Page 83 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
There was one call where the tape ran for a few minutes and then Jason, sounding furious, said: ‘If you won’t answer your door, at least answer the bloody phone!’ and slammed his receiverdown.
This was followed by a couple of plaintive messages from Orla asking if I was all right.
‘Though if you’re not all right – I mean, if we were wrong about Jason and you’re lying in a bloody puddle in the kitchen, you’re not going to get up and tell me so, are you?’
The last message, if you could describe it as one, was just my name, spoken questioningly in an instantly familiar voice.Shivers ran up and down my spine, but don’t ask me to try and define whether they were pleasurable or not because I listened to him speak my name five times and I still couldn’t decide.
‘That onemusthave been a crank,’ Jamie said. ‘You’ve forgotten to wipe it. I’ll do it for you, shall I?’
‘No! No – I’ll leave it for now, just in case I recognize it.’
‘OK. You get a lot of messages, don’tyou?’
‘Only because I’ve been working so hard for three days trying to finish this book, so I’ve just let everything accumulate. But it’s done now. Let’s see what the post has brought.’
The top envelope was inscribed with the word Urgent! in big straggly capitals.
Dear Sis,
Just to warn you – have been shanghaied by Ma and Pa to drive them down to Westery in search of the ewe lamb that waslost, or something. Pa’s off his head, and these days I don’t think it’s just the booze. They seem to mean Jane by the ewe lamb, but she’s more like mutton dressed as, if you ask me.
Booked us all into some B&B in the village – Haunted Well? – for a couple of nights. Do you know it?
They don’t want to see you, only Jane, Pa says. Thought I’d better tell you. Hide the vampire teeth and the upside-downcrosses. I’ll slip out when I can and come and see you.
Love, Francis
I was still looking at this aghast (and I don’t mean by the weak black magic humour and terrible handwriting), when Jamie, who’d been riffling through the pile, said: ‘Here’s a hand-delivered note from that dishy blonde friend of yours, Orla.’
‘Couldn’t get you on the phone,’ he read. ‘Have got three Easter B&B bookingsby people all called Leigh. Any relation? Are you all right in there? Love, Orla.’
‘Wonder who these Leighs are?’ he pondered, his brow furrowed.
‘Ma, Pa and Francis – this letter’s from Francis telling me they’re coming to rescue Jane from my evil influence: but she’s not here.’
‘Better tell them, then,’ he advised, which is easier said than done when you haven’t phoned them for over twentyyears.
He cravenly refused to do it for me, but there was no reply anyway, and Robbie answered when I rang Francis’s shop, and said he’d gone away for a few days.
‘They must have set out already,’ I said despairingly. ‘Jamie, you’ll have to stay here too, so you can tell them what’s happening. They don’t want to see me.’
‘No fear, not after listening to Pa on that tape! I’m off back down toPortsmouth again. I’ll have to fake an illness, or something.’
‘Coward,’ I said bitterly, but he just grinned and took himself off. Perhaps it was his survival instinct that had kept him out of serious trouble so far, because it certainly wasn’t due to intelligence.
When he’d gone I drove furtively round to Orla’s and informed her just who she was about to entertain in her guesthouse, but cowardlydeclined to meet her and Jason at the pub that night, even when she said Jason had now simmered down to mild volcanic bubbling.
‘I can’t – I’ve finished the book, but there are a few bits of tidying-up on it to do. I’ll see you at the auction tomorrow.’
‘You certainly will! Dante and Jason are shaping up to have a bidding war over you, and the vicar just told me his housekeeper’s going to bebidding for your services on behalf of someone who’s abroad. I wonder whothatcould be?’
My heart sank. ‘Oh no, he wouldn’t – would he? Hewasasking all sorts of questions about it though, and – oh, shit!’
‘Max, of course,’ she agreed.
‘Honestly, talk about too much, too late!’ I fumed. ‘And what do you mean, Jason and Dante are going to have a bidding war over me?’
‘Dante’s been hauntingthe pub the last couple of days looking even more morose, as has Jason – waiting for you to turn up, I think – and whatever they say to each other seems to have some sort of unspoken subplot.’
