Country Pursuits Read online

  The posters were pinned up on every village notice board, shop window and telegraph pole in the county. The word MISSING stood out in searing red letters, above a picture of Harriet that Ambrose had taken of her in the garden last summer. The sunlight had caught the auburn tones in her hair perfectly, and laughter danced in her eyes. Devastatingly, the posters yielded nothing. Every time Frances drove through the village and saw one of them fluttering in the breeze, every time she saw the same picture flash up on the news, she thought her heart might break into a million pieces.

  With Ambrose shutting her out through his own grief, Frances tried to seek solace with Devon at Byron Heights. She had become quite fond of the Victorian monstrosity, spending hours walking in the gardens, and taking comfort in the simple, home-cooked meals Nigel made at night. Occasionally, Devon would find Frances crying on the terrace or elsewhere. Then he would sweep her up in his arms, carrying her to bed to make tender love to her, making her feel wanted and cared for, letting her forget just for a short precious time the tragedy she was going through.

  Although he didn’t like to talk about it to Frances at that moment, Devon’s music was going from strength to strength. He’d even managed to track down the members of his old backing band, who’d all been doing their own thing for years, and persuade them to come to Byron Heights for the weekend. When the ‘Three Ts’ – Taz, Terry and Todge – turned up, the years fell away instantly. It was as if they’d never been apart. Like others before them, they were gob-smacked at the quality of the songs Devon was playing, and after a few bars of his second track, they had told him they were definitely in. The four of them spent all weekend in the studio reminiscing and then jamming. When they left that Sunday evening, the Three Ts had privately agreed Devon Cornwall was on the best form of his life. The public were not going to know what hit them.

  The month dragged on, and so did the investigation. The police learned that Harriet had taken fifteen hundred pounds out of her bank account the day before she disappeared. But according to her mother, she had been planning on buying some new furniture for the cottage, so it could have been for that. No other transactions or withdrawals had been made. The police, armed with dozens of sniffer dogs, had made a painstaking search of the grounds of Clanfield Hall. Rance had told Sir Ambrose and Lady Fraser that he was looking for evidence, but they had all known what he was really looking for. Watching from her sitting room window as the distinctive black and white uniforms combed every inch of the estate, Frances had thought her heart might break.

  One morning towards the end of October she was in her dressing gown in the powder room, applying her make-up, when there was a knock on the door. ‘My dear, may I come in?’ Ambrose’s voice called out.

  Frances was surprised: he hadn’t been in that room for years. ‘Of course, the door’s open.’

  Ambrose entered. He was wearing his staple outfit of tweed trousers, shirt and bow tie, with a dark-green wool jumper over the top. Frances thought that in the past few weeks he had aged twenty years: his face was tired and lined, the once-sparky eyes defeated and flat.

  Ambrose sat down on the overstuffed chaise longue, which ran the length of one wall, and let out a long, deep sigh.

  ‘Am I a bad man, Frances?’ he asked his wife. ‘You must tell me, I know you’ll be honest.’

  Frances stared at him in shock. She had never heard him speak that way. ‘Ambrose, of course not! My goodness, whatever makes you say that?’

  Her husband appeared not to have heard her. ‘I must be a bad man, to have this happen to us. Why else would it?’

  ‘Ambrose—’ Frances started, but he carried on.

  ‘Or am I just a bad father?’ He sighed again. ‘Is this someone’s way of punishing me? Lord knows I’ve been hard on Harriet over the years, but it was only because I thought it was the best thing for her.’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve been a fool, Frances, a stupid, bloody-minded old fool.’ And with this, Ambrose started to cry: racking, great, unfamiliar sobs that took over his body. ‘Now I might have lost the best thing that ever happened to me, and I won’t ever be able to tell her that!’

  Frances’s eyes were welling up now, and she crossed the room to embrace her husband. They felt each other’s pain but drew strange comfort from it. They were the only ones who really understood, and now they had each other again. ‘We’ll get through this, my darling, we’ve got to!’ whispered Frances.

  Afterwards, she knew what she had to do. When Frances went over to Byron Heights and told Devon she would always treasure their friendship, but that she could no longer carry on with its physical side, he felt he had been kicked in the stomach. But he told her he understood. He did, to a certain extent. Devon didn’t have any kids, but he knew how he would feel if he lost Nigel, who was the closest to family he had. Frances was telling him she had to be there for her husband, and in a funny way, it made his feelings for her even more powerful. Her compelling decency – which had so attracted him in the first place – was back, stronger than ever.

  As Frances drove away from his house that evening, she felt a mixture of sorrow and regret. It hadn’t just been about sex with Devon, he’d brought out a side of her she had never known existed. The thought of never again lying in the four-poster bed at Byron Heights, lazily chatting and laughing in a post-coital glow of happiness, brought a lump to her throat. She fought back the tears and took a deep breath, steeling herself.

  She was Lady Frances Fraser. She had a duty to her husband – and daughter – to invest her all in keeping the family together.

  Frances wasn’t the only one in the village to suddenly see life more starkly. Camilla was about to drop the most enormous bombshell on Angus. Ever since Harriet had disappeared, he’d done his best to comfort her, but unfortunately, Angus didn’t possess one sensitive, empathetic bone in his entire body. He was, in his own way, extremely shaken by the disappearance of Harriet, but his idea of cheering Camilla up was driving an even bigger gulf between them. It involved trying to roger her senseless, taking her for bone-jarring rides in his old Land Rover or inviting her to play drinking games with his farming mates down the pub. Although Camilla knew he was trying to help, when Angus suggested she take all her clothes off and run round the bar setting light to her farts, she just felt infinitely worse.

  It wasn’t that there wasn’t a decent chap under all the bluff and bluster, just that Angus struggled when it came to feelings or matters of the heart. He had only ever cried once in his life, and not at either of his parents’ funerals, but long before, when he was six years old and his older cousin Edward had accidentally run over and killed Angus’s rabbit Ace with a BMX bike in the farmyard. When Angus had burst into tears over the untimely demise of his beloved pet, Edward and his friends had teased him so mercilessly that the young boy had sworn to himself he would never cry again.

  Camilla had already postponed her wedding-dress fitting twice, telling everybody she was too upset about Harriet. They understood, and Camilla was telling the truth, but a little bit of her did wonder guiltily if she was using Harriet as an excuse as well. If she had been feeling confused about the wedding before, she now felt a million times worse. Ironically, the only person in the world she felt she could really have talked to wasn’t there. Camilla felt utterly lost.

  Things finally came to a head at the end of October. The nights were drawing in, and several lashing thunderstorms had reduced the countryside to a sodden mass. The brilliant sun which had so dominated the summer crept down in the sky earlier and earlier, only occasionally throwing out milky, luke-warm rays.

  Camilla and Angus were having a night in at the farm. His spring-clean hadn’t lasted very long. Camilla looked round in despair at the piles of dirty washing everywhere and the muddy footprints that trailed through the house.

  Angus was sitting across the kitchen table from her, boots up on the table, drinking a beer and reading a copy of Trout Weekly, his large goofy mouth moving slightly as he read aloud to himself. Letting ou
t a large belch, he looked at Camilla for praise, then scratched his crotch and went back to his paper. Angus looked as happy as a pig in muck, and it suddenly dawned on Camilla that he was never going to change. Angus was happy with things as they were, but she knew she never would be.

  ‘Angus, we need to talk,’ she said nervously.

  ‘What’s that, sweet cheeks?’ he said, putting down his paper. ‘Does the naughty filly want little Angus to give her a good seeing-to again?’

  That was enough. ‘No!’ she shouted, pent-up frustration and emotion pouring out.

  Angus was startled. ‘All right sexpot, keep your hair on. What is it, then? Bored, are you? I’ve got a British Lions DVD next door if you fancy it, bloody good game of rugger, that.’

  It was like they were communicating in different languages, she thought despairingly. ‘Angus, do you ever think we’re too different?’

  Angus paused to consider for a moment. ‘Not apart from the fact I’m hung like a rogue elephant, with a swinging set of balls to match. But you don’t want those, do you?’ he chortled.

