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

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СКАЧАТЬ habebit humus.’ Earth will hold us.

      ‘Mea filia pulchra.’ My beautiful daughter. Latin was such a dignified language to hide one’s grief in. She didn’t want the world to read her sorrow. It was enough that Father and child were together under the maple, Acer pseudo-platanus ‘Brilliantissimum', that fired each spring.

      Farmers were used to death and the cruelty of nature, she mused. The hooded crows pecked out the eyes of newborn lambs if the ewe did not birth quickly enough. Foxes tore the heads off them for fun. Nature separated the weakest and picked them off, but this contagion levelled all in its path. Only the fit would survive the rigours of this coming winter.

      Tom had a decent span, Shirley did not. She never talked about it much. What good would it do? There was no point in weeping and wailing and falling apart when there was another child and a farm to run. Sorrows were best kept in the family under lock and key. That’s why offcomers often called Dales folk cold, unfeeling, a subhuman species, impervious to suffering, but Jim’s death and foot-and-mouth showed otherwise. Underneath the weatherbeaten faces assembled on this bleak afternoon were the same fears and sorrows. Farmers had their own ways of dealing with them. Some took to religion or drink. She was the worst of all when it came to bottling things up.

      ‘Sad business is this, Mrs Snowden,’ whispered Bruce Stickley in her ear, looking every inch the successful country land agent in his navy Crombie coat and knife-edged trousers. She never trusted a man who had time to put his trousers in such a shape. But she nodded quickly and looked away.

      Bruce Stickley was quick to strike up conversation these days. ‘It makes you think what’ll be happening next, doesn’t it?’ he continued. ‘Soon there won’t be any farms to manage, if this climate continues. You’ll be the last farm left in the dale.’

      Nora shrugged in reply.

      ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he continued, oblivious to her disinterest. ‘You’ve got one of the most sought-after properties in the Dales with those three magic ingredients.’ He grinned.

      ‘Go on, surprise me,’ she quipped sharply.

      ‘Location … location, location,’ he replied. ‘There’s nothing to beat a south aspect, a hilltop view and a splendid array of ancient buildings to create interest in a sale. You’d get a tidy packet for all of it, even in the condition it’s in. If ever you think of selling I hope I’d be your first port of call.’

      If she’d been a man she’d have socked him in the bollocks just to wipe that smug expression off his greasy face: odious little man with his slicked-back hair and hooded eyes. He thought he was the bee’s knees, but he was nothing but a blowfly feeding off a carcass. ‘This is hardly the time or place,’ she sniffed haughtily, piercing him with her icy stare.

      ‘Of course … but I just wanted you to know,’ Stickley countered with about as much sensitivity as a wolf on heat.

      ‘What gives you the idea we’ll be selling up?’ she snapped back.

      ‘With Nik having no one to take over, and the change in your circumstances,’ he answered, not so sure of his ground now.

      ‘So?’

      ‘I know how it is for hill farmers now. I saw Nik at the diversification lecture. Have you thought about developing the other barns?’

      ‘What we decide to do is none of your damned business, young man,’ she snapped. ‘Like father, like son, so I see. I knew your father. He always drew a hard bargain, always on the lookout for something cheap or run down. You’ve done well out of other people’s sorrows over the years … We’re here to honour a poor man who couldn’t take any more bad luck, not to do deals over his corpse. Show some respect!’ She turned her back on the estate agent and made for the open grave to throw her handful of soil into the hole. She did not want Bruce Stickley to see that his words had hit home.

      So the news was out that they were hovering on the brink of a decision like so many here today. You need only be seen going into the estate agent’s office on market day for nosy parkers to put two and two together to make five. Nik was right: Bruce had an eye on their house for himself. Well, tough, she’d rather sell it at a loss than allow him the deeds.

       Northbound

      It was raining in Bradford when the travellers slipped off the M62, and sleeting on the road to Skipton, but the intrepid driver ploughed on northwards along the A65. The snow was settling on the pavements in Settle as they made their way cautiously upwards where the snowflakes floated as thick as goose feathers onto the windscreen.

      Trying not to panic, thankful that gritters were already ahead clearing a path, Kay Partridge continued to climb upwards over clanking cattle grids in the dusky light.

      ‘Are we nearly there?’ said Evie, her daughter, with thumb in mouth, eyeing the snow with fascination.

      ‘Last lap, muppet,’ she answered, not daring to stop in case they slithered to a halt and found themselves stranded halfway up the hill. The Freelander was stuffed to the gills with bedding, toys, books, the contents of her mother-in-law’s freezer, radio, video, plastic bags full of clothes. There was plenty of ballast.

      Within days of deciding to rent a cottage in the half-term break, everything slotted together so neatly that surely this impulsive decision was meant to be?

      She plumped for Wintergill House the minute she saw its details on the screen. Perhaps it was the name that caught her attention. It was as close to her dream home as she could find, and she wanted a place for winter. Wintergill looked old, remote and on a hillside. The details were just right. There were three bedrooms and it was part of the old estate, now a working farm. Kay also ran off loads of bumf about the district, just to be sure. It wasn’t far from Bankwell and Gran’s old place, although no one would remember her now. Even the village school had its own website. It was familiar territory, and even if she’d not been back for years, she felt a lightening of her spirit to be back in Yorkshire.

      Now they were in another world and the wheels scrunched on pristine snow. It was all very exciting but scary. November was a little early for a blizzard, surely? Soon the lights of Wintergill would shine out like beacons guiding them forward. The weather could close them in for weeks and she wouldn’t care.

      ‘We’ve made it,’ she sighed, turning to her daughter, but the child had snuggled back under the blanket and gone back to sleep. It was time to stop the car, light up a ciggie and draw a deep breath, blowing the smoke out of the window, ashamed at her weakness but it gave her time to savour the moment. Was this real or was she dreaming? Would she wake up back in Sutton Coldfield, with her mother-in-law bending her ear?

      Poor Eunice! She’d swept into Kay’s bedroom without knocking, waving tickets in her hand. ‘I’ve got front seats in the dress circle on Boxing Day … won’t that be fun?’

      ‘That’s very kind of you but I’m afraid we’ll not be here for Christmas this year,’ Kay whispered. ‘I’ve booked a country cottage away from it all.’

      ‘Without telling us first?’ Eunice snapped. ‘For how long? I suppose I can exchange them for January.’

      ‘We’ll be leaving after half term … it’s a six-month winter let,’ Kay said, СКАЧАТЬ