Creature Comforts. Trisha Ashley

an eye on the wooded grounds.

      Baz had rarely visited after that and never at times that coincided with my visits, though he and Debo had always remained friends – and occasionally, I suspected, more than friends.

      ‘Kieran absolutely idolises his father,’ I said, following this train of thought. ‘So he’s going to be a bit upset about the accident, though I don’t know if Douglas will tell him I refused to take the blame for it.’

      ‘If he does, since Kieran knows about your history, he’ll hardly be surprised about that. And if he truly loves you, he’ll be more concerned with how it’s affected you.’

      ‘I’m not at all sure he really does love me, and in any case, when push came to shove, he seemed quite prepared to override what I wanted to please his parents.’

      ‘It certainly sounds to me as if you two at least need some breathing space apart,’ Daisy said. ‘Things will seem clearer then and you may even find that you do have a future together.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But if so, it definitely wouldn’t be in Oxford. And not only have I already used some of this legacy they seemed to have been counting on, I’ll probably have to bail Debo out with the rest.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. Debo does stagger from financial crisis to crisis, but she always manages to raise the money she needs from somewhere,’ she said, surprised. ‘I mean, for a start she can get as much modelling work as she wants and she often pops down to stay with me for various assignments.’

      Debo had been a famous model in the sixties and seventies, and even though she was now the wrong side of sixty, she was still much in demand. Tall, thin and elegant, with huge grey doe-eyes and cropped ash-blonde hair, she hadn’t changed much since her heyday. Judy always told me I looked like a miniature version of Debo, but with my father’s dark colouring and lack of height, though I think she was just being kind …

      ‘Debo hates leaving the dogs though, so if she’s been down a lot recently it shows how bad things have got – and this time there’s no Baz to come to the rescue,’ I pointed out. ‘She was devastated when he died so suddenly – not to mention the shock of finding out the whole estate had been left to some illegitimate son she’d never heard of!’

      ‘Actually, when she rang to tell me, the main shock seemed to be more that Baz must have had a fling with Fliss Gambol, an old enemy of hers from her early modelling days, even though it was before Debo took up with him,’ Daisy said. ‘Even worse, she’s always blamed Fliss for your mother’s death.’

      ‘Oh? In what way?’ I asked, puzzled. I knew from Debo that my mother had been sweet, but a bit of a wild child and died young from an accidental drug overdose. I was the result of a brief fling with a married American artist twice her age. Although he’d known about me, we’d had minimal contact until, to my surprise, he’d left me a little bit of money a few years ago. ‘Fliss Gambol was some sixties singer, wasn’t she?’

      ‘Yes, until drink and drugs got the better of her. Lisa, your mother, was very young when she came to live with Debo after your grandmother died and, unfortunately, she fell in with Fliss’s crowd and under her influence.’

      ‘That makes it a bit clearer,’ I said. ‘I can see now why Debo would be upset … and Fliss’s circle must have seemed very glamorous and irresistible to an impressionable young girl, so I understand better how she came to such a tragic end. Poor Lisa!’

      I sighed. ‘This must have raked up some unhappy memories for Debo. Baz always promised he’d leave her the Lodge and the land round it where she’s extended the kennels, and instead this son of Fliss Gambol has scooped the lot!’

      ‘She does have the Lodge for life, though, and Baz may have thought if he left her any money she’d spend it on even more dogs,’ Daisy said astutely. ‘Or if he gave her the Lodge outright, she’d mortgage it.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ I admitted, because Debo did tend to pour every penny that came her way (except for what Judy could snatch away for housekeeping) on her Debo’s Desperate Dogs Refuge. ‘Anyway, I’ll have to see when I get home. With Baz’s son having all the land, she won’t be able to keep as many dogs.’

      ‘I can’t see her being happy about that,’ Daisy said. ‘And I don’t think she’ll want to take any of the money your father left you, either, however desperate things are.’

      ‘We’ll see,’ I said, sitting up straighter. ‘You know, I believe meeting Kieran was a wrong turn. I confused what I wanted with what I was supposed to be doing.’

      Daisy smiled. ‘I think it all comes down to following your heart. But sometimes you also need to use your head.’

      ‘Both seem to be telling me to go back to Halfhidden and set up my mail-order company there. I want to go home at last, and not go away ever again,’ I finished.

      Daisy regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Hmm … that might still be the shock talking and the cold feet about the wedding. But time will tell.’

      ‘It will – and there’s something else I’m going to do when I get home, that I should have done years ago: I’m going to meet the past head-on,’ I said with new resolution.

      ‘You mean, the accident?’

      ‘Yes, I want to fill in the blank bits and try to understand why I was driving that night. I mean, I remember clearly that I was working in the pub with Lulu and Cam and that I left to walk home early, because my old dog, Patch, was ill. And then in the car park I passed the red Range Rover and Harry invited me to the party at Sweetwell. I told him I couldn’t, though that bit’s fuzzy … and then I remember absolutely nothing until I came out of the induced coma in hospital weeks later.’

      ‘But you’ve been told what happened?’

      ‘Yes, mainly by Lulu and Cameron, because by the time I’d convalesced with you and got home again, no one ever mentioned it to me – it was like the elephant in the room. Even Judy and Debo didn’t want to talk about it.’

      ‘Well, they did think at one point they’d lost you, so it isn’t surprising that they wanted to put the whole tragedy behind them.’

      ‘Perhaps, but because I can’t remember what happened, it’s always made it very hard for me to accept what I did and move on. So now I’m going to talk to those most involved, especially Cara and Simon. I haven’t seen Simon since then and Cara’s always avoided me, or cut me dead. Lulu says it’s because she blamed me for the scar on her face that ended her hope of being a model,’ I added. ‘Lulu and I were amazed when she married Sir Lionel Cripchet after she left Oxford University, because he is more than twice her age and horrible! But his estate, Grimside, is only the other side of the hill from Halfhidden, so at least it means she lives nearby.’

      ‘I can see where you’re coming from and the need for closure,’ Daisy said, ‘but sometimes it really is better to let things lie. Cara’s anger is probably based on guilt because she was sober enough to realise that you shouldn’t be driving, yet she let Harry persuade you.’

      ‘If I really was driving,’ I said, looking up at her. ‘Because the thing is, Daisy, in that flashback I had, I wasn’t. I was in the back seat, with Cara.’

      ‘Darling,’ she said, leaning across and squeezing my hand, ‘that might not have been a genuine flashback, because don’t forget that the first two people on the scene after the crash said you were in the driver’s seat, didn’t they?’

      ‘Yes, though I don’t trust Simon’s father, Dan Clew, in the least … but Tom Tamblyn said so too, so I suppose you’re right,’ I sighed. ‘Tom has always been my friend.’

      A message popped into my phone and I looked at it for a long moment. ‘Kieran. His mother must have got hold of him and – well, he’s not pleased with me, let’s put it like that. She’s on her way to spring Douglas from the clink, but Kieran says his father will lose