The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,59

staff toilet, a grandiose name for an ancient Victorian loo that lurked behind a blue-painted door on the other side of the yard. The identical one next to it was for visitors, so I hoped there were some urgent plans being put into place for upgrading those facilities!

I fed the inner woman, who was very grateful for it, then rushed back to work, because that glimpsed glimmer of white at the end of the rose garden was tantalizing me. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t got near enough to make out what it was before I had to put away my tools and dash off to do the River Walk again.

It was already after four when I set out and I was still hot, dirty and sweaty, so hoped I wouldn’t meet any visitors on the way. But, of course, as Sod’s Law has it, I did meet several of them making their way back to the entrance.

They greeted me warily, probably because with my grubby and dishevelled appearance and the bag and stick, they thought I was a tramp.

There was no one near the waterfall. I left the bag and stick behind a boulder near the viewing place, while I climbed up to the top, without seeing anyone … or anything. When I descended, though, and approached the mouth of the falls again, I did catch a momentary flicker of movement and felt some kind of presence … but the mind plays strange tricks.

I didn’t linger, but collected my stick and bag and headed straight back. I was ready for a hot shower and a substantial dinner.

Treena would want an update later too, and I should let the family know how I was getting on. I had so much to tell them about the garden!

Treena was much more likely to be interested in the cat.

14

Pure Folly

A loud flapping noise woke me early on the Friday morning bringing vague thoughts that some large bird had got into the flat, but then I relaxed as I realized it was only Caspar, making a speedy exit through the cat flap.

Last night he’d appeared earlier than before, right after I – and presumably he – had dined, in my case off macaroni cheese followed by a yoghurt.

Although I’d unpacked and arranged my entire Agatha Christie collection and other cosy crime favourites on the vacant shelves along one wall, besides having bought the latest Clara Mayhem Doome novel in Great Mumming, I’d instead found myself taking another lucky dip into Elf’s book.

Her style might be a bit soporific, but some of the chapters sounded fascinating. I was sure the rise of a ‘strange religious sect’ in Chapter One would be about the Strange Brethren. Mum’s parents must have been part of the last generation to belong to it …

I skipped the first part of the chapter, about the beginnings of Jericho’s End, and skimmed the bit about the monastic settlement, which was much as Ned had described it, and then finally arrived at the Brethren.

And really, after reading a description of their beliefs – mainly that we were all doomed, but some, i.e., women, were more doomed than others – it seemed amazing that the Brethren had gone on for so long!

The Vanes had been a prominent local family in the sect and, after the Thorstane meeting house was closed, my grandfather had continued to hold meetings to a rapidly dwindling congregation, in one of the barns at Cross Ways Farm, until his death.

Poor Mum, what a childhood that must have been! Except, of course, when she slipped off to her favourite places in the valley, or escaped to school. It would have been a revelation when she went off to train as a nurse and entered into a whole new world she could only have dreamed of before.

Thinking about Mum had made me cry a little: she had been so bright, kind and sweet-natured, yet with an inner strength and toughness. And being so tall and Titian-haired, she’d had an imposing physical presence, too.

Caspar, seeming to divine that I needed comfort, had decided to climb onto my lap – or place the half of him that fitted onto my lap – and face-bump me.

I closed the book in order to stroke him, which met with his approval, and decided that at the first opportunity I’d try to discover a little more about the current members of the Vane family at Cross Ways Farm. Perhaps some of them weren’t as awful as Wayne. But still, they