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  Sara prayed that Gillane had not seen her.

  She slammed her foot down hard on the accelerator. If there were sheep coming, damn them.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Every twenty miles or so, Sara stopped the car to scrutinise her map. Having never driven to Wales before she was confident that she was lost. Already on the road for more than three hours and she had barely made it halfway.

  Anxious and weary, she drove on for another couple of miles. At the side of the road, she saw the familiar WIMPEY sign and decided to stop for a late breakfast.

  The great thing about England, she thought to herself as she entered the sterile cafeteria, had to be the full English breakfast.

  Recovered from her early morning angst when all she could keep in her stomach was coffee, Sara now chose scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee from the menu.

  She ate with great enthusiasm, swallowing the food without chewing.

  Her breakfast consumed, she lit a cigarette. Drawing on it deeply, she scanned the other patrons. Mostly elderly ladies and children in school uniform.

  Sara looked at her watch. 9.45am. The children were probably skiving from school. How things have changed, she sighed, puffing out a cloud of smoke. Once upon a time, a child would not have dared show his face in a public place when he should have been at school.

  A couple of the grannies to Sara's right, smiled cheerfully at her. She may be lost but at least she was far from Glymeer. Here, people smiled.

  Forgetting to smile back, Sara pulled the notepad from her bag. On every single page, the words "Sarah" and "Gillane" stood out boldly. She flipped through the pages to the end of her notes and began to write:

  "Visit to Angels Rest...."

  She stopped, the image of Gillane on his horse in her mind. Maybe he had reverted to keeping horses again and had built himself new stables. Perhaps someone in the village had lent him a horse. Surely out of all the scowling, suspicious villagers in Glymeer, there was one individual on good enough terms with Gillane to consider lending him a horse.

  The waitress was wiping the table next to Sara. Her mind off Gillane for a second, Sara asked the waitress for another coffee.

  Gillane was an experienced equestrian. He could have steered the horse across the road at a gentle trot. But no, what did he do? Command it to jump with all its strength.

  The coffee arrived and Sara lit a second cigarette. She closed the notepad and put it away. The safest place for her thoughts of Gillane was in her head. Where no one could find them.

  Sara drank the coffee and smoked. She imagined Gillane and Sarah Lunn out riding together for hours. Sarah would gallop away, taunting Gillane to catch her. He would. Then he would pull her off the horse and they would make love in the open field not caring who saw them.

  Maybe Gillane had loved Sarah; her fresh innocence, spirited nature and boundless energy for love. Mag said she had the sweetest smile.

  Sara paid for her breakfast and coffee and left the cafeteria. She was eager to resume her journey and find Sarah's mother.

  Mothers know their daughters. Daughters are what mothers would have liked to be. Daughters make up for lost dreams and chances.

  Sara's own mother, Henrietta, was a wise old soul. Sara hardly ever saw her these days, which she regretted.

  When Sara was growing up, her mother often remarked how much they were alike.

  "You're just like your mother!" seemed to be all Sara ever heard.

  The remark infuriated her and in truth, hurt her deeply. She argued endlessly with her mother, shouting at the top of her lungs about why she was not like her at all.

  Towards Sara's eighteenth birthday, the arguments had gotten worse. She was relieved to go off to university just to get away.

  Sara had to wait until her thirtieth birthday before she was able to appreciate what her mother had been saying for all those years. But by then, the best they could do was to manage a certain complicity. Both mother and daughter accepted that they would never be close.

  Men came and went in Sara's life but the only one her mother ever met was Carl. Mrs. Perrins had been deeply disappointed when Sara didn't marry Carl. Years later though, when Carl moved in to Sara's house in London, she turned a blind eye. She was careful not to ask too many questions or make any comments.

  For Sara's part, she was grateful to the woman who had given birth to her - for more than she was able to express.

  The signs at the approaching roundabout were in Welsh and English. There was no point going any further without asking for directions. Sara pulled off the road into a nearby petrol station. She filled up the petrol tank first.

