Spiteful Village: Wrecking Lives

By Jo Kemrich

The West Country story continues. A murderous attack on one of the four principle characters, and the blackmail of another, alter all their lives, change relationships and test love to breaking point. Sally Redfern's affair threatens to wreck more than one life and Greta fights internal battles over her religion and her personal desires, winning one, but not the other.

Meanwhile Christopher Downe, is forced to face his own temptations and DCI Cardler's marriage fails as he struggles to solve two murder cases with help, and hinderance, from his awkward friends in the spiteful village.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jo Kemrich
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781738465118

Book preview

WRECKING LIVES

First Prologue

Awakening

After another week of intermittent rain and constant, overall grey skies, that bright May morning was a joy. She woke at five, spent a few minutes sitting up and looking through her north window, as small, pure white, clouds sped across a patch of bright blue, then slipped out of bed. It was far too good and rare a day to waste a second of it.

The sun’s light, reflected from the glass of a watercolour picture, fell on the opposite wall in a pool of orange and red with odd bits of bluey green – a curious and wonderful little miracle; she had never seen sunshine on that east wall before. She placed her hand in the light and stood still for several minutes, fascinated, as the tiny magic rainbow slowly moved and changed shape. It was strangely exciting. Perhaps this was a day for miracles of other sorts.

She skipped across the room to the south window and looked out over the great downward sweep of fields and woodland, and beyond, to the English Channel and the sea sparkling in the furthest distance. A brisk wind whisked clouds across the scene; their undulating shadows chasing one another, flowing fast and smoothly over the surface of the ground below. She opened the window, breathed deeply, and danced her way to the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror looked back at her; for almost the first time since she had arrived in the village two years before, that woman was smiling at her, saying: ‘Don’t waste it. Above all, don’t let this day slip away like all the rest. Make a plan.’

She spoke aloud.

And the first item on the agenda is: forget all the tiresome jobs on my list. To hell with them.

Those few words were astonishingly liberating; she stood up straight, her heart rate increased and she began to plan a very different day. Something she had meant to do for the last two years, something that was always pushed out of the way by those mundane tasks that seem most important but are, in fact, the ones that matter least. She began to rummage the cupboards and drawers in her dressing room. It took half an hour to choose and another hour to shower, dress and make herself ready. She enjoyed every minute of it. The sensation of wearing a swimsuit under her shorts and a thin white blouse made her feel younger and totally free. Last of her preparations, she filled a small backpack with walking socks, a thick pullover, a beach towel and those several things that every girl might need on a day out that might last for …. Well, perhaps not only one day.

Downstairs, she took time to make a full breakfast and enjoyed both the cooking and eating of it. Secretly watched by three of her gossipy neighbours, she left the house, loaded her car with the bag, a waterproof jacket and her walking shoes, put the roof down and set off with the wind in her hair, in brilliant sunshine, on the road to the north coast and any miracles that might be going spare.

The journey took about an hour. She did not hurry and her mood of happy freedom never left her, either then or for the rest of that day. On reaching the coast, she turned to travel east for a further ten miles or so along the winding, switchback A39. At Canning Downs she pulled off the main road and parked alongside a dozen cars and campervans. There were holidaymakers and locals, people on their own, couples, families, dogs, horses even. But the grass Downs area is so large that it is never crowded, and people did not trouble her at all. She liked to be among them, indeed she hoped to meet and talk with strangers, perhaps even make some new friends; after all, the day had started with a miracle – that impossible little rainbow on her bedroom wall.

She didn’t bother to close the roof of her smart little two seater, or to lock the car. Taking her backpack, she set off to join the six hundred mile South West Coast Path without even considering whether she would turn east or west when she reached it.

The sign pointed her down a narrow lane that plunged steeply toward Canning Beach. A hundred yards on, she heard a vehicle behind her and drew back against the roadside hedge to let it pass. As it came closer, she turned to look. It was a long crew cabbed pickup, driven by a man on his own. In her happy mood, she quite naturally gave him the benefit of her lovely, wide smile and waved vigorously at him. A few yards further on the pickup stopped.

