'Physically, you mean? Blood pressure?'

'That sort of thing.'

'Yes he did all the usual sort of things.'

'And what did you tell him about why you were there?'

'For goodness' sake, Marcus! Must you subject me to the third degree? Can't we just drop this? You've got your way. You and Melissa have rescheduled everything for the next three months even though, according to Dr Hillier, there's nothing much wrong that a couple of weeks off work won't put right. In the meantime you get to travel all over the country doing the job you love, while I stay here, keeping house and looking after your son.'

'You could think of it more positively,' Marcus said. 'Think how much reading you'll be able to catch up on. And maybe you could do a bit more work on those new tours so you still feel involved.' His tone was conciliatory, ignoring the jibe about Sean. Recently he had started asking to speak to Sean, as well as to her, whenever he called home. Sean always pointedly carried the phone off into another room, so that Jo could not hear what was being said. She had half begun to wonder if Marcus was not using Sean to keep an eye on her: 'How does she seem today?' 'Well, Dad, she's not done anything weird so far.'

Fortunately neither Sean nor Marcus had been there to see a little scene played out on Booths' car park, the day before her appointment with Dr Hillier. Walking back to her car with a trolley-load of shopping, she had almost cannoned into Brian coming the other way. Neither had been paying proper attention to their surroundings, and each had seen the other too late to take evasive action.

Brian had greeted her gruffly, made the inevitable remark 'we must stop meeting like this', and asked how she was, although Jo suspected this was less out of friendliness than because the position of her trolley made it almost impossible to ignore her. Last time she'd had him pinned against the dips and boxed salads; this time his route was blocked by parked cars, a concrete bollard and a flowering cherry tree.

'I'm very well, thank you.' She made a point of looking him directly in the eyes, so that he could see she was not going to be intimidated. Several times since returning from Scotland she had again experienced the strong sensation that the house was being watched. She had half suspected Brian, and briefly considered suggesting to Marcus that they install a security camera, but that would surely lead to accusations of paranoia, so she had not pursued the idea.

'I was wondering what you were doing that day, when I saw you up at High Gilpin,' she said. He could not fail to pick up the note of accusation in her tone. She would show him that she was not afraid to ask awkward questions.

For a moment Brian looked so puzzled that anyone who had not known better might have thought he had no idea to what occasion she referred. Then he said: 'I was moving some pieces of sculpture. I rent some storage s.p.a.ce up there from the Tunnocks. Anything else you'd like to know?'

Jo refused to be deflected by his sarcasm. 'Yes, actually. I would like to know where Sh.e.l.ley is. There's something I want to ask her.'

'Then I suggest you drop in at the gallery she was there when I left.' Now it was his turn to hold her in remorseless eye contact.

'But ... you told me Sh.e.l.ley had gone away.'

'And now she's come back again.'

She had spluttered something, then, about being sorry or glad, or at any rate a combination of words which completely betrayed her embarra.s.sment and confusion. Brian, unsurprisingly, had said nothing to help put her at her ease.

When she told Marcus that Sh.e.l.ley had returned home, he made a point of not being surprised, which stopped just short of saying 'I told you so'.

In fact, she really did have things she wanted to ask Sh.e.l.ley about, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites, because the BBC had been advertising a forthcoming series about them and there was nothing like a TV tie-in to raise interest and awareness in a subject, but she dreaded the possibility that Brian might have told Sh.e.l.ley about their encounters at Booths, or worse still, how oddly she had behaved up at High Gilpin. Sh.e.l.ley would at best think her daffy and at worst, completely bonkers. Looking back now, the whole business made her feel both stupid and curiously ashamed of herself. Marcus had been right about her overreacting, and as well as being more than slightly annoying, this only served to encourage him in his sense that he was right about everything else, too. On the one hand she felt too embarra.s.sed to drop in on Sh.e.l.ley, but on the other, she knew that the longer she left it the more awkward it would become.

