He realised suddenly that she was the only woman he’d seen who was walking in this place alone. It came to him that this meant danger, and this danger was underscored when the heads of the Asian men turned to watch her. They didn’t move to follow her, but he knew they wanted to. A woman alone meant either an offering to a man or a female in need of discipline.
She was very foolish to have come here, he thought. Stone angels and sleeping lions could not protect her from what might roam in this place. It was broad daylight in the middle of summer but trees loomed everywhere, the undergrowth was thick, and it would be a small matter to surprise her, to drag her off, and to do to her the worst that could be done.
She needed protection in a world where there was none. He wondered why she did not seem to know it.
Ahead, the path opened into a clearing where uncut grass—browning from the lack of summer rain—had been beaten down as walkers sought a means to get to a chapel. This was brick, with a steeple that soared into the sky, and with round rose windows marking both arms of the cross that the building formed. But the chapel itself was not accessible. It stood as a ruin. Only when one approached it could one see that iron bars fronted what had once been its door, that sheets of metal covered its windows, and that where there should have been stained glass between the tracery of the roundels at each end of its transept, dead ivy clung like a grim reminder of what lay at the end of every life.
Although he was surprised to see that the chapel was not as it had seemed from even so short a distance away as the path, she did not appear to be. She approached the ruin, but rather than look upon it, she made her way towards a backless stone bench across the uncut grass. He realised she would likely turn and sit here, which would make him immediately visible to her, so he dashed at once for one side of the clearing, where a seraph that was green with lichen curved one arm round a towering cross. This provided him with the cover he required, and he ducked behind it as she settled herself upon the stone bench. She opened her shoulder bag and brought out a book, not the A-Z surely, for at this point she must have known where she was. So this would be a novel, perhaps, or a volume of poetry, or the Book of Common Prayer. She began to read and he saw within moments that she was lost within its contents. Foolish, he thought. She calls for Remiel, the voices said. Over the cello and above the violins. How had they ever become so strong?
She needs a guardian, he told himself in answer to the voices. She needed to be on her guard.
Since she was not, he would be on guard for her. That and no other would be the duty which he would embrace.
Chapter Three
HER NAME WAS GINA DICKENS, MEREDITH LEARNED, AND it seemed that she was Gordon Jossie’s new partner, although she didn’t actually refer to herself as that. She didn’t use new because, as things turned out, she had no idea there was an old partner or a former partner or whatever one wanted to call Jemima Hastings. She also didn’t use partner as such, as she didn’t quite live there in the cottage although she “had hopes,” she said with a smile. She was there on the holding more than she was at her own place, she confided, which was a tiny bed-sit above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. They were in Lyndhurst High Street, she said, where, frankly, the noise from dawn to dusk was appalling. And, come to think of it, the noise went on far beyond dusk because it was summer and there were several hotels, a pub, restaurants …and with all the tourists at this time of year …she was lucky to average four hours of sleep a night when she was there. Which, to be honest, she tried not to be.
They’d gone inside the cottage. It had, Meredith quickly saw, been stripped of all things Jemima, at least as far as the kitchen went, which was as far as Meredith herself went and was also as far as she wanted to go. Alarm bells were ringing in her head, her palms were wet, and her underarms were dripping straight down her sides. Part of this was due to the day’s ever-increasing heat, but the rest was due to everything being absolutely wrong.
Outside the cottage, Meredith’s throat had instantly dried to a desert. As if knowing this, Gina Dickens had ushered her within, sat her down at the old oak table, and brought from the fridge designer water in a frosty bottle, just the sort of thing Jemima would have scoffed at. She poured them both a glass and said, “You look as if you’ve …I don’t know what to call it.”
Meredith said stupidly, “It’s our birthday.”
“Yours and Jemima’s? Who is she?”
