A Woman Unknown Page 0,29

it really was time for me to shut up, but I said, ‘So you have no idea who might have been with him?’

She shook her head. ‘I wish it had been me. If anyone had tried to hurt him, I’d have killed them myself.’

I looked at her hands. She would have been capable of that, I felt sure.

‘Do you know how he came to meet the woman he was with in the hotel? Might she be part of your circle?’

She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I had a sudden thought that the news could be all around Yorkshire within the hour. ‘Will you confide in Lady Fotheringham?’

‘Certainly not!’

I stood up. ‘I’m very sorry, Miss Windham.’

She did not answer. I had walked a hundred yards or so from the bandstand when she called to me to wait.

With the stride of a colossus, she caught up. ‘Where are you going now?’

‘Home.’

‘Did you come in a carriage?’

‘A motor.’

‘I saw it. A blue affair.’

‘Yes.’

‘Take me somewhere will you? You’ll have to wait until I change, and make my excuses for Sunday dinner.’

As the clock on the stable block touched half past noon, a harassed young maid appeared, viciously swinging a carpet bag.

‘Mrs Shackleton?’

‘Yes.’

‘Miss Windham asks will you come to the front of the house.’

The cheek of the woman! I did her a service and now she chose to treat me like a chauffeur.

I hid my annoyance, politely thanked the maid and opened the car door for her to put the bag in.

‘Would you like a lift?’ I asked.

She laughed. ‘I’m not allowed to go in the front door, madam.’

I drove to the front of the house and parked opposite the door.

Moments later, Caroline Windham appeared.

Without a word, she clambered in, showing none of the grace of her earlier horseback riding. I glanced at her. In the short time it had taken her to change and pack a bag, she had grown heavier and forlorn with bereavement.

‘Which way?’ I asked, softening a little towards her.

She waved an arm. ‘Just out of here, and then I’ll give you directions.’

I drove back the way I had come, and through the gates.

She sighed. ‘Sorry about that, but I wanted them to see me leaving. Said I’d been called away. Couldn’t face them.’

‘Which way now?’

‘Left, then straight along.’

‘Are we going far?’

‘No. Staying on the estate. Hence the subterfuge. Let them think I’m miles away when the news comes.’

We drove in silence for a mile, along a leafy lane. Following her directions, I slowed.

‘Right here.’ She pointed to a dusty track. Around a bend in the track appeared a fenced off area the size of a field, filled with strangely shaped figures. Nearest was a circle of tall, slender human shapes that cast long shadows. It was as though a magician had cast a spell on Stone Henge and turned the circle of stones into human beings.

‘Keep going, and then you can hide the motor behind the barn. There’s another way out.’

Following her directions, I stopped the motor between a barn and a disused pig sty.

For a long moment, we sat in the afternoon sun, listening to a thrush. Finally, she sighed. ‘It was good of you to come and tell me. Will you come and meet someone? He’ll have to know. He’ll ask questions, and I can’t …’ She turned those blue eyes on me. I wondered if her Civil War ancestor had looked at his enemies with such sadness before he ran them through.

Curiosity made me follow her from the car. At the side of the barn were more sculptures. Two seated Roman figures formed a bench, their spread togas offering space, and gracefully touching the ground.

‘This looks like Rupert Cromer’s work.’

She nodded. ‘Lord Fotheringham lets Rupert have these outbuildings and the cottage, grace-and-favour.’

My footsteps slowed as I looked about me at a strange collection, some of which I had seen at Cromer’s exhibition last year. His pieces looked so different in the open air. Some were miniature. A creature half horse, half human reared up before me, but pint-sized, like the offspring of a Shetland pony and a dwarf.

At the front of the building, huge doors stood open to a space that was both barn and studio. We negotiated our way in, avoiding a square block of stone, tree trunk, a motorbike and strips of metal.

The tap of a hammer and chisel punctuated the humming silence.

The man wore a leather apron, like a shoemaker. He was standing back from a