The Slay of the Land (The Heathervale Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  As Arrina waited, she looked downhill at the grassy paddock behind her. Julie and Phil’s farm was just a little way along the road—a mile or two further at most. Arrina wondered if she could get there by crossing fields rather than following the busy road.

  She looked around the hillside, trying to work out exactly where she was. She knew that the Yates Farm stopped at the crest of the hill. Between there and the road, it was open pastureland. But the stretch of hillside below the road was definitely privately owned. Behind the low wall on which she sat, there was a neatly maintained meadow, which led to a tree-shielded house. Arrina peered through the trees at the large pale building and the green Land Rover parked beside it. She rarely walked this way, and she had to squint hard to work out what lay on the other side of the treeline.

  She realised all at once where she was. The Hayes Homes sign on the back of the Land Rover confirmed it. The house was Hugo and Fiona’s. Or in fact, just Fiona’s now. The woman was there alone now that Hugo had died. And further along the valley, down behind the college. Rory Hayes would be tending the family farm alone as well.

  Arrina scrambled off the wall, blushing with embarrassment at having perched so casually on its top. She’d been so caught up in the college and in clue hunting that the sorrow of Hugo’s death had drifted away. But now it returned, and she felt the loss of the man all over again.

  Arrina stared at the house and wished she were dressed presentably. Hugo had died two days ago, and Arrina hadn’t yet visited Fiona and paid her respects. But she couldn’t do it now. She looked like she’d just come from work as a lumberjack. That wouldn’t show how much Hugo’s loss truly meant. She stared at the house a moment longer and resolved to return the next day in a more respectful outfit.

  Suddenly, a tall, broad-chested man walked out from between the trees there. Arrina’s heart skipped a beat. She stumbled slightly and gripped the drystone wall to steady herself.

  But it wasn’t Hugo down there. The passing resemblance between him and his brother was threatening to trick her again, but Arrina saw through it. The man walking up the meadow towards her now was Rory.

  Arrina couldn’t tell if he’d seen her. The road where she stood was still a good thirty feet up the hill. She thought about ducking down and hiding. Rory had clearly come out for a little peace, and she didn’t want to disturb him. But then he headed straight towards her and gave a wave as he shouted something she couldn’t quite hear.

  As he got closer, he repeated his request: ‘I said, have you got a cigarette?’

  Arrina understood the words but could make no sense of why he would be asking. A scrunched-up look of confusion was all she gave by way of a reply.

  ‘A cigarette?’ he said again when he reached the wall. He mimed with two fingers to his lips. ‘You know? For smoking?’

  Arrina shook her head.

  ‘Oh,’ Rory said, taking a step back. ‘Sorry, I thought you were a tourist. But I know you, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arrina said slowly as her brain caught up with Rory’s explanation. A car raced past, and Arrina pressed herself tightly to the drystone wall. ‘I’m Arrina Fenn, the head of Heathervale College.’ That was technically still true, though the words didn’t come out as naturally as they usually did.

  ‘You don’t have a cigarette though, do you?’ he asked. He still didn’t seem to register who she was, but given their disagreement over the right of way on his land in the past, perhaps that was for the best.

  ‘No,’ Arrina said. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Rory said. ‘I haven’t done for years. But being trapped in that house all morning, receiving visitors, has made me want to start again.’

  ‘I was actually meaning to come around myself,’ Arrina said softly. ‘I wanted to pass on my condolences to you and Fiona. I’m so sorry for your loss.’ She tugged at the hem of her wrinkled shirt, as though that could turn it magically into a more respectable outfit.

  Rory gave a resigned nod. He must have heard that many times already today. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I saw you yesterday, in fact,’ Arrina said. ‘I wanted to say something then, but...’ She didn’t know why she was forcing this explanation on the poor man. He looked stretched thin with the strain of his sorrow. ‘Well, I’ll... I’ll come back tomorrow and do it properly.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘You’re here now. You might as well join the stampeding hoards.’ He gave a sharp bark of laughter at this. ‘Sorry, that was meant as a joke.’

