Death of a Teacher (29 page)

Wishful thinking on behalf of the family, the dean had said when he sold the picture and used the proceeds to refurbish the abbey loos.

At St Mungo’s school the autumn term was going well under Ray Findley’s renewed enthusiasm. Sheila was expecting a baby the following spring. She said the little gnome in their garden was a fertility god, but Ray gave the credit to the specialists at Cumbria Coast Hospital.

On the first Saturday in October, in Tarnfield, the guests had begun to arrive for Robert and Suzy’s marriage. The church glowed with flowers. Suzy had had qualms about being married surrounded by cabbages and tins of beans, so the harvest gifts were stocked in the vestry. But the flowers were great, and it had all been organized so quickly that she’d had no need to think about it too much.

‘It’s a question of don’t look down or you’ll fall,’ she had said to Ro, who was a sort of matron of honour. Ro seemed to be taller, browner and more relaxed, and her figure looked good in the dark-pink dress Molly and Becky had chosen to match their own pretty outfits.

‘Well, darling, this is it,’ Robert said to her. They were alone in The Briars. Jake and Ben were ushers, and had gone on ahead to get everyone into their seats. Becky and Molly had been taken off in the car by Ro. Robert and Suzy would travel to the church together.

‘The girls look good, don’t they?’ Suzy said. ‘I was amazed. Molly was almost glamorous.’

‘But not as glamorous as her mother. You should wear flowers in your hair more often.’

‘Rob, I hate it when you’re gallant.’

‘I’m not gallant, Suzy. It was an accurate observation. You look great. I love you.’

‘As much as you love my kids?’

‘Even more. Come on, the car is here.’

For a moment, Suzy looked nervous.

‘Suzy, you can back out of this if you want to. Seriously. It’s not too late.’

‘Yes it is,’ she said.

Robert smiled and waited for her to fiddle with her hair one more time. He’d started doing some research for another book recently. It was going to be a fictional version of the life of St Trallen, one-time virgin miracle worker 
and later dynamic matron, who, for whatever reasons, was the patron saint of eye doctors. Only that week he had done some more browsing about her, and he had found that she actually had her own saint’s day. He hadn’t told Suzy yet. St Trallen’s Day was the sixth of October. Their anniversary would be her anniversary too.

Robert thought about Ben’s eye operation, and about Becky finding out who her father was, Phil finding some closure about his daughter, Ro coming out of her shell, Jed and Alison’s burgeoning romance, even Nigel Spencer and his new girlfriend.

And about he and Suzy being so happy.

He thought about what Neil Clifford had said about saints. Great is the mystery of faith! Thank you St Trallen, he said to himself. But then again, it sounded rather silly. A bit like that odd idea about Becky and the poltergeist, which had come to nothing, of course.

‘Come on,’ Suzy said. ‘Stop daydreaming. It’s time we got married.’

A few weeks later, when the weather in England had turned and was a
seasonally
grey wet soup, Liz Rudder sat on her spacious balcony on the Andalusian coast and watched the waves on the beach. It was October, dry, warm, sunny and – most important – it wasn’t Pelliter.

She was expecting visitors for half term. The flat was large, marbled floored, with three bedrooms, en-suite bathrooms and a kitchen-diner with a stunning view. It had only cost her two-thirds of the money she received when she sold the High Pelliter house. Despite a lot of fussing about a will made by John and entrusted to that cow Brenda, nothing had turned up, thank goodness, and it was all quite rightfully hers. Things hadn’t turned out too badly after all and the rather unpleasant spell in a clinic in London had ensured she could take early retirement on full sick pay.

Her collapse when John died and her brother committed suicide had meant that no one could possibly ask her to do anything upsetting like attending inquests, and her solicitor had done everything, for a handsome fee. It had made it a lot easier to leave Pelliter with a sympathy vote. And she hardly thought about the place, or Kevin either, these days. Her brother had always been unstable. Their father had known that, when he had bribed John to take him on as a partner. Kevin was about to be sacked at the textile mill when John had bailed him out. Liz had heard from her lawyer that Kevin’s wife had taken the children away from West Cumbria. It had been common knowledge in Pelliter that for years Kevin’s wife had been having an affair with a local businessman. She was now making it clear the children were his, not Kevin’s, which didn’t surprise Liz. Those children had big hands and ugly large feet. They weren’t delicate, dancing types like Liz and Kevin. 

And astonishingly, Brenda Hodgson, the ultimate snake in the grass, had left Liz a small legacy. She had probably never got around to changing her will from the days when they had been such good friends.

What a joke! Friends were only friends. But family … Liz had known at once exactly who she was going to spend her money on. So odd, that the boy she had always felt such affection for had been a favourite of Kevin’s as well as a blood relation of John’s. There was something about Jonty even as a baby which had struck a chord. The wrong chord as it happened, but the
underlying
recognition was there. Liz liked strong characters. She had always thought she could spot the sort of child who was going to go far.

The doorbell from the downstairs lobby pealed. ‘Do come up,’ Liz said into the intercom.

It was exciting having people to stay. And young people could be so
stimulating
. Liz felt much more enthusiastic about them now she wasn’t closeted with them day after day.

She got up rather more laboriously than of old, and hobbled over to open the door.

‘Is this it? Has it got wi-fi?’ The familiar voice of disgruntled youth, but with a new cut glass accent. He would learn to love his holidays in Spain with Aunt Liz.

‘Callie. Wonderful to see you both. Do come in. And Jonty, I’ve always had a soft spot for you, haven’t I? I admire a young man who gets what he wants! And don’t you look grown up in your Dodsworth tracksuit!’

The wind danced over Liz Rudder’s balcony, and on further north, gathering speed and strength. Over the Bay of Biscay it nearly raged itself out, until it frisked up the west coast of Britain, cutting between Ireland and the
North-West
of England. As the Isle of Man approached, the wind suddenly headed inland in one of those typical fretful offshore breezes and scooped up sand and litter as it headed over the brow of St Trallen’s Hill.

‘It’s parky, mara,’ one of the workman said. They had gutted the chapel because the owner’s wife had never liked the place and wanted it turned into holiday cottages. They wanted to get the work done before the weather really turned bad. The workman shivered. They were piling up rubbish at the side of the building. The altar table had woodworm and the benches were creaky and old. The big photocopy of the
Book of St Trallen
had been tipped to one side, and was peeling and flapping in the breeze.

The wind tugged at it. Slowly, a thin piece of A4 copy paper detached itself from the back of the frame where it had been tucked. It flapped for a moment, and then blew towards the workman. He made to snatch at it and missed.

‘What was that?’ his mate said. 

‘It looked as if it said Last Will and Testament.’

‘Nah, don’t be ridiculous.’

The paper danced over the gorse bushes. Then was taken up by the breeze and fluttered out over the calm, still, grey Solway Firth.