Without the tour schedules to keep her busy, she had been spending more time than ever working with her sketch book, mostly out of doors. She had done a series of pen and ink drawings of sheep against a mountain background, which she thought as good as some little notelets she had seen on sale in Greenodd Post Office. There were other elements of her growing portfolio which she liked less, such as the fat-faced policemen, seash.e.l.ls and similar alien objects, which she sometimes spotted insouciantly lurking in the corners of landscapes, unconsciously pencilled into places where they did not belong.

There had been no other signs and portents since the arrival of the third sh.e.l.l. Every day she checked around the house, scanning the doorsteps and window sills, falling eagerly upon the mail. She studied the belt of woodland from the kitchen window several times a day, but although she sometimes thought she caught sight of a watcher standing among the trees, if she stared long enough it always transformed into a tree trunk, or a patch of shadow. Some days she felt as if she was inhabiting a world in which the edges of reality were blurring, like watercolours running into one another, except that she knew the sh.e.l.ls were real. It was a rare day when she did not take them out of her drawer and slide her fingertips over them, committing every nuance of their texture to memory, as if more intimate knowledge would ultimately help her crack their code. She was sure that something else must happen soon.

She was careful not to say anything to Marcus about this sense of antic.i.p.ation, instead allowing him to believe that she was working a.s.siduously on the Lake Artists Tour and endeavouring to appear keen to discuss all other aspects of the business at every opportunity, an activity for which Marcus had never needed any encouragement. His conversation was peppered with: 'Melissa says this,' or 'Melissa says that,' or 'Melissa's had a great idea.' She just adopted a fixed smile and said nothing. As if she couldn't see that he was besotted with b.l.o.o.d.y Melissa. When he was not there, she actively tried not to think about the business, which in turn meant that she did not have to think about Melissa. Mostly she thought about Lauren. She had begun to think of her in a more positive, less painful way; to visualize her as the girl she would be now, a girl who would be coming home ... soon.

Being at home enabled her to catch up on a variety of jobs, and during the May half-term, she decided it was the turn of the kitchen cupboards to get a thorough overhaul and clean. She started one morning with the wall cupboard nearest the kitchen door, unloading its contents on to the work surface so that she could wipe out the interior. The house was very quiet. She had not bothered to switch on the radio, and there was no sound from upstairs, where she a.s.sumed Sean was still in bed, although it was approaching noon.

As she rinsed her cleaning cloth at the sink, she pondered yet again how the sh.e.l.ls had arrived on the doorstep and the window sill. Had someone crept along the lane with them, keeping low behind the walls, scurrying from one bit of cover to another? Probably nothing so obviously furtive than that. Around here it was not unusual to encounter walkers at any hour, sometimes even late at night. Several footpaths converged on Easter Bridge, since foot traffic down the ages had always needed to avail itself of the crossing. Dressing as a hiker would be the perfect cover for moving about on the public roads because no one looked twice so long as you had the regulation boots and rucksack. If anyone had happened to pa.s.s in a vehicle, or even look out of their window, the sight of someone striding along the road in hiking gear was just about as unremarkable as you could get and it would take less than a minute to sneak down the drive to the house and back. You would have to be extremely unlucky to get spotted. It was not a comfortable thought, the idea of a shadowy figure creeping into the garden, then sliding away again, melting back into the Lakeland scenery. In an instant they would be an ordinary, anonymous person again, someone she might pa.s.s by without a second glance they knowing perfectly well who she was, but she not recognizing them.

This image of a backpacker trekking up from the bridge changed into that of a young girl strolling along in the sunshine. A girl of roughly twelve years old, with long blonde hair Lauren Lauren as she would look now, walking up from the bridge ... coming home. Jo's eyes followed the vision up the lane. It disappeared now and again. behind the trees and shrubs, which were still pale with the spring colours which came late to the Lake District. Once or twice Jo thought she had lost it, but the figure kept on coming nearer, its progress steady and unhurried, just as it would be in real life.

