leave any nice plants. There seem to have been some roses . . .’
‘Aye. Sepp was a great man for his roses, in his day . . .’
Another profound sigh, which gave her the courage to say, ‘How long has Sepp . . . Mr. Yaxley . . . been . . .’
‘Gone? Seven year, this June.’ Yet another deep sigh.
‘His death must have been a great shock to you,’ said Rose, all sympathy.
‘Dead? Who said Dead? Sepp’s been gone this seven year. But I didn’t say Dead.’
And before she could ask more, he was lumbering down towards the brick shed that was the greater part of the Outsides. Where she did not feel inclined to follow.
She turned to see her children, apparently seriously ill with some disease that caused shining, almost tearful, eyes, bright red faces and lips pressed so close together that not even a knife could have separated them.
‘Sepp’s been Gone for seven years this June,’ said Timothy. ‘I didn’t say Dead, I said Gone.’ It was a perfect imitation of Mr. Gotobed, except his voice was hollower, deeper, scarier.
‘When are you having your Outsides seen to, Mummy?’ Jane’s impersonation was, if anything, even better.
Then they flew past her, straight to Mr. Gotobed, with the avidity of vultures coming in on a newly found kill.
She spent the morning doing housework; which she normally loathed. But it had to be spotless before Philip descended; Philip wouldn’t have listened to Darwin, Marx or Einstein if he had found the smallest speck of dust in their studies.
Besides, this wasn’t so much housework as archaeology; or playing the detective at least. She couldn’t do a thing without getting to know Sepp Yaxley. His suits still hung in her wardrobe. She held one against herself. He had been a big man; six foot two at least. And an old-fashioned man indeed, given to lace-up shiny black boots, braces, suspenders and shirts with detachable collars and collar-studs. His fretwork pipe-rack made him a smoker, and the large collection of charred pipes a heavy smoker of many years’ standing. And the vase of folded newspaper spills in the hearth made him a frugal man, not a waster of matches. She unfolded the spills, and found, with a slight shiver, the date June the second, 1981 . . .
In one thing, Miss Yaxley had certainly been wrong. Sepp had not been an untidy hopeless sort of man. The place was very dusty, yes, but apart from the plate and mug on the kitchen table, scrupulously tidy. He’d had no sense of arranging things to their best looking advantage, like a woman. But everything was in its grim, workmanlike place.
Which was what threw her, when she found in the bedroom that had been his (the only bedroom with a used bed and striped pyjamas under the pillow) a pocket-watch, a silver hunter, hung on a bedside stand shaped like a brass windmill.
If Sepp Yaxley had gone, he had gone without his watch. What kind of prudent frugal man leaves, and doesn’t take his silver watch? And why hadn’t Miss Yaxley taken the watch for safe-keeping? There must be thieves, even around here, and a cottage empty for seven years, with an open back door . . . It didn’t add up at all, especially as no thief had taken it.
The watch said ten to six. But, she told herself angrily, that meant nothing. A watch can run down any time. God, I’m getting as bad as the kids . . .
But she made up her mind to take the watch to Miss Yaxley at the first opportunity. It was wrong, leaving it lying around. Putting temptation in people’s way. She thought her kids were honest, if any kids were today, but even with the nicest kids . . . they were nosy little magpies, who mightn’t realise the value of it. Besides, it would give her the chance to ask Miss Yaxley questions. Questions needed asking.
Sepp’s home-made bookshelves gave her even more food for thought. All good solid old hardbacks, their spines much more faded than the rest of their covers. Paperbacks hadn’t existed for Sepp Yaxley. But Karl Marx was there, well thumbed. Next to the Bible. Next to bound copies of Old Moore’s Almanac and Nostradamus. Not an ignorant farmer; more some kind of rural sage. A book by Aleister Crowley, that she put back as if it was red-hot. Next to the Gardener’s Yearbook . . . Then she felt the need to