Meredith couldn’t believe at first that Gina Dickens didn’t know a thing about Jemima. How could one live with a woman for as long as Gordon had lived with Jemima and somehow manage to keep the knowledge of her existence from his …Was Gina his next lover? Or was she one in a line of his lovers? And where were the rest of them? Where was Jemima? Oh, Meredith had known from the first that Gordon Jossie was bad news on legs.
“…at Boldre Gardens,” Gina was saying. “Near Minstead? D’you know it? He was thatching a building there and I’d got myself lost. I had a map, but I’m completely useless even with a map. Spacially hopeless. North, west, whatever. None of them mean a thing to me.”
Meredith roused herself. Gina was telling her how she and Gordon Jossie had met, but she didn’t care about that. She cared about Jemima Hastings. She said, “He never mentioned Jemima? Or the Cupcake Queen? The shop she opened in Ringwood?”
“Cupcakes?”
“It’s what she does. She had a business she ran from this cottage and it’d grown so much and …bakeries and hotels and catering for parties like children’s birthdays and …he never mentioned … ?”
“I’m afraid he didn’t. He hasn’t.”
“What about her brother? Robbie Hastings? He’s an agister. This—” She waved her arm to indicate the entire holding. “This is part of his area. It was part of his father’s area as well. And his grandfather’s. And his great-grandfather’s. There’ve been agisters in their family so long that all this part of the New Forest is actually called the Hastings. You didn’t know that?”
Gina shook her head. She looked mystified and, now, a little bit frightened. She moved her chair a few inches away from the table and she glanced from Meredith to the cake she’d brought, which, ridiculously, she’d carried into the cottage. Seeing this, it came to Meredith that Gina wasn’t afraid of Gordon Jossie—as she damn well should have been—but of Meredith herself who was talking rather like a madwoman.
“You must think I’m barking,” Meredith said.
“No, no. I don’t. It’s just …” Gina’s words were quick, marginally breathless, and she seemed to stop herself from going on.
They were silent together. A whinnying came from outside. “The ponies!” Meredith said. “If you’ve got ponies here, Robbie Hastings would likely have brought them in off the Forest. Or he would have arranged with Gordon to fetch them. But in either case, he would have come by at some point to check on them. Why d’you have ponies here anyway?”
If anything, Gina looked more concerned than before at this ping-ponging of Meredith’s conversation. She clasped both hands round her water glass and said to it rather than to Meredith, “Something about …I don’t exactly know.”
“Are they hurt? Lame? Off their feed?”
“Yes. That’s it, isn’t it. Gordon said they were lame. He brought them in off the Forest …three weeks ago? Something like that. I’m not sure, actually. I don’t care for horses.”
“Ponies,” Meredith corrected her. “They’re ponies.”
“Oh, yes. I suppose. I’ve never quite seen the difference.” She hesitated, as if considering something. “He did say …” She took a sip of the water, lifting the glass with both hands as if she’d not have been able to get it to her mouth otherwise.
“What? What did he say? Did he tell you—”
“Of course one asks eventually, doesn’t one?” Gina said. “I mean, here’s a lovely man living on his own, good-hearted, gentle, passionate when passion’s called for if you know what I mean.”
Meredith blinked. She didn’t wan
t to know.
“So I did ask how he happened to be alone, no girlfriend, no partner, no wife. No one’s snapped you up? That sort of thing. Over dinner.”
Yes, Meredith thought. Outside in the garden, sitting at the wrought-iron table with the candles lit and the torchères blazing. She said stiffly, “And what did he say?”
“That he’d been involved once and he’d been quite badly hurt and he didn’t like to talk about it. So I didn’t want to intrude. I assumed he’d tell me when he was ready.”
“That’s Jemima,” Meredith said. “Jemima Hastings. And she’s…” She didn’t want to put it into words. Putting it into words might make it true and for all she knew it wasn’t true at all. She assessed her facts, for they were few enough. The Cupcake Queen was closed up. Lexie Streener had made phone calls that had gone unreturned. This cottage was semioccupied by another woman. She said, “How long have you and Gordon known each other? Been involved? Whatever?”