  ‘Angus, will you stop joking for just ONCE!’ she shouted. ‘Please, I’m trying to talk to you.’ She paused, suddenly quite weary. ‘Oh, I just can’t go on like this. What with Hats and now this . . .’

  By now, it was sinking into Angus’s thick skull that something was wrong. ‘Now what?’ he asked nervously.

  Camilla wondered how on earth to work the conversation round. ‘What do you want from life, Angus?’ He looked perplexed, not being used to such searching questions.

  ‘Well, to live on a farm and grow and shoot things, but I’ve got that already.’ He looked around. ‘Er . . . to go on the beers with the chaps, maybe have a jolly in Will Thorpe-Jones’s box at Twickers every year, er . . .’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Camilla pointedly.

  He thought for a few seconds. ‘Beat the Snifferman’s record of drinking a yard of ale in 4.8 seconds. If I can do that, I’ll die a happy man!’ he guffawed.

  Camilla looked at him. ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you?’ He smiled at her indulgently. ‘You’re my foxy little filly, who’s going to live here and pop out lots of manly sons I can go shooting and hunting with. Oh, and who’ll carry on the family name at Harrow. There’s been an Aldershot there in every generation for the last hundred and fifty years!’

  ‘What if I don’t want that, though?’ Camilla cried. ‘Maybe I want to go and do a degree or go travelling or something instead.’

  Angus looked at her blankly. ‘But why would you want to do that when you’ve got Highlands? If you fancy getting away, we can always go up to Aunt Gwendoline’s estate in Perthshire . . .’

  Camilla knew then there was no hope. She walked round the table and knelt by her soon-to-be-ex-fiancé, holding his bear-like, muddy paws. ‘Angus, you’re a wonderful man and you’re going to make someone very happy,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just not me.’

  He stared at her for a second, uncomprehending. Then the blood started draining from his face. ‘You’re calling the wedding off?’ he said shakily. Camilla nodded unhappily. ‘There’s no way I can convince you not to?’ he asked, and she shook her head.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

  Angus pulled her into a hug; his huge body a comforting mass around her. ‘Come on, old girl, don’t get yourself into a state,’ he said, in a tender voice she didn’t think him capable of. ‘Can’t have you spoiling that pretty face with tears!’ His own eyes brimmed for a second, but his cousin’s long-ago taunts of ‘Cry baby!’ came to mind and he blinked them away.

  Camilla pulled away and looked at him. ‘You’re not cross? I thought you’d hate me.’

  Angus shook his huge head. ‘I’d never hate you, Camilla Standington-Fulthrope.’ He sighed. ‘Truth is, I kind of expected it one day. I could never believe you agreed to go out with me in the first place. You’re so bright and stylish and pretty . . . How a great big clod-hopper like me got his hands on you, I’ll never know.’ He smiled at her proudly, a flash of the old Angus back.

  ‘Angus, please don’t say things like that, they’re not true,’ pleaded Camilla.

  ‘They are,’ Angus said firmly. ‘And if I’m honest with you, Camilla, I can’t give you the things you want. You should go and travel, study . . . the world’s your oyster, you fine filly. As for me,’ he gestured around the room. ‘My world is here and I’m happy with it. It’s just a pity I can’t share it with you.’

  The next day, Camilla rang the bridal shop and cancelled her gown. Three days after the engagement was called off, Camilla, Caro and Calypso went out to a wine bar in Bedlington. There were lots of tears, for Harriet and for Angus – and consoling hugs. By the end, after many reminiscences, among them Calypso’s funny story about the time an infant Camilla had gone for a number two in one of Clementine’s prized flower pots, Camilla had finally started laughing.

  She ended up getting so sloshed she’d wobbled out at closing time and fallen face-first into the memorial flowerbed on the market square, right opposite the police station. DS Powers, working late inside, heard the whoops and shrieks, thought it was a local gang of troublemakers and rushed out with multiple arrests – or at least a caution – in mind. When he saw it was Caro Belmont, magnificent chest heaving with giggles as she tried to pull a pie-eyed Camilla to her feet, he offered the sisters a lift home instead. At Calypso’s request, Powers even put the flashing blue siren on, the three of them helpless with laughter in the back as she made inappropriate remarks about his truncheon and helmet.

