The Fall Girl (7 page)

Come off it! This wasn’t like her. Lexy pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin and firmly closed her eyes.

She awoke, disorientated, at dawn. Sunlight was extending slim, bright fingers around the sides of the roughly pulled curtains. She’d made it through the night. Grinning
sheepishly at her earlier fears, Lexy pulled on her t-shirt and combats and padded across to open the curtains and unlock the patio doors. A rush of morning cool and birdsong assailed her. Kinky
pushed past her to get out.

She’d have a spot of breakfast – beans, again, unfortunately – then she’d get on to Milo and...

Lexy’s mouth fell open. The garden looked almost magically transformed from the grey gloom of the previous day. The early autumn sun sleeked over the flint wall and shimmered in the
dew-soaked lawn, enticing her out like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

She pulled on her trainers and went into the garden, breathing in the fresh, clear air.

The cottage lay in a low-walled garden bordered with native trees and shrubs – holly, elder, spindle and hawthorn. A sunny raised bed had been planted out with herbs, each carefully marked
up with its name on a wooden stick. Borage, ginger mint, chives, rosemary, golden sage, thyme – there must have been over twenty different varieties, some tumbling and rampant now, needing to
be tended and harvested.

In the centre of the garden, a picturesque mountain ash tree was laden with a mass of orange berries. Birds flitted and chirped in the foliage.

It felt like a little slice of Eden. Certainly a world apart from the rain-lashed scenario of the night before. But then, any amount of rain would be worth it for just one morning like this.

In the corner of the garden was an old lean-to shed. Lexy peered through the cobwebby window. It housed what she supposed to be Elizabeth’s car, a small red model with a serious rust
problem. Obviously hadn’t been driven for a while. Did she walk everywhere? Then Lexy spotted the bicycle, an old-fashioned sit-up-and-beg type with the word Pegasus printed along the frame.
It looked well-maintained, with a sizeable basket on the front, and seemed to fit the image of the woman very well. Lexy imagined the Elizabeth from the photo spinning along the country lanes on
this metal steed, her long, dark hair flying behind her.

She turned back to the garden. Across the grass was a wicker gate. Lexy headed for this, her footprints clear in the dew. It let out on to a path that ran further up the wooded hill. She opened
it, took a step out, and stopped, arrested by a shrill bark behind her. Kinky was standing in the centre of the lawn, looking wary.

“Don’t you want a little walkies?” Lexy coaxed.

In a series of grumbling whines, the chihuahua explained where to shove her little walkies.

“Please yourself.” Lexy set off.

Below her lay Pilgrim’s Farm and through the still, clear air she could see a tiny figure moving about in the yard.

The path led upwards through woodland that thinned as she climbed, eventually revealing an open area of grass, gorse and scrub which extended as far as the cliff edge. The view across Clopwolde
Bay was spectacular.

Kinky caught her up, panting and glaring. Lexy smiled to herself. He was so predictable.

They continued to the edge, the chihuahua again sticking close to Lexy’s heel, a model of canine probity. Lexy couldn’t figure it out. It was as if the cottage and Freshing Hill were
exerting some strange, restraining force on him.

Although it was early, the sun already felt warm on Lexy’s face. She stood looking out over the restless grey-green North Sea, dimpled with sunlight, and felt a stab of envy for Rowana.
What a shame she had to sell the place, and what a shame Lexy didn’t have a spare few hundred thousand in the bank to buy it. She couldn’t imagine why she had found it so sinister the
previous night.

A low mist hugged the shingle shore, some thirty feet below. The beach extended in a wide crescent all the way to Clopwolde, formed over centuries by the sea taking bite after patient bite from
the land’s edge.

She followed the path along the edge of the cliff. It wasn’t long before she came to a set of rough stone steps leading down. A wonky tubular metal rail ran beside the steps.

“Come on, fella.” Lexy began to descend.

Kinky dithered at the top.

“Stay there, then.”

Lexy was getting a mite fed up with the little caramel-coloured sod and his inexplicable moods. As she clambered down, a large, loose stone slipped from under her and tumbled heavily down to the
beach. Lexy clutched at the railing, falling on her backside. There was a rustle in the undergrowth, and a couple of rabbits shot away.