He had a nice voice and a gentle manner.

Want a lift to the beach? It’s quite a long way down from here.

Ever afterwards she would refer to him as her lovely man. That chance, even miraculous, meeting was a life changing event for both of them.

The tide was up and the beach seemed very small, hemmed in by cliffs on one side and the sea on the other. Here the coastal path made a brief visit down to the Atlantic, got its feet wet and promptly flounced its way back to much higher ground. She thought it would be a nice picnic spot; a place to take a break on the walk. There was a cottage here and, in front of it, a battered, white working boat sitting on a short slipway. Two men were working on it. The boat was evidently old. ‘Eighty years probably; not many left in commercial use now’ she thought.

This is Sally. She’s coming out with us for the day; so mind your language and look the other way when she tells you to.

I didn’t know I was invited, Robb. But, thank you, I accept with pleasure. What are we after today - bass, pollock, huss?

He shrugged.

Whatever we find. There’s always mackerel; we won’t come back with nothing. You know a bit about sea fishing?

We lived on the east coast; different from here, all mud flats and wide skies. Dad had an old pilot cutter we used to sail whenever we could, summer and winter. I miss it terribly.

So, she let Fate carry her along wherever it chose to go. It was a magical day; the sea was a little choppy and she loved it; the sun was warm in the shelter of the small wheelhouse and she basked in it; the boat smelt of sea and fish, paint and exhaust fumes, tarry rope and a dozen things that were so familiar to her and she could have sung out loud for the joy of happy memories.

And everywhere there was so much to attract and please the eye: white capped waves on a green sea, a bright blue sky with fast moving grey and white clouds, dolphins playing in the boat’s wake – and, always, the boat itself. Being Sally, she delighted in every detail from the framing of the hull to the fishing gear, the chipped and flaking paint, the rust stains – all so familiar, yet a different vessel, a different sea and strangers in place of her dad and her uncle.

Half an hour after they set out she looked back at the Exshire coast and the flowing rise and fall of its cliffs; she identified Craynemouth by a small stream of boats heading out from the little port to their fishing grounds, or taking holiday anglers hunting tuna, or perhaps something less challenging. The tiny beach and its cottage were out of sight now. Her earlier sense of freedom increased; there was something about boats – as you leave the land, so you leave behind all that goes with it, worries included. It had always been the same for her.

Robb was a kindly host and she an easy guest.

What’s her construction? Pitchpine on oak?

That pleased them all. A passenger who took an interest and knew about wooden boats – it was rare.

He smiled and nodded. Built in Appledore eighty years back; she’s not far from home.

He looked at her with appreciation, thinking this was one who would want to know. Suddenly he was telling her the landmarks along that coast; Hartland Point, the dunes and estuary of Bideford Bay, Baggy Point, Morte point, Bull Point, the great cliffs between Lee Bay and Ilfracombe. Sally listened and learned it all with the ease of a keen pupil.

You would make a good teacher, Robb. Is this what you do? Can you make a living out of it?

We do it because we love to; it’s part of our lives, certainly not for the money. In real life I take anglers and tourists on pleasure trips – I’ve got my own boat in Craynemouth.

Are you married; got children?

Both those things, what about you?

Still married for the moment.

Problems?

Terminal, we’re separated; have been for over three years now. I hope you’re happy; I think you ought to be; it’s a lovely life.

He misunderstood her.

We aren’t getting on too well now. I don’t know where it’s leading. I’m not sure of her any more. Someone else in the background, maybe.

Sally said nothing; for a short time in that wonderful day, she was thinking about her own history and feeling sorry for him. She was still hoping that time might heal her own pain, but it wasn’t hurrying itself; she had no words to help him.

The moment passed as if the sun had suddenly brightened, and they both felt easier. The morning went by, barriers fell away and all four of them talked and laughed as they became fully at ease with one another; the old boat seemed happy to have them on board.

She found herself drinking tea from a flask and eating sandwiches but she had no idea whose they were. The crew might almost have expected her that day as no one seemed to be going short. Peeing might have been a problem but suddenly Robb found it necessary to send the other two to deal with some vague problem in the bow of the boat and, turning his back, casually mentioned the purpose of a plastic bucket in the wheelhouse.

