Stepping gingerly amid the survivors, I walked to the low wall and stood looking down at the rows of long-abandoned nesting holes. The one with the cracked ledge was still clearly identifiable, and I smiled slightly, tracing the ledge with my fingers. No need for me to keep the key any longer, I thought. It might as well go back where Richard had placed it, those many years ago. I took it from my pocket again and slid it back into its resting place within the niche. The rasp of metal on the worn stone sounded decidedly final. I was still standing there, lost in thought, when Geoff came round the side of my house a few minutes later, walking slowly and carefully, as though his feet hurt.

'Finding more treasures?' he asked me, and I shook my head, summoning up a smile.

'Nothing new, I'm afraid. How was your visit to Iain?'

'Fine. I managed to persuade him to stop working for a while,' he said, leaning on the wall. He looked terribly cheerful, if slightly vague. 'I even got him to open up a bottle of his twelve-year-old Scotch. We had a grand afternoon.'

'I can see that,' I said. 'It's a good thing you were walking.'

'Not necessarily in a straight line,' Geoff admitted, 'but I managed. Good God!' He suddenly noticed the state of the garden, and focused his eyes with difficulty. 'What's got into your bleeding hearts?'

I followed his gaze. 'Is that what they were?' I murmured vaguely. Bleeding hearts. And quite appropriate, I thought.

'Some animal's made a right mess of that, haven't they?' he commented, shaking his head. 'Iain will have a fit.'

'He will not,' I countered, with certainty. 'He hasn't thrown a single fit about this garden, not even when I've pulled up something I shouldn't have. He's a lot more even-tempered than you and Vivien give him credit for.'

'Maybe.' He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. 'Anyway, I didn't come up here to talk about Iain, or the garden.'

'You had a more interesting reason?'

'Two reasons, actually.' He sagged a little on the stone wall, but quickly drew himself erect. 'First, to tell you that I'm not going to be able to make our dinner date on Saturday. I have to go to London for a few days. Sorry.'

'Business again, is it?' I asked, and he nodded. 'Well,' I said, 'that's no trouble. We'll go another time.'

'You're not disappointed?'

'Heavens, no.' I stared at him. 'Why should I be? You can't help having to work. No such thing as the idle rich, is there?'

Geoff grinned. 'Don't you believe it. This is the first real work I've had to do all month, and I'll be idle again in August.'

'And what was the second reason?' I asked him.

'The what?'

'Your second reason for dropping by to see me,' I prompted, and his face cleared.

'Oh. I wanted to ask if you would make me a cup of coffee.' He smiled happily. 'Iain's Scotch is terribly strong, you know, and he's generous in the pouring of it, and I was far too proud to tell him when I'd had enough. He has a habit of reminding me how Englishmen can't hold their liquor. But I don't think I'd be able to walk home right now,' he confessed, 'without falling into a ditch along the way.'

'Well, we can't have that,' I agreed. 'With your luck Jerry Walsh would fish you out, and you'd be the talk of the town for sure. Come along, then,' I said, cautiously negotiating my way out of the garden, 'I'll make you some coffee.'

He was definitely looking a little the worse for wear, listing to one side like a waterlogged ship as he crossed the lawn ahead of me. He managed to reach the back door without incident, but misjudged the size of the opening and ricocheted slightly off the doorjamb before swinging himself rather stiffly into the kitchen. I was following him, one foot across the threshold, when from the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow hovering in the hollow, beneath the old oak tree.

I turned my head quickly, but not quickly enough. The place beneath the oak was innocently vacant, and there was no sound but the whispering voice of the wind in the empty dovecote garden.

Twenty-six

The rain lasted four solid days and nights. It fell steadily, drearily, without respite, raising a melancholy mist that settled over the landscape like a shroud and made the world as viewed from my studio window appear uniformly gray and colorless.

Ordinarily, I liked rain. I liked to watch it, walk hatless in it, listen to its random rhythm on the windowpanes while I sat curled into a cozy chair, reading. But after four days even my nerves were beginning to twitch.

My forays into the past were no help. Three times I managed to transport myself, and three times I found myself sitting alone, working to finish Rachel's trousseau, with no one around me to break the solitude. When I returned to the present I was invariably more depressed than before. I hated sewing.

It was boredom, in the end, that drove me from the house in search of the Red Lion's more sociable atmosphere. Apparently I wasn't the only one with that idea. Every table in the bar was jammed with people, all of them talking at once. From a corner came the jovial sound of a darts match in progress, and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of damp and drying clothes. Iain had obviously come straight from the fields. He smelled like a sheep wearing aftershave. He shifted to make room for me at the bar, and lit a cigarette.

'I haven't seen you for a while,' I told him.

'You shouldn't be seeing me now. I've a heap of work waiting for me, but this rain's been driving me round the bloody bend, so I thought I'd come in for a pint or two. I had to pick up the post, any rate.'