The Shrouded Path Read online

  The previous evening, after taking a hot shower that had been unexpectedly powerful, she’d put on her pyjamas and dropped off to sleep. She’d expected vivid dreams but the soft mattress had enveloped her until she was woken by the sound of bottles clanking from an early morning beer delivery. As she’d emerged from the depths of the bed, the reality of her loss hit her again and all she wanted to do was climb back into the warm sheets and lie in the darkness. Instead, she’d dragged herself out of bed, checked her photos were still in the diary and then trudged down to breakfast.

  Cold Eaton had a livelier feel than the previous time she’d visited. People were up and about, getting into cars and talking on the pavement. An air of anticipation. Emily was dressed for a day outside, an old Barbour jacket covering her round body. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was a struggle to get out of bed.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, but you did the right thing getting up anyway. What are you up to today?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.’

  ‘Nothing’s the worst thing you could do. Why not go out and get some fresh air?’

  ‘Around the village?’

  ‘Why not?’ Emily picked up Mina’s uneaten cooked breakfast. ‘The air’s bracing enough. It’ll stop you feeling maudlin.’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ve got some leaflets in the back of the van that I could post through letterboxes as I go around. I might pick up some work in the future.’

  Emily looked put out, Mina’s plans perhaps not tallying with the actions of a grieving daughter. I’ll mourn in my own way, thought Mina.

  ‘There’s plenty of houses that need a spruce up around here, that’s true,’ Emily said, finally.

  ‘Are you open today?’

  ‘Of course. Oh I see.’ Emily looked down at her clothes. ‘I’m going up to help Harry Neale collect the wood for the bonfire night. He’s put out a call for people to give him a hand.’

  ‘Bonfire?’

  ‘It’s a big thing here. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.’

  ‘The Cold Eaton bonfire? It rings a bell but we never really celebrated Guy Fawkes.’

  ‘Catholic, are you?’

  Mina laughed. ‘No. My mum didn’t like the celebrations. She thought it was gruesome burning a man on top of a fire. We never went to any bonfires.’

  ‘It is gruesome.’ Mina turned at the note of satisfaction in Emily’s voice but she had disappeared into the kitchen. She came back with two cups of dark black liquid. ‘Coffee.’ She put the cups on the table and reached into her pocket then placed something in the window of the pub.

  ‘Good God, what’s that?’ Mina bent forward for a closer look. It was a tiny doll, dressed in black on top of a wooden structure. Leaning forward, Mina could see that it was an effigy of a man on top of a pile of sticks.

  Emily grinned at her. ‘Good, isn’t it? I made it when I was a teenager and I bring it out every year.’

  Mina leant further forward to look closely at the model. It was beautifully made and looked so delicate that it might disintegrate to the touch. Yet Emily had been carrying it around in her pocket.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ Mina looked across at solid Emily with her red hands cupping her hot coffee. ‘You made it?’

  Emily acknowledged the compliment with an incline of her head. Twigs had been bunched together in a heap to resemble a bonfire. But the young Emily hadn’t glued them together because, if she had, the structure would have disintegrated by now. Instead she’d threaded wire around the sticks, tying them together so that the copper thread became part of the structure, glinting in the low morning sun. The tiny Guy was even more intricate. He’d been fashioned a small pinstripe suit, every detail perfect down to the stitched collar over a white shirt.

  ‘He’s properly dressed. Like an old-fashioned businessman. What made you choose those clothes?’

  Emily smiled. ‘Just what people liked to wear in the fifties, except one of the villagers who went the other way.’

  ‘What do you mean the other way?’

  ‘Oh, never mind that. Some’s so proud of the skin they’re born with they don’t want to wear any clothes. Do you want to see how I made the buttons on the jacket?’ Emily pulled at one of the black orbs and pulled out a pin. ‘See?’

  Mina recoiled. ‘It’s like a voodoo doll.’

  Two spots of colour appeared in Emily’s cheeks. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. It’s a way of making sure everything stays intact.’

