Pseudonyms and cover stories might now be totally irrelevant but they could not just be shed at will. At the Crag he was William Hutton, businessman; and in conversation with Parker he had let it slip that, as well as the fellwalking, he was on the lookout for a house or cottage to purchase. It was those sharp country eyes again; he wanted an excuse to be seen anywhere, walking or driving, during his stay.
No, he said, slipping onto a bar stool and accepting the dry sherry which Parker poured him. No luck at all. But I enjoyed my walk.
Oh good. The weathers marvellous, isnt it? Excuse me.
Parker went off to the side hatch of the bar where one of the girls from the dining room was waiting with a drinks order. Parkers quietly efficient wife, Doris, looked after the kitchen and dining room, while he exuded bonhomie in the bar and at reception. He was a rotund, breezy man in his early fifties, a redundant sales executive whod sunk his severance money into the small hotel five years earlier and, as he was willing to explain to anyone willing to listen, had not yet seen any cause to regret it. In fact his enthusiasm for the Lake District was so evangelical that Jaysmith had soon regretted the intended subtlety of his cover story. From the start, Parker had taken an embarrassingly close interest in his alleged house-hunting and now, the dining room order dealt with, he returned to the topic.
So no luck then, he said.
No, said Jaysmith. The market seems pretty dead. In fact, with the weekend coming up, I think Ive exhausted all the possibilities, so Ill check out tomorrow.
Parker looked so taken aback that Jaysmith felt constrained to add, Ill pay for tomorrow night, of course.
He had booked in till Saturday. If hed made his target hed have stayed the full week in order not to excite comment, but now there was no point.
Oh no, its not that, said Parker, slightly indignant. Its just that I heard today that theres likely to be just the house youre looking for coming on the market in the next couple of days. Its called Rigg Cottage and its just outside the village, up the bank on the road towards Loughrigg. It belongs to an old lady called Miss Wilson whos finding the long haul up the hill more and more difficult. Also its really too big for her with the garden and all. So shes thinking of moving down into the village. Theres an old cottage become vacant. Semi-detached and her best friend occupies the next-door cottage. Actually the vacant one belonged to Miss Craik, another old friend, who died a couple of weeks back and the family had always promised to give Miss Wilson first refusal.
He paused for breath and Jaysmith regarded him quizzically.
Your channels of information must be first-rate, Mr Parker, he said with hint of mockery.
Parker grinned and glanced conspiratorially towards the dining room. Lowering his voice he said, To tell the truth, its Doris who told me all this. Shes quite chummy with Mrs Blacklock, the old lady in the other semi, and she passed it on, in strict confidence, of course. Like Im doing to you.
Of course, said Jaysmith.
Which is why theres nothing to be done till Miss Wilson makes up her mind. But when she does, if I know her, shell want everything settled in five minutes which is why its a pity youll not be on the spot.
Yes, isnt it? said Jaysmith, exuding regret as he moved fully into his William Hutton role. A real pity.
At dinner, he ordered a full bottle of Chablis instead of his usual half and settled to a mellow contemplation of the limitless joys of retirement.
O what a world of profit and delight the words drifted into his mind and he sought their source. It wasnt altogether apt. They were from Marlows Dr Faustus whose world of profit and delight had been purchased by selling his soul. Or perhaps the words were too apt. He pushed that thought away and concentrated on working out why he should know the quotation. Oriental Languages had been his subject, not English literature, but now he recalled that hed once acted in the play at university; or rather not himself, but that incredibly, hazily distant young man whose name was now as vague as all those he had since inscribed on hotel registers in his career as Jaysmith. And he hadnt been Faustus either. An ostler, thats what hed been. A grasping gull made a fool of by magic.
Shaking the memory away, he returned to the future. He could go anywhere, do anything. Tomorrow, back to his London flat. Next, the Continent. Italy to start with; a villa in Tuscany till autumn died. Then on to the Med, Greece, North Africa, always south, keeping abreast of the retreating sun.
The prospect filled him with surprisingly little enthusiasm. It was odd, like looking at a beautiful, naked and available woman without feeling excited.
Everything all right, Mr Hutton? said Parker, doing his end-of-dinner mine-host round.
