walk. What more can one want?’
Jake grimaced. ‘The whole invitation could be a trap. The person who sent us the note could be waiting on top of a wall to drop a stone on our heads.’
‘It would be kind of hard to harm both of us at the same time,’ Alkmene said, although her heart was beating fast. ‘I think we are perfectly safe as long as we stick closely together.’ She glanced at him. ‘Did you bring your gun?’
Jake patted his jacket. She didn’t see anything particular there but…he knew what he was doing. It was kind of nice to know one of them did.
She studied the skies with the tiny white clouds. ‘It could have rained, you know. At least we are having a sunny day.’
Jake grunted. ‘I just wish that old keep had not been built so far away.’
She grinned. ‘Sore feet, huh?’
Jake poked her with an elbow. ‘Wanna compare blisters tonight? I bet yours will be bigger than mine.’
Alkmene wrinkled her nose. ‘No, thank you. And in case you are wondering, I do know how to treat blisters. My nanny always told me to prick them with a clean needle or pin.’
Jake grinned. ‘Right, and then pull a thread through so the liquid in the blisters can leak out.’
Alkmene winced. ‘Ugh.’
Jake laughed out loud. A bird took to flight nearby, diving into a clump of heather before she could discern what it was.
He took her arm a moment. ‘I think I saw movement behind one of those half broken walls. Somebody is there waiting for us.’
‘Maybe it is the man who has been watching us all day.’
‘What?’ Jake asked.
‘I thought I saw somebody.’ She shrugged. ‘You would probably have called it paranoia so I did not mention it before. But now that you say he is waiting, it makes sense he watched us first and when he believed we were getting closer to the truth, he approached us to give us answers.’
‘He?’ Jake queried.
‘The figure I saw was probably a man. Rather tall and heavily built, you know.’
Jake nodded. ‘You could have said something.’ He glanced at her. ‘Is it even possible he was watching us in the village and he is now at the ruins ahead of us?’
‘If he knew a short cut…’ Alkmene shrugged. ‘Or he came on horseback.’
They should have looked into the possibility of hiring horses. She was a great rider and could have raced ahead of Jake instead of limping beside him on her tortured feet.
Jake said, ‘I wonder if our landlord wrote this note himself. Maybe he wants to meet up with us and tell us something his wife is not supposed to know. After all, his wife is Mary Sullivan’s own sister and fiercely protective of her memory.’
‘Or her own part in the tragedy. If she hated Mary for being prettier and shovelled all the housework onto her, she might not have been eager to see her leave with this rich and handsome man who could offer her a better life in the city.’
Alkmene’s right foot slipped on some mud, and she was swept off balance, barely managing to stay upright. After an undignified wave with her free arm and a stumble for a few paces, she continued as if nothing had happened, ‘She might have conspired to end the relationship, you know, leaking information about it, or something. But when her sister vanished and was presumed dead, she did blame herself for it.’
She was silent for a minute, wondering what it would be like to hate somebody and wish they were out of your life, and then they vanished and you wished they were back. That you could undo the damage, turn back time.
She said, ‘Wally seemed to blame the sister for a lot. His presence here in the village and at her husband’s inn must be a constant reminder to her of that guilt.’
Jake nodded. ‘Perhaps you were right in your first assessment, Alkmene.’
Alkmene perked up, clutching the bothersome basket tighter. ‘I was?’
‘Yes. There is something sinister here in Cunningham. Not because there is a dark secret, but because people hated and manipulated each other and paid the price for that. They all wanted something – Mary her pretty things in the city, Mary’s sister to be loved like Mary, Wally to be loved by Mary – but in the end nobody got what they wanted. They all ended up unhappy and bitter.’
‘Well, Mary had the worst lot,’ Alkmene said. ‘She ended up dead.’
‘If we believe she is dead. Wally spread the tale, but is it true? If the man who appeared in London is her son, she did not die here on the moor.’
Alkmene nodded thoughtfully.
At last the ruins came within reach, and they walked up to them, just a few crumbling walls, old stones, covered with moss and weeds, weathered by ages of rain and hail and snow beating down upon them.
A raven rose from behind the walls, giving his ominous cry.
Alkmene shivered and inched closer to Jack. The basket banged against him, and she transferred it to her other arm.
Jake held her elbow as he ushered her through a narrow archway. Alkmene glanced up to see if there was a loose stone about to drop. You never knew…
Inside the circle of sadly decayed walls, grass grew and crinkled paper lay, suggesting people came here for sightseeing, or to picnic, and then left something behind.
Alkmene suppressed the urge to go pick it up and take it back to the village. Father had taught her to hate it when a pure landscape was desecrated by waste.
Jake halted and listened. Then he called out, ‘Is anybody there?’
His voice echoed away across the stones out into the open spaces of the empty moor.
The sun was vanishing behind some thin clouds, and the wind became colder, breathing down Alkmene’s neck again. She shivered, narrowing her eyes.
‘I am here,’ a voice said behind them.
They both spun.
The man was tall and blond, staring at them with a dispassionate expression. His feet were planted apart, his hands dangling loosely by his sides. But his stance crackled with tension. Alkmene noticed the redness of a scar snaking from his neck up behind his right ear. Someone who was not afraid of a fight.
‘What information can you offer us?’ Jake asked.
The man shook his head. ‘No. You are going to tell me a thing or two. Why are you here? What are you after?’
Jake held his gaze. ‘You know my name, but I don’t know yours.’
The man shrugged. ‘It would mean nothing to you.’ He pulled back his shoulders. ‘I do know you, Dubois. I looked into you when you first appeared on the scene. You are a reporter, a bloodhound. You do anything for a story. You want something