  ‘I’m amazed it’s lasted so long. It’s almost magical that it’s still so complete.’

  ‘It comes out every year and it’ll be back in its box by Monday morning.’

  Mina stirred her coffee. ‘The bonfire is on Sunday?’

  ‘Of course. We always have it on the fifth, whatever day of the week it is. None of this nearest Saturday business. It’s easier when it’s at the weekend, though, as building the bloody thing is exhausting.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Emily looked out of the window. ‘They’ll be ringing the bells on the Sunday to say that the church service is over. The villagers will go from there to the Neales’ field and take the wood that we’ve collected today and start assembling the bonfire.’

  ‘Don’t they usually do that a few days before? Letting the sticks dry in situ.’

  Emily pursed her lips and gave Mina an odd look. ‘A few years back some kids built a den inside. We nearly burnt the blighters alive. So now the sticks are gathered one side of the field and kept dry with a cover. We assemble the bonfire on the day.’

  ‘I might stay until then. Will there be fireworks?’

  ‘There’ll be some.’ Emily’s tone was grudging. ‘We like to do things the traditional way here. A Catherine wheel or two. We don’t want to frighten the animals with loud bangs.’

  ‘I don’t want to go if it’s full of tourists.’

  ‘At this time of year? It’s locals, although you will get a smattering of visitors there.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. It depends how I feel. I’m not sure I’m up to crowds of people at the moment.’ Mina stood up to go, opening her rucksack to check she had everything she needed. The photos had fallen out of the pages of her diary and into the sticky mess at the bottom of her bag. Mina retrieved them and, as she wiped the image of her mother against her scarf to remove the fluff, she heard Emily take a sharp intake of breath and exhale again slowly. Mina looked up in surprise.

  ‘What is it?’

  Emily’s eyes had moved onto the other photo that Mina was grasping in her hands. ‘Black and white photos. That takes me back.’

  Emily’s expression made Mina want to thrust the images back into the safety of her rucksack. Her landlady’s face was a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. ‘Can I look?’

  Mina hesitated but handed over the picture of Hilary. Emily only glanced at it, her eyes still on the other, which Mina passed to her as well.

  ‘It’s of some of Mum’s friends.’ She watched as a flush of red crept up Emily’s face. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Emily handed back the pictures and wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘I need to be going.’

  ‘Do you recognise anyone?’

  But Emily was off. ‘I can’t stay here nattering, I need to get working. Be careful who you show those pictures to.’

  35

  If Camilla had stopped for a moment to look around her in the foyer of St Bertram’s, she’d have noticed a teenage girl, small for her age with a name badge twisted around her neck, crying into the shoulder of an older woman. Camilla, however, barely noticed her surroundings as she made her way to the cardiac care unit. She found her mother in the busy ward sitting with her overnight bag on the made bed, ready to go home.

  ‘Are you okay? I’m not late, am I? I told you I’d get here around eleven.’

  Ginnie turned, lost in thought, and shook her head as if to rid herself of unwanted images. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

&n
bsp; Camilla dropped her handbag and reached out to touch her mother. ‘You’re not anxious about leaving, are you? Your consultant said you didn’t need to be here any more.’

  Ginnie grimaced. ‘I can’t wait to get back to my own things. Is the house okay?’

  Camilla opened the bedside cupboard to check if there was anything left inside, hiding her face from Ginnie. ‘The window in the pantry broke. I think it must have been left open when you came into hospital. The man came out to fix it this morning.’

  Ginnie sounded concerned. ‘I wasn’t burgled, was I?’

  ‘Everything’s as it was. It was probably the wind the other morning. It’s all fixed now.’

  Camilla looked up at her mother, who was frowning. ‘Can we go? I want to check the house.’

  ‘Of course. Don’t lift your bag, I’ll carry it. Is there anyone you want to say goodbye to?’

  ‘I just want to go.’ Her mother’s voice held an unfamiliar flatness to it.