Fine, said Jaysmith. Sit down and have a drop of Chablis.
Thats kind.
He filled a glass for the hotel owner and emptied the remaining drops into his own. He realized with amused interest another effect of his new relaxed state. A couple of sherries and the best part of a bottle of wine had left him feeling slightly drunk.
Tell me, he said. When you were made redundant, did you know at once what you wanted to do?
Far from it, old boy, replied Parker, delighted to be invited to explore a favourite topic. Best thing that ever happened to me, I see it now. But at the time, I was simply shattered.
And youd never thought of living up here and running a hotel?
Never.
So what happened?
I more or less sat with my head in my hands for three or four weeks, then one morning I got up and knew what I was going to do.
You knew that you were going to buy a hotel in the Lake District?
Not exactly. But I knew I was never going to work for anyone but myself again. I was absolutely certain about that!
Jaysmith felt let down. Hoping for some sort of dramatic revelation, instead he was hearing about a conventional revolt against the bossservant relationship.
Nevertheless the idea of taking time to adjust, of letting things ripen at their own speed, was not without its appeal. But where to let the ripening process take place? Not London, that was certain. Whatever residual pressures might remain from his old life were centred on London.
The answer was absurdly obvious but he did not reach it by any kind of open-cast logic. Instead, after a couple of soporific brandies in the bar, he heard himself saying to Parker, Ive been thinking. Theres really no desperate need for me to be off in the morning. In fact, if that old ladys not going to make up her mind for a few days, I can easily hang on into next week, if my rooms going to be vacant, that is.
Parker smiled with triumphant delight.
Well be glad to have you, he said fulsomely.
Jaysmith did not return the smile. Faintly surprised, he was still trying to work out whose voice he had just heard speaking. It wasnt Jaysmiths, certainly. And it hadnt even sounded like William Huttons.
No, it had been both more familiar and more distant, like the voice of a dead loved one conjured up by a medium at a seance. And then it came to him that in some odd, ghostly fashion, the voice he had heard belonged to that naively hopeful, irretrievably remote young man who had once played the foolish ostler in Dr Faustus.
Chapter 3
Summer was dying like a lady this year. Leaves flushed gently from olive to ochre with no savage assault of gale to rip them down; bracken singed at the edges and heather burned purple with no landscape-blackening downpour to dampen the glow. The locals assured Jaysmith, not without nostalgic pride, that it was not always thus.
Jaysmith took their word for it. Though he had presented William Hutton as a long-time lover of the Lake District, his only real previous acquaintance had been as a small boy on a day trip to Windermere with his mother and stepfather, who had stared indifferently at the mountains and lake, explored the souvenir shops, eaten ice cream and fish and chips, and left him in the coach with a packet of crisps at each of the many pub-stops on the sixty-mile journey back to Blackburn in Lancashire.
His mother had died when he was fifteen. His stepfather, to do him credit, had supported him through the loss and the next couple of years at school till he got the exam results needed to take him to university. But first had come National Service. After basic training he had been posted to Hong Kong. He went home on embarkation leave, and the night before his departure his stepfather had told him apologetically but firmly that his stepbrother, four years his senior, was getting married and coming to live in the family home. His wife-to-be was pregnant. The strains this would put on the limited accommodation made it sensible for him to think from now on of making arrangements to look after himself.
He had never been back to Blackburn since that day.
His first taste of the East had brought balm to his pain. From the very moment its first rich warm exotic scents came drifting over the sea, he was fascinated. He had been planning to read French and German at university, but within a couple of months of reaching Hong Kong, he was writing to ask if he could transfer courses to the School of Oriental Languages. The facility with which he learned Chinese made him a highly valued member of his unit, but it was another talent which the Army spotted and nurtured that won him all those privileges and comforts a regiment bestows on those that bring it honour. He turned out to be a natural marksman capable of winning trophies at the highest level, and thus rapidly promoted to sergeant, well out of the way of any parades, fatigues or guard duties which might dull his eye.
For his part, he enjoyed his unsuspected excellence, and even let his enjoyment spill over into civilian life, becoming a prominent member of his university shooting team. But he never dreamt that this was a talent with any commercial value. It had taken fate at its most unpredictably tragic to nudge him onto that path.
