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of walkers. ‘Dennis the gamekeeper went past in his smart shooting suit and Len went past with the beaters in the game cart. Do you think they’ll call in afterwards?’
    ‘Who? The beaters?’ I asked, baffled, not even totally sure what beaters did.
    ‘No, silly, Clayton and Alessandro.’ I loved the way their names slipped so casually off her tongue, as if she’d known them for ever.
    ‘Shouldn’t think so. They’ve probably got food and drink enough where they are,’ I replied, cross that she assumed I was just as interested in the two footballers as she was. As if I’d even thought of them at all.
    ‘Mmmm…It would be good, though, wouldn’t it?’ Becca was going dreamy over the pumps.
    ‘Becca, they’re only footballers,’ I said. ‘They’re good at running round in shorts kicking a ball. Like small boys, only paid more. They’re not finding a cure for cancer.’
    Yikes! I sounded just like my mother. Now that was a scary thought.
    While I waited to use the computer, I sat with a coffee—definitely a coffee this time—and flicked through the papers. Despite what I’d been saying to Becca, for the first time in my life, I started with the sports pages. But there were no pictures of Clayton Silver, nor Alessandro. It wasfull of pictures of other footballers from other teams who had been playing the night before. I turned back quickly to the main pages, as if I hadn’t actually meant to look at the sports pages, skipped over the serious stuff and studied the gossip columns. But there were more pictures of the girl from the nightclub.
    ‘That Foxy model seems to have well and truly vanished,’ I said vaguely to Becca as I turned the pages.
    ‘Don’t worry, she’ll turn up,’ said Dexter, grinning as he came up from the cellar with a box of mixers. ‘Just gone to ground temporarily, no doubt. Give the pack a bit of fun.’ He was laughing, as if it were some huge joke. Then he stopped, as though he’d just remembered something. ‘How did you get on with the cheese-maker?’
    ‘Excellent. Really good. I’ve got something for you. Some High Dales nettle cheese for you to try.’ I took the carefully wrapped package from the bag. Dexter brought some savoury biscuits and a knife from the kitchen and we sat either side of the bar eating slivers of the cheese, which, we decided, was excellent. I felt as if we were already old friends. I watched him as he ate the cheese. He was about ten years older than me, I guessed. Despite his easy smile, his face was lined and lived-in. His jumper might be shapeless but it had once been good, like the shirt he wore underneath it. At one time he’d clearly had an eye for good clothes. It was a big leap to go from being a successful photographer to a publican in the middle of nowhere. I wondered what had brought him back.
    I asked him about his photographs, especially the one of the valley I’d seen the evening before.
    ‘I sometimes feel as if the place is full of ghosts,’ he said. ‘As if all the people who’ve ever lived up here are still here; as if they’ve never left the dale. I waited hours for the light to be right for that picture and when I printed it up I almostexpected to see ghosts in the pictures—the old lead miners, farmers, the Vikings. Even the Romans. As if they couldn’t get away. Like me,’ he laughed.
    ‘Did you not get away?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Not much choice really. After college, I went to Leeds to work for an agency, then I had a few years in London, doing more and more work for myself, my own projects. Then I got married and moved up to Manchester…’
    Married? Oh, maybe he wasn’t gay after all then.
    ‘…but then my marriage fell apart.’ Oh. Maybe he was…
    ‘…and then my dad died and I inherited this place. It had been let out for years. I didn’t really know what to do with it. But my wife—ex-wife—wanted her share of the Manchester house—like, immediately. She is one scary woman. So we sold that. And I