  ‘You’ve been discharged, I just need to let the nurse know we’re leaving.’

  Camilla’s mother sat back down on the bed. ‘I’ll wait.’

  A blonde nurse was looking at a clipboard at the entrance, her hair pulled back into a folded plait, reminiscent of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s heroines.

  ‘I’ve come to take Mrs Sadler home.’

  The nurse looked up, distracted. ‘I’ve given her all her medication. She’s put it into her overnight bag. I checked she knew what she had to take. There are three types of tablets. Two you take morning and evening with food. One just in the morning. Do you want me to go through it again? Mrs Sadler seemed to take it in all right.’

  Camilla thought of her grumpy, intelligent mother and suppressed a smile. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’

  ‘Are you driving her home?’

  ‘Yes, and I can stay with her for a few hours until I pick my kids up from school.’

  The nurse smiled slightly. ‘I think getting home will do her the world of good. She can’t wait to leave.’

  ‘It’s not you,’ Camilla rushed to reassure the young woman. ‘She’s not a brilliant patient.’

  ‘I’m not taking it personally,’ she said, turning back to the clipboard.

  Camilla’s mother was still sitting on the bed. ‘Can we go out the back way?’

  ‘What do you mean the back way? There’s only one entrance to this ward. What’s the matter?’

  Ginnie folded her arms. ‘I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself, that’s all.’

  Camilla picked up her mother’s bag and guided Ginnie up by the elbow. ‘There’s only one way out. We won’t stop if you don’t want to, we’ll just say goodbye to whoever’s there as we leave.’

  Now that she was on her feet, Ginnie was clearly desperate to get moving. Her strides were longer than Camilla’s and as she reached the front of the ward, she tugged fruitlessly at the double doors.

  ‘You need to press the green button at the side,’ the blonde nurse shouted over to her.

  Without looking backwards, Ginnie slapped her hand against the protruding button and left the ward.

  Camilla caught up with her at the lift, panting slightly because of the weight of the bag. ‘Mum,’ she hissed. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I just want to get out of here.’

  ‘I understand but there was no need to rush out like that.’ A horrible thought entered her mind. ‘They didn’t mistreat you, did they?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Ginnie looked her daughter in the eye. ‘Of course they didn’t mistreat me.’

  ‘Then what’s the matter?’

  Her mother’s mouth settled into a thin line. ‘I want to check my home is okay.’

  *

  Back at the house, as Camilla made a pot of tea, her mother inspected the new window. ‘It was bent, you say.’

  ‘Well, warped. I think it had been left open when you were taken in and the wind caught it. The new one matches perfectly, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Have you checked if anyone got in?’

  ‘Mum! I told you, everything’s intact. Why don’t you check yourself? Everything’s okay. Your jewellery, the money you keep in the tin on the shelf. Look …’

  Camilla pulled down the old Fox’s biscuit tin and opened it. Five ten pound notes lay loosely nestled inside. Her mother’s emergency stash. ‘It would have been easy to find if someone had got in.’

  She heard her mother climb the stairs and move into her bedroom at the back of the house. She could hear Ginnie opening the top drawer of her dressing room table and then shutting it. Should I ask her about the blood on her jumper? thought Camilla. There were more creaks of the floorboards as her mother moved around the room. Finally Ginnie descended the stairs and came back into the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing seems to have been taken,’ she admitted. She moved to the front room and Camilla heard her groan as she sank into the high-backed chair next to the strong reading lamp.

  ‘Can I get you a sandwich?’

  Ginnie looked defeated and something else besides. Puzzled. No, not puzzled. She looked like she was trying to make sense of something. ‘I’m not hungry. I can prepare something later. Is there bread?’

  ‘Bread and cheese. And salad vegetables. Let me take your things upstairs.’

  Camilla lifted her mother’s overnight bag and took it up to the bedroom. Her mother’s search must have been cursory as the room was pristine. Camilla placed the bag on the bed. Listening for any movement from her mother, she slipped her hand under the duvet and slid it across the sheets. They were cold to the touch and there was nothing to impede the sweep of her hand. The envelope had gone.