  The cashier inside was a plump, cheerful-looking Welsh girl. Sara didn't notice her right away hidden behind buckets full of fresh flowers stacked along the counter.

  "Fresh from today?" Sara smiled handing the girl twenty pounds for the petrol.

  "Yes Ma'am," the girl replied mistaking Sara for royalty, "I keep them inside so the fumes don't get at them."

  Sara selected a bouquet of white and yellow chrysanthemums from one of the buckets.

  "These look nice. How much are they?"

  "Three fifty, Ma'am."

  Sara gave her another five pounds.

  "Do you know a place called Angels Rest?" she asked as the cashier gave her the change.

  "Yes. It’s not very far. Continue straight on past the roundabout."

  Sara nodded and thanked the girl warmly. She settled back behind the wheel wondering if she had done the right thing to buy flowers. It was too late to reverse the decision. She had passed the roundabout and the petrol station.

  She looked at the flowers apprehensively. She would see how her visit went before offering them to Sarah's mother. She rued her choice of flowers; in Japan, chrysanthemums were symbolic of death. Lilies or roses would have been better.

  The girl at the station had said it wasn't far. Sara looked at the odometer. She had driven another twelve miles since the station. There were too many other cars going in both directions for her to attempt a three-point turn. Her best bet, she decided, would be to turn the car around as soon as she came upon a side road she could stop at.

  She was getting further and further away from the petrol station and the girl who had given her the worthless directions. She was determined to go back and wring her neck.

  At long last, after what seemed an eternity, she saw a small white painted sign on the side of the road. Sara slowed the car down and put her indicator on. If she didn't stop now, God only knew how far her next chance would be.

  She turned the car. Angels Rest, announced the sign. She had made it!

  Singing the praises of the girl at the station, Sara drove down the narrow path. Her progress was severely impeded by bramble bushes left to grow so wild they overflowed onto the path, scraping her BMW with their thorns. Unrestrained, the bramble had shaped itself into an uneven, straggly hedgerow. Its branches tangled and intertwined in all directions.

  Faced with no other option, Sara manoeuvred the car as best she could from the bramble. A series of potholes presented a different type of challenge: when the car tyres weren't sinking into them, the paint on the car was being scratched and scraped by the thorns.

  Shell shocked, Sara came to the end of the pathway from hell. Waiting for her was another sign: Angels Rest and an arrow pointing straight ahead.

  "No more. No more, please," she groaned.

  Her throat was parched from all the anxiety. It was 11.30 am. Five and a half hours since she had left Glymeer.

  She overcame her exhaustion enough to take a good look at her surroundings. Dazzling green hills for as far as the eye could see. Not a fence or a brick or a sound to be seen or heard. The square white sign with Angels Rest painted in green, looked out of place. It was ironic and comical at the same time. The thought crossed Sara's mind that John Sheeley had led her to a place that didn't exist.

  She drove wearily along what was not much more than a dirt track. She opened th
e car windows hoping to hear a bird or a voice. Not a single bird flew past. There was no robin here.

  Sara began to sense that her presence here was tantamount to sacrilege. She glanced nervously at the chrysanthemums next to her: a small inadequate recompense for those whom she expected to reveal themselves. In this place. A place where one came to be alone. When there was nothing left in the world that you wanted to be part of. The only ones to find Angels Rest would be those searching for it.

  The track rose steeply ahead of her. She switched gears and drove the car up and down again. On the way down, she saw a white cottage, nestling at the foot of the sloping hills. She stopped and got out of the car. She looked around her and could see nothing else. The track continued on for some distance. Like a piece of string stretched along a bright green canvas. It might go on forever. The solitary cottage could be the home of a mad hermit.

  Sara decided to drive on, to follow the track and see where it would take her.

  Five hundred yards on, the track vanished into a pile of rocks. The cottage behind her had to be Angels Rest.

