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Authors: Jo Bannister
Tags: Mystery
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more, I’ll let you know.”
CHAPTER 7
T HE HOUSE CAME as a surprise. At first Hazel thought he’d brought her to the wrong place—that he’d forgotten where he lived. Then she thought the house must have been divided and maybe he had a bed-sit in the basement. But no. Gabriel Ash—Rambles With Dogs—lived in a double-fronted stone-built Victorian house at the pricey end of Highfield Road. Even after the bottom fell out of the housing market, it must have been worth a small fortune.
“You’ll come in?”
She’d had no intentions of doing so, but nothing nobler than curiosity made Hazel follow him up the front steps and into the hall.
It had been built as a family house, but it wasn’t one anymore. As soon as she stepped inside she knew he lived here alone, unless you counted the dog. Not because he’d lapsed into a kind of squalor that no woman would have tolerated—the place was both clean and tidy. But there was an essential grayness in every room, a lack of warmth or color—not so much the decor as the very air itself. It was a sad house, a house that had known better times.
There was a kettle on the Aga. “I don’t think I’ve got any biscuits.” He gave her a thin smile. “Only dog biscuits.”
He’d taken Patience’s lead off as they came in, and she’d led the way into the kitchen. This seemed to be the main living- space, furnished with an ancient brown leather sofa and a chair, a bookcase full to bursting, a television set that had been state-of-the-art a decade earlier, and a dog bed. In spite of which, Patience appropriated the sofa. Ash didn’t even try to move her. He waved Hazel to the chair, and when the tea was made, he sat down beside his dog, stroking her ticked white fur absently.
Hazel was trying to fit what she knew about the man with where and how he lived. “Have you lived here long?”
“Three years.” He didn’t elaborate.
“On your own?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t pursue a line of questioning that was in danger of becoming impertinent. Partly because she thought she knew the answers. His wife had left him and he’d fallen apart. There had been no shortage of money at one point, but the good job that had enabled him to buy this property had been a casualty of the split and now he went on living in a house that was too big for him and that he couldn’t afford because he was clinging to the shreds of a happier past. One day soon the bank would give him the choice between selling up and foreclosure; until that happened, unable to make the move on his own, his occupation of it would contract into fewer and fewer rooms. Hazel thought that if she came back here in six months, she’d find he was sleeping in the kitchen as well.
No wonder the house seemed mournful. She wondered if they’d had children. If, for Ash, the rooms still echoed with the shrieks and laughter of excited children who now made only an occasional phone call and sent Love you, Daddy cards for Christmas and his birthday. If there was a shoe box somewhere with every one of them carefully preserved.
It wasn’t just morbid curiosity on Hazel’s part. It was significant that Gabriel Ash hadn’t always been as he was now. He hadn’t been born a sandwich short of a picnic. Once, not very long ago, he’d been an intelligent man with a good job. Maybe he’d always carried the seeds of breakdown within him, as many people do who are driven to achieve. But he’d held his life together with conspicuous success until not very long ago. His mental difficulties didn’t go back far, so perhaps they didn’t go down very deep.
So maybe she shouldn’t dismiss quite so lightly what he was telling her. She sipped her tea and said, “Tell me again what Jerome Cardy said.”
Ash’s eyes flew wide. They were the color of bitter chocolate, and, with the thick black hair and olive-tinted skin, gave him a slightly Mediterranean air. They had an expression in Norbold for someone with roots elsewhere: “A
CHAPTER 7
T HE HOUSE CAME as a surprise. At first Hazel thought he’d brought her to the wrong place—that he’d forgotten where he lived. Then she thought the house must have been divided and maybe he had a bed-sit in the basement. But no. Gabriel Ash—Rambles With Dogs—lived in a double-fronted stone-built Victorian house at the pricey end of Highfield Road. Even after the bottom fell out of the housing market, it must have been worth a small fortune.
“You’ll come in?”
She’d had no intentions of doing so, but nothing nobler than curiosity made Hazel follow him up the front steps and into the hall.
It had been built as a family house, but it wasn’t one anymore. As soon as she stepped inside she knew he lived here alone, unless you counted the dog. Not because he’d lapsed into a kind of squalor that no woman would have tolerated—the place was both clean and tidy. But there was an essential grayness in every room, a lack of warmth or color—not so much the decor as the very air itself. It was a sad house, a house that had known better times.
There was a kettle on the Aga. “I don’t think I’ve got any biscuits.” He gave her a thin smile. “Only dog biscuits.”
He’d taken Patience’s lead off as they came in, and she’d led the way into the kitchen. This seemed to be the main living- space, furnished with an ancient brown leather sofa and a chair, a bookcase full to bursting, a television set that had been state-of-the-art a decade earlier, and a dog bed. In spite of which, Patience appropriated the sofa. Ash didn’t even try to move her. He waved Hazel to the chair, and when the tea was made, he sat down beside his dog, stroking her ticked white fur absently.
Hazel was trying to fit what she knew about the man with where and how he lived. “Have you lived here long?”
“Three years.” He didn’t elaborate.
“On your own?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t pursue a line of questioning that was in danger of becoming impertinent. Partly because she thought she knew the answers. His wife had left him and he’d fallen apart. There had been no shortage of money at one point, but the good job that had enabled him to buy this property had been a casualty of the split and now he went on living in a house that was too big for him and that he couldn’t afford because he was clinging to the shreds of a happier past. One day soon the bank would give him the choice between selling up and foreclosure; until that happened, unable to make the move on his own, his occupation of it would contract into fewer and fewer rooms. Hazel thought that if she came back here in six months, she’d find he was sleeping in the kitchen as well.
No wonder the house seemed mournful. She wondered if they’d had children. If, for Ash, the rooms still echoed with the shrieks and laughter of excited children who now made only an occasional phone call and sent Love you, Daddy cards for Christmas and his birthday. If there was a shoe box somewhere with every one of them carefully preserved.
It wasn’t just morbid curiosity on Hazel’s part. It was significant that Gabriel Ash hadn’t always been as he was now. He hadn’t been born a sandwich short of a picnic. Once, not very long ago, he’d been an intelligent man with a good job. Maybe he’d always carried the seeds of breakdown within him, as many people do who are driven to achieve. But he’d held his life together with conspicuous success until not very long ago. His mental difficulties didn’t go back far, so perhaps they didn’t go down very deep.
So maybe she shouldn’t dismiss quite so lightly what he was telling her. She sipped her tea and said, “Tell me again what Jerome Cardy said.”
Ash’s eyes flew wide. They were the color of bitter chocolate, and, with the thick black hair and olive-tinted skin, gave him a slightly Mediterranean air. They had an expression in Norbold for someone with roots elsewhere: “A
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