Deadlight-Hall(67)

As Michael drove them out of Oxford the following day, a thin soft rain was falling. Everywhere smelled fresh and new, and despite the rain Nell’s spirits rose.

‘I remember seeing quite a nice village pub,’ said Michael, ‘so we’ll have some lunch there, shall we?’

‘I do like the way you always incorporate eating into ghost-hunting.’

‘It can be a hungry occupation.’

‘Is that the sign for Willow Bank Farm?’ asked Nell, a little while later.

‘Yes. You can just see it across the fields. I noticed it the first time I was here, although I didn’t know it was relevant then.’ He pulled the car on to a grass verge for a moment. ‘It’s over there – it’s a bit misty through this rain, but you can make out the shape of the buildings.’

‘The rain makes it look slightly unreal,’ said Nell, after a moment. ‘Veiled and blurry, and as if it really does belong to the past.’

‘Do you ever feel that this kind of rain has a sort of immortality about it?’ said Michael, starting the car again. ‘As if it might be the same rain that fell a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago? Or even as near as yesterday.’

‘You’re such a romantic. But I know what you mean. That if you only knew the exact right place to reach through that rain, you might find you were touching another era.’

‘Except that with my sense of direction I’d probably miss the twentieth century altogether,’ said Michael, glancing in the driving mirror as they left Willow Bank Farm behind. ‘I wonder who lives there now? If it’s still the Hurst family.’

‘It’s probably being enthusiastically chopped up into flats or single dwellings by Jack Hurst, even as we speak,’ said Nell. ‘And speaking of Hursts, Godfrey suggested I ask Jack to provide some figures for knocking the two shops into one.’

She sounded slightly diffident, and Michael said, ‘That’s a good idea. It looked as if he was making a very nice job of Deadlight Hall. If anyone could make a nice job of such a monstrosity.’

‘I was going to phone him later to ask him to come in. You could be there as well. I’d tell you what he said in any case.’

‘I’d quite like to be there for the meeting,’ said Michael. ‘But you don’t have to think you’ve got to – to consult me or anything.’

‘I know, but I’d like to. Actually though,’ said Nell, ‘something did occur to me. Is being part-owner of a business likely to be against Oxford’s rules for its dons?’

Michael sent her a surprised look. ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose they’d look very kindly on a part-share in a brothel or a porn-film shop, but antiques are very respectable, and what I do with my money is up to me. Why on earth did you think there might be a problem? Oh – you didn’t think that at all, did you? You’re giving me a polite way out in case I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Well, yes, all right, I am.’

‘If I change my mind I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘But I’m liking the idea more and more.’

‘I’m glad. Actually, I’m liking it more and more as well.’

‘Would my name go on the lease of the new premises?’

‘Would you want it to?’

‘Yes,’ he said, with unexpected firmness.

‘Good. So would I.’

He did not take his eyes from the road, but he smiled. ‘We understand each other, don’t we?’

‘As much as one person ever can understand another. Here’s the village now. Pity it hasn’t stopped raining.’

‘Never mind the rain, can you see anywhere to park? Oh, yes – over there by the war memorial. I hope I’m remembering this place accurately. I know I said there was a pharmacist’s shop, but now we’re here I’m not so sure.’

‘You did remember it accurately,’ said Nell, producing a 1920s-style hat from her bag and jamming it over her head against the rain. ‘The shop’s over there.’





EIGHTEEN


The shop was not, of course, called Porringer’s. Michael knew they had not expected that, and he reminded himself that it was stretching optimism anyway to think it might even be the shop that Maria Porringer’s husband had owned.

The sign over the main window said: ‘Trussell’s – dispensing pharmacist. Est.1860.’