‘Do me a favour/ Fletcher said. ‘He’s twice her age/
Morgan shook his head pityingly. ‘You know, there are times when you amaze me, Jesse, you really do/
He turned, slapped the old man’s hand as he reached for a sandwich and started to eat them himself.
On the slope above the farm, Rogan sat on a stone and lit a cigarette. In the far distance, Lake Windermere cut into the heart of the hills, black with depth near the centre, purple and grey at the edges. In the desolate light of gloaming, the tops of the mountains were streaked with orange.
The beauty of it was too much for a man and he breathed deeply on the sweetness of the heather, damp from the day’s rain, filled with pleasant nostalgia.
‘It’s quite a view, isn’t it?’ Hannah Costello said.
He turned and found her standing a few yards away, watching him. ‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ he said. ‘I must be getting old.’
He took out his cigarettes and offered her one, and when she bent her face to the match which flared in his cupped hands her eyes were fathomless, so deep a man might drown in them.
She sat on the tilted slab of stone beside him and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘There’s something going on down there.”
‘Between Morgan and Fletcher?’
‘My uncle, too. They were arguing together. I heard them from the passage. Something about this man Pope, the one who was waiting for you when you got out. He’s in Ambleside now.’ Rogan nodded and she frowned. ‘You don’t seem surprised?’
‘I’m not.’ He told her about Jack Pope and Soames and of how he had seen them together on his return to the cottage on the moor. ‘What else did they say?’
‘Morgan’s phoning him tomorrow from the call box on the main road. I suppose he’ll wait to hear your verdict on the job.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Another thing. He was talking about fifty thousand pound shares. I thought they were supposed to be getting five thousand each?’
‘It looks as though Morgan intends to cut the cake differently.’
‘You still don’t look worried.’
‘It’ll work out, you’ll see.’ He smiled warmly. ‘It’s nice to know someone’s on my side, anyway.’
She flushed perceptibly and he looked over the valley into the dark arch of the sky where a single star shone. For several minutes they sat there in silence and then she said softly, ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Kerry,’ he said. ‘I’ve a farm there, or rather my father has.’
‘And you’d like to go back?’
‘It’s quite a place. Sea and mountains, green grass, soft rain, fuchsia growing on the dusty hedges, glowing in the evening.Deorini Dei -the Tears of God, they call it.’ He laughed softly. ‘And the prettiest girls in the world. I was almost forgetting.’
He turned and found her looking at him, something that was very close to pain upon her face. Instinctively, he reached out and took her hand. ‘You’d fit into the scenery admirably.’
She gazed at him searchingly, the strange, orange light playing upon her face and then her smile seemed to deepen, to become luminous, and he pulled her to her feet and kissed her gently on the parted mouth.
Her lips were soft and fresh and quite suddenly, he was trembling slightly, his stomach hollow with excitement. It was as if she were the first, as if this had never happened before. She turned her face into his coat, holding him tightly and above them, a single cloud of red fire burned itself out, leaving them wordless in the night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE morning was cold with no rain, and a trace of mist hung over the fields behind the house as Rogan leaned against the fence, smoking a cigarette, and looked up at Scardale Fell, shrouded by low cloud.
He had spent the night on a camp bed in the old harness room above the barn and had eaten breakfast with Hannah and young Brendan, the others being still abed. Now, feeling relaxed and strangely content, he waited for the girl to bring the car from the barn.