River of Destiny. Barbara Erskine

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Thanks for the warning.’

      ‘Just being neighbourly.’ He headed towards the door.

      She stayed where she was, watching as he walked past the window and across the grass towards his house.

      ‘Was that our new neighbour?’ Ken had appeared in the doorway and she turned with a start.

      ‘Why didn’t you come and say hello?’

      ‘He seemed to be in a hurry. What a dreadful state his face is in. Why on earth doesn’t he get it fixed?’

      ‘Money.’ She reached for her car keys off the counter. ‘I was going to pick up some stuff in Woodbridge. Do you want to come?’

      He shook his head. ‘I thought I would go down to the Lady for an hour or two. Unless you want me for anything else?’

      ‘No.’ She managed to restrain the sigh. ‘Do you want lunch later or shall I leave you to do your own thing when you come in?’

      ‘Why not do that? I lose track of time a bit down there.’ He gave her his boyish smile.

      She smiled back. Don’t you just, she thought.

      She hadn’t planned on visiting the library after the supermarket but suddenly it seemed a good idea. She found her way to the local history section and located one book which looked as if it might enlighten her about the area. She thumbed through the index, looking for Timperton Hall, smiling as she rooted around in her bag for a pen and paper. Did people, she wondered, always start a ghost hunt like this?

      In the event there wasn’t much information to be had. The Hall had Tudor origins but had burned down and been rebuilt in the late seventeenth century by the Crosby family, who had lived there for nearly two hundred years. Nearby was the home farm. There was no village as such, apart from the site of an early church which had long since disappeared. That suggested that at some point there had been at least some sort of hamlet in the area. Now there was nothing to suggest that – apart from the barns, which clearly had been part of the estate – there had ever been any kind of settlement on the edge of the river nearby. The nearest church now was St Edmund’s at Hanley Heath, two miles away, and it was there, apparently, that the last members of the Crosby family, which died out in 1873, were buried.

      Zoë leaned back thoughtfully against the bookshelves. A small country estate with no particular history. A microcosm of English history. She smiled. Rosemary had made friends with someone who lived in the Hall and had offered to take her up there. It would be nice to go inside, but she suspected that, as had happened with the barns, most traces of its previous history would have been eradicated by the developers. How sad.

      She glanced down at a map of the estate at the end of the book, which showed the cluster of barns, the tracks through the woods, an old landing stage, several small houses, which she hadn’t noticed and were probably long gone, and found herself wondering whether she would ever begin to feel at home there.

      Putting down roots was a mysterious business which had never happened to her. Her parents had moved often when she was a child and she felt that at base she had never really called anywhere home. She stared unseeing at the map. She had gone from boarding school to Durham University to read English and had then found a job in London where she had shared various flats with a motley selection of people until she and Ken had married ten years before. They had moved twice, both times within a fairly small area, always aware that they would move again. This launch into the country was a change of pattern, an uneasy step, as she had told Leo, out of her comfort zone. Once she had got used to the idea it had seemed exciting and a bit zany. Her friends thought they were stark staring mad, and she had laughed at them, jeering at their lack of sense of adventure, but now she was beginning to realise they were right. She and Ken didn’t fit. No one in the barn complex fitted. They weren’t local. They didn’t belong. They had all been plonked as though from outer space into a pretty piece of countryside and the safety net had been whisked away. And the real locals, the real inhabitants, be they alive or long dead, resented them. Especially the long dead. She looked up, mulling over the disturbing thought. They were still there, still doing their thing as though nothing had changed. And they resented the newcomers bitterly.

      ‘Excuse me, we’re closing in five minutes.’ The librarian was standing beside her with an apologetic smile. Deep in her reverie Zoë hadn’t noticed her.

      She glanced at her watch. ‘I was dreaming. I had no idea I had been here so long.’ Flustered, she pushed the book back onto its space and tucked her notes into her bag then she went to find a coffee shop. She already had a favourite. Surely that meant something.

      Lesley Inworth had the ground-floor flat on the right-hand side of the front door of Timperton Hall. She led Zoë and Rosemary into the sitting room and gestured round. ‘Isn’t it a lovely room? I think it’s the nicest in the house. We have this marvellous view down across the river in the distance. The rest of the flat is small. It’s been divided so everybody gets one or two nice rooms and then one or two of the smaller ones at the back. My bedroom was the squire’s study. The stables have been turned into another flat at the back and there are two more upstairs.’ She was a wispy woman, thin and wiry, in her late forties, widowed, according to Rosemary, who had given Zoë a quick update on her background as they walked up the hill, with two daughters who both lived in London. Her passion was gardening and she was employed by the residents’ committee to supervise the grounds and to look after the Victorian gardens, which had miraculously survived and which were very beautiful.

      Zoë had been wrong about the Hall losing its character. It had been converted with great care to conserve its architecture and make use of its features. They sat down round the fire, which burned in a beautiful Regency fireplace, while Lesley poured coffee and produced some homemade cake.

      ‘The history of the house was very sad at the end,’ she said in answer to Zoë’s query. ‘The Crosby family had lived here for generations, then the last squire had no children so the estate passed to some distant cousin who never actually came here. Then his son was killed in the First World War and there was no one else. It was sold up. I expect that happened to so many families.’

      ‘And after that it was converted into flats?’

      Lesley shook her head. ‘It was sold to the farm. Bill Turtill’s dad or granddad. It is an extraordinary turnaround of fate. The Turtills were farm managers to the estate in the nineteenth century, but somehow they ended up buying the farm and a lot of the land, then in the fifties they bought the Hall and the rest of the estate for a song. They showed themselves to be pretty astute. They resold the Hall and kept the land and the barns; then much later they sold the barns for development. They had trouble getting planning permission because they were so old and listed but they managed it in the end.’

      ‘And so, here we all are.’ Rosemary beamed at them both. ‘And it’s Bill I need to talk to again about the footpaths. He has closed one of them off; changed its route completely.’

      Lesley gave her a close look. ‘I hardly think the route matters in the great scheme of things. As long as people can still walk the fields.’

      ‘Ah, but there you are wrong.’ Rosemary set down her cup purposefully and sat forward on the edge of her chair. ‘These are ancient highways, rights of way. They have to be protected.’

      Lesley sighed. ‘My dear, that path you keep going on about, across Dead Man’s Field, it doesn’t exist. I have looked at all sorts of maps and plans. It’s just not there. And there is a lovely walk along a pretty lane down the edge of the field.’ She glanced at Zoë. ‘Has Rosemary signed you up to her footpath mafia yet?’

      Zoë shook her head, embarrassed. ‘No, not me. I jog. I don’t like walking. At least not with lots of people.’

      ‘No more do I.’ Lesley gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘Ghastly thought! I am sorry, Rosemary dear, but you know it’s true. I’ve seen them. Your friends don’t look at the country-side, they are not interested in flowers