Without realizing it, Jo began to grip the edge of the sink for support. It was really her. Lauren was walking up the lane, heading for The Hideaway just as surely as if she knew exactly where she had to come. Although her knees were all but giving way, she managed to run outside on to the drive. She tried to shout, but nothing came. Seemingly unaware of her, the girl continued to approach in the same unhurried way, like a ghost which inhabits its own parallel arc of time and place, seen by but unseeing of the living.

'Lauren!' Jo reached the gateway just as the girl drew level. 'Lauren,' she repeated, holding out her hands.

The girl shied like a startled foal, removing tiny headphones from her ears as she edged away. Jo was momentarily aware of a crackle of music, cut off as the girl's fingers found the switch of something hidden under her jacket. She spoke warily, all the time keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Jo. 'Sorry did you want something? Are you OK?' The voice was polite but nervous, slightly plummy.

Jo stared at the apparition. The sense of fairy-tale unreality which had carried her thus far was ebbing away.

'Is there a problem?' Gilda Iceton's words swept down the lane like an audible storm warning. Jo automatically turned at the sound, to find that Gilda had appeared in the gateway of The Old Forge. Jo noticed for the first time that Gilda's voice was quite plummy too.

'I think this lady might be ill.' The girl sidestepped neatly, putting herself further from Jo and closer to Gilda, who was now advancing in swift strides.

'You go into the house, Becky. I'll take care of Mrs Handley.' It was a tone which, while not unkind, brooked no argument. As the girl headed up the lane, Gilda stepped nearer to Jo and spoke in a voice too low for the girl to hear. 'You leave my daughter alone. I don't want you anywhere near her. How dare you think you can try to terrorize her, the way you and your friends terrorized me.'

'I wasn't I didn't ...'

Gilda had already taken Jo's arm and begun to lead her towards The Hideaway. To any onlooker she might have appeared to be helping an unsteady neighbour back home, but it was an iron grip, the strength of which was not only surprising but painful, too.

'Leave us alone,' Gilda hissed in her ear. 'Do you understand me? Just leave us alone.' She steered Jo right back up the drive, only loosing her hold when they reached the kitchen door. Jo automatically reached up and rubbed her arm, which continued to throb as if Gilda's fingers were still clamped into it. 'Hurt you, have I?' Gilda seemed to tower over her. Jo had forgotten how lanky Gilda had been at school; there she had been a thin, daddy-long-legs kind of figure, gangly-limbed, with a running style all of her own. She was carrying a good deal more weight now. 'If you ever do anything to upset Becky, I swear I'll hurt you so badly you may never recover.'

Jo opened her mouth to protest, but Gilda stalked away before she could say a word. When Jo called after her the other woman took no notice.

Gilda's daughter. The girl was Gilda's daughter. Wave after wave of disappointment swept over her. She stood outside the door for several minutes, rubbing her arm where Gilda had held her and gulping for air. If only Gilda had let her explain. Dear G.o.d, it was not as if she would have done the girl any harm. Surely even Gilda could see the difference between the kind of things one might get drawn into as a teenager and the kind of things one was capable of as an adult.

When she eventually re-entered the house, she had to sit at the kitchen table for a long time, trying to recover from the shaky feeling Gilda had engendered in her. Although she told herself that she had merely been confronted by the natural wrath of a mother protecting her young, there was something else she could not quantify. Perhaps it was no more than a primitive instinct telling her that people who appear different may be dangerous, an old, irrational prejudice against someone whose outward appearance is not quite right.

While she was still sitting at the table, Sean ambled downstairs and made straight for the fridge. If we live here long enough, Jo thought, he will erode a track: bedroom to fridge, then back to bedroom.

'Good morning,' she said, summoning an effort. 'I'm just making tea.' She would have preferred coffee, but she knew he didn't drink it. 'Would you like a cup?'

