The Linden Tree Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered!

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  About Bello:

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

  About the author:

  www.panmacmillan.com/author/hesterrowan

  Contents

  Hester Rowan

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Hester Rowan

  The Linden Tree

  Hester Rowan

  Hester Rowan was born and brought up in rural Northamptonshire, one of the fortunate means-tested generation whose further education was free. She went from her village school via high school to London University, where she read history.

  She served for nine years as an education officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force, then worked variously as a teacher, a clerk in a shoe factory, a civil servant and in advertising. In the 1960s she opted out of conventional work and joined her partner in running a Norfolk village store and post office, where she began writing fiction in her spare time. Hester Rowan also wrote 10 crime novels as Sheila Radley.

  Chapter One

  ‘… and so I said to her – Alison? Are you still there?’

  I put down my nail file and picked up the receiver again: ‘Yes, Mother?’

  ‘Oh good, I was afraid for a minute that we’d been cut off. Well, what I really rang to say, dear, is that you will be sure, won’t you, to look after your Aunt Madge’s house while she’s away? Yes, I know … yes, of course I realize that actresses are just as domesticated as anyone else … it’s just that Madge is so very pernickety. It’s very kind of her to let you use her house, but you know what she’s like and I’d hate there to be any unpleasantness when she gets back. So you will be sure to leave everything as you found it, won’t you?’

  I made noