‘I’m sorry,’ Harri said absently.

She reached to touch the woman’s shoulder, but Margery stiffened and stepped back.

‘That’s quite enough of that,’ the former headmistress said. She made a play of adjusting Fred’s collar. ‘Well, now you know. There’s nothing more to discuss. If you’ll excuse me, I don’t think Fred is in the mood for a walk after all.’

Margery pushed past Harri. ‘Come on, Fred.’

Harri watched the fearsome woman stride north, returning the way they’d come. The poor dog struggled to keep up. She took her phone from her pocket and made a call.

‘Sab, it’s me,’ she said. ‘I need your help with something.’

Chapter 16

Harri walked back to her car, and when she reached the Elsewhere House, she paused to admire the view, storing it up to take with her. She tried to picture herself living in Arthog, surrounded by the towering mountains and the endless sea, but her encounter with Margery Allen had tainted her dream, and every time she saw herself in a cosy cottage, there was no love, no family. She was alone. She didn’t know whether Margery Allen was a spinster, but the old lady certainly did a good impression of one. Would that be the price of such beauty? Would Harri be doomed to spin out the rest of her years alone? It wasn’t as though she was setting the men of Staffordshire on fire. The one man she’d felt anything for might well be involved in murder. She’d cancelled her eHarmony subscription after losing her job; a combination of financial prudence and ‘I’m worthless’ depression.

She wondered if she should reactivate the account, but she’d lost interest after her experience with Ben, and she wasn’t sure she could face the liars, damaged shells, and creeps that would emerge from the website, their profile pictures and messages promising so much, and yielding nothing except disappointment.

Harri walked briskly through the forest back to her car and started the three-hour journey to Stoke. She kept puzzling over what Margery Allen had said. Why would David Asha smile at her? And why would he say, ‘People will think I’ve killed her’, unless he believed he knew there was something untoward about his wife’s death? Harri couldn’t answer the questions, and found herself drifting back to David Asha’s relationship with his son. How could he abandon Elliot in such circumstances? How could he leave his child alone in the world? Tragedy had torn that family apart, and their suffering made her reflect on her own life. She could never imagine herself being so irresponsible, but pain twisted people in terrible ways.

She wound through mountains, which eventually gave way to hills, and as the sun touched the horizon, it threw long shadows ahead of her and painted the rolling landscape red. By the time the hills were smoothed into the Shropshire plain, the sun was gone. Lights dotted the flat landscape and stars sprinkled the sky. The magic of the mountains faded, and the romantic dream of living by the sea went with them. She owed it to herself to get her job back. She needed to right the wrong she’d suffered. Cracking an unsolved murder might help get her part of the way there. She had to find out what really happened to Elizabeth and David Asha, and whether Ben had a hand in their fate. By the time she reached the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme, she knew she’d be staying put for a while. She couldn’t give up on her old life, on herself, just yet.