can’t rely on the buses,’ he said, picking up her bag with a surprised grunt as he felt the weight. ‘What’ve you got in here? Gold bricks?’
‘I wish. It’s books, papers. A few clothes.’ Jane fell into step beside him as they made for his Land Rover in the car park.
Once they were clear of the station lights and their faces were obscured by early evening darkness, Allan cleared his throat. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?’
‘Why would I be in trouble?’ Jane’s voice betrayed astonishment.
Allan hefted her bag into the back of the Land Rover and gave a helpless shrug, hands spread at his sides. ‘I don’t know. It’s just…It’s the middle of term. You’ve got a job to do. Students to teach. I didn’t think you could up sticks with no warning.’
‘I haven’t, Dad. This is official. Study leave. Something’s come up that I need to pursue right away, and my boss has given me a couple of weeks off.’
They climbed aboard and Allan started the engine. He raised his voice to be heard above the rhythmic grunt of the diesel. ‘I thought you did dead poets? How can that be urgent?’
‘It’s the body in the bog, Dad,’ Jane said.
He chuckled. ‘Fletcher Christian, eh? I wondered how long it would take you to convince yourself this was your man.’
‘It might not be him,’ Jane protested. ‘I never said it was. And chances are it’s got nothing to do with him or the Bounty. But it’s given me a peg to hang my theory on, and that’s good enough to buy me some time to look properly into something I turned up last summer.’
‘You’ve always had a talent for persuasion,’ Allan said, resigned echoes of old conflicts in his tone. ‘So if this is your man, how did he end up dead in a Cumberland bog?’
‘I haven’t a clue. And to be honest, that’s what interests me least. I’ll leave that to the historians.’
Her father nodded. ‘Any road, I’m glad there’s no trouble.’ He snatched a quick sidelong glance at her. ‘We cannot help worrying about you, all the way down there.’
It was, she knew, a coded way of asking about Jake. The familiar familial habit of talking about things without actually mentioning them. ‘I’m all right, Dad. What can’t be cured maun be endured. And I’m good at enduring.’
‘Some folks can’t tell the difference between sugar and shite, right enough.’ They fell silent, an easy quiet broken only by the swish of the wipers on the windscreen.
‘How’s Gabriel?’ Jane asked as they turned off for Fellhead.
‘He’s grand,’ her father said proudly. ‘A big strong babby. Started crawling. Your mother said to Diane, “Now your life’s really over.”’ He chuckled. ‘I mind when you got going. You would set your heart on getting somewhere and nothing would stop you. Funny, you were that different from Matthew. He was into everything. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. But he never had that single-minded determination you had, even when you were tiny. So I reckon we’ll get a taste of what Gabriel’s going to be like now he’s off.’
Jane knew the story. It was one of many that always made Matthew scowl. ‘It’ll be nice to see Gabriel. They change so quickly when they’re that small. Does he still look like Granddad Trevithick?’
‘Aye. Your mother says it’s only because he’s bald and round in the face, but I reckon she’s only saying that to keep Diane’s mum happy. She reckons he looks like her brother at the same age. He’ll end up looking like himself, whatever.’
‘I wonder if he’ll get the Gresham curls?’ She reached over and rumpled her father’s thick hair.
‘He won’t thank us if he does. It’s all right for lasses, but us lads don’t like looking as if we’ve spent all day at the hairdressers.’
Jane peered out of the window as they reached the outskirts of the village. Every cottage was imprinted on her memory. She could have picked any of them out of an identity parade. Most were picture perfect, but there was always the odd one whose owner either didn’t care or couldn’t afford to keep it in good repair. Locals dreaded the death of those inhabitants more than any other because the houses always went to outsiders who were taken with the romance of having a holiday cottage in the Lakes and loved the idea of a bargain they could remake in their own images. Their wallets had pushed even semi-derelict properties out of the reach of most of those who had to subsist on Lakeland wages. Jane’s heart sank at the sight of a new For Sale sign. ‘What happened to Miss Forsyth?’ she asked.
‘She had another stroke. Couldn’t manage the house any more so she’s gone into a home in Keswick,’ her father said succinctly as he swung the Land Rover into the narrow lane that led up to their farmhouse on the edge of the village.
‘So I suppose that’ll be another holiday cottage,’ Jane sighed. In the short span of her life, she’d seen almost a third of the homes in the village change hands from families who could track their ancestors back hundreds of years to incomers who did their shopping in distant supermarkets and had no interest in village life except as a curiosity pickled in aspic.
‘I don’t think anybody round here’s got the money for it,’ Allan agreed. ‘Mind, the house by the Post Office, the couple that bought that live here year round. She does something with computers and he publishes a magazine for ramblers.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t feel like proper jobs to me, but at least they’re not just weekenders.’
Allan pulled off into the gateway leading into their yard and parked by the lambing shed. The low farmhouse seemed to crouch against the hillside, its weathered stone blending seamlessly into the landscape. Buttery yellow light spilled out of the kitchen windows, their outline blurred in the heavy drizzle. They hurried through the rain to the back door, shaking themselves like dogs when they were inside the flagged hallway. The glorious aroma of lamb combined with rosemary and garlic wafted round them in a welcoming miasma.
Judy Gresham appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘Jane,’ she exclaimed, satisfaction written on her face. In spite of the hard life of a hill farmer’s wife, Judy wore her years lightly. She looked more like a woman in her forties than her mid-fifties, her dark brown hair as thick and luxuriant as it had been when Jane had loved to wind it round her fingers as a child. Jane relished the look of surprise on the faces of university friends she’d brought back here when they met her mother. Her father was exactly what they expected–weather-beaten face, stocky frame dressed in overalls over jeans and plaid shirts. But her mother confounded them. Instead of an apple-cheeked woman in pleated skirt and apron stirring jam for the WI stall to the tune of ‘Jerusalem’, they were confronted with a slender, well-kempt woman in jeans and stylish shirts, never seen in public without make-up, earrings and nail varnish. The features in her oval face were small and neat; Jane wished she’d inherited those rather than her father’s deep-set eyes, wide cheekbones and very definite nose. Beside her mother, Jane always felt a big and frumpish disappointment. That was her projection, however; Judy had never indicated by word or look that she was anything other than delighted in her daughter’s appearance.
Now she folded Jane in a tight embrace then held her at arms’ length for a critical scrutiny. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ she said. ‘It feels like ages since you were home.’
‘It’s only been