Kinky began barking. That was more like him.

Lexy pushed herself up. “Don’t even think about chasing them.”

Then she noticed it. Moving away from them through the mist.

“Not again,” she whispered.

But it was happening again. Old Shuck was at large, making along the beach for Clopwolde.

It was exactly the same creature she had glimpsed coming along the dyke towards her cabin yesterday morning. Head down, big powerful shoulders, drumming feet. As she gazed, the black,
shadow-like form disappeared into the mist. Drumming feet? The creature had to be mortal. Lexy clambered awkwardly to the beach, Kinky slithering down in her wake.

They found themselves on cool shingle glazed with silver wash from the sea. Pretty to look at but not great for running along in pursuit of mysterious black beasts. After five minutes Lexy was
exhausted, and Kinky had given up completely. There was no sight of the creature, or any trail of animal prints – no hope of that on the uneven ridges of pebbles. Thoroughly disconcerted,
Lexy trailed back to the steps, meeting up with the panting chihuahua on the way back.

They climbed back up the steps to the cliff top, and Lexy stared down at the beach until the mist lifted in shreds, revealing – nothing. Nothing other than a couple of early fishermen,
arriving and setting up on the shore. She debated whether or not to go down and ask them if they, too, had seen it. Then it occurred to her that Lonny had doubtless already regaled the entire
fishing community of Clopwolde with tales of a lush bird in underwear, gabbling about a sinister black apparition. She didn’t want to fan the flames of that one. She had a feeling she
wouldn’t be taken seriously, even fully dressed.

Half an hour later Lexy was sitting in the sun on Elizabeth Cassall’s back doorstep, drinking black tea, and eating cold baked beans straight from the tin.

She’d just tried the car and it had started first time. Seemed like her luck was beginning to change.

“Points must have been wet,” she told Kinky, without really knowing what this meant, other than that she could now drive to the village and get him some food before their
relationship deteriorated beyond repair.

“Remind me in future,” Lexy told him, “to keep some emergency packets of Doggy Chomps in the car, for the next time we illegally enter a remote cottage and spend the night
there.”

Kinky raked her knee, pleadingly.

Neither of them heard the stranger coming down the path at the side of Four Winds.

“Hey – who are you?” He rounded the wall, pushed the front gate open and advanced on her across the lawn.

Kinky gave a belated bark.

Lexy shaded her eyes and looked up in alarm, her mind swiftly formulating explanations as to why she should be sitting on Elizabeth Cassall’s back doorstep, eating cold baked beans and
drinking tea.

She assessed her interrogator. Mid-twenties, straight nose, high arched brow, light brown eyes. A Norman countenance, bit like one of those knights from the Bayeux Tapestry. His brown hair was
cut short, and a little ruffled, as if he had just removed a chain mail helmet.

He took a brief, almost furtive glance back up the footpath from where he had just come, then fixed his autocratic gaze back on her.

“I could ask you the same question.” Might as well meet fire with fire.

“I’m Tyman Gallimore, Pilgrim’s Farm.” As if she should have known.

Gallimore. Must be one of the lusty sons Edward and Peter were discussing the day before.

“Lexy Lomax. I’m a friend of the Patersons.”

“Oh. Right.” She could see him struggling to think who the hell the Patersons were.

“Perhaps you haven’t met yet?”

“No... I don’t think...”

“The new owners.” Lexy jerked her head back at the cottage.

She really had him on the back foot now. In fact, he looked like she’d just slung a sandbag in his gut.

“W... what? You... you mean it’s been sold already?”

“Not sold. Elizabeth Cassall bequeathed it.”

“What?”

“You know. Left it to someone in her will.”

Uninvited, Tyman Gallimore sank down on to the path opposite the step. He eyed her, heaving a sigh. “Yes. I know what bequeathed means.”

“Problem?” Lexy enquired.

“You could say that.” He shot another quick glance up the path. “We just assumed it would go straight on the market.”

“We?”

“My dad, my brother and me.”

“You want to buy it?”

“We were planning to, yes. Do you know what these... Patersons... intend to do with it?”

Lexy shook her head. “Bit early to say.”

