The Bernadette

By David Bramhall

The Greatest Cape trilogy of novels was described as "A cross between Treasure Island, The Railway Children and Deliverance ... by turns exciting, amusing, alarming, charming, violent and strange ..."

Of the first volume, The Black Joke, reviewers said ... "an extremely well written book with three dimensional characters you quickly grow to love or hate" ... "absolutely captivating" ... "elegant and easy to read" ... "a real page-turner - couldn't put it down".

The second volume, The Bernadette, follows the continuing adventures of Pert and Rosella who may or may not be murderers, and Pert's sister Fenestra who is developing a strange relationship with her dog. Is the curate really married? Why are flocks of sheep rampaging through the streets at night? If the landlord's dead, who do the tenants pay their rent to? And just who is the sinister Señor Vigo di Gallidoro?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bramhall
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310258855

David Bramhall

Composer and author, now a novelist of sorts, and always a grumpy old person with too many opinions. That's what my wife says, anyway.

Book preview

THE GREATEST CAPE

Volume Two

THE

BERNADETTE

Copyright © 2012 David Bramhall

First published 2012 by Walnut Tree Books

Second edition 2022

Walnut Tree Books

I

Beating gently into a south wind that had only a little chill in it, heaving slowly on the swell with her sails barely filling, the Bernadette stood in towards the coast on the starboard tack. At the wheel her young skipper needed only a light touch, while his wife stood close behind him and wrapped her arms round him for warmth.

Where's what's-'er-face? he asked.

Her name's Patience, may I remind you. Inappropriate though that may seem. She's sleeping. She wore herself out eating peas for dinner. They kept escaping.

They do that, peas.

They were silent for a moment, watching the cliffs loom out of the haze beyond the ship's long bowsprit. She blew in his ear. She was almost as tall as he. When are you going to give me another baby? It might be a boy this time.

Too busy. Get one of the crew to do it.

Don't they wish? she giggled, and went below to wake the baby up.

Pertinacious Potts glanced astern at the ship's slight wake, as straight as you might expect with such a feeble wind, and settled himself at the wheel again. The land ahead was gradually taking shape, the one great peak heaving itself up above all others. As yet it was indistinct, but Pert knew from memory every great buttress and crag of it, each steep grey flank and black combe. Bodrach Nuwl, the Old Man of the Mist, the greatest cliff of the western world, and to the south behind it at the head of a narrow creek, their destination. He had left it five years before in panic and desperation and was now returning as the captain of his own ship.

Granted, the Bernadette was barely large enough to be called a ship, but she was a small trading ketch and could carry a paying cargo, so he allowed himself a little pride; she was a ship, and she was all his, bought and paid for. With a tall mainmast and a shorter mizzen mast behind it, with great yards to spread the sails and a long bowsprit to extend both jib and staysail ahead, she might be old but she was sound and powerful, a seaworthy craft that could earn her keep.

The Bernadette rolled gently, the only sound the rhythmic creaking of blocks in the rigging and the occasional hollow thump as she buried her forefoot into a wave. On the foredeck the two crew hands lounged in the evening sun, one puffing at his pipe, the other dozing over a piece of fancy ropework. By tradition the bows were their own territory. They inhabited the tiny foc'sle, leaving the stern cabin to their captain and his little family.

From the snug little cabin below with its coal-burning stove and tin chimney, Pert could hear his daughter complaining at being woken. Presently Rosella appeared in the companion, the child wrapped warmly in her arms.

She's cross that I woke her, she said blithely, but if she sleeps too long now we'll never get any peace tonight. Look, darling, the land's coming! We'll be able to go for a walk tomorrow.

Patience looked unimpressed. Baa, she said, pointing forward towards the cargo hatch. As if in answer, a faint bleating reached their ears. Their cargo was forty sheep from a farm further north which would be landed the next day.

Baa? baa? she said more urgently.

All right, we'll go and see the sheep, her mother said, and made her way round the side of the companionway towards the middle of the ship to disappear down the small hatch that gave access to the hold when the large cargo hatch was battened down at sea. Pert admired the grace of her movement, balancing herself with one hand while the baby clung in the crook of her other arm. She climbed sure-footed down into the bowels of the ship, and he turned his attention to the land again.

