Page 55 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
He shook his head. ‘Aaron asked me to keep an eye out, but no. Mind you, I’ve never liked Nancy keeping a cat here, for obvious reasons.’
‘It’s too old to catch birds, I think.’
‘Still, the sight and scent of it is disturbing for them. I’ve talked to her about it before. I’m sorry, of course, that the mog is missing… but I can assure you, I haven’t seen it.’ His voicewas clipped. He was hard work, this man, easy to annoy. Despite being so knowledgeable about the local wildlife, and in many ways probably a good warden.
‘I can’t think that it will be able to fend for itself for long,’ Stef sighed.
‘How is Nancy? Aaron seems concerned.’
Again, that casual tone, but there was a lack of warmth.
‘She’s managing,’ Stef said cautiously.
‘I don’t suppose she’ll be able to carry on living here, given her accident.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ She didn’t like the way the conversation was going, but Josh was getting into his stride.
‘Has she told you the history of the Lodge?’
Stef shook her head. ‘It’s Victorian at a guess.’
‘Mid-nineteenth century, with later additions. I’ve been researching it. It was built for an eccentric widow who wanted to escape from the world. She lived out here with only a housekeeper for company. People said she went a bit mad in her old age. Anyway, she disappeared one night and was found drowned in the Broad.’
‘Poor woman, how sad.’ Stef shivered.
‘Her estranged son inherited the house and the land,’ Josh went on, getting into the swing of his story. ‘He lived abroad, but he rented it out, and then his children and grandchildren inherited it in turn. Sometimes it was used as a holiday home, at other times it was empty. After the Second World War, the reserve was set up and the trustees managed to lease the land around the Lodge – but not the Lodge and its garden. Before Nancy took it on, an elderly couple lived init. The trouble is that it’s been rather neglected, and a few years ago it was sold.’
‘And the new owner is keen for Nancy to leave, is that it?’ Stef rushed in.
‘It would seem so. Before it crumbles into the Broad, I should imagine.’
‘And what do the trustees of the reserve think should happen?’
‘They don’t have any say over the house. It’s a little enclave that doesn’t belong to them.’
‘What do you think, then?’
‘I don’t have an opinion. It’s nothing to do with me.’ His face was hard, closed.
You’re keeping something back, Stef thought. She’d had plenty of experience interviewing unwilling subjects, could spot evasion or lying a mile off. But what had he to lie about? It was puzzling. Was Josh the letter writer? She remembered the folded paper he’d been holding when he’d emerged from the hide, the way he’d quickly stuffed it in his pocket.Though, come on, Stef, that could have been anything, a leaflet or a bit of litter.
She thought more about it as she walked along the path back to the car. It wouldn’t have been another poison letter, she concluded. Not so soon after the last.
When she noticed the ruined windmill out on the marsh, she paused, remembering Josh’s suggestion that she look for it. She hadn’t really studied it before. It was a sad-looking, red-brick edifice, its sails long gone, its roof open to the sky. There were certainly plenty of swifts darting above it, blackshapes with distinctive curved wings and forked tails. While she watched them dive and swoop, plucking insects from the air and emitting plaintive, high-pitched cries, she brooded about Josh. He was secretive and mercurial, she concluded, but did that make him the letter writer?
High above, storm clouds were moving in with an air of menace. Soon, she felt the first raindrops on her face and hurried on again towards the car.
As she accelerated along the narrow road that led back to the village, she heard the light toot of a horn behind and glimpsed Aaron’s car in her rear-view mirror. It was slowing to turn down the lane to the parking space that she’d just vacated. She waved to them from her open window, then wondered whether she should have stopped and turned round, or if that would have appeared too enthusiastic. She still didn’t know how she should act with him.
Thirty-Two
Back at Springfield Cottage, thoughts of a quiet evening to do some work were dispelled. Stef had forgotten that it was Saturday and her mother had been invited to a barbecue at the home of the family opposite. While Stef was out, Cara had popped over the road and rather cheekily had the invitation extended to Stef, Pippa and the twins. Pippa was refusing to go, but wanted the twins to. Cara had begged Stef to accompany her, saying she wouldn’t be able to manage Jack and Jess by herself, and Stef had rather grumpily given in. Then she discovered that Ted was coming, too.
‘There’ll be burgers and sausages, I expect,’ Cara said cheerily when Jess expressed a wish to stay with Pippa, ‘and there’s nothing much to eat in our house at all.’ Stef knew this to be true. Her mother’s fridge freezer was looking distinctly bare this end of the week and some shopping would need to be done in the morning.
Stef took her bag with the tape recorder and Nancy’sprecious thesis safely upstairs to her room, where she hastily applied a little lipstick and dragged a brush through her hair. Downstairs, at her mother’s behest, she picked a bunch of flowers from the garden and located a bottle of wine in the larder to give to their hosts.
They left Pippa by herself in the kitchen scrolling through her phone, her face blotched with tears, and herded the children across the road, where a delicious smell of grilled meat was rising in the air.