***

She hadn’t been steering the boat for more than ten minutes and the crew accepted her as part of the team. All three of them felt proud to have her working with them. Sally was competent at the helm, knowledgeable about boats and she had a good figure, a lovely smile and legs to die for. If only some of the rival boats could see them now …… but the crew weren’t so fortunate on that particular day and two of them would have to be forever content with their dreams.

Early in the afternoon, they caught some good sea bass and a few cod; later they trolled quite successfully for mackerel. Overall, a decent catch for the day, and smiles from everyone.

It was time to return before the tide fell too far to reach the slipway. When they arrived in the little cove, there were two more men waiting to help; the old boat was heavy and winching it out of the water took all the muscle that was on offer. So she met the whole crew, five of them, and everyone polite and respectful; perhaps, she thought, just a little too much so; it would have been nice if the day had ended with a kiss or two.

I’ll run you up to the top to say goodbye.

She got her kisses then. And the day of happy miracles was still not over.

Will I see you again? I want to.

I’m not sure. Perhaps. I have to think about things. Whatever happens, I’ve had a marvellous day; the very best in a very long time. Thank you Robb.

Can I have your phone number?

Not yet. If I want to meet, I’ll find you.

***

And Sally did think; she thought for a long time. She did not want an affair with a married man, unless it might repair the marriage, and she was not in love and doubted that she would ever love him; that special magic was simply not there.

But she had needs of her own and, provided he understood and observed her rules, she would make sure no harm was done. With care, everyone might be better for it.

***

On the following Tuesday she drove out in the early morning to Craynemouth to see what angling trips might be had from the little fishing port.

***

If places take their characters from their own history, Coldstow’s inappropriately named community store ought to be both peaceful and friendly – after all it was once a chapel and surely Methodist congregations don’t sit there arguing with the minister and abusing one another. Sadly, whatever kindly spirits lodged in the building during its ecclesiastical days they must have skipped off at about the time planning permission was granted for its change of use, for there is nothing either peaceable or well-meaning about the place now. Rather it is a focus for the malevolence of the entire village, rivalled only by the Siptacs’ hall – and that’s some competition.

It was early one Tuesday morning and Sally had popped into the Crabbes’ shop for a few little grocery items and maybe a single bottle of champagne to add a bit of extra sparkle to the fun day ahead – two people drinking, two cars being driven; it was about the safe maximum of alcohol.

In the past, she would have seen a visit to the village shop as an opportunity to goad its unpleasant proprietor, either directly or, more effectively, by proxy through her sister, but her mind was on other happy activities, so she let the chance go by. And Sally wasn’t looking for a fight, so she pretended not to see Jenny Allen, sitting, red faced, at the Post Office counter and still trying to balance the previous week’s accounts.

Jenny has a temper problem. You really do not want to engage with her in the Crabbes’ village store and Sally knew this. Anywhere else is fine; on Crabbe territory, not. There is something about the place that works like itching powder on Jenny and it’s called Rene.

Poor Jenny had lost the first verbal battle of the day with Rene and she was all set for trouble, wherever she could find it. You wouldn’t have thought the two women were friends, but there had been a recent misunderstanding concerning Sally’s sunbathing habits and Jenny’s husband on a ladder. They will sort this out between them very soon, but just then, it was too recent. All in all, the two women just weren’t going to play nicely together that morning.

Good morning Sally. Nice of you to recognise me. Been exposing yourself around the village again have you? Please don’t let Gerry see. Naked old women make him ill.

In that case, having to live with you, he must be permanently sick. Or do you wear a burka to bed? More likely it’s separate rooms at your age.

Not something you’d know about, Sally, as you don’t have a man at all, for obvious reasons.

All this was very delightful and exactly what Coldstow is about – short, sharp jabs in the most sensitive places. Most people know how to play the game. One person stabs, watches the effect, then politely stands back to receive the counter-attack. A sort of chess without the pieces – and no board. But not everyone knows the rules and just a few know, but refuse to honour them. That makes those people very dangerous, for they are akin to rogue animals; with them, no rules whatsoever apply. And now the shop door opened again and there was the chief rogue animal of Coldstow, Joy Siptac, joining in the final scene. Why she should have arrived at that moment is unclear; it was not for the purpose of buying anything. Perhaps she has a sixth sense; a sense for knowing other people’s secrets.

