A Killing Tree by Paul Toolan

Author:Paul Toolan [Toolan, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paul Toolan
Published: 2019-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Buds

Thirty One

Batten had little respect for words like ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ - when they applied to him.

Should have your head examined.

Shouldn’t be dallying with a witness in a murder case.

On rare days-off, though, a man needs solace. And not the kind that dribbles from a cider barrel. He missed female company, and the softness it brought.

Should make decisions with the bit of your body where your brain’s supposed to live.

Shouldn’t make decisions with the lower half.

Just a country walk, he told himself. A stroll in the Somerset air with an attractive woman called Rhona Fiske - their third walk together, in fact, since what he hoped was an accidental meeting on Ham Hill. Wake Hall’s Head Housekeeper might be a reliable source of information, he told himself. And her lithe body had nothing to do with it.

They’d enjoyed a stroll round The Seavingtons through fields that in summer, Rhona said, were a white and blue beauty parade of linseed flowers. In the brownness of winter, they’d found broken pieces of fossil, like ammonites, lying on the surface where the plough had thrown them.

He’d taken a piece home; it was sitting on the pine blanket-box that doubled as a coffee table. The fossil stared up at him whenever he propped his feet on the sofa. I am much older than you, it said, and though only a piece of stone, am I not wiser and more careful than you?

Today, they rambled across Ham Hill again, both enjoying the views.

‘You can probably see most of your patch,’ she said, waving her hand at the horizon.

He’d rather not, but kept quiet, in case of bedroom developments.

From high on the quarried ramparts of Ham Hill, even through strong binoculars, he failed to locate his cottage beyond the tapestry of trees on the far side of the A303.

‘Let me try,’ she asked, taking the glasses. ‘Over there, is it?’

He gently moved her pointing finger a little to the north.

‘Which village?’

‘Just outside Ashtree,’ he said. After a pause.

‘Oh, I know Ashtree. We ran a conference in the hotel there once, when Wake Hall was overbooked.’ She raised the binoculars, scanning the very private territory he’d nevertheless pointed her towards.

‘You can’t see it from here. It’s in a dip, I think.’ She handed back the binoculars. They smelled of her perfume now. ‘What’s your cottage like?’

Such moments. He didn’t buy the place so he could live there as a hermit. Did he?

Baz Ballard had the face of a loner, a face with nothing going on behind it. Just as well. At Wake Hall Horse, in Olly’s thought-trap of an office, visible thinking was dangerous. He twiddled his chauffer hat, and did what he was paid to do - waited for Olly.

Three times now, the police had questioned him - about Manny McRory, and those co-driver trips in the horse box. Manny had dismissed his concerns.

‘For Chrissake, Baz, all you gorra do is drive! Done it before, yeh? A time or two?’

Three times, in fact, the first for no better reason than Bulky being over the limit because of a skinful the night before.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.