'Yeah thanks.' His tone was cautious.

'It's a much better day, quite warm outside. Have you got any plans?'

'I might go down to Harry's later on.'

She allowed a pause to develop before saying casually, 'I see the new girl who lives at The Old Forge is home for the holidays.'

'Yeah. Her name's Becky. She's been playing with Charlie.'

At any other time Jo would probably have derived pleasure from such a breakthrough. Sean volunteering information in a conversational way without having it forced out of him was a red-letter event; but this morning she felt only frustration. It was evident that Sean had been aware of the girl who lived across the lane for a couple of days. If he had only said something about it earlier, she would have been alerted to the girl's presence and much less likely to have made such a catastrophic error.

'If you go to Harry's,' she said, 'be sure to lock up after yourself and take a key. I might be going out later on.'

'OK.' Sean paused to examine the items she had removed from the cupboard, picking through them one by one. 'Why is all this stuff out?'

'I'm cleaning the cupboard.'

She was beset by the awful suspicion that he was reporting back to Marcus: 'Nothing abnormal observed today, except that she'd taken everything out of a kitchen cupboard. She said she was cleaning, but I didn't see any signs of it.'

After pouring the tea, she made haste to resume her spring-cleaning activities dreadful, this idea of being under surveillance. However, once Sean had taken his bowl of Weetabix and mug of tea, she quickly wiped and dried the shelves and replaced the contents any old how, deciding that the time had come to cut and run. When she had changed into her outdoor clothes, she called out from the landing to tell Sean she was going and heard a m.u.f.fled 'OK' in return. As she laced her boots, she noticed that her fingers were still trembling. She badly needed fresh air and some sun on her face, but in order to gain the fells, she would have to walk right through Easter Bridge, pa.s.sing all the other houses, including The Old Forge, en route.

She set out briskly enough to make her heart rate quicken, looking neither to right nor left, trying to ignore the sensation which came from the certain knowledge that she was being observed maybe by the ghosts in The Old Forge, or maybe by Gilda Iceton herself. Or perhaps by Sean, keeping a covert watch from an upstairs window, preparing his report on her movements for his father. Most certainly by Maisie Perry, if she was at home; possibly by the family who had rented the old farmhouse for the week, exhibiting their holidaymakers' curiosity about the people who lived in the village, or perhaps even by Sh.e.l.ley and Brian, from the windows of the gallery. As she approached The Hollies, she saw Harry's mother in the act of placing a knotted carrier bag into the wheelie bin. Harry's mother had always been friendly, generally going out of her way to say 'h.e.l.lo', but Jo felt that she could not face a chat with anyone just at the moment, so she focused her eyes straight ahead to avoid seeing the other woman.

In the end, she did not go up on to the fells. She had been on the point of taking her favourite path up through the woods when she saw some of Mr Tyson's highland cattle grazing in a field not far along the road, and she decided to sketch them instead. She stood at the stout wooden field gate, resting her drawing book on the top bar. One of the beasts obliged her by approaching to see what she was doing, giving her the benefit of its full-faced curiosity, coming so near that she could see the texture of its rough ginger fringe and tough pale horns. The big eyes stared at her unblinking while she struggled to capture the creature's appeal, without falling into the traps marked cute or cartoonesque. When the beast eventually decided that she was not of any interest and moved off to resume feeding, she began to sketch the other animals, all of them presenting at slightly different angles and att.i.tudes. Finally she roughed in the line of the hedgerow on the far side of the field, thinking that when she sat down with it at home, she might try to incorporate all these various elements into a composite drawing.

She had come without her watch, but she guessed it must be well beyond lunchtime when she turned for home. She had just reached the Old Chapel Gallery when she caught sight of Sh.e.l.ley, who was just emerging from Ingledene.

'Hi.' Sh.e.l.ley waved a hand. 'Long time no see. Are you coming in for a coffee?'

