Page 3 of Last Track

That, finally, got him the full smile, quick and startled out of him, gone almost as soon as it arrived. Martin decided he did not like how much he wanted to see it again.

He was still deciding what to do about that when the back door opened and Jacks came in already talking.

"That'll be the van on the Ashcombe lane, then," she said, taking in Galen, the mud, and the general shape of the afternoon in one sweep. "It can come into the yard. Peter'll want to look at her before anyone tows her further than that."

"We will need the yard clear before we bring the ewes through," Martin said, because someone had to say something useful, and it might as well be him.

Jacks crossed to the kettle without looking at him. "Peter's not coming till morning regardless."

"That's not—" Martin started, then stopped, because he could feel the argument dissolving before he had finished building it. The yard, the ewes, the general principle of Ashcombe not being a campsite: none of it survived contact with Jacks deciding otherwise, and he suspected, uncomfortably, that none of his objections had ever really been about the yard.

Hazel came in from the front room a moment later, took one look at Galen, and said, "You're freezing and you haven't eaten," the French still clear in her vowels and none of it diminishing the correction. She had a tea towel over one shoulder and the settled authority of Jacks's partner of longer than either of them advertised, a woman who had run this kitchen and this life alongside her for decades, and who had never once doubted that feeding a stranger was simply what afternoons were for.

"I'm all right," Galen said, in the automatic way of someone who said that a great deal and rarely meant it.

"You'll eat before anyone drives you anywhere," Hazel said, already turning toward whatever she had in the oven, and that appeared to be the end of the discussion.

Jacks poured tea strong enough, in Martin's professional opinion, to restart agricultural machinery, and handed a mug to Galen without asking whether he wanted it.

Galen thanked her and took a swallow.

His eyes widened by a fraction. It was barely anything, a brief failure of whatever discipline had kept the rest of his face under control through the agency call, but Martin saw it. He watched Galen's throat work, watched him lower the mug carefully, and watched the expression resolve into the polite neutrality of a man determined not to insult a woman currently rescuing both him and his van.

Jacks's brew had a reputation. Even the district vet had once tried to dilute it when she wasn't looking. Galen took a second drink without complaint.

Martin filed that away as one more piece of evidence in a case he had never agreed to build.

Jacks rang Peter while Hazel put bread, cheese, and something warm from the oven in front of Galen. Peter's verdict arrived precisely as Martin expected. He would come in the morning. The knocking wanted a proper inspection rather than a roadside guess, and nobody was to start the engine in the meantime.

"The hard standing by Martin's cottage," Jacks said after she hung up. "Power point's there, and Peter can get the trailer in without disturbing the flock."

Martin looked at her.

Jacks looked back.

The matter was settled.

"Bring him back when you've moved it," Hazel said. "He can shower here, and you'll both eat before anyone starts discussing beds."

Galen opened his mouth, presumably to object to at least one part of that sentence.

Hazel gave him a look.

He closed it again.

They went back for the van once tea and a plate of Hazel's bread had been dealt with, Martin driving Jacks's old Land Rover down at a crawl with the tow strap coiled in the footwell. Galen sat alongside him empty-handed, having left everything that mattered to him right where he had secured it.

Nina turned out to be every bit as improbable as her name suggested and considerably less charming than Martin had braced for. He had expected something bohemian and hand-painted, the sort of van that turned up on postcards. What he got was faded pea-soup green gone patchy with primer, a pop-top that had clearly been raised and lowered several thousand more times than the manufacturer had intended, and a rear curtain hanging half an inch off true that nobody had bothered to fix because it still, technically, closed.

She looked less like a lifestyle and more like a fact Galen had simply been living with for a long time.

Galen slid open the side door and reached beneath the rear bench for a pair of work gloves. Only then did he spare a thought for himself, running a hand back through his ruined hair as an afterthought.

Martin watched him do it and felt something in his chest rearrange uninvited.

With the side door still open while they rigged the strap, Martin caught a brief view inside. A green-plaid bench ran across the rear beneath faded yellow canvas curtains, and along one wall a narrow countertop held an inset sink and two-burner hob. Green carpet covered the floor. It was cramped and battered, certainly, but everything had its place.

It told him more about Galen Storms in fifteen seconds than the man had volunteered in the last hour, and Martin disliked how much the glimpse made him want the rest.