  36

  Mina counted the houses in Cold Eaton as she delivered the leaflets. Twenty-nine. A hotch potch of buildings along the narrow road which she discovered led to an imposing grey house, presumably the old manor. She could hear laughter coming from the field where the bonfire was taking place on Sunday. Unlike many of the other houses in the village, the manor house had an iron post box next to the front door. Grateful for an obvious place to drop her leaflet, she posted it through the slot.

  Gazing up a narrow private track, she hesitated, unsure if it led anywhere. She chanced it and saw a small white house almost obscured by ivy creeping up its front. She opened the creaking gate and looked around for somewhere to drop her flyer.

  ‘Having trouble finding where to put them?’ A man sitting on a stone bench next to the gate took the leaflet out of her hand and studied it.

  ‘Does no one in this village have a letterbox in the door?’

  The man grunted. He was tiny. His thin legs, poking out of khaki shorts, were tanned despite the weather. ‘We do things differently here. Some of those doors are ancient. You’re looking for gardening work?’

  ‘Anything outside that’ll see me through the winter.’

  He looked her up and down. ‘Can you cut a hedge?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No of course about it. One lad I had last year made a complete mess of it.’

  Mina took a step back. ‘I’m a trained gardener. I use a petrol hedge trimmer and I can even cope with people watching me as I do it.’

  The man considered her, scratching his leg. ‘Okay. Come back next week and start on the side. You can’t do much damage there. If I don’t like it, we’ll part with no hard feelings.’

  ‘Okay. Great.’

  ‘I hear Emily Fenn’s paying you a tenner an hour.’ Mina swore under her breath and the man looked at her. ‘The Fenns are renowned for being tight as mustard. I’ll give you fifteen, all right? If you can cut a hedge properly, you’ll deserve it.’

  Mina reached into her pocket for her phone. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Malcolm Cox.’

  ‘The wood man?’

  ‘That’s me. Who mentioned my name?’ His voice was filled with suspicion.

  ‘Emily said you’d supplied her with wood.’

  ‘Oh, did she? She was p
robably moaning about it being green. She leaves it under that manky shed of hers instead of outdoors and then moans at me when it’s damp come autumn. I’m not a conjuror. If you want dry wood, you need to stack it properly.’

  ‘Like an old-fashioned haystack.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He stood up, his face level with Mina’s. ‘It’s what we always say in Cold Eaton, although I don’t think I’ve ever heard a young one repeat it. Well, you know about wood. I’ll see if you can cut a hedge next Wednesday.’

  ‘I’m staying at the pub until Monday at least. I want to get some work around here. Do you know who cuts the grass in the churchyard?’

  ‘I do. I’m still fit enough for that. I just can’t get on a ladder. You been into the churchyard?’

  ‘No, I mean, churches aren’t really my thing.’

  ‘There’s a medieval yew there. It’s worth a visit. They say it bleeds when death comes to the village.’

  ‘Bleeds?’

  He stepped backwards, dismissing her. ‘It’s an old story. It’s simply sap from the branches. Forget I said it.’

  Mina left him and made her way back down the slope. At the church, a rickety moss-covered gate opened onto a long path that led to a stone porch. She looked at the half-mown grass. Had Malcolm left the job unfinished? She went through the gate and up to the porch, which displayed a rota for readers and church cleaning. Mina moved to the large oak door and turned the iron ring.

  There was a smell of damp and dust and something else that Mina couldn’t describe but which brought out a feeling of longing in her. Centuries of history that reminded her of the thousands of people who had passed through these doors over the years. The furnishings were nothing special, minimalist and drab offset by a ripped and stained carpet. There wouldn’t have been much to interest a church historian here. Toys were scattered in one corner and, again, had an air of dinge about them. Someone’s unloved castoffs. Mina wandered idly around the pews and, at the sound of a gust of wind, zipped up her coat and went back outside.