In truth, Jo was still shaken from the events of the morning and would much rather have gone straight home, but Sh.e.l.ley's invitation was the perfect way to get over an awkward hurdle, and a refusal was open to misinterpretation, so she agreed at once, waiting at the door of the gallery while Sh.e.l.ley unlocked it and preceded her inside.

'Brian's down in Barrow for the day,' Sh.e.l.ley said. 'So I'm holding the fort alone. The trouble is that I forgot Bri was going out and started some tea breads for the freezer, so I've just had to pop back and turn the oven off. How's your Lake Artists project coming on?'

Jo was grateful to accept the prompt, noting that Sh.e.l.ley seemed keen to gloss over her recent absence and pick up where they had left off. She accepted a mug of Sh.e.l.ley's bitter brew and began to outline some of her queries and ideas. When she mentioned the Pre-Raphaelites, Sh.e.l.ley said: 'I've got just the thing for you. It's a leaflet about all the places in c.u.mbria with Pre-Raphaelite stained gla.s.s there's a woman in South Lakes who's an expert on it, and she's produced this handout. I know I can put my hand straight on it; I only saw it the other day when I was hunting for something else. I'll go and fetch it now. If anyone comes in, make sure they buy something nice and pricey I could use the pennies for the meter.'

While Sh.e.l.ley was gone, Jo sipped her coffee and looked at the nearest paintings. There was an exquisite representation of a red squirrel in oils, hung alongside another by the same artist of a snowy owl, both precise and detailed as photographs, but with the depth and beauty which a mere camera could never achieve. These were in complete contrast to the huge canvas on the facing panel, which appeared to have been slashed about with browns and greens. Jo had little or no knowledge of abstract art, but she did know that Brian would not have hung anything he did not consider very good, and from where she sat, she could see that the price tag read 2,850. She supposed that an occasional collector making a purchase of that magnitude once in a while would help keep 'the meter' going for some time.

When Sh.e.l.ley came back, she was carrying not only the promised leaflet, but also three large books. 'These might come in useful. This one is the book about Ruskin that I couldn't find when I looked last time, and these others will give you a bit more background on the Pre-Raphaelites, since you seem to be branching further in that direction. It would give you a chance to put in a nice bit of scandal too, with Ruskin, Millais and darling Effie.'

'It certainly spices up the human interest,' Jo laughed.

'I should have brought you some sort of bag. They're a bit awkward to carry, and this one's got a cover which keeps slipping about.'

'There's plenty of room in my rucksack. I've only got my sketch pad and some waterproofs.' Jo unfastened the rucksack as she was speaking and unpacked her sketch book on to the edge of the table, while she opened the drawstring wide enough to accommodate the largest of the volumes.

'How's the drawing coming along?'

'I think I'm improving.' For a moment Jo considered asking Sh.e.l.ley's opinion of her sheep and cattle, but it seemed presumptuous when Sh.e.l.ley was a proper artist who sold her pictures.

'You should join the Art Society. I keep on telling you that's the way to bring yourself on.'

'I'm really not good enough.'

'Rubbish that's what everyone thinks. The Art Society accepts anyone who's keen and you are keen yes, you are. You're always heading off out to draw something. You'd gain so much from it, and what have you got to lose?'

'I'll think about it.' Jo was lifting the last of the three books into her rucksack. She imagined Brian, towering over her, making some cutting remarks about her efforts with a paintbrush. She had always been wary of Brian, and now it was even worse.

Sh.e.l.ley might almost have read her mind. 'Brian's a marvellous teacher, you know. He would bring you on no end if you enrolled for one of his painting days.'

'No thanks.' The words were out before she could stop them way too emphatic. The awkwardness was palpable, but she couldn't find the words to put things right. 'I mean ... it would be difficult. And and I'm just not ready.'

'Your choice, of course,' said Sh.e.l.ley. She shrugged and half turned away, as if her attention had been caught by something which needed rearrangement on the table.

'Thanks for the books.'