  Powers dined out on the story in the staff canteen for months after, although his version had him turning them down for a threesome: ‘Bit unprofessional on duty, lads, and besides, there’s the wife to think of.’ No one had believed him.

  The next day, all three girls woke up to hideous hangovers. Feeling worst, Camilla spent all morning throwing up into a bucket by her bed, and didn’t surface until lunchtime. Despite vowing never to drink again, it had been exactly the release she had needed.

  Chapter 47

  ‘MORE BUBBLES, DARLING?’

  Lucinda Reinard offered her plastic flute up. ‘Please.’ As her friend Charlotte Stamford refilled Lucinda’s plastic glass with Möet, she glanced at the sky. It was looking ominously grey: angry black clouds scudding overhead. ‘I hope it doesn’t start raining,’ she said. ‘Hero hasn’t got her waterproof and she hates getting wet.’

  ‘Mmm, yah,’ said Charlotte, and poured the last of the liquid in her glass. She turned to her husband, a beak-faced man with huge bushy eyebrows who was rummaging through the back of the battered Volvo estate the two women were leaning against. ‘We need another bottle, Barnaby,’ she called.

  ‘What ho, coming right up.’

  ‘How long before they turn up, do you think?’ Charlotte asked.

  Lucinda looked at her watch. ‘I’d say twenty minutes or so. We’re at the halfway point.’

  As well as Lucinda and Charlotte, there were a dozen more mothers and several fathers standing around or sitting in the front of their enormous 4×4s quaffing champagne and eating quails’ eggs out of straw picnic-baskets. They were waiting for their offspring, all members of the Bedlington Valley Pony Club, to come past on their ten-mile sponsored ride to raise money for the Save Churchminster Ball and Auction Fund. Fifteen riders in total, led by the formidable District Commissioner Patricia Mountbottom. Lucinda hoped Hero was in a better mood; she’d thrown a complete fit that morning when she hadn’t been able to find her best jodhpurs, and had had to settle for the navy-blue pair instead.

  ‘Here they come!’ shouted one father, and, sure enough, the distinctive green and blue jumpers of Bedlington Valley were trotting up the road towards them. Hero was at the front, a freckly, gap-toothed girl riding beside her, ginger ponytail sticking out from under her riding hat.

  ‘Mummy, are you looking at me, ARE YOU LOOKING?’ Hero bellowed as she dr
ew nearer on Dancer. ‘Mrs Mountbottom has let me and Tabitha—’

  ‘Tabitha and I, darling,’ corrected Lucinda. Hero drew level with the car, both she and the ginger-haired girl wearing bright red armbands.

  ‘We’ve been made pack leaders because we are the best riders by miles!’ boasted Hero, pulling Dancer up. She looked at Lucinda and Charlotte. ‘How much are you going to sponsor me, then? Jake Winsted-Cleverly’s dad is giving him a hundred pounds a mile!’ At that point Jake, a small, skinny boy on a huge, brown horse that was far too big for him, thundered past, screaming, towards the main road.

  ‘Hero! It’s rude to talk about money,’ reprimanded Lucinda, as Patricia Mountbottom, her huge thighs wobbling, galloped up from the back of the pack to rescue Jake.

  ‘Heels down, Tabs,’ said Charlotte, rushing over and rubbing the mud from one of her daughter’s boots with the outside pages of her husband’s Daily Telegraph.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ Lucinda asked Hero. Before she could find out, a bawling Jake was brought back, led by a grim-looking Patricia.

  ‘You need to be the master, not him, Jake,’ she bellowed.

  ‘I want to go home!’ wailed Jake.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a wet lettuce,’ ordered the District Commissioner, sounding like an army drill sergeant. She looked around. ‘Right, are we all here, troops? Lead on!’

  Hero turned around as she trotted off. ‘Mummy, you’d better be at the finishing line to see me or I’ll be really cross.’

  ‘Little horrors, aren’t they?’ said Charlotte fondly, as they watched the ride go past. Lucinda tried to wave to Horatio, who she spotted riding next to a pretty, blonde, well-developed girl on a dappled grey, but he put his nose in the air and ignored her.