  ‘Really,’ Arrina said, ‘I’m not appropriately dressed, and—’

  But Rory held out his hand and stood waiting until she took it and clambered over the drystone wall. Smudges of yellow lichen and dark soil added to the other dirt and strains on her outfit, but Rory didn’t seem to care, and perhaps Fiona would be too distracted by grief to notice.

  ‘You really don’t have a cigarette?’ Rory asked as Arrina started to walk down the hill towards the large white house.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll just nip next door then and see if anyone’s got one there.’

  ‘What about—’ Arrina started to say as he strode off. He didn’t seem to hear her as he headed towards the thick hedge boundary that connected the meadow to the neighbouring field. Arrina had seen from the road that the next house was several minutes’ walk away. She didn’t know who lived there but had a feeling it was out-of-towners who left it empty for most of the year.

  ‘You’ll keep an eye on Fiona till I get back, won’t you?’ Rory shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘I’ve got to—’ Arrina started, but Rory walked on without waiting to hear her reply.

  Hugo had told her that Rory lived alone at the Hayes family farm and had done for twenty years. For a long time before that, he’d only had their elderly father for company. It must have been hard for him to deal with all the fuss and condolences that came with a death in the family. As he walked away now, she saw his long strides eat up the ground eagerly. She guessed it would be a while before he came back.

  Arrina glanced back up the hill to the drystone wall she’d just scrambled over. It wouldn’t be easy to climb back up it without Rory’s help, but she could manage. She’d only met Fiona a couple of times in passing and really didn’t feel like the right person to sit with the woman in her grieving state.

  Rory had asked her though, so Arrina walked through the row of tall trees that screened the house from the road. As she reached the open back door, Arrina heard the muffled sobs of a devastated woman. She tugged at the hem of her shirt again and smoothed her hands down its wrinkled front. Then she stepped into the mudroom and took off her boots. The sound of crying grew softer, but her ears could still pick it out in the distance. Arrina walked slowly towards it.

  15

  Arrina had never been inside Hugo’s house before—when they’d met up for chats about his upcoming work at the college, it had always been over snatched drinks in Do-Re-Mi or the Horse and Hound, when they could find time in their busy schedules.

  She’d seen his house from the outside many times though. A popular hiking route over Stanage Edge afforded a clear view across the valley of the huge limestone building. The local bricks glowed warmly in even the slightest ray of sunshine, making the place seem cosy despite its size.

  Now that she was inside it, the homely feel of it was even stronger. There were large watercolours of local views along the hallway. Gentle spotlights from the ceiling highlighted them, and Arrina noted that several were signed Fiona Hayes. They were beautiful paintings, showing far more skill than the washed-out landscapes for sale in tourist shops nearby.

  Arrina would have loved to stop and look at them, but the soft crying persisted from deeper in the house. She walked towards it with gentle, respectful steps. She clutched the video in her bag tightly to still its plastic rattle.

  The first door Arrina passed opened onto a sunny sitting room with plump cream sofas gathered around a stone
fireplace. Nobody was in there, but Arrina paused in the doorway as her eyes fell upon a framed photo of Hugo and Fiona Hayes.

  The picture was from their wedding day, with Hugo in smart brown-and-green tweed and Fiona in a cream brocade jacket and a matching knee-length skirt. Arrina was surprised at how old the pair looked in the photo—they must have been in their early forties at least. They’d seemed so natural together whenever they were out in the village that Arrina had assumed they were childhood sweethearts. She wondered whether the image was of a vow renewal or anniversary celebration. But there were many other photos of Hugo and Fiona around the room, which all showed them individually in their younger years and only paired up as they reached middle age.

  Arrina felt sad when she realised how little time Fiona and Hugo had enjoyed together—ten or fifteen years at most—when they’d been expecting decades more of happiness.