The afternoon sun was lighting up the grey crags of the cliff in stark relief. They were near enough now that the great grassy meadows among the rocks showed green. Pert knew that, small as they looked from here, they were vast: wide sloping lawns of coarse grass and wildflowers where populations of rabbits lived their lives undisturbed by man, for they were perched many hundreds of feet above the sea and below the head of the cliff a thousand feet above, and the only enemies they had to worry about were the hawks that hovered and swooped along the cliff face, and the great gulls who thought nothing of seizing a baby rabbit in their cruel beaks and carrying it off to some wave-swept rock to squabble over it with their friends.

A million years the Old Man had stood here, stubborn remnant of an ancient mountain range, defying time and the elements. So vast that he created his own weather, with mists and a plume of cloud often hiding his head, he dominated this coast and could be seen from fifty miles out to sea on a clear day. Today the sea was quiet and the wind light, so the Bernadette could safely stand in close to the rocks. On rough days, the prudent mariner would give this place a wide berth, passing twenty, thirty miles out to sea if he could.

Pert recalled the caves that yawned in the deep shadows, and one in particular that had been their home for months while he had nursed the injured Rosella slowly back to health. Their cave had been small and homely with a bracken bed and a fire of driftwood and they had been happy there, or as happy as two fugitives could be, one of whom had been at death's door after falling from the top of the cliff and landing in one of the stunted trees that clung in the combes and crannies of the cliff.

Rosella returned to the cockpit without the baby. I've left her with Tosh, she said. She loves Tosh, and he's very good with her. I think they have a lot in common.

Pert grinned. You don't mean our baby's got a glass eye, do you?

Fool, she muttered, and elbowed him in the ribs before taking up her old position behind him. I think she actually believes she's talking, you know. She says 'baa' to them, and they say 'baa' back. It's like a real conversation. God, look up there!

He felt her shudder.

What? said Pert.

The cliffs, she replied. I was just seeing the cliffs and remembering.

I don't blame you. So was I. He looked up at the crags towering above them. What a way to fall.

It's not the falling, she said wryly, it's the landing.

Do you remember it?

No. I remember pushing that bloody woman over the edge, and thinking ... 'oh dear, that's my lot, then' ... and then nothing until you woke me up and I hurt all over. She glanced at him and smiled. Not that I wasn't pleased to see you.

He mused for a moment. Yes. I only saw a glimpse of you, but I knew. Knew it was you, I mean. Mostly I was seeing her, the old crow. For a moment I really thought she could fly, you know. She was squawking like an old crow, too. Then she fell on the rocks and her head sort of went 'pop' and the waves washed her away. Good riddance.

He looked at the compass, and peered behind them at the Bernadette's feeble wake. The wind's falling freaky under the cliff. Better go about and head out to sea one more time. We should fetch the mouth of the creek on the next tack, the tide's helping us along the coast.

He called an instruction to the second crew-member up forward, who waved and got to his feet. Pert smiled. For all their rough ways and forbidding appearance, John Tosh and Willum Borage were good men. They knew their job and just got on with things without any fuss, though they clucked round little Patience like a pair of old mother hens.

Below decks their cargo were stirring. They can smell the land, said Rosella, they know we're nearly there. They've not been any trouble, have they, poor things? But you can sense that they know the sea's not the proper place for them. They'll be glad to get ashore.

She was silent for a moment. As will I, I think, she added.

Hmm. Don't know what the reception's going to be like, though, do we? Best keep our heads down for a few days, until we see the lie of the land.

I suppose you're assuming no one will know you with that pathetic beard?

What do you mean, pathetic? I'd like to see you do any better!

I don't think you would, darling, she smiled, and went to rescue the baby.

Pert looked ahead. A couple of cables ahead the waves were breaking lazily on the rocks of the Stonefields, the jumbled ruin of ancient cliff that had collapsed and lay for a good half mile before Bodrach Nuwl, protecting the Old Man from the worst the winter sea could throw at him. In between the great towers of rock, deep channels stretched in towards the foot of the cliff, the black water sucking and echoing, fringed with weed inhabited by great crabs and slimy, creeping things.

During the violent storms that blew in from the west, this was an awful place. Breakers as tall as houses would thunder shorewards, walls of water so huge they had smaller waves crawling up their faces. Falling on the outer bastions of the Stonefields they would burst and shatter, flinging spray a hundred feet into the air, to be whipped up and blown inland by the wind, uprooting grass and small plants that clung on the sheer cliff-face, then roll onwards between the high rock walls, making the deep channels a perilous place for fish and a deadly one for men.

