Telling Tales Read Online Free PDF

recognition. As Robert moved on towards her, the man spat out the mouthful of wine in his direction. The white robe was splashed with red from the thick, sweet wine. It could, Emma thought, have been blood seeping from a wound. There was a gasp of excitement masquerading as horror from the woman on the other side of Emma. The vicar hadn’t seen what had happened and Robert took no notice. The man got to his feet, and instead of returning to his pew, continued down the aisle and left the church.
    The incident had happened very quickly and, hidden by the backs of the Communicants, it wouldn’t have been visible from the nave. But as the man passed her, Dan Greenwood’s companion got to her feet and followed him out.
    Chapter Five
    Every week after church they went back to Robert and Mary’s house for lunch. It was an immutable part of the ritual, like the reading of the Epistle and the collect of the day. Emma thought it unfair that her mother, who spent an hour after the service pouring coffee and washing dishes, should immediately throw herself into domestic activity at home. Mary claimed to enjoy it, but the Mary she remembered from York hadn’t been at all domestic. There’d been a cleaning lady then, and they’d eaten out a lot. Emma had memories of a family-run Italian restaurant, long Sunday afternoons of pasta and ice cream, and of her parents leading them tipsily home just as it was getting dark.
    James always brought a couple of decent bottles of wine with him to the lunch. Emma thought he needed the alcohol to ward off the cold and numb the tedium. But when she’d suggested that they should make an excuse and stay away he wouldn’t hear of it.
    i “I like your parents. Your father is interesting and intelligent and your mother is charming. You are fortunate that they’re so supportive.”
    After that implied rebuke she didn’t bring up the subject again.
    Springhead was a square, grey house just out of the village. Once it had been a farmhouse, but the land had been sold off. This was the house the family had come to when they’d moved out of York. Robert had been triumphant to find it. All their savings had been used up during his social work training, and he’d never believed it would be possible to find somewhere so spacious within his budget. He’d dismissed the surveyor’s report, which highlighted rising damp and woodworm in the roof joists, insisting this was the place the family were meant to be. Emma thought it had probably been for the best. She couldn’t imagine him in a semi on a new estate. She told herself his ego wouldn’t survive in a cramped space, though knew that was probably unfair. She was desperate, really, for his approval.
    From Christopher’s old room in the attic, it was still possible to see the field where Abigail’s body had lain. The view hadn’t changed. The land here was so flat and near to the coast that development wasn’t allowed. A recent report from the Environment Agency predicted not only flooding, but the possibility that the whole peninsula could be washed away.
    It was raining hard as they drove out to Springhead, so dark that they needed headlights. The ditches were full and surface water ran down the middle of the road. They were in James’s Volvo. Robert and Mary had gone on ahead.
    “Who was that dreadful woman with Dan?” James asked. He liked beautiful objects. Emma believed that was why he put up with her moodiness now.
    “I haven’t a clue. I hadn’t seen her before.”
    “I wondered if she could be a business contact. You could imagine her running a craft shop. Harrogate perhaps, or Whitby.”
    “Oh yes!” Sometimes she was surprised by how perceptive he could be. That was when she liked him best when he surprised her. “But Whitby, surely. Not classy enough for Harrogate.” She paused. “Do you think that was why Dan was in church? To please her? In the hope of securing a sale? It seems an odd thing to do. And not like him. He always