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‘Where’s Freddy?’ asked Miranda, following her.
‘Asleep in his tent. He sleeps all morning, but he won’t come into the house. He wants to be ready if we get unwelcome visitors.’
As the slow, quiet days passed, and the nights of deep, untroubled sleep, Miranda felt her tension and misery lift. She still dreamt of Alex now and again, but her dreams about him now were different. And with better health she began to be restless.
‘I need to work. I think I’ll get a job somewhere down here.’
‘Would that be safe? Will Neil agree?’
‘I shan’t tell him. I can’t do nothing all day, and I need to earn my own living. I don’t suppose I’ll get a job in publicity, but anything will do.’
A few days later they had lunch at a hotel in Dorchester and Miranda saw a job advertised; for a secretary for the hotel office. She immediately applied, was interviewed and given a short test on the office computer system.
Flushed and excited she rejoined her mother in the car park. ‘I got it! I start work next Monday. The salary isn’t as good as I was earning in London, but it’s OK. I get a free lunch, too. They seem a friendly lot in the office, too; it’s a small place and I didn’t get the impression it was over busy.’
‘It will take you half an hour to drive here every morning, and half an hour back, you realise.’
‘There’s a bus that comes to Dorchester from your village, the manager said. Several of the staff take it.’
‘You don’t want to go by bus!’
‘I can’t use your car, it would leave you without transport.’
Dorothy groaned. ‘You are the most aw
kward, obstinate girl! Well, try it to begin with, then you can borrow my car if it doesn’t work out.’
But it did. Miranda enjoyed the morning drive on the bus, in misty half-light at first until the sun was fully up and the countryside swam into full view, rolling fields with neat hedges, filled with browsing sheep and cows, oaks and a few moth-eaten elms, woods and valleys and soft green hills. Dorset was a gentle, domestic landscape, very different to the dramatic Greek island she had been visiting.
The office was orderly and quiet, her fellow workers amiable and easy-going, with their burring Dorset accents. They were never in a hurry but worked methodically, got the job done. She enjoyed walking around Dorchester during her lunch hour, after eating a light lunch in the kitchen. She got to know the hilly streets, the shops, the museum where Thomas Hardy’s study was reproduced and where ancient farming tools and machines were on display.
One day when she got home her mother told her Alex had been there, demanding her address.
‘I had a lot of trouble getting rid of him. I had to threaten to call the police in the end. He’s a very intimidating man, isn’t he?’ Dorothy gave her a shrewd, searching stare. ‘What exactly happened with him, Miranda? He didn’t look like a killer to me.’
‘What do killers look like? Sean looks like a slightly plump cherub, I would never have suspected he could be capable of killing anyone.’
Her mother shuddered. ‘Don’t!’
‘I believed Alex was on my side, you know. He completely convinced me I could trust him. Looks can be very deceptive.’ She tried to keep the hurt and bitterness out of her voice but her mother knew her too well.
‘Are you in love with him?’ she asked softly.
Miranda did not answer and carefully avoided meeting her mother’s eyes, but she knew she had already betrayed herself.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Dorothy sighed. ‘I can’t blame you. If I was your age I think I’d have fallen for him, too. He’s very sexy, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Miranda said shortly, remembering her dreams. Alex was very sexy, but she didn’t trust him, and trust was essential in a relationship.
Terry Finnigan sat in his office staring at the documents in front of him. Bernie had been greedy. He wanted more of Terry’s firm than Terry wanted to let him take, his lawyers had drawn up contracts which would give him control of the firm in future.
If Sean was found guilty, he might spend twenty years in prison, although their counsel seemed to think the sentence would be much lighter than that.
‘We’ll plead a moment of madness brought on because Sean was afraid of losing the woman he loved if she found out about the baby,’ he declaimed, fingering his jacket lapels in a courtroom gesture. ‘He hadn’t planned to kill the girl. He blacked out for a minute, then panicked and tried to hide his crime, but he regrets it deeply, wishes he had not done it. If we can get the charge switched to manslaughter, he would go down for a few years – two, three, at most four.’
If Bernie’s family took over their business, though, Sean would come out to find the company was no longer in their control.
Terry ground his teeth. Damn Bernie. Why should he put up with being blackmailed like this? It was too big a price to pay for getting very little information from a bent copper. Of course, Bernie had helped him to get the names of Greek contractors who would get rid of that girl, but even there, apparently, they had fallen down on the job. Miranda had lived, for which, now, Terry was glad. But he didn’t feel he owed Bernie half his company.