Somewhere in there, at the very end of the longest and deepest defile, lay the wreck of the Bight of Benin, his grandfather Mascaridus' boat, Mascaridus the pirate as legend had it. Pert had been there, and knew that the bones of the dreadful old man still lay among the shattered timbers.

He waved to Tosh and Borage and put the helm down. With agonising slowness the Bernadette began to swing through the eye of the wind, but Pert wasn't worried. She was a kindly craft and had never missed stays yet. He watched calmly as the two main booms creaked and came amidships. The crew held on to the headsails, letting the wind catch the back of them to help her head round before carrying the sheets across and making them fast for the port tack out to sea. Eventually the booms swung across, the great sails began to fill, and the trickle of water under her stern grew louder as the ship gathered way, this time heading out to sea again.

They would stay on this tack through the night while the tide turned and slowed their progress along the coast, then at dawn would go about and head in again. Pert thought that this time he would be able to time his arrival so they would pass easily over the shallow bar at the mouth of the creek while the tide was still flooding, then wind their way through the salt marshes up to the stone harbour.

He pictured the last time he had seen the little town, battered by the pirates' cannon and backlit by the raging fire at the top of the town, driven by a raging gale. With a shudder he recalled casting the brig Black Joke adrift, and that last frantic chase out to sea with Trinity Teague intent on running him down and drowning him. But it had been the pirate captain who drowned, and his ship that had been smashed in the maelstrom of the Stonefields, while Pert had escaped by the skin of his teeth and come safely to shore so he could find Rosella and nurse her injuries.

When they got ashore he must remember to tell Tosh and Borage to put shackles on the mooring lines. He had no intention of letting anyone do the same thing to him.

II

From the bald and terrifying head of Bodrach Nuwl the land slopes gradually inland, a place of desolate moor and scrub inhabited only by foxes, plaintive curlews and crows who seem able to scrape a living anywhere. The moors are seamed with many small streams and boggy lochans. Very far away to the east lies civilisation, the town of St.Portius with its lofty cathedral and broad paved streets, but that is three or four days' journey with few inns or villages on the way. The stony road winds grass-grown between the bogs. Few people care to pass this way, preferring the easier sea-route along the coast to the ports further south.

Today, though, a small figure could be seen trudging slowly, empty-handed, her arms folded for warmth, for there was no shelter from the wind soughing cold across the moor. There were no buildings behind her that she could have come from, and none in front that she might go to for refuge, only the winding track from rise to rise, and the pitiless wind. From time to time she would pause and sniff the air, then duck her head and toil onward. A patient watcher, had there been one, would have marvelled at her persistence or despaired at her obstinacy, for there seemed little point to her journey. She had come from nowhere and was going nowhere. There was only senseless movement with constant pain in her feet where her shoes rubbed, and the aching of limbs, and the dull throb in her empty stomach for she had not eaten for three days, and indeed had no money even if there had been a place to spend it.

A little stream brawled over the stones across the track, and she paused to drink, scooping the icy water up in her hands. Then she rose, brushing the grit from her bare knees. Her skirt was too short for warmth, though it was made of coarse, thick material. She spied a little pond where the water was trapped and still, and might be a little less cold, so she knelt again to wash her face.

She lifted her head and sniffed the air again. Smoke, she muttered, always the smell of smoke, and no smoke to be seen.

Looking into the pool, she grimaced at her own reflection. She saw a pale, stubborn face, the eyes too close together, the mouth a grim line, the nose a snub button, all surrounded by a mop of unruly hair. This was not a face of beauty. Like her stocky limbs and compact figure, this was a serviceable face, a useful face, one that would do its job and that was all. But it was all the face she had, she thought, so needs must. Had it belonged to a different person, people might have said she had a lovely smile, but she rarely had anything to smile about so no one had ever told her.

She straightened up and got to her feet again, looking back along the road and forward into the distance and seeing no one. She had seen no one for the last two days, even when she found a ruined croft and crept into a corner to sleep last night, only the empty road and the smell of smoke. Occasionally she had passed other signs of past human habitation – a few tumbled stones that had once been a wall, a hole that might have been a well, or a blackened hearth where someone long dead had huddled and tried to keep warm. This was a dreadful place she had come to, a place of little hope and unpleasant memories. She found a grim satisfaction in this, as she had little hope and many unpleasant memories herself. This was certainly the right place for her.