  The prospect of having found Sarah's family filled her with trepidation. Sara turned the car around and sat staring glumly at the cottage. Her search for Sarah Lunn now seemed an immense responsibility to have taken on. Just as the track had literally vanished into a pile of rocks, going to that cottage was a point of no return. An end. An absolute. Sarah Lunn would no longer belong to her imagination but perhaps to a dreadful reality which she was not sure if she could face. To go any further, would require a leap of faith, a belief that something good would come out of it.

  Sara's mouth felt dry. She began to cough. The sweat was dripping under her arms. She needed to empty her bladder. She was alone and on her own with no other resources to rely on than her diminishing determination.

  She approached the cottage slowly, turning off the track and onto the grassy path leading to it. The cottage itself was bigger than Downswold and quainter with its large wooden porch and baskets of hanging flowers. To one side, a wooden barn-like structure for storing tractors maybe.

  Sara stopped the car and deliberated whether she should sound the horn or get out and knock on the door. The decision was made for her when a young man came out of the cottage and stood on the porch squinting at her. He heard the car and had come out to investigate.

  Sara hesitated getting out of the car and rolled down the windows instead. She kept her hands firmly on the steering wheel and the engine running.

  "Good morning!" she managed a smile at the young man who nodded back. "I'm...I'm looking for the Lunn family. Do they live here?"

  Barely twenty or twenty-one, too young to conceal his surprise, the man appeared taken aback by her question. He looked over his shoulder as if seeking confirmation that it was all right to reply. An elderly man, a great mop of silver hair on his head, sleeves rolled up, came out onto the porch. Despite being very tall, he was thin and wiry. Sara observed that he was leaning heavily on a cane.

  She repeated her question.

  The man cupped his hand over his ear as she spoke and yelled back: "I'm Philip Lunn!"

  The young man who had come out first, retreated into the house and an elderly woman came out. She looked remarkably like Mag, although a much slimmer version.

  Sara switched off the engine and got out of the car. She walked up to the foot of the stairs leading to the porch.

  "You must be Mrs. Lunn," she said smiling at the woman.

  "This is private property," came the stony reply, "What do you want with us?"

  From the words and their delivery, Sara could sense that this woman was both unyielding and unforgiving.

  Mr. Lunn began to retreat into the house, knowing no doubt, that it was best to leave his wife to deal with the unexpected visitor.

  "Please Mr. Lunn!" Sara pleaded, "Please hear me out!"

  Mr. Lunn complied and stood next to his wife, facing Sara.

  "Perhaps.... you could... give me some of your time. Your sister...Mag...would dearly love to see you Mrs. Lunn."

  Mrs. Lunn drew her breath in sharply on hearing her sister's name.

  Sara realised she had given the woman a fright.

  "No. No. Nothing's wrong. She's fine. I didn't mean to frighten you so."

  Mrs. Lunn regained her composure but seemed irritable and annoyed.

  "Say what you want girl. I've not got time to stand around here all day."

  Sara, who could not allow herself to be intimidated, found not knowing what to expect made her situation the more impossible.

  "Your daughter..... Sarah... I've been doing some research..."

  Mr. Lunn turned definitively, to move towards the door.

  Mrs. Lunn's face had turned as white as a sheet. She remained silent, standing perfectly still where she was, her hands resting on the bright white railing.

  Sara forced herself to continue.

  "I don't want to upset you Mrs. Lunn but your sister Mag is convinced that something happened to your daughter. I've become involved. I don't want to upset you but why did you tell the police at the time, Inspector Jay, I mean, that Sarah had gone away?"

  The words rushed out of Sara's mouth as fast as she could think of them, desperate to illicit a response.

  ".....but.... everyone in Glymeer....thinks that Gillane was involved. No one knows. There. That's it. No one knows. And I just wanted to know if you knew what happened to Sarah..."

  Mrs. Lunn did not respond. She stayed where she was, listening to the stranger. She remained motionless, listening to Sara's diatribe, her eyes intently fixed on the speaker.