“Who are they, anyway? Not relatives of Elizabeth?” He was crushing one fisted hand tightly into the palm of the other, nails digging hard into the flesh. What was his problem?

“There’s some kind of family link.” She chose her words with care. “It’s a father and two daughters. Elizabeth left the place to the younger daughter.”

He looked perplexed, as well he might. “And you say they’re friends of yours?”

“Yes. I kind of... help them out. That’s what I’m doing here now, actually. Checking over a couple of things while they sort out the paperwork in Clopwolde.” Although
they don’t know it.

“That your dog?”

Lexy considered Kinky, who had been sitting at her side throughout the whole exchange. “What, him? Nah. He was just hanging around the place.”

Tyman rolled his eyes. “It’s only that I would have had you down as more of, I dunno, a lurcher owner. You know, something with a bit of street cred.”

Was that a compliment? “So a chihuahua isn’t cool?”

“Well... no. Has he been in an accident?”

“Fight.”

“He fights?”

“Let’s just say he has a tendency towards risky situations.” At least he used to have.

The light brown eyes looked politely sceptical. “We’ve got a German Shepherd.” As though theirs was a proper dog.

“Better not bring it up here when Kinky’s around. Mincemeat.”

Tyman laughed then, a little too long and loudly. He was very nervous about something.

“Glad the weather’s picked up,” Lexy said, to fill the sudden lull.

He nodded. “You should have seen it over here last night. It was crazy.”

“I know. I was here.”

He sat bolt upright. “You mean you were here last night? Actually here in the cottage?”

“Uh... yeah. Is that bad?”

He rubbed his forehead, eyes distracted. “Course not. I was just a bit surprised. I mean, it’s so isolated up here, you know. For a girl on her...” He clocked Lexy’s
expression and moved on. “So, are you off back home today? Have you done what you need to here?”

“Why?”

“Surely you don’t want to spend another night up here on your own?”

Why didn’t Tyman Gallimore want her staying at the cottage?

“It doesn’t bother me.” Much. Lexy remembered the loudly ticking clock and imagined cold draught.

There was another silence. Again, Lexy was the one who broke it. “Did you know Elizabeth?”

“Yes.” His voice was guarded. “Didn’t you?”

She shook her head.

“But you live locally?”

“Clopwolde. Although I’ve only been there three months.” She pressed on with her original line. “I guess it must have been quite a shock for you when Elizabeth died the
way she did?”

“Of course it bloody was.”

Lexy raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry. It’s just that it was actually me who found her. You know... just after the accident.”

“Oh.” For a brief, crazy moment Lexy wanted to ask him if he had spotted an ancient robed deity fleeing the scene. “Guess that must have been pretty awful.”

“Just a bit.” His expression made Lexy wonder what sort of state Elizabeth must have been in. “It’s something that’s happened to me twice, now. I saw... someone
else... fall like that, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a while ago. But Elizabeth...” Tyman launched into the story as if he had been desperate to tell someone ever since it happened.

“I was coming down the hill for breakfast after I’d been checking on the sheep. I go up there every morning.” He broke off, his eyes roving up the path again.

“It was just on nine o’clock. It all seemed pretty quiet when I came to the cottage, which was a bit unusual. Elizabeth was normally up and about well before that time in the
morning. I went to the kitchen door and knocked, then I went round the corner of the house to the front door.” His eyes became unfocused.

“Found her on the rockery. She was lying at an odd angle. I knew immediately she was dead. Guessed she’d fallen from the balcony.”

Lexy gave him an enquiring look.

“You don’t get injuries like that from just tripping over.”

She winced.

“Must have just happened, she was barely cold. But there was nothing I could do. Like the kiss of life, or anything.”

Lexy digested this. “I wonder if she died straight away, when she fell?”

“Oh, yes. It was immediate. At least, that was what the doctor said.”

“Right. So she didn’t...”

He caught her drift. “Suffer. No.”

Lexy nodded. At least she could put Rowana’s mind to rest on that count.

“Thing is, I feel really guilty about it.” There was a terrible sadness in his voice.

“Guilty? Why?”

He stammered slightly. “W... what I mean to say is that I could probably have prevented it.”

Lexy’s tawny eyes narrowed. “Do you know how it happened, then?”