Frozen Grave

Chapter 27

After they’d gone, Ellerman paced around the kitchen, thinking what he should do. He had to keep focused, positive. He went into his office, sat at his desk and logged on to his Internet bank account, bringing up his statements. He had to see exactly how much more he needed to cover expenses at home and abroad this month and then he would be able to make a plan to find the money from somewhere. He spent the next hour moving money around and jotting figures down – no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t add up. He spent the evening watching television with Dee. They ate pasta with a bought sauce. Ellerman picked at his. Neither of them spoke. Dee went to bed early. The next day they hardly saw one another: Ellerman worked in his office and Dee worked in the garden or watched television by herself. By Sunday they had begun to row. Dee had cried herself to sleep and Ellerman had drunk almost a whole bottle of brandy.

On Monday morning, Dee went out without telling him where. He got up, made himself some coffee and then paced about the kitchen.

He picked up his phone and wrote a text and sent it to several contacts:

Remember I love you.

And then he wrote another to Megan:

Coming down today. Be with you at three.

He knew what he should do now. He’d go to Megan’s first and charm her, push the idea of Spain again and show her the photos. Then he’d go and see Emily and get her to transfer ten thousand and that would see him through the next ten days and by that time he might have some results from the yacht deals.

He went and repacked his bag hastily, then he went into the bathroom and looked at his wife’s shelves and saw the bottles of perfume he’d brought her back from his travels abroad. Some of the bottles were still in their boxes, cellophane on. He slipped his hand into the back of the shelf and pulled out Angel. He particularly liked that smell but his wife never wore it. He also picked up a bottle of Chanel No. 5. He put his bag in the boot of the Range Rover, then headed out of London and took the scenic view down on the A303 towards Devon. The further he got from London the better he felt. He sang along to his music. By the time he turned into Megan’s courtyard he was in a great mood. He switched off Santana’s ‘Black Magic Woman’ and stretched as he got out of the car. The sun was glorious. The cold air – reviving.

Megan met him at the door. He kissed her.

‘Close your eyes and hold out your hands,’ he said as he placed the Chanel No. 5 in her outstretched palms.

‘How kind.’ She looked at it and he knew she would never wear it. Come to think about it – he would have been better off if he’d given that to Paula and chosen a book for Megan, one of those arty photography ones. Damn – he should have thought about that.

‘Fancy a picnic?’ she asked, putting the perfume on the kitchen table.

‘Lovely.’

They walked up through the field she owned at the back of her property. Bramble, a pure-bred Dartmoor pony, was grazing there. Megan stopped to stroke her.

‘She won’t bite.’ She laughed at Ellerman’s reluctance to come close.

‘Best place for a horse is in a burger.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Bramble.’

She stroked the pony’s mane as it nuzzled into her and nudged her with its head.

As they walked through the gate at the top of the field the moor took hold: waterlogged tufts of dead fern squelched beneath their feet.

After skirting the village they came out on the main road. Haytor stood dark and solid, stark on the horizon. They crossed to follow the old granite tramline that ran up and round to the right of Haytor, and walked for ten minutes in silence as they climbed steeply until they reached a place where the last of the cut granite was piled ready for transportation that never came.

‘On a fine day you can see the sea,’ Megan said, smiling, happy, as they stopped to get their breath.

‘Lovely.’

He could see that it would take a lot to shift her from this place. If he ever married her he would make her move up to town.

They skirted round to the right of the discarded granite, and around the back of the largest of the three quarries. The way into the quarry was a narrow path, flanked by high hedges and built into the hillside. It was a pathway that led straight into the base of the quarry and to the edge of the lakes there.

Ellerman looked back across the crater. The lakes in the basin were beginning to freeze. Snow was still white and unsullied on the stems of grasses blown into the quarry and surviving in the stillness.

‘It’s so still here – what an eerie place.’

‘Yes – but beautiful. Things grow here that wouldn’t survive on the top. Welcome to my secret world.’

Ellerman picked up a stone and threw it into the centre of the deepest pool.

‘Won’t be long before it’s completely frozen. The water is as grey as all this granite.’ Ellerman looked around him. ‘Do you come here very often?’

‘Every day. It’s the inspiration behind a lot of my work. I see it change through the seasons. I love the way the light reflects on the water and illuminates the walls of the quarry, creating depth in the shadow. I love the way the trees have taken root between the slabs of cut rock. I love the way…’

He kissed her. ‘And I love the way you feed me. I’m starving.’

‘Of course. Let’s eat. Follow me – I have just the table for us.’

He followed her past the lakes and up into a sheltered place where the granite had been cut and left in slabs and blocks. Megan unpacked her picnic and laid it on top of the slabs.

Ellerman couldn’t wait to get away from the quarry. The more he sat there, hemmed in by a hundred feet of jagged rock, three freezing lakes between him and the path out, the more he felt the knuckles back rapping on the top of his head.

‘Are you okay?’ Megan looked at him, concerned.

‘Yes. Just a little headache after the drive, that’s all. Have you got any wine in that backpack?’

She smiled. ‘Of course.’

She took out a bottle of Spanish Rioja and showed it to him.

‘I thought we could have a toast to us – to good times ahead, holidays in Spain in your farmhouse there.’

Ellerman brightened. He turned his back on the chill breeze that had come to swirl around the basin and send ripples across the centre of the lakes where the ice had yet to reach. ‘Perfect choice. You clever little thing.’

For a moment, Megan looked at him, puzzled by his choice of words, but then she smiled and let it pass. She opened the wine and poured and handed him a glass then raised hers to a toast. Ellerman had half finished his already.

‘To us.’ She felt a flash of annoyance at his rudeness but she recovered quickly whilst he finished his glass.