Normally Sally would have continued her little skirmish with Jenny until there was a clear winner but she had things to do and places to go, so she turned her back on her temporary enemy, and old friend, to gather her shopping together and pay.

Feeling she had not got the best of it at that point. Jenny moved across to the shop counter and Sally was obliged to continue dealing with her in the matter of paying, a process that enabled her antagonist to give a running commentary for the amusement of the shop’s loitering layabouts.

What a lot of picnic stuff. Slimming are we? Doesn’t seem to be working. And champagne! That’s not going to shift any bulges and you won’t do it by just having salad on Tuesdays.

Now our lovely Sally has no bulges – well none that are unsightly and in need of shifting. That was all baseless spite, but she sensed danger. It was that reference to Tuesday. She wondered what other connections Coldstow might have made. The fact that she was away from the wretched village on the same day each week, perhaps? From there might she be followed? All too likely, she thought. And God! What a fool she had been this morning – that champagne!

Jenny was still talking.

Enjoy your champagne, Sally. Why you want so much salad, I cannot imagine, unless you’re going to share it with your Tuesday boyfriend. Don’t get too drunk to enjoy yourselves, will you?

That head on attack decided her. She took the brave course.

I never get drunk in the week Jenny. Always sober when I’m making love on Tuesday. Pissed as a newt on my Friday date, though. I like variety in my men but, of course, you wouldn’t know about that, being stuck in a time warp with bad breath Gerry.

It worked. With the exception of Joy Siptac, the little crowd waiting behind her stopped listening. They weren’t interested in silly jokes or being made fools of. Jenny finished serving her in silence and Sally walked out the winner, for the time being. She had two urgent calls to make; the first to her lover, the other to a rare friend in neighbouring Spattersleigh.

From twelve thirty until five that day, Sally and Keppi could be seen sitting, obvious and innocent, at a picnic table in her neat little front garden, drinking coffee, then enjoying an extended picnic lunch with a glass or almost two of shop champagne, and doing a great deal of catching up on Spattersleigh’s gossip before their afternoon tea.

She wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. The village store’s loss was the gain of supermarkets in Larkston and Craynemouth. Perhaps they weren’t the safest places either. Habit is such a dangerous thing.

***

But Sally liked a sense of danger. It was, perhaps, her worst fault – sailing close to the wind. If Robb had known what she did and how she did it, he would have been a very worried man, for he had far more to lose than she: a wife with a marriage in a shaky state and perhaps custody of two very nice under five year olds. Sally didn’t know much about them and she genuinely aimed to bring about a reconciliation for a wife she had never met, but had much sympathy with. Strange how contorted some people’s thinking can be, yet Sally was ever on the side of the angels, give or take a rather over-adventurous attitude to life in general.

The following Tuesday, she might have taken the wise (and easy) course and cancelled their meeting for a second time. It never occurred to her. What did occur was the possibility that she could have the fun of being followed. She wondered who it might be – more than one, perhaps?

She drove to Larkston and parked on the top level of its tiny multi-storey car park which connects directly at every floor with Mantons supermarket. Joy Siptac parked in Fore Street where she could see Sally’s car standing out in the open on the car park roof. She sat there for five deadly hours, save for occasional comfort breaks courtesy of the facilities in the Old Belle. At the end of that tedious period, Sally’s car appeared in the street and Joy followed her home, tailed in turn by an unremarkable driver in an unmemorable vehicle. Robb left the car park ten minutes afterwards and took a different road. It had been another fun day both on the boat and off it.

The only person left disappointed was Joy. But she was sure that Sally would slip up eventually, and so it proved. Being cautious becomes tedious and Sally isn’t the cautious type.