“We met early last month. At Boldre—”
“Yes. At Boldre Gardens. What were you doing there?”
Gina looked startled. Clearly, she hadn’t expected the question and even more clearly, she didn’t much like it. She said, “I was having a walk, actually. I’ve not lived in the New Forest long and I like to explore.” She offered a smile as if to take the sting out of what she said next. “You know, I’m not sure why you’re asking me this. D’you think something’s happened to Jemima Hastings? That Gordon did something to her? Or that I did something? Or that Gordon and I together did something? Because I do want you to know that when I got here, to this cottage, there wasn’t a sign that anyone—”
She’d stopped abruptly. Meredith saw that Gina’s eyes were still fixed on hers, but they’d lost their focus, as if she was seeing something else entirely. Meredith said, “What? What is it?”
Gina dropped her gaze. A moment passed. The ponies whinnied outside once again and the excited warbling of pied wagtails broke into the air, as if warning one another that a predator was approaching. “Perhaps,” Gina finally said, “you ought to come with me.”
WHEN MEREDITH FINALLY found Robbie Hastings, he was standing in the car park behind the Queen’s Head in Burley. This was a village at the junction of three roads, arranged in a line of buildings undecided between cob, half-timber, and redbrick, all of them possessing roofs that were equally undecided between thatch and slate. Midsummer, there were vehicles everywhere, including six tour coaches that had brought visitors to this place for what would likely be their only New Forest experience outside of riding through the lanes and seeing it in air-conditioned comfort from well-padded coach seats. This experience would consist of snapping photos of the ponies that wandered freely through the area, of having an expensive bar meal in the pub or in one of the picturesque cafés, and of making purchases in one or more of the tourist shops. These last largely defined the village. They comprised everything from the Coven of Witches—proudly the former home of a bona fide witch who’d had to leave the area when her fame exceeded her willingness to have her privacy invaded—to Burley Fudge Shop and everything in between. The Queen’s Head presided over all of this, the largest structure in the village and the off-season gathering place for those who lived in the area and who wisely avoided both it and Burley itself during the summer.
Meredith had phoned Robbie’s home first, although she knew how unlikely it was that he’d be there in the middle of the day. As an agister, he was responsible for the well-being of all the free-roaming animals in his assigned area—the area that she’d told Gina Dickens was referred to as the Hastings—and he’d be out on the Forest either in his vehicle or on horseback making sure that the donkeys, ponies, cows, and the occasional sheep were being left in peace. For this was the biggest challenge that faced anyone who worked on the Forest, especially during the summer months. It was appealing to see animals so unrestricted by fences, walls, and hedges. It was even more appealing to feed them. People meant well, but they were, alas, congenitally stupid. They did not understand that to feed a sweet little pony in summer conditioned the animal to think that someone was likely to be standing in the car park of the Queen’s Head ready to feed him in the dead of winter as well.
Robbie Hastings was apparently explaining this to a throng of camera-wielding pensioners in Bermuda shorts and lace-up shoes. Robbie had them gathered by his Land Rover, to which a horse trailer was attached. It seemed to Meredith that he’d come for one of the New Forest ponies, which would be unusual at this time of year. She could see the animal, restless, in the trailer. Robbie gestured to it as he spoke.
She gave a glance at her chocolate cake as she climbed out of her car. Its frosting had melted into it on the top and begun to pool viscously at its base. Several flies had managed to find it, but it was like one of those insect-eating plants: Whatever landed upon it was becoming mired in sugar and cocoa. Death by delight. The cake was done for.
It no longer mattered. Things were wildly out of joint, and Robbie Hastings had to be informed. For he’d been his sister’s sole parent from her tenth year onward, a car crash catapulting him into this position when he was twenty-five. That same car crash had also catapulted him into the career he had thought never to attain: one of only five agisters in the New Forest, replacing his own father.
