The Crow Trap (55 page)

Rachael stretched her hands towards the fire. “Did Barbara ram my car on the track that night?”

“Oh, yes. She was desperate. She was trying to frighten you away.” Vera paused, pulled a face. “And one of our people stopped her. Can you believe it? She told him she was visiting her sick mother and he was taken in. The fight to stop the quarry was an obsession. Perhaps she was just trying to save herself but I think it was more than that.

She saw it as a desecration of the little boy’s grave.” Vera sighed, leant back, took a deep draught of wine. Ashworth shuffled restlessly. He’d heard all this before and he had his lass to get back to and a warm bed, and at last the baby had started to sleep through the night.

Anne asked suddenly, “What’ll happen to the quarry now?” Vera shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought Godfrey would have much stomach for it. But you’ll have to talk to him about that.”

She left the three women talking about it, so engrossed that they hardly noticed her leaving.

Ashworth drove carefully up the track and through the ford towards the forest.