***

It is said that habit is generally a bad thing but, for Sally, her Tuesday morning trips to meet him at Craynemouth’s tiny harbour or high up on Canning Downs became a habit of sheer pleasure, so how could that be bad? They would spend their days going out in his boat, skinny dipping and lying together on a remote and inaccessible beach or making love in the spacious rear cab of his pickup parked deep in some peaceful and unvisited woodland, but wherever they went she made sure it was nowhere near home, and for more reasons than one.

She always took lunch for them in her nice picnic basket; he would bring a bottle of wine or cans of cider. Habits within habits, pleasure and fun. They were discreet, there was no one who cared about her and no one to be offended or hurt, whatever she did. She wondered what could be wrong about any of it. – Arguably nothing, Sally, but it’s dangerous, and you know it. In truth you enjoy the danger, so you must be prepared for whatever Fate may bring.

Uncharacteristically careful, Sally had stopped buying their picnic lunches in Coldstow’s convenience store after Jenny remarked on her Tuesday shopping habits. But the harm was already done and the consequences of that oh-so-discreet and completely inoffensive behaviour of hers were going to be felt far into the future.

***

The alarm on her phone made its soft trilling sound but she had already been awake for a quarter of an hour, lying on her back, dreaming happy, and almost innocent, little daydreams with just the bedside lights switched on. She turned them off, left her bed and went to the window that looked across the village lane. There was no light there yet – she would not expect it for another twenty minutes but it was as well to check. She had missed out on a couple of occasions and the disappointment had been a bad start to the day. She stripped off, went to her bathroom, showered, and came back, wrapped in a warm towel, to look again with the same result. Once more back to the bathroom to clean her teeth and then the return to stand by her window. She would stay there now until it happened.

Two lights were switched on upstairs. She pictured what was happening. ‘Out of bed and into the bathroom’. Those lights went off fifteen minutes later, replaced by a dull glow from his kitchen. ‘Doesn’t switch on his stairs light – take care my friend, I don’t want you hurt.’ Next, that light disappeared. ‘At the back door now’. She could predict the sequence that would follow. No need to guess any longer; the rest of the play would act itself out in full view.

The outside lights lit up his driveway and garden, and there was the dog, and there he was. A little ritual followed which seemed to irritate him. Eventually there was some rummaging on the ground with a shovel and a minute or so during which he disappeared. Back in view again, he walked to the gate, led the dog through and set off down the road to disappear beyond the Siptacs’ house. A completely uneventful sequence of a man taking his dog for a walk in semi-darkness, and she never tired of it. Now, she set the timer on her phone and returned to her own morning rituals, making an early cup of tea, returning to bed, trying, and failing, to find anything worth listening to on the radio and going back to yesterday’s Toughie crossword.

A minute before the alarm would have told her, and ten minutes ahead of the earliest possible time, she was standing by the north window again, and still in her towel. He was later than expected, but it was no hardship to her.

Nor was Joy Siptac concerned by the delay. The fine art of people watching lies at the core of her unpleasant life and she has the patience, if not the nature, of a saint. Besides she had two people in her sights and a lot to learn about them; it was well worth the time and no effort at all. Coffee at hand and nicely warm in her orange pyjamas, she needed only to sit in comfort with her binoculars on their tripod and make occasional little adjustments to the venetian blind.

He re-appeared, walking briskly with the dog beside him on a very short, slack lead. Coming toward her now, Sally could see his face a little more clearly in the growing daylight. He suddenly glanced up toward her, as if he had realised that she watched him. Her eyes widened, she smiled half to herself and half at him; she stayed there, completely unembarrassed, and hoping he might wave, but he had been looking at the dawn sky, not her.

She spoke softly, as if she were talking to him only a few feet away; a lover’s whisper.

‘There you are, my mystery person, back with me again. I hope you enjoyed your walk. I wonder where you go each day, or is it not always the same? And now you will make your breakfast where I can’t see you and reappear to eat at the kitchen table where I can; only I do wish you didn’t have your back to me.’

***

The regular pattern of a life that contained two lovers, one physical, the other imaginary, was broken eventually by a series of strange coincidences, some pleasant, one not. Perhaps Fate decided Sally had been given quite enough warnings about the sin of Habit. The time had come to take her out of her comfort zone; and not just her.