The thought of unpleasant memories brought to mind the face of her husband, her so-called husband Jeremiah Denticle, a thin, peevish, elderly face that she had never known to smile or laugh.

Come on, Dilly, she chided herself. What are you thinking about him for? You wanted to get away from him, didn't you? And away you've certainly got! This is about as far away as anyone could manage, I should think. There's an awful lot of away, here. Nothing but away in every direction, for miles and miles!

She turned slowly and surveyed this kingdom she had won for herself. A thin wind oozed through the thorns and made her shiver. Very far off, right on the edge of vision where the road dipped over the brow of yet another rise, she thought she saw movement. Just for a moment, a slim grey slip of a figure as it vanished over the summit. But she couldn't be sure. She might have imagined it.

You're probably going potty, Dilly my girl, she thought, and who could blame you? I just wish I didn't keep smelling that smoke, though. It would be all right if it was real smoke, with a fire to sit round and get warm, but there's no fire, and no getting warm. No getting warm ever, I should think.

The mud by the brink of the pond was beginning to make itself felt through her thin shoes, so she moved back to the hard stones of the road. Her stomach rumbled. Three days ago she had exchanged her last few pennies for a loaf of bread and a bed of straw in the outhouse of a roadside inn. The smell of smoke had been there as well. Since then there had been no bread, no pennies and no inns, but the smell followed her still.

Dilly shrugged and began to walk, the empty east behind her and the empty west in front. She managed a good two hours of trudging then, her stomach grumbling, found a large smooth rock beside the track and sat down to rest. The land around her was rising gradually, the wind in her face a little stronger and a tingly smell which she thought might be the sea. She was going westwards, towards the ocean, she thought.

Not that it makes much difference where I go, she said to herself, just away, that's all.

She pictured the narrow little house, always dark and chill, the narrow scullery where she spent her days, the narrow bed where she spent her nights with Denticle snoring beside her. Once in a while – very rarely, fortunately – he might 'bother' her, as she called it, before he slept. It didn't last long and didn't hurt much, and at least there was a little warmth from his thin bones while it lasted. Then he would roll away from her and compose himself for sleep. In the morning he would not speak, just eat the bowl of gruel she prepared, put on his threadbare coat and go to work. He was a man of few appetites.

Slipping down the side of the rock she found that she could get almost comfortable out of the wind, though she could feel the damp seeping up through her skirts from the turf. She let her eyes close. What would Denticle have done, finding her gone, she wondered? Nothing, probably, just sworn quietly to himself and gone to work hungry. Serves him right, the old miser, she smiled to herself drowsily and dozed, thinking of nothing.

Suddenly she was running, her raw breath catching in her throat, her chest flashing with pain as she fled down the moor. Her feet caught in tussocks of grass, she splashed carelessly through bogs and stumbled over stones, looking behind her.

They were still there, shouting with glee, waving their great swords. Three were behind her, and another out to one side, keeping pace easily. Their rough kilts flapped around their knees and their red faces were alive with the thrill of the chase as they pounded after their quarry. Reaching the foot of a decline she turned to her left and began to splash through the shallow stream that ran along the foot of the hill. The man on her right altered his course and began to slant down towards her, and looking at him she missed her footing, a stone turned under her foot and she was down in the stream, icy water through her clothing.

From her waistband she drew the little hunting knife, pathetic against their swords, and the men behind her gave a shout of triumph as they came up the stream. Struggling to her feet, the man on her flank only inches away, she fled uphill again. Smoke from the burning homestead swept down the hill towards her – she had turned in a circle in her panic and was approaching the farm again, the farm where her father and mother and her brothers lay dead, slaughtered while they slept. Only she had managed to slip away in the dim light, but the invaders had soon been on her trail and now they were very close. With one despairing burst of speed she reached the crest of the hill and there, coming up from the burning buildings, were two more of them running towards her with swords drawn. She stumbled again, falling in the grass, and her pursuers were on her. She scrabbled on her bottom and heels away from them, waving the knife at them, her teeth bared in a defiant snarl, but swords were raised and she felt a heavy blow on one shoulder. Then they were all round her and her world exploded in pain.