  The crying in the distance quietened, but Arrina knew she still needed to press on and find Fiona. There were no sounds of other people in the house, so the bereaved woman must be sitting alone in her grief. Arrina did not want to leave her like that.

  Arrina stepped back into the hallway and walked towards the front of the house. Peeks into the kitchen, dining room, office, and library brought no sign of Fiona. As Arrina headed for the last room on the left, the older woman spoke.

  ‘Hello,’ Fiona said.

  Arrina stopped in midstep.

  Surely, Fiona hadn’t seen her yet. There must be somebody else in the house after all. Arrina didn’t want to intrude upon their conversation. She paused in the hallway to give them some privacy.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Fiona said. Arrina heard no reply, so perhaps Fiona was speaking to her after all. She stepped forwards into the doorway of the formal sitting room.

  ‘Sorry, I—’ she started and then stopped. Fiona was facing away, with a heavy black phone receiver pressed to her ear, not talking to Arrina at all.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Fiona continued. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. ‘It’s just that I asked you to call as soon as you knew. It really is rather important.’ The woman took a tissue from a box within reach and held it up to her turned-away face.

  Arrina realised her mistake and stepped back into the hallway quickly and quietly. The front door was only a few feet away. She wondered if she ought to leave. But Rory had asked her to stay. Perhaps she should head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. That was always a good move in times of difficulty. Arrina looked back the way she’d come.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Fiona said, her voice thick with tears once again. ‘No, I didn’t see the will myself, but he said he’d take care of it.’

  Arrina froze on the spot at the word will. This conversation was not meant for her ears at all. She wanted to get away but couldn’t risk the creak of a floorboard revealing her presence. She held her breath and begged her heart to beat more quietly.

  ‘No, that can’t be the case,’ Fiona said, sounding angry now. ‘Are you really saying there’s nothing?’

  Hugo had only been dead for two days. It didn’t seem the time for Fiona to be worrying about his will. And the volume of her voice made it clear her enquiries weren’t a matter of routine.

  Fiona’s voice grew louder still. ‘No, I don’t understand how these things can happen,’ she said.

  Arrina almost let out a gasp of shock at the woman’s anger but clamped a hand over her mouth just in time. She couldn’t listen any longer without accidentally revealing herself.

  She peeked into the room once more, saw that Fiona was still turned away, then dashed to the front door and let herself out as quietly as possible.

  She paused on the doorstep to take a deep and calming breath. Fiona and Hugo were the model couple of the village. Their photo was frequently printed in the local paper’s coverage of fundraising events, where they stood arm in arm, gazing at each other lovingly. And Hugo’s weekly visits to the florist were mentioned by many an irate wife and girlfriend around Heathervale. Everybody knew that Hugo and Fiona were very much in love.

  So it didn’t make sense that Fiona’s thoughts had turned so quickly to Hugo’s will. He’d only been dead for two days. Did she really only care about his money?

  Arrina rushed away, risking only a brief glance back as she dashed down the long, smoothly paved driveway. Fiona was still visible through the leaded panes of glass—still talking on the phone, still holding a tissue up to her face.

  It didn’t seem possible that she was really getting angry about money.

  The woman had been crying before as well—deep, heartfelt sobs—when she thought that nobody was listening. Surely a woman who wept like that at her husband’s death wasn’t also getting angry about his will.

  And if she was so desperate for Hugo’s money, what else might she have done to get it?

  Arrina’s thoughts were spinning. She couldn’t make sense of what she’d heard. There had to be an explanation for all of this.

  Arrina sped up as she rounded a bend in the driveway, eager to escape. As her right sock slipped beneath her, she realised she’d left her boots inside—in the mudroom at the back. She clutched her bag as she struggled to stay upright—she didn’t want to drop the video she’d carried so hopefully away from Sampson’s cottage.

