A Bitter Feast(39)
A half hour later, Melody and Grace and Melody’s friend had squeezed into the van, while the pretty copper-haired woman and the other bloke, the one who’d been in the car crash, got into Melody’s car with the three kids. When they’d all driven away, he raked the gravel forecourt until it formed perfect undulating ripples, like the sand in a Japanese meditation garden.
It wouldn’t last. Of course it wouldn’t. Nor did the trimming and tidying he did every day in the gardens, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t worth the doing, in and of itself. He understood Viv, with her constant battle to master elements that were of necessity fleeting.
Going round the side of the house, he put the rake away in the shed, then made his way through the kitchen garden and down the walk that ran along the outside of the formal hedges. At the end of the last hedge, he crossed the bottom lawn and entered the thicket of trees that bordered the river. The arching branches hid him now from any casual observer. He didn’t want to speak to anyone, not until he’d had time to think about what he’d heard.
His carefully tended path through the trees ended in a small clearing on the river’s edge. The one-room fishing hut—built by Addie’s great-grandfather shortly after the construction of the house—hugged the shoreline. Here, the river had been partially dammed so that it widened into a good-sized trout pool, and the hut’s large covered porch extended a few feet over the water.
When he’d first come to work here, he’d found the hut neglected since Addie’s father’s death—Ivan Talbot was no fisherman. Joe, fascinated by the place, had offered to make the necessary repairs. He’d mended the fishing tackle as well, and would cast a line when he’d finished his day’s work in the gardens. More and more often, he spent the night on a camp bed in the hut rather than driving back to his small, barren flat in Moreton.
When Addie caught on to his overnight stays, she’d offered to let him live there if he wanted to make the place more habitable. “But surely you’ll miss the nightlife, and your friends,” she’d said.
“I don’t think you can say that Moreton-in-Marsh has nightlife,” he’d answered with a smile. He didn’t add that he didn’t have any friends he could be bothered to keep up with. The oldest of six in a cramped house, he’d never wanted anything as much as to be alone.
Once settled in the hut, he fished, he cooked simple meals on the camp stove, and read his books on landscape design and plants and philosophy. On warm evenings, he stretched out on the little dock and watched the stars. In the winter, he warmed himself by the wood-burning stove. The lack of company bothered him not at all.
But he had, unfortunately, missed sex, and that had been his undoing.
The shade from the riverside sycamores kept the hut cool on warm days, but it also meant the room grew dim in the afternoons. Lighting the lamp that hung from the beamed ceiling, he took a glass from one of the storage shelves and reached for the seldom-drunk bottle of single malt. He’d just poured a generous finger when he heard footsteps on the porch, then the hut door was yanked open.
Without turning, he said, “What do you want, Roz?”
“Pour me one of those.” She sat, uninvited, on the edge of the camp bed.
Joe took down another glass and splashed some whisky into it. When he turned, he saw that she was far from her usual calm and collected self. Her hair had come loose from its customary twist. Her perfect lipstick had vanished, and her blouse was half untucked from the waistband of her dark trousers. A few weeks ago, he’d have been aroused at the sight of Roz disheveled. Now, he said, “Drink up and get out.”
“Sit down, darling, for heaven’s sake.” Her lips formed a pout.
He knocked back enough single malt to set his throat on fire and stayed where he was. “What do you want, Roz?” he said again.
“Did you hear . . . about him?” When she lifted her glass, he saw that her hand was shaking.
“One of the church ladies told me. You know what gossip is like in the villages.”
Roz flushed. “That was beneath you. So . . . Did you talk to Viv?”
“Really? And what should I have said when she was being taken to identify the body? You are a harpy, Roz.”
She gave him a calculating look over the rim of her glass. “That never bothered you before.”
“Yes, well.” He shrugged. “We all make mistakes.”
She looked hurt. “I never thought you’d be so petty, darling Joe.”
To tell the truth, it had surprised him as well. Their relationship had seemed the perfect liaison of convenience. She was almost twenty years older, with her own home, a good job. There was none of the pressure to do the things required of a conventional relationship—to marry, to settle down, have kids, buy a little box on a housing estate.
It had been ideal. Until the day when he’d walked in on her in Beck House.
She raised an arched eyebrow. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? About him?”
Unmoved by her appeal, he said, “Why shouldn’t I?”
Roz took another swallow of the Glenlivet and licked her lips. “Because, if you do, I’ll tell Addie you’ve been skimming.”
He stared at her. “You bitch.” Swallowing hard, he tried to tamp down the rage. “You know I wasn’t— I’m a partner, for God’s sake, and I’ll pay the bloody money back.”