With a gasp Dilly sat up, panting. The pain in her shoulder and chest faded, but the triumphant shouts of her murderers echoed in her mind a moment longer. She breathed heavily, looking round. She was alone. She had been dreaming. But dreaming of what? How could she have imagined that flight, that terror, that desolation? It was like nothing she had ever experienced in real life. She had known a little pain, quite a lot of discomfort, plenty of bleak despair, but never this violence. Never death.

She looked round her again. There was the hill up which she had fled, here the stream in which she had fallen. Just over the brow of the hill had been the ruined farmstead ... should she climb up and see? No, there would be nothing. She knew, somehow, that all trace of the buildings would have been obliterated by time, the wind and the encroaching undergrowth. What she had witnessed ... what she had experienced ... happened a long time ago. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. She had dreamed of something long gone, some terrible event that had happened to some poor people centuries ago, their terror lingering somehow on this desolate hillside. She felt an immense pity for them: a life spent scraping a living from this bleak earth, cold and starvation always breathing at their shoulders, only to be slaughtered out of hand, for what? A few trinkets? A couple of goats, a small bag of grain? This was a terrible place. It had been a terrible place then, and it was a terrible place now. Dilly got quickly to her feet and fled onwards along the track, ever westwards.

Presently she came to a fork in the road. Ahead it led still westward, still slowly rising. On the horizon was cloud, or mist, and a great height. To her left, a gentler track led down towards a narrow defile in the hills, and disappeared among bushes. Further down she could see trees, and a glimpse of something shining in the far distance, something that gleamed like steel. Was this the sea? She had never seen the sea, but had heard talk of a place out here, a town beside the sea. Perhaps this path led to the town?

But something about the heights in front of her was calling. Somehow she knew there was something there she should see. This was an adventure, after all, this flight across the moors, this desperate fleeing from a narrow life of discomfort, tedium and shame, the shame of being a bought woman. True, it was an adventure that she did not expect to end well. She had no illusions about herself or her situation. She knew this was the end for her. She did not know how the end would come, but she knew she would not survive much longer, in fact had known this from the moment she decided to slip out of the narrow house in the back streets of St.Portius, away from the mean man who had bought her from a drunkard father happy to sell his only daughter for the price of a few drinks as soon as she was of marriageable age. There could be no happy ending to a tale like that.

Setting her shoulders, she turned away from the easy downward path to the trees and began to slog up the rising slopes. As she did so, a tiny movement made her look down towards the trees, and this time she was sure: in the far distance a slim grey figure slid between the bushes and out of sight, and once again she smelt smoke. But the air in front of her was clean and smelt only of the sea, so she put her head down and walked.

The wind grew stronger as she climbed. It whipped at the tussocks of grass, and rattled the dry seed-pods they carried, and blew little stones of gravel on the road. She leaned into it and felt its weight like a solid thing on her chest. It sang in her ears, rising and falling, saying Dilly, you're coming to the end, we're waiting! And it moaned with the souls of those who had climbed this dreadful road before, one moment a moan of despair, the next a high shriek of fear, warning her and beckoning her at the same time.

Presently the wind grew so strong that she had at times to put her hands down onto the stones and walk on all fours to make headway. Larger stones rolled down the path towards her and she dodged as they leaped and bounded down the hill. Clumps of turf flew past her ears, and occasionally a seagull would flash out of the mist ahead and flee down the slope crying mournfully, borne aloft on the gale. The cloud blew past her and it was hard to see what lay ahead, but she kept climbing, her chest tight with the effort.

At last the gale grew so powerful that she could no longer walk, but got down on her stomach and wriggled her way upwards, driven by the terrible desire to know what caused this storm. There was a deep note in the wind now, a bass thrumming that told of some great event or calamity about to befall, a vibration that seemed to penetrate the very rock beneath her stomach and reduce her insides to water. Suddenly her hands encountered no road. Entering empty space, they were caught by the wind which threatened to whip them over her head and send her rolling helplessly back down the hill. She clutched her arms into her chest, and inched forward.