  She wobbled but didn’t fall as she drew to a halt. She kept the video safe. Arrina’s stomach churned at the thought of watching it. There was a chance, she now thought, that it could show Fiona at the college. Perhaps she would be the one caught throwing rocks at the camera to cover her murderous tracks. Arrina didn’t want to see that at all.

  But surely that wouldn’t be what the video showed.

  Arrina needed to get away from the house and think over everything—there had to be an order and protocol for this. Surely, a simple item she could add to her to-do list would fix everything. She just needed some space to contemplate what that might be. She had to get away.

  Arrina considered carrying on down the driveway as she was. But if she ran through the streets in her stockinged feet, it would shred the very last scrap of reputation she was clinging to.

  She glanced around. Fiona’s black Mercedes was parked up by the side of the house. Arrina had a fleeting vision of hotwiring it and escaping in the stylish vehicle. But not only would that hurt her reputation more than running shoeless through the village, she also had no idea what hotwiring actually entailed.

  Back by the sky-blue front door, there was a pair of tall green wellingtons. They probably weren’t her size, but that was the least of her problems right then. She headed towards them then stopped. This didn’t seem the sort of home where shoes were left idly in the driveway. Someone was sure to notice they were gone.

  Besides, she couldn’t just leave her hiking boots in Fiona’s mudroom forever. There was no way to come back for them later without raising questions.

  Arrina dithered on the smooth stone driveway for what felt like forever. She couldn’t decide what was best. The only thing she was sure of right then was that she didn’t want Fiona to know she’d been overheard.

  Arrina needed to go back for her boots.

  She crept back up the drive and stood at the edge of the front window. She peered into the formal sitting room. The large black phone was back in its cradle, and there was no sign of Fiona. Arrina dashed along the front of the house, heading to the side closest to the cover of the treeline and trying to remember the layout of rooms she’d walked past several minutes before.

  She turned the corner and walked along the side wall. Beyond the sitting room was the library. Arrina had only glanced in there quickly, but she’d noticed its full-length windows and sashed curtains. There was no way she would get by unnoticed if Fiona was in there. Arrina tiptoed up to the room and carefully looked in. It was clear.

  She snuck on to the next window. This one was set higher up on the wall, in a room that she thought might have been the office. She didn’t pause to check if her mem
ory of the room was correct. All that mattered was that the window didn’t reach down to the ground—there was more than enough space to hunch over and dash beneath the sill without being seen.

  Just as she was about to stand up straight and continue her path around the house, she spotted something glinting in the grass at her feet. She crouched down to look at it. A metal chain was nestled deep amongst the long green blades. At first glance, it looked as though it had come off some farm machinery, but it shone too brightly. Arrina wriggled it from its hiding place, blew off the dirt and scraps of dry leaves, and took a closer look. It wasn’t a broken fragment of a machine but a pretty silver charm bracelet. Fiona Hayes must have dropped it.

  A noise from inside the house reminded Arrina that she wasn’t there to hunt for hidden treasure. She was trying to get away from the woman inside. She slipped the bracelet into her bag, intending to leave it in the mudroom when she collected her boots, and stood up.

  Arrina’s heart was racing in her chest as she pressed on along the side of the house. There should be just one more room before she got to the back wall. Then she could retrieve her boots and get away from this place.

  Once she reached the final set of windows, though, Arrina realised she’d made a mistake. She should have gone the other way around the house. Even without the cover of the nearby trees, it would have been a better option. On this side, the last room was the kitchen—a bright open-plan space with floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides.

  Arrina sidled up to the long stretch of glass. Peeking in, she saw her worst fear confirmed. On the other side of the brightly lit room, Fiona was standing by the Aga, putting the kettle down on its huge heated top. Arrina quickly drew back and hid behind the wall.

  In front of her was an ancient yew tree—its red berries shining so brightly against the green that it looked like Christmas holly. But the tree was no merry seasonal decoration. It was fatally poisonous—almost every part, including the seeds and needles, could kill a person with frightening ease.