Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
For the next two weeks things were calmer.
That is, they were full-on, frenetic, noisy and exhausting – Kate hadn’t realised just how much work supervising so many builders would be.
Although Nikolas was nominally in charge of the conversions, he was only visiting weekly, and it seemed like every other minute someone had a question for her about how a hole should be dug or whether a beam could be salvaged.
She was careful to refer anything she wasn’t sure about to Annie, the conservation officer, who was turning out to be quite helpful, now Matt and Kate were playing by the rules.
Kate had got hold of heritage paints, too, and was busy finishing off the rooms she’d had to abandon before.
But, on the village front, there were no more developments, and no more poison-pen letters either.
She and Matt even started getting takeaway pizzas from the Pelham Arms again, although she noticed that Jason always managed to contrive things so it was one of the other staff who served them.
By unspoken agreement, she and Matt didn’t speak about Jamie Finch’s offer.
There was no point – they’d resolved not to take it, and that was that.
But occasionally, lying awake in the small hours, she’d find herself trying to work out how many days had passed since he’d made it, and what it was now worth – like a hideous doomsday clock, counting down in the background.
Then she’d firmly push the thought away.
It would be unthinkable to leave Trade Cottage now.
They’d just have to find some way of scotching this solar farm.
It was mid-afternoon on Thursday when she heard a bang – loud enough to puncture the constant low rattling of the diggers and to echo off the woods below, scattering birds into the air.
Involuntarily, she flinched. She hadn’t heard the gas guns for a while, though she was always slightly on edge, knowing they could start again at any moment.
But this had sounded different, somehow.
Nearer, and higher pitched than the bird scarers’ booming explosions.
Putting down her paintbrush, she went into the garden to see if it was something to do with the contractors. But the digger drivers were all wearing helmets with ear defenders, and none of them seemed to have noticed anything over the din.
She glanced up at the side of The Old Tennis Court.
That big pane of frosted glass facing Trade Cottage, last time she’d looked at it, had been a pristine, milky white, almost velvety in texture.
Now, it was piebald, spattered with dark patches on the inside, some almost blackberry-juice coloured . . .
It took a moment for it to sink in, for her to realise what she was seeing. Dashing to the gate in the hedge, she ran up to The Old Tennis Court’s side door.
‘Rosemary?’ she called into the house, panting. ‘Rosemary – are you all right?’
Rosemary came out of the shadows towards her. Her face was covered in blood, her clothes smeared and streaked with it, as if she’d tried to wipe her hands clean on herself. In one bloodied hand was a phone.
‘It’s Paul,’ she said hoarsely. ‘He’s dead. He’s shot himself in the wet room.’