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Chapter 128
Poewoke Doyle around 5 p.m. for something to eat: baked potatoes, lamb chops and some steamed leaves he’d thought were kale but turned out to be spinach. She was gritty-eyed and sleepy when she joined him downstairs, but perked up when he put a bottle of cold beer in her hands.
‘I don’t have any wine, I’m afraid,’ he said.
She clinked his own bottle and said, ‘This is exactly what I need.’
They ate quickly and quietly, both of them letting Edgar beg the strip of fat they’d removed from their lamb chops.
‘Did you get any sleep, Poe?’ Doyle asked.
‘Few hours this afternoon,’ he replied. ‘Enough to stop me falling asleep tonight.’
‘You’re expecting him to come, aren’t you?’
Poe carefully considered the question. ‘Actually, I’m not,’ he said. ‘An accurate likeness of him was on the news earlier and it’ll be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow. He’ll hole up somewhere and try to ride it out. I don’t doubt he’ll try to make time for you at some point, but I don’t think it’ll get that far.’
‘No?’
‘I don’t think Frederick Beck realises just how famous he’s about to become.’
After dinner they walked Edgar, and Poe showed Estelle his land.
‘It’s only a few acres, so nothing in your father’s league,’ he said. He realised how tactless that was and immediately apologised.
She waved it off. ‘He was the biggest private landowner in the north,’ she said. ‘I suppose that means I am now.’
Poe brewed tea when they got back to Herdwick Croft and theysipped their drinks, staring into the glowing heart of the wood-burning stove. Something was happening between them but Poe couldn’t figure out what. They’d been chatting like the friends they were for an hour or so but the atmosphere had recently changed. Subtly, but enough for Edgar to notice. The spaniel whined. Poe reached down and played with his ears.
Doyle yawned. Poe thought it was forced.
‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ she said, looking directly at him.
‘OK,’ he said.
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Me and furball here will watch the door tonight.’
‘Won’t you get cold?’
‘I’ll keep the fire going.’
She sighed and threw her hands in the air in an ‘I give up’ kind of way. She said, ‘See you in the morning then.’
And without another word she left the room.
Edgar looked at the empty stairs then back at Poe. He seemed disappointed in him.
‘I know,’ he said.
He went back to staring at the door, his eyes shrouded, his face a mask of monstrous calm. Only the clench of his jaw revealing the internal struggle he’d just won.