***

It was another Tuesday, that day when they met for a cruise on his boat or perhaps to drive inland and park the pickup in one of the quiet Forestry Commission woods between Larkston and the coast. She looked at her phone and there was his text to tell her: ‘Seabass’. So it was the boat. That always excited her; a day for swimming and lazing on one of the tiny islands. She hoped they weren’t taking tourists on a fishing trip. That always made it difficult, occasionally frustratingly impossible, to have their private time.

As she was gathering together their lunch and the things she always took for a day of fun with him, for no obvious reason, she started to think about her relationship with Robb as she had not thought of it before. She had always known it would have to end at some time. It was pleasure without a hint of love, or even any mutual care, to complicate it; she wondered if he still felt that way too, or if there would be pain for him at the end; she hoped not, but if it had to be, he would just have to get over it on his own. That was life.

It was a windy day, cool out of the sun. Sally chose to leave the two seater at home but her decision had nothing to do with weather. Her saloon was very quiet, a warm and comfortable space insulated from the world; it suited her mood. She drove away from Coldstow and took the coast road out of Larkston. All the time she was thinking about her mystery man with his dog, and she could not have explained why. After all, they had hardly even spoken and there was no reason whatever why she should care about him. She certainly did not want him; she had Robb for fun as long as it lasted. After him, she hoped to find someone to fall in love with; failing that, there would probably be another lovely Robb for a while. ‘Anyway,’ she told herself, ‘I’m a one guy gal. Always was, always will be.’

But with two lovers occupying your mind, Sally, that’s not quite true is it?

As it turned out, there was to be no sea trip that day. The plan had to be changed; one of Robb’s friends needed to borrow the boat for a porbeagle shark fishing trip. So they met at Canning Downs, where she left her car, and drove with him to the curious double village of Limbury, sitting half at the top of its cliffs and half hugging the edge of the beach below, with that infamously steep and twisting road connecting the two and challenging the average walker to a forty minute, seemingly near vertical, struggle. But it is only a one in three slope, so you are not really required to use your hands and knees; it just seems that way.

They parked at the top and made their way on foot down to Limbury Bottom, then followed the Coast Path westwards as it tiresomely climbed back toward cliff top level again. Initially the path bears a back garden sort of character as it passes behind a few straggling weekend cottages on the outskirts of the village. Down here, the area is ever in shade and unpleasingly littered with the sort of second home holiday equipment that gets used once, but hangs around for years gathering green mould.

The place was busy with walkers and Sally was glad of it; for no evident reason, she was not her usual outgoing self. Walking that gloomy path, her mind was away on a trip of its own and she didn’t want to be making empty conversation. But the cliffs curved round into sunshine after a few hundred yards, the tatty, overgrown gardens were left behind and she tried hard to concentrate on her surroundings and on her companion. Robb seemed to have been rather overlooked in her thoughts that day.

The ever present breeze became stronger as they climbed higher and one really cannot be inward on such vigorous days. Add a staggering view from those steep Exshire cliffs, seabirds flying in seeming arm’s reach and, at times, even below them, and all the varying colour that wonderful coast has to show; how could her mind have been elsewhere?

It was a tiring climb. In places there are two parallel paths, the lower one cut into the cliff face and following a dizzy course of its own, often concealed from the main path above and always with a near-vertical drop into the restless Atlantic far below like an untirable animal awaiting its tumbling human prey, and only the clinging heather to imply some sort of clutchable hold in case of an accidental trip, or sudden fit of vertigo.

Close to the top, the edge of an inviting conifer forest met the main path. They sat there to take a rest and look out across the sea. At this level the wind had become quite strong; very probably it is always so on that exposed coast and, in spite of bright sunshine, it was cool.

