Accepting her help unquestioningly as he moved through his morning’s chores, Gabe didn’t ask Alexia why she was there. It wasn’t because he didn’t care, she knew. Gabe just had an uncanny knack for letting people be.
It wasn’t until they stopped for elevenses of homemade mint tea with Eccles cakes, consumed leaning companionably on Snobby’s gate, that he enquired whether Ben had spoken to her again. Snobby rested his head on Gabe’s arm because Gabe was the one person he’d come to without a bribe.
‘Nope.’ She sipped her steaming drink and stroked Snobby. ‘Looks like his coat’s thickening for winter already.’
He nodded. ‘Probably it will be a hard one.’ He sighed, making Snobby sigh back. ‘Alexia, I’m not excusing Ben’s clumsiness but he has had a dreadfully shitty thing happen to him. He pretends he’s coping but I can’t tell you how unBen-like it is to isolate himself in the woods.’ He gave Alexia a nudge to encourage her to look at him. To read the sincerity in his brown eyes. ‘All the people he loved most let him down. He’s full of anger and he doesn’t know how to let it out. I think I understand why he was so maladroit yesterday and then didn’t seem able to retrieve the situation. It was like he was a boiler with a tiny crack. The steam that escaped was under pressure.’
Alexia put down her Eccles cake as she relived the stomach-plummeting feeling of being made to feel like a criminal by the man whose body she’d caressed. ‘Are you talking about his divorce?’
Gabe hesitated. ‘It’s a hard thing to face, not being able to keep your wife. But there’s so much more to Ben’s situation than that.’ He finished the final bite of Eccles cake before continuing. ‘I’ve always had a special relationship with Ben. I see him as a bit of a kindred spirit. For most of my life I tried to conform. I let my parents influence me into joining the bank, a very stuffy institution in those days, just because I was good at maths. I tried to give my wife the kind of marriage she wanted, with dinner parties and a modern box of a house. I was thrilled when the bank gave me the opportunity to retire early but she was horrified that I wanted to get an allotment and animals. I wasn’t trying to winkle her out of her precious six-bed detached in Orton. I would have carried on with all that nonsense if she’d given me a bit of understanding, but she wanted me to fritter away my days on bridge parties and coop myself up on cruises. We had the most extravagant rows about it.’
His laugh held an echo of an old relief. ‘When we finally gave up on the marriage, I came here to the simple outdoor life I’d always wanted and my wife was happy with that as long as she got the lion’s share of the money in the divorce settlement. Ben was the only one of my family who seemed to understand, who glowed as he explored every inch of the place, asking question after question. The rest of our family looked down their noses and said they were wearing unsuitable shoes.
‘In time, it was me who supported Ben’s wish to study arboriculture instead of whatever boring subject my sister Penny had earmarked for him. Because I recognised a square peg in a round hole when I saw one.’
Despite herself, Alexia was interested. She still tried not to show that her interest extended to Ben, though. ‘Do you think of your wife much?’
He gave her a wink. ‘I called my pony Snobby, didn’t I?’ With a last squeeze of her hand he rose. ‘Shall we pick those beans?’
Before they could, his phone began to ring and he slid it from his pocket. As he listened, the laughter died from his face. Presently he said, ‘Hold on a moment. Alexia Kennedy is with me. I’ll ask her.’ He took the phone from his ear. ‘A detective constable from Bettsbrough Police. Would we like to go in and make our statements this afternoon?’
The sun went behind a cloud as reality made itself felt again. Alexia sighed. ‘I suppose. Let’s go together. Get a time and I’ll pick you up, because I don’t suppose the police station has a hitching rail for Snobby.’
Ben remembered Alexia telling him she lived in Main Road, but not the number of the house. As he didn’t particularly want to ask Gabe in case it provoked another lecture, he asked at the village shop.
‘Number forty-four, blue door,’ the well-upholstered lady behind the counter responded promptly. ‘Caught your eye, has she?’
‘Um, thanks.’ Put off by such outright nosiness he hurried out before she could invade his privacy further.
When he located Number 44 he realised it stood quite close to the entrance to Gabe’s track. He must have passed it dozens of times. Squaring his shoulders, he strode up the path and rapped with the black doorknocker.
The door was opened by Jodie, wearing a tatty cardigan and a half-hopeful expression. ‘Oh. Hello,’ they said in unison, each sounding disappointed to behold the other.
‘Is Alexia here?’ Ben felt on edge. Last he’d heard, Jodie’s boyfriend had been proving difficult to contact just when a lot of people wanted to speak to him urgently.
Jodie shook her head.
‘Right.’ He tried to prompt her. ‘Any idea when she might be home?’
Jodie just shook her head again.
Good manners made Ben thank her, though he wasn’t sure what for. He turned and wandered up the track to Gabe’s but found the house locked up.
While he decided on his next move he watched the chickens pecking peaceably, placing each clawed foot as if fussy what they trod in. Though the autumn sun fell on his shoulders there was no real warmth to it. It made him wish he’d spent some of the summer at Gabe’s place instead of letting Gabe come to him while Ben did the hermit thing in the woods.
Shaking himself free of such pointless regrets he tried Gabe’s phone. No answer. He strode back to the shop, where he’d left his pick-up, and drove around the corner to The Angel. He might as well do something useful.
He carried his kit around to the back of the property where the yellowing grass was up around his thighs and neglected shrubs had linked arms as if to keep humans out. His target was an old apple tree with a decided lean. The bare branches on one side and the shelf fungus on its trunk told Ben there wouldn’t be a good end to its story so Gabe had agreed it had to go.
Hardhat, visor and ear defenders in place, he paced around, treading down the grass and deciding on the best place to drop the tree. Then he turned to the wall of shrubs, alternately using his saw and his hedge cutter until he’d cut a path through them. He dragged aside the resultant heap of brush to go through the chipper later.
He turned back to inspect the tree. It would be unsafe for him to get up into it to reduce the crown before felling, so, after a check of the blade and chain, he started up his chainsaw to lop what he could reach from the ground without it falling on him. Guided by his even strokes the glistening blade sliced through the wood in a fountain of chippings as the motor wailed yeeeeOOwwwwww. He cut up the branches as they fell, clearing the brush and stacking the timber.
Then he pulled back the grass and weeds to get a good look at the base of the trunk. He eyed the line on which he wanted the tree to fall then returned his chainsaw and ear defenders to the truck and picked up his axe.
Hefting it, he mentally marked out his target then began to chop, first a pilot cut on the side the tree would fall, then settling in to cut slightly higher on the opposite side, his swinging axe eating methodically through the trunk. Despite gloves, his palms stung and his shoulders ached, but somehow the regular blows gave him satisfaction.
He paused to shrug off his jacket and wipe the sweat from under his visor, checking that his line of fall was still good. That was when he realised he had an audience.
A woman who reminded him of Betty Boop was standing back, watching. He pulled off his hardhat and visor. ‘Alexia!’
The