Scarcely daring to lift her head, she cautiously opened her eyes and peered over the edge. The cloud was behind her, streaming down the way she had come. At first all she saw was blue. A deep void of blue that seemed to draw out her very soul, to pull her thoughts and memories and ideas down into itself, leaving her an empty husk that could blow inland like chaff. The wind stung her eyes, but through the tears she began to make out differences in the blue.

Furthest away and stretching off into infinity was the deepest blue, a rich gleaming expanse that faded into cerulean distance at the edge of vision, its rich colour made the more vivid by a tiny shard of black hull and brown sails, a minute ship no bigger than a pinprick with a tiny white wake behind it, heading away from her and confirming that she was looking at the ocean for the first time in her life.

Nearer to was paler blue, a veined and cracked field of stone made blue by distance. And close at hand was a blue that was almost grey, grey rock that fell away from her eyes, and fell and fell impossibly far until it met the field of stone. And in between these blues, and in front of her, and all around her was another blue, a blue of distance, of space, of air, a blue stitched by white birds that turned and banked and wheeled wherever the eye might fall, their cries muted by distance, their white wings making an ever-changing pattern that caught the eye and pulled at the mind. It was like being in heaven, and looking down at the world beneath.

As she lay there entranced, battered by the wind that rose up the face of the cliff and whirled away inland, she began to make out even more detail. She saw green defiles in the rock, that looked like tiny hairline cracks but were dense with full-grown trees. She saw wide windblown meadows of grass that sloped perilously. She saw a waterfall that gushed from the rock a hundred, two hundred feet below but never reached the bottom for it was caught by the wind that turned it to spray and whipped it upwards again in a rainbow mist.

She saw deep chasms black in the rock, and raw pale scars where the rock had fractured and slipped away, plunging hundreds of feet to the stonefield at the bottom.

The gale that roared in her face felt warm, thick with sea spray but warmed by the sunlit rock over which it had passed. It felt solid. She knew she could creep forward, leaning first her shoulders and then her chest on its weight. Then further forward, her feet pushing on the rock, until her whole body lay on the wind. Then a little tilt sideways and forward, a delicate slanting of the hands to steer, and she would slide out from the cliff top and fly, gliding like the graceful seabirds, in fine great circles out into the void and then sweep across the face of the rock before circling out again, sinking slowly, the world's first flying girl, Dilly the Wonder of the Western World, to glide and float and sink until she reached the bottom and angled herself up and made a neat landing on her feet at the foot of the cliff, a few little running steps to soak up the momentum and she would be at rest and perfect.

A tiny grain of sense remained, however, and Dilly did not ease herself out into the wind, but stayed where she was, ecstatic. This was what she had been brought here for. This was exactly like being in heaven, riding the western edge of the world as it breasted the void. She could die now, having seen this.

She stayed there, light-headed and dreaming, watching the birds wheeling below her, until the fading light of evening brought her back to reality. She felt calm, and began to inch back from the edge, smelling the comfortable warm soil and rock beneath her face and the familiar tufts of grass and thrift under her hands and legs. As she crawled blindly back, her hand struck something unfamiliar. She felt around it, and then grasped and pulled. Once she felt she was far enough from the edge she sat up and looked to see what it was.

In her hand lay a large knife, rusty now, with a faded wooden handle, once sharp but blunted by time. Dilly's ecstasy drained away. This was not a good knife. This knife, she knew, had not been owned by a good person and had not been used for a good purpose. Something dreadful had happened here. All this time she had lain in happy contemplation, and behind her were the memories of something terrible. This was like the ancient farmstead, people had been angry here, people had been savage, people had been afraid for their lives, had known despair and left their despair behind for her to feel now. Perhaps people had died, she could not tell.

She sat up and threw the knife as far away as she could, and listened to it clattering end over end into the darkness. Then she sat and thought what to do. It seemed a stark choice. She still had no money and no food. She could end it now, and fly from the cliff. That would probably be the most sensible thing, the thing she had been working towards ever since she left home. Or she could retrace her steps and take that easier road, the one that might lead to the town she had heard tell of. Once there, she still had no money and no food, but there might be some kind person, or a corner of a ruined barn or something.

And if not, she could always come back up here and fly. There'd always be that option.

III

Fenestra skittered across the High Street, running on her toes, feeling light and airy, and clattered through the doors of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. The bell rang furiously, and Primrose Moon looked up. At the tag end of the afternoon customers were few and far between. From the kitchen at the back came the sound of clattering dishes as Poppy, the little waitress, washed up.