  Finally, Mrs. Lunn spoke in a low voice, her lips hardly moving:

  "You are presumptuous. Now leave." she said, her thin lips curved downwards, concluding the visit.

  With a last glare, she turned her back on the unwelcome stranger and walked towards the door.

  Sara ran up to Mrs. Lunn and grasped her shoulder before she disappeared forever.

  "Why did you say she went away? Where has she gone?"

  Mrs. Lunn dislodged the hand from her shoulder, pulling herself away violently.

  "Get out. Get out!" she hissed standing inside the doorway.

  Sara knew it was over.

  She looked at Mrs. Lunn and the two men standing by now, behind her in the doorway.

  She was close. Something caught her eye. Paintings in the room from where Mr. Lunn and the young lad had just emerged. Paintings like the ones she had seen in Gillane's house.

  Chapter Twelve.

  The journey back to Glymeer was long and arduous. Preoccupied by the day’s events and her encounter with Mrs. Lunn, Sara kept getting lost.

  A small voice inside her head reminded her of the implications of what she had just done. She should leave well enough alone. Leave it alone.

  Whatever had happened to Sarah Lunn almost didn't matter anymore. Sara could not help thinking that Sarah's parents and Gillane had entered into a comfortable complicity. That all three had conspired to conceal a secret.

  The sight of the paintings in the Lunn's house had bowled Sara over. She remembered staggering back to the car, her hand covering her mouth. Before driving away, she had looked up towards the porch where she had confronted Mrs. Lunn. She saw the woman standing at the railing, supremely calm and composed, a glimmer of a smile on her face. Not a smile bidding a friend goodbye but a curled twinge at the corner of the lips. A distortion of a smile.

  When Mrs. Lunn realised that Sara was looking at her, she had withdrawn her hands from the railing and marched into the house. There would be no respite, no second chance for the unwelcome visitor. The talking was over.

  Darkness had descended on Glymeer by the time Sara arrived. John's shop was closed, bolted up, the blinds pulled down, the crates removed. Sara wondered if John would ask her where she had been going to so early in the morning. He might even already know.

  Sara stopped outside the post office. Impulsively, she thought of knocking on Mag's
door and telling her what had happened. But that would mean a cup of tea, which she didn't want. She needed a Scotch and a cigarette. What could Mag say anyway? She would be too busy crying. The time for talking was over. Leave it alone.

  There was no sign that Gillane had checked in on her at Downswold during the day. No note on the front door. The upturned, uprooted rose bush still sat forlornly on its head. Sara lifted it up and leaned it against the stone island.

  The cottage smelt dank and musty. Sara heard water dripping and went to check the taps in the bathroom and bedroom. All six taps were tightly shut.

  Sara changed into her dressing gown and washed her face. She went back in to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. The Scotch was better than water, she thought, listening to the drip, drip, drip, echoing around the room.

  The sound seemed to be coming from the cellar.

  "It can wait," Sara muttered, lighting a cigarette.

  The Scotch and cigarette soothed her nerves, releasing her from the edge. She drew up the other kitchen chair and placed her feet on it. She sat there inhaling deeply on her cigarette and sipping her drink. It was late and she should eat.

  The dripping was getting louder. Sara imagined that the cellar must have been flooded with the heavy rain from the night before and the day before that. Two days of rain that had seeped under the house.

  Sara put the stove on and cooked up a couple of sausages. Her diet of fried meat, breakfast, lunch and dinner time, was starting to bore her. She was missing the delis in London. The olives, pitta bread, houmous, calamari, the escargots à la bourguignonne she was so fond of treating herself to, they all belonged to a faraway place. And to her life with Carl. She comforted herself with the idea of buying all of the above and more on her return to London.

  The sputtering sausages had temporarily drowned out the drip, drip, drip. They were ready now and rather than face counting the drops while she ate, Sara put on a cd. Music from the film Un Coeur en Hiver. Gentle enough to transport her away from the paucity of her meal.