And now it had taken a fractional weakening of the right eye to nudge him off it.
For the next three days he put past and future out of his mind and set out to turn his pretended intimacy with the fells into fact. A need to be fit and the demands of his job had taken him into some of the roughest terrain in the world. He was expert both practically and with maps. But hitherto his expertise had been focused on one thing only the job in hand. Landscape to him was considered solely in terms of best approach, best hide, best line of fire, best escape. Here in the Lake District for the first time in two decades he went exploring simply in search of delight. He did not have far to seek. Eschewing guide books in his desire for personal discovery, he spent the days in long high walks, armed only with map and compass. Any feeling of condescension for this somewhat narrow area of rather lowly mountains soon disappeared. The physical demands were great; he never had to look far for the exhilaration of danger; and whether he was standing windblown on the bald head of Gable with the stark wildness of Wasdale stretching below, or descending from the gentle swell of Silver Howe in the gathering dusk towards the sun-gilt shield of Grasmere which at the end of a long day felt very like home, he was ravished by the sheer beauty of it all.
Small the Lake District might be, but three days exploration was scarcely enough to scratch the surface of its great variety and when Parker greeted him on Sunday evening with the excited news, Shes made up her mind! Miss Wilson. Shes definitely going. I can arrange for you to see Rigg Cottage tomorrow! Jaysmith felt surprisingly put out.
He had what looked like a perfectly splendid walk mapped out for Monday and it was most irritating to be forced to postpone it for what was now an unnecessary piece of role-playing.
Doris Parker who was standing alongside her husband sensed his hesitation. She was a pleasant, calm, down-to-earth woman who was used to coping with her husbands enthusiasms.
Dont take any notice of Philips hard sell, Mr Hutton, she said. Theres not need to look at Rigg Cottage unless and until you want to. I only heard at church tonight that Miss Wilson is definitely selling.
But the whole point is for Mr Hutton to get in quick before it comes on the open market, protested Parker.
It might be worthwhile, conceded his wife. Shell certainly not be happy about paying an agents commission. But its up to Mr Hutton if he wants to see it, dear.
Her broad-set grey eyes fixed speculatively on Jaysmith and he smiled at her and said, Of course Id like to, if you can arrange it. Im really very grateful.
Triumphantly Parker went to the telephone and returned a few minutes later with the news that eleven oclock the following morning would suit Miss Wilson very well.
Jaysmith nodded his agreement. Hed have preferred to get the tedious business out of the way even sooner, but at least he would have the whole afternoon for the mountains. In any case, he could stay as long as he liked. The mountains werent going anywhere without him!
The next morning he used his unexpected post-breakfast period of non-activity to read the newspapers in detail. There was no reference to any violent death in St-Johns-in-the-Vale and there had been nothing on the local TV and radio news either. Presumably Jacob had not been able to make new arrangements before the deadline elapsed. That would not please him.
He put the thought out of his mind and drove up the winding road out of the village to keep his appointment.
Miss Wilson was curiously almost exactly as he had pictured her. Anything between seventy and ninety, she had snow-white hair and clear blue eyes in a cider-apple face. But any impression of gentle cosiness was soon dissipated. She carried her five feet three inches as straight as a guardsman, albeit with some help from a stick, and when she spoke it was in a clipped, brusque, no-nonsense tone.
Id not be moving from here if it wasnt for this leg, she informed him sternly, as if he had hinted suspicion of some less creditable motive. Now the place is getting too big for me, the gardens taking over, and the hills too steep. Not that I cant climb it, but it takes me twice as long as it once did, and me minds back here already doing me jobs while me bodys still halfway up the bank, and theres nowt so ageing as always letting your mind race on ahead of itself.
Politely Jaysmith agreed, which seemed to surprise her, not because she anticipated disagreement but because she could see no need for a mere man to affirm that she spoke plain truth.
She proved remarkably unsentimental about Rigg Cottage and talked about it as if it were already settled that he would buy.
The sitting room fire smokes in an east wind, she said. Ive been meaning to get it fixed these thirty years. Thatll be your job now.