Winter’s Children: Curl up with this gripping, page-turning mystery as the nights get darker. Leah Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ a conscience after all and was trying to make up for that insensitive intrusion.

      ‘We spend a fortune doing up that barn and now you grumble because it gets let out. After the summer we’ve had, we should thank the Good Lord that we still have this asset left,’ she added.

      ‘Yes, and look what it cost us!’ Nik thought of the antiques they’d had to sell to fund the project. ‘I don’t like townies cluttering up the place, leaving gates open and asking silly questions.’ He did not want any post mortems with strangers, their pitying glances when they realised what had happened. He had good reason to hate what the summer had done to farmers. Was he not burying one of them that very afternoon?

      ‘Bruce Stickley gave good advice when he suggested we went for a top-of-the-range conversion: double glazing, central heating. We’ll be getting top whack for the let. It has a view second to none down the valley. There’s no pleasing you, son,’ Nora snapped. ‘It’s the only decent investment we’ve got left apart from the house. If we decide to sell up–’

      He did not want to hear another word about selling up. ‘Stickley’s not having the house. Over my dead body! I know what he’s really after; soft-soaping you with a good letting, for once. He’s got his eyes on Wintergill for himself, always has had … He’ll slap planning permission on every bloody barn, shed, nook and cranny, strip the assets and keep the real prize for himself. I know his little tricks.’

      Nora knew he was right. ‘Bruce has a point, you know,’ she replied. ‘This place is too big for the two of us. We rattle round like dried peas in a drum. What do we need twenty rooms for? It’s not as if–’ She stopped abruptly. ‘You know what I mean.’

      ‘Stop that, Mother. Wintergill House has been in this family for generations and I see no reason to change. Snowdens have made a good living from this land. Peaks and troughs, ups and downs, this is just a bad patch but we’ll survive,’ he argued, standing his ground.

      ‘Do you really think so in this climate, son? Be reasonable. I’m getting too old … I’m the wrong end of seventy and you’re not getting any younger … Who’s going to follow us then?’ She paused for breath, sensing this was not the time for recriminations. There were no other Snowdens left to inherit … ‘Rationalisation is the word on everyone’s tongue,’ she continued. ‘It makes common sense to take the money and run. We’ve got choices now. You haven’t decided on spending anything yet.’

      ‘That money stays in the bank for restocking and I don’t intend to restock until I’m sure where I’m going,’ Nik argued. ‘I’m not listening to your doom and gloom; I’m off for a quick bath.’

      ‘What about the logs?’ she shouted up.

      ‘Later, there’s plenty of time,’ he replied, bounding up the stairs, peeling off his clothes as he went in search of his dark best suit, peering at his outline in the tallboy mirror. He paused to examine his torso: not in bad shape at all, broad shoulders, not much of a beer belly when he stood sideways, strong haunches, muscular legs from years of rugby, and a decent set of tackle in fine working order but underused lately.

      He would still make a good tup! If only he had sired a son to pass on the name and the heritage. How could Mother begin to understand how he felt about this house, the farm and its land? The love of it was bred in his bone. Damn it, this was the only thing he had left to love!

      Nik dipped his head in the lukewarm water to rinse off the shampoo. If only there was a son to follow him, but he’d left it a bit late now. Oh, Mandy! I thought you were the one … He’d met her at a Young Farmers’ ball in Harrogate. She was a hairdresser out for fun, dancing on fire with gorgeous black hair and a figure to match. It was lust at first sight. She’d been dazzled by the size of the farm, enchanted by the James Herriot setting for a while until the reality of this life dawned. They married in haste, too young and love blind to the fact that their worlds were too far apart to make a lasting relationship work.

      Nik shut his eyes to block out the image of her in the barn with her legs coiled round Danny Pighills’ waist as he pumped himself into her. If his gun had been handy he’d have shot them both like vermin. He’d torn them apart and given Danny such a beating. He wasn’t proud of himself but he was drunk, shamed and humiliated. She’d left that night and returned only for her clothes under armed guard. It was all around the district that Nik Snowden couldn’t keep his wife. He was deeply hurt by her rejection of all he held dear. The bitterness he’d felt then had eased to a dull ache of regret. He had not heard from her in years.

      Now he was resigned to the single life – once bitten and all that … Occasionally there was a fling with one of the pub crowd but nothing serious. He was never in a sound enough financial position until now to take on another partner, and he was wary. Women were not to be trusted. The world around had changed since his youth, when farmers’ wives knew their place. Now they ganged up together and argued their corner, demanding equal shares in the business and working outside the farmstead just to keep their kids clothed and heeled. In his heart he knew that such women deserved respect but if the truth were told, the confidence of some of those brass-faced lasses scared the pants off him!

      Now Jim Grimoldby’s sudden death had shaken his faith in his own judgement. There he had sat, on the same bar stool at the Spread Eagle with his old school mate for years, moaning on about Defra and all the EU regulations, working out plans for their compensation, laughing at Jim’s terrible jokes, playing darts, the occasional game of rugby, while Jim was going through hell.

      You never knew what was going on in someone else’s head. That space between the ears is always a lonely place, he thought. Was it just depression at the sight of his sheep culled, too much to drink, or was it utter weariness with the whole damned shooting match that made his friend walk onto the moor with his shotgun and blow his head off? What sort of friend had he been not to recognise such despair? There’d been enough leaflets and confidential phone numbers to ring for counselling but Dalesmen are proud and stubborn – shy of talking to strangers, however well-meaning.

      Brian Saddleworth had had a stroke when his stock was taken out, and was selling up. Poor Nigel Danby was in the last stages of lung cancer and in no fit state to carry on. It had been a bad year for the dale farmers on top of foot-and-mouth. So he must stomach this coming intrusion and think about the monthly rental cheque. If his father could see the state things had got to … Tom Snowden once refused even to consider bed and breakfast as a small sideline. Now every farm had a sign at the lane end. That was, until the blanket closure of every footpath, and the walkers all but disappeared.

      When he thought how they had slummed it over the years in this cold barn of a house with its winding oak staircase, dark panelling, mullioned windows and ancient furniture. It didn’t seem right to sell off their heirlooms to help fund a project that would have their guests living in a luxury his own mother had never enjoyed.

      Old Joss Snowden, Nik’s great-great-grandfather, would be turning in his grave if he knew what he had done. If truth were told, he’d been dipping into the family silver for years, oak settles here, a piece of silver there, topping up his losses. It couldn’t have gone on for much longer. Now there was money coming out of his ears and Stickley was suggesting they sell the place, lock, stock, to some London magnate for a shooting lodge, though even the grouse here were thin on the ground in this grim weather. Who would want to take on this albatross?

      Sandringham it wasn’t – more like Wuthering Heights on a bad day – but he loved every wooden nail of it. It was his castle and his domain, his kingdom. There’d been a dwelling here since before recorded history. He was always digging up shards of Roman pottery, Celtic pin brooches, clay pipes and medieval tiles and coins. Nik had quite a collection stashed away somewhere.

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