“…for what we mustn’t have is the ponies hanging about one spot.” Robbie seemed to be completing his remarks to an audience looking rather guilty for what they apparently had stowed on themselves: apples, carrots, sugar, and whatever else might appeal to a pony otherwise meant to forage. When Robbie was finished with his remarks—made patiently while visitors continually snapped his picture although he wasn’t wearing his formal attire but rather jeans, T-shirt, and a baseball cap—he gave a sharp nod and opened the Land Rover’s door, preparatory to driving off. The tourists drifted towards the village proper and the pub, and Meredith worked her way through them, calling Robbie’s name.
He turned. Meredith felt the way she’d always felt when she saw him: warmly fond but nonetheless terribly sorry for what he looked like with those huge front teeth of his. They made his mouth the only thing one noticed about him, which was a shame, really. He was very well built, tough and masculine, and his eyes were unique—one brown and one green, just like Jemima’s.
His face brightened. He said, “Merry Contrary. It’s been donkey’s years, girl. What’re you up to in this part of the world?” He was wearing gloves, but he removed them and spontaneously held out his arms to her, as he’d always done.
She embraced him. They were both hot and sweaty, and he was acrid with the mixed odours of horse and man. “What a day, eh?” He took off his baseball cap, revealing hair that would have been thick and wavy had he not kept it shorn close to his skull. It was brown flecked with grey, and this served as a reminder of Meredith’s estrangement from Jemima. For it seemed to Meredith that his hair had been completely brown the last time she had seen him.
She said, “I phoned the verderers’ office. They said you’d be here.”
He wiped his forehead on his arm, replaced the cap, and tugged it down. “Did you, now? What’s up?” He glanced over his shoulder as the pony within the horse trailer clomped restlessly and bumped against its side. The trailer shuddered. Robbie said, “Hey now,” and he made a clucking sound. “You know you can’t stay here at the Queen’s Head, mate. Settle. Settle.”
“Jemima,” Meredith said. “It’s her birthday, Robbie.”
“So it is. Which makes it yours as well. Which means you’re twenty-six years old and that means I’m …Blimey, I’m forty-one. You’d think by now I would’ve found a lass willing to marry this heap of manhood, eh?”
“No one’s snapped you up?” Meredith said. “The women of Hampshire are half mad then, Rob.”
He smiled. “You?”
“Oh, I’m full mad. I’ve had my one man, thank you very much. Not about to repeat the experience.”
He chuckled. “Damn, then, Merry. Yo
u’ve no idea how often I’ve heard that said. So why’re you looking for me since it’s not to offer your hand in marriage?”
“It’s Jemima. Robbie, I went to the Cupcake Queen and saw it was closed. Then I talked to Lexie Streener and then I went to their place—Gordon and Jemima’s—and there’s this woman Gina Dickens there. She’s not exactly living there or anything but she’s …I s’pose you’d call it established. And she didn’t know the first thing about Jemima.”
“You haven’t heard from her, then?”
“From Jemima? No.” Meredith hesitated. She felt dead awkward. She looked at him earnestly, trying to read him. “Well, she must have told you …”
“’Bout what happened ’tween the two of you?” he asked. “Oh, aye. She told me you had a falling out some time back. Didn’t think it was permanent, though.”
“Well, I had to tell her I had doubts about Gordon. Aren’t friends meant to do that?”
“I’d say they are.”
“But all she’d say in return is, ‘Robbie doesn’t have doubts about him, so why do you?’”
“Said that, did she?”
“Did you have doubts? Like me? Did you?”
“Oh, that I did. Something about the bloke. I didn’t dislike him ’xactly, but if she was going to have a partner, I would’ve liked it to be someone I knew through and through. I didn’t know Gordon Jossie like that. But as things turned out, I needn’t have worried—same applies to you—because Jemima found out whatever she needed to find out when she hooked up with him and she was clever enough to end it when it needed to be ended.”