A timber stile crossed the fence that separated the Coast Path from the plantation. They looked at one another. No words were needed. Suddenly becoming very protective, he helped her to climb the stile and took care of both their backpacks as they crossed the fence and joined a wide forestry track that curved away in both directions to follow the perimeter of the wood. There was no one in sight. They chose the road to the right: here the trees were tall, mature Douglas firs; the underlying woodland floor was dark and deeply covered in a soft layer of needles. As they passed further into the forest, leaving the cliffs and sea behind them, the wind died away, its presence marked only by occasional soft, sighing sounds in the canopy above them. Bathed in strong sunlight, the track was deserted, peaceful and somehow comforting. After the exposed cliff path, the plantation was surprisingly warm. And still she could not stop thinking about the man she watched every morning.

A quarter of a mile further on, and well away to their left, the sun was lighting up a small clearing; they were both drawn toward this bright little jewel as if it beckoned to them. Sally ducked under the low growing branches of trees next to the road, as Robb lifted them for her, and entered a vast, silent, dimly lit space occupied by neat lines of tall, straight, bare trunks running away from her into the distance. Save for scattered holly seedlings and the odd struggling bramble, there was no vegetation on the forest floor. The tops of the trees, seventy feet above her, were framed against a clear blue sky. Apart from the occasional crack of a breaking twig, their footsteps were completely silent on the carpet of dry fir needles.

To Sally, the place was magical. For no apparent reason she began to imagine her mystery man walking with her toward that inviting, sunny clearing and going there with the same intent. From that moment, it was not Robb that attentively held her hand and gently led her, but him. Ever since they had left the cliff top path, Robb had held no place in her thoughts. Indeed, she would never again feel quite the same desire for him, but she did not yet know it. Nor did Robb, although he had already noticed one change in her and he would become aware of more as that day progressed. So, all relationships must alter with time, slow or sudden, with joy or with pain.

The clearing was further away than either of them had expected but it was no disappointment when they reached it. Evidently a group of trees had failed to grow, or perhaps, the Forestry Commission had never planted any just there. Whatever the reason, here, the sunlit ground was covered with fine grass, tightly grazed by rabbits or deer, smooth as a lawn, rich green and inviting. A few shrubs of flowering gorse were blazing yellow along one edge of the clearing; their heady, sensual coconut smell filled the air. High above, a pair of easy-wheeling buzzards were making repetitive, plaintiff mewing calls while a third responded from half a mile away. The sounds of nature emphasised the peace and serenity of a place that was totally private; whatever they did here, no one else would ever know, nor see nor hear them. Robb unstrapped her backpack, took out the travel rug she always brought and carefully laid it out on the ground for her. And still she thought of mystery man, not just then, but throughout the next hour and she could not stop herself from doing so. She tried to straighten herself out: ‘This is ridiculous, I’ve got Robb here – here and now. The one I’m thinking about must be twenty miles away and I don’t even know him. What’s happened to me?’ Others could have told her the answer to that. It is the oldest story of all and, no stranger to it, Sally knew that tale perfectly well herself. And she would have known what had happened to her had she not been the principle actor in the play. She was in a forest in more ways than one, failing to see ethereal wood hidden by mystic trees.

Their morning came to a close. Up to then, apart from the words that lovers must always use, they had not spoken since they entered the forest. Reluctant to break into her thoughts, and perhaps wary of them, he silently gathered their belongings together and they walked slowly back to the edge of the plantation, leaving behind no trace of their presence in that magical little clearing, to rejoin a real and solid world - the clifftop with its busy walkers and that stiff, insistent breeze. Having failed to take hold of her hand on the walk, Robb tried to kiss her as he helped her over the stile by the Coast Path but she evaded it, pretending she hadn’t noticed. She felt a little guilty; Robb was entitled to have had her full attention that morning; she wondered if, in making love to one man while thinking of another, she had been guilty of two timing one of them and, if so, which one? It was something she had sworn to herself that she would never do. It just wasn’t right.

Her mind allowed her no relief as the day progressed. If she had been given time to reflect without further stimulus, she might, perhaps, have been able to enjoy the rest of the day with her lover and he might have been happier for it, but the Fates had more in store for her and it seems they had no intention of taking the pressure off. Perhaps they had a plan, a plan for her, a plan for Robb, even a plan for mystery man himself, although he could have had no idea what was coming his way, and certainly not that his own very troubled life was becoming unalterably entwined with the