Elodie’s reaction was gratifyingly enthusiastic. “It’s so … you, Liz. The perfect accessory!”
“I’ve always envied my Guvnor his Triumph, and I can’t wait to show him.” Together they walked back into the house.
“I thought I’d find you at the computer,” Liz said, “working your magic for some verbally challenged mainland medico.”
“Well, I’m working magic, but on my elderberry tree. Give me a hand. You can reach some of the higher branches for me before you go.”
“Ah, come on, El. Not you too!” Liz protested. “Can’t you just trust it to keep the witches away from your kitchen door without mumbling incantations over it?”
“It’s doing a good job of that for me, all on its own. Haven’t seen a witch in these parts, ever.” Elodie chuckled and held out the secateurs to Liz. “I know how you feel about Aunt Becky, but this is Bacchic magic — sort of. My witches’ brew is going to be a really potent elderberry-flavoured vodka. Come on, and I’ll show you how to make a diabolically delicious potion,” she said, pointing to a berry-laden branch near the top of the tree.
As they worked together, talking idly about this and that, Liz Falla thought to herself, not for the first time, what a puzzle this woman was. It was not so much that she had followed a different path from Liz’s mother, Elodie’s older sister — much older sister — but that she had opted for a career so far removed from people. She held the best parties, belonged to the Island Players and enjoyed appearing on stage from time to time, but spent her working career before a computer screen.
Elodie said little to her family about her professional life, largely because of the esoteric and specialized nature of what she did, so Liz had looked her up and found her website. On it, she described herself as a medical researcher, editor and illustrator, and the examples she provided of her work were impressive. They varied from working with academic presses and editing specific research projects to composing speeches.
Elodie also said little about her personal life in London before she came back to Guernsey, but Joan Falla was sure there was heartbreak in her sister’s past.
“She was divorced, Mum. That’s heartbreak,” Liz had responded.
“That’s not what I mean,” her mother had enigmatically replied.
If she had decided to hole up back home in Guernsey to escape from whatever troubles she’d experienced, Elodie could not hide her good looks. Even in her working gear of patched jeans and a loose-fitting green silk blouse that had seen better days, she was striking. From some distant Teutonic ancestor she had inherited curly red hair and the ivory skin of the redhead, but without freckles.
“I wish I’d inherited the tall gene that you and my sister got from somewhere.”
“You are petite, Elodie.”
“I am short. That’s what I always say to your mother, and this is when I’d give a witch’s incantation for a few extra inches.”
Liz grinned. “I must say, it’s useful in my job to have my mother’s extra inches.” She reached up and pulled down another branch. The basket was just about full.
“Why? Because you are as tall as the bad guys?
“Because I am just about as tall as the good guys. Great to look my fellow officers in the eye and say ‘get lost’ when necessary.”
“Like that, is it?”
“Only sometimes. This looks like plenty — how much booze are you planning to make?”
“Liqueur, please. Yup, that’s enough. Do you have time for a coffee?”
“And to see what you do with these little suckers. Time for both brews. It was a rough morning, which is why I’m on my way to Beau Sejour, to work it out of my system.”
“Want to tell me? Or can you?”
Liz shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t see why not. You know the old hermit who lives in that weird place near Rocquaine Bay? He topped himself.”
The flippant tone did not surprise Elodie. She had heard it before in similar situations, or during family discussions. It drove her sister to distraction, but she knew it was her niece’s way of coping — not just with her job — but with other people’s anger, or pain. Or her own.
“Poor old fellow. Who found him?”
“The postman, believe it or not. Delivering magazines.”
Elodie watched as Liz walked towards the kitchen door, then appeared to change her mind. She took a few steps down the path that led to the row of chestnut trees that separated her cottage from the garden behind her. The grass on each side of the path was scattered with windfalls from the apple trees, and soon the prickly cases of the chestnuts would join them.
“Looking for conkers? A bit early yet,” she called out.
“There are going to be some beauts. Pity you weren’t here when I was a kid.”
“To me, you’re still a kid.” Elodie laughed. She paused, then asked, “So, no more about the hermit?”
Liz did not respond immediately, and when she did her voice was serious, flippancy gone.
“What do you know about your neighbour, the one who is renting Brenda Le Huray’s place? The property that backs on to yours?”
Elodie came down the path and joined her niece. “Brenda moved in with her daughter, and I don’t really miss her. She was always complaining about the chestnut trees. ‘Messy,’ she called them. His name is Hugo Shawcross and he’s a folklorist, he tells me, a researcher, and certainly the Internet confirms that. He’s the author of a number of books on the subject.”
“You’ve met him?”
An early conker fell from one of the trees, and Liz picked it up. It lay in the palm of her hand still in its case, like a tiny hedgehog with greenish bristles.
“Yes.” Elodie turned and looked at her niece. “This is not just idle curiosity, is it?”
“No.” Liz gently returned the chestnut-hedgehog to the ground. “Let’s have that coffee and make your potion.” They started back towards the house.
“What do you think of him?” Liz had dropped her voice.
Elodie picked up the basket they had left by the door and shrugged her shoulders. “A bit too chatty for my liking. But he seems pleasant enough, certainly non-threatening.”
Liz held the door as her aunt went in with the basket, and put it on the kitchen table. Elodie had made many changes in the early-eighteenth-century cottage, but, apart from its modern appliances, the kitchen was very much as it had been when its original owners roasted their beef and mutton on the spit over the giant fireplace. She knew how lucky she had been when the cottage had come onto the “open” market. Once you had left the island, it was difficult to get back as a homeowner, because of the protective property laws.
And the other piece of luck was a colossal divorce settlement. Every cloud, as they say. It had certainly helped when it came to putting in a bedroom and bathroom beneath the roof in what had been a loft, and taking out some of the interior walls downstairs to open up the space. She had replaced the white trim around the windows, put in a flagged driveway for her car, keeping the old limestone gateposts marking the edge of the property, and retiled the sloping roof in softly glazed coral-pink terra cotta tiles. Then, having taken care of the personal, she had had the whole place rewired to accommodate her professional working life.
“So, this is by way of being an official call?”
Liz laughed, took off her leather jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. “Not official, no. We’ve had a complaint about him, and since my boss has been off the island, I