep dip’s toxic, you know. Better to have the tank out in the open air.’
They reached a dyke and beyond it the walls enclosing the sheep dipper. It was about fifteen feet long, with a battered wooden cover. Simon said, ‘We can’t leave it open to the elements, of course. The tank’s protected to avoid accidents and keep the insurers off our back.’
‘The cover doesn’t look that secure,’ Nick said.
‘One more job to do and to pay for,’ Simon said with a hollow smile. ‘I’ve kept nagging Tom about it. He ought to get round to it soon.’
‘Mind if I lift the cover and take a look?’
Simon leaned against the wall for support. ‘Be my guest. I’d give you a hand, but…’
‘No problem, leave it to me.’
Nick strode to the sheep dip tank and, bending down, started to pull the cover to one side. Even in the open, the stench took Hannah’s breath away. As the tank came into view, they could see the grey milky fluid. And then they saw something else.
Tash screamed and buried her face in her husband’s neck. He seemed to be hypnotised. Nick’s face was empty as he kept on shifting the cover.
Hannah chewed her lip so hard that it began to bleed. She’d never once been sick at a post-mortem. Throwing up in the presence of death was an admission of weakness. But the sight of Jean Allardyce’s fully clothed body floating in the sheep dip tank was enough to make the strongest stomach heave.
Chapter Twenty
The morning after his talk with Hannah Scarlett, Daniel overslept by an hour, but as Eddie wasn’t due to turn up until ten, it didn’t matter. When Miranda opened the blinds, sun flooded the kitchen and as they munched croissants, she chatted about her plans to turn the barn into their office. It was as if they’d never exchanged a cross word.
In the course of a cold and invigorating shower, Daniel had resolved to stop worrying about Jean Allardyce and Barrie Gilpin. Hannah was right: he could do no more for them than he could for poor Aimee. If Jean had disappeared, no-one would try harder than Hannah to find her. Another decision was not to think too much about Hannah, either. Each time he remembered the way she’d put her hand on his, he felt like a schoolboy fantasising over a girl who is out of reach. Dangerous territory; better not to stray into it.
As she filled the cafetiere, Miranda announced that she was itching to write again. She fancied producing a series of features about downshifting for a lifestyle magazine and she meant to ring every editor in London until she found a taker for it. After all, they’d have to start earning a bit of money soon. The house proceeds wouldn’t last forever.
‘How are you getting on with your article about corpse roads?’
‘Let’s just say it’s making appropriately funereal progress.’
She laughed and said, ‘I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t walked the coffin trail myself yet.’
‘You should. It fascinated me, imagining that I was treading in the footsteps of the villagers of three hundred years ago.’ He mimicked the sombre tone of a fellow historian who presented on television. ‘“Trekking over the fell through rain and mud, bearing their melancholy burden.”’
‘Weird.’ She shivered pleasurably. ‘I was thinking, maybe I might take Tash up on her invitation to pop round for a coffee one morning. I could leave the car at the farm and walk up the fell from there.’
‘It’s a long haul if you go all the way to Whitmell and you won’t find a bus to bring you back.’
‘I wasn’t planning to cover the whole route, just the easy bit. It isn’t far from Brack Hall Farm to the top of the fell and it looks like an easy climb. I could stroll along the top and take a look at the Sacrifice Stone from close quarters.’
‘Just as long as you don’t climb up and sit on top of it.’
When he told her about the warning words of the woman he’d met and the legend, she giggled and exclaimed, ‘So you’re doomed?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘Well, better be practical. Did I ask if you’d made a will?’
‘You inherit my books.’
‘Such generosity.’
Wobbling dangerously on her stool, she kissed him on the cheek. One thing led to another and a couple of minutes later she was leading him back upstairs. When she slipped off the last of her clothes and clambered on top of him, he found that sleep had washed away the tensions of the night before.
They were dressed again with five minutes to spare before they heard Eddie’s truck pulling up at the end of the track. Daniel reminded himself that if he had any discipline, he’d have made use of the time to work on his article. But what was so admirable about having discipline? That was the whole point about moving out to the sticks. No more deadlines; they could please themselves.
While Eddie set to work, Daniel retreated to his computer and tapped out a few paragraphs about the coffin trail. For the first time since the move, his prose was racing. Walking the trail for himself had unshackled his imagination; until now he’d needed to hack out every sentence, like a labourer using a pickaxe on granite. After he’d completed the second limb of the route as it zigzagged down into Whitmell Vale, he would turn his attention to other corpse roads. Rydal to Grasmere was an obvious choice, but he liked the sound of the more remote corpse way across the rugged western reaches of the Lake District, from Wasdale Head to Boot.
When the phone rang, for a moment he wondered if Hannah was calling him again. On hearing Theo’s voice on the other end of the line, he felt a wrench of disappointment coupled with surprise.
‘How did you get this number?’
‘Unlike a good historian, a good detective never reveals his sources,’ Theo said smugly. ‘That said, of course I would not claim to be any sort of detective, good or otherwise. Perish the thought. So I will admit to you that I spoke to Prittipaul and he let me in on the secret.’
Prittipaul was the editor of Contemporary Historian. Of course it had been naive to imagine that he could stay out of reach of the past for long. Few institutions are as ruthless in tracking down their alumni as Oxford colleges, even if only so that old members can be urged to give generously to the Master’s latest pet project. Prittipaul was by nature tight-lipped, but Theo had probably called in some favour. Or indulged in a little blackmail, for the chairman of the company that published the journal was a member of his coterie.
‘My coming here wasn’t a secret.’
‘Even though your old mobile number has been disconnected and you left no exact forwarding address? You’ve even closed your email account.’ Theo’s tone was more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger. ‘Such a pity that you wish to cut yourself off from your friends and colleagues.’
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I just wondered how you were getting on in your leafy retreat.’
‘I’m looking out through the window right now. I just saw a heron diving into the tarn.’
‘So your infatuation has not run its course as yet?’
‘No,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s only just begun.’
In the pause that followed, he realised with a start that he’d been thinking of his love affair with the Lakes, not with Miranda. But in a way they amounted to the same thing, surely.