Why, Fenestra dear, 'ave you been up to your mum's? 'Ow's yer dad?

Fenestra smiled happily at the fat woman and dropped into a chair. He's fine, thanks. He's been working in the garden. He's getting really keen on leeks for some reason. He reads the Bible to them.

And your mum?

Oh yes, they're both fine. They seem happy.

Primrose beamed at her, seeing the slim figure and the pretty face, the large brown eyes obscured by larger glasses and a cloud of curly hair. It must 'ave been a godsend, I should think, your Aunt Gittins dyin' and leavin' them the house. Not that anyone would wish for your Aunt to die, of course, fine ol' lady she were, an' nobody's fool, neither. But them houses is nice, up at the top o' the town, an' all quiet an' that.

Yes, they like it. And Aunt Gittins was jolly old. Where's Billy?

Primrose laughed. Whoever knows where 'e be at? He goes where 'e pleases, that one.

Oh. Right. Well, I'm going to do some writing. Have there been any customers next door?

Just a couple of ol' biddies lookin' at fancy doilies for their tables.

Fenestra was nominally in charge of ye Olde Gifte Shoppe that opened from the Tea Shoppe, but late in the afternoon was usually quiet and Primrose and Poppy could manage both. Primrose and her son Billy lived in rooms upstairs, while Fenestra had a pleasant room behind the Gifte Shoppe that overlooked the harbour below.

Righto, said Primrose, heaving herself to her feet. I'll make a pot of tea in a while, when I've finished clearing up here.

Fenestra went through the Gifte Shoppe, fragrant with candles and glass jars of pot pourri, and settled herself at the table by the window of her room. Licking her pencil, she gazed out at the evening. The waters of the harbour were ruffled by a lick of breeze, and fishing boats bobbed along the harbour walls. One or two boats were still making their way up the creek, winding between the salt marshes, their sails shaking while their crews tidied nets and stacked crab pots for the next day.

'There is no doubt,' she wrote, 'that the town has benefited from the ending of the business activities of Mistress Urethra Grubb five years ago. Many local people now live rent free in their houses, and the Emporium in the Market Place is a thriving business, run by its staff for their own benefit and that of the townsfolk at large …'

She paused and considered. Was this a sensible thing to be saying? Oh it was true, without a doubt. The day Urethra Grubb had plummeted from the top of Bodrach Nuwl was a great one and a mighty relief to all who had suffered from her power and malice. But was it wise to point out in public that with no one to collect her rents, her tenants were living in her houses for nothing? Perhaps this was an apple-cart that ought not to be upset?

And the Emporium, the large haberdashery business that dominated the Market Place, was now run as a co-operative by the staff, mainly young girls, supervised by the Curate's wife who had been a former shop-girl at the Emporium herself. Fenestra counted the Curate, Septimus Surplice, and his wife Floris among her dearest friends, but again it might not do to point out that Grubb's business empire had, in the absence of any obvious heir, been taken over in a bloodless coup.

Well, not quite bloodless. Fenestra smiled to herself mirthlessly. It had been no one's intention to wrest Grubb's power from her, but so it had turned out. And there had been blood, if the truth be told. Her brother's blood, for instance, for he had vanished that terrible night and never been seen since. And his friend Rosella, the lovely Rosella, had plunged from the cliff top with Grubb, hunted there by Grubb in murderous rage, and pursued by the pirates whose ship the Black Joke had meanwhile turned its guns on the town. And one of the cannonballs had killed Rosella's own father, Patroclus Prettyfoot – though he was not a particularly nice man, by all accounts.

Nevertheless, it had been a night of terror and carnage, and would live for ever in the memories of everyone who saw it. And the chief horror had been the death of the vicar, Silas Tench, burned to death in his own vicarage. He had rushed from the house, his clothes a sheet of flames, and gone bounding down the Canonry and through the Market Place to collapse somewhere in the narrow alleys beyond. And the worst of it was that rumour claimed the fire had been set by Rosella and Fenestra's brother Pert before they, too, met their fates. And the same fire, which spread to half the houses in the upper part of town, had also claimed the life of the vicar's servant-girl Vera.

So ... Fenestra pondered ... was it best forgotten, or should one try to identify the good things that had come from it? It