'No probs. Hang on to them for as long as you need them.' Sh.e.l.ley didn't look up.

She knows, Jo thought, she knows what I thought about Brian. 'See you,' she said, as brightly as she could.

'Yeah, see you later,' said Sh.e.l.ley.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

'I've been doing some thinking', said Jo, 'while you've been away, and I was wondering whether we should consider moving away from here, making a fresh start.'

Dinner was over. Sean had returned to his room, but Marcus and Jo had lingered at the kitchen table, finishing off a bottle of wine. She had spoken tentatively, her eyes cast down on the place where her dinner plate had recently been, but now that she looked up to see how Marcus would react, she suddenly noticed how tired he seemed.

'This was our fresh start. A new place, a new enterprise. This is it, Jo. You can't just run away and start again every few years.'

'I just think that maybe we'd all be happier somewhere else.'

'Moving is a huge expense. We can't afford to extend our mortgage, then there's the business and Sean's school.'

'It would be better for Sean if we didn't live right out in the country like this. If he was nearer his school, living in a bigger community, where there were more young people ... He's had Harry this week, but Harry's family went home yesterday and there isn't anyone else of his own age for miles.'

'But he's just got started at his new school, and anyway, he always knows he can ask us for a lift to anywhere he wants to go. That's how kids in the country manage they travel by car between each other's houses.'

'He never wants to go anywhere. In fact, I don't believe he has made any new friends so it wouldn't matter much if he did change school.'

'Give him a chance; he's only just settling in. Friendships don't always happen overnight. It definitely wouldn't do his education any good to have another move.'

'Well, maybe he wouldn't need to change school. There must be other places to live in the school catchment area.'

'I don't get it.' Marcus changed tack. 'What is it that you suddenly don't like about living here? You used to love it. What's changed?'

Jo hesitated. She didn't want to tell him about the constant feeling of unseen eyes watching the house, and she certainly couldn't tell him about the unfortunate episode with Gilda Iceton and her daughter. 'It's very isolated out here,' she began tentatively. 'You don't notice when you're away a lot, but it's different now that I'm here all the time. In other places I've had friends living nearby.'

'You liked the peace and quiet, you always said. You could always make a bit more effort join something get to know a few people. And what about Sh.e.l.ley? I thought the two of you got on well ...'

The telephone saved her by trilling insistently at just the right moment. She stood up and lifted the phone from its cradle. 'h.e.l.lo?'

'h.e.l.lo is that Joanne?'

'Yes, it is.'

'It's Monica here Aunty Beryl's daughter. I've got some bad news, I'm afraid.'

'Oh dear,' Jo braced herself. 'What's happened?'

'Well inevitable really but Aunty Joan has died. I expect you knew that she's been poorly for some time.'

As Jo hunted up some appropriate expression of sympathy for Monica, a mixture of emotions rose within her. Aunty Joan had been one of her mother's aunts, the one who had never married, to whom Jo had been despatched a couple of times between periods with foster-parents and other relatives. Aunty Joan had lived in a small, terraced house in Accrington, which she had originally shared with and then inherited from her mother. The bedrooms had been full of strange old furniture, cavernous wardrobes, the interiors of which smelled like mothb.a.l.l.s. When everyone else had long since gone over to duvets, Aunty Joan's spare bed was still made up with starchy white sheets, ton-weight woollen blankets and a shiny, purplish-red quilted counterpane over the top.

Jo would have loved to live permanently with Aunty Joan, who bought cream cakes from the baker's shop to eat after Sat.u.r.day tea and a block of fruit and nut to share on Sunday evenings, but it had been impossible: Aunty Joan was a shop manageress, who did not get home until six o'clock in the evenings and had to work on Sat.u.r.days. That would have made Jo a latch-key kid, and the authorities didn't like that; although Jo could have told them that lots of people managed perfectly well in similar situations, and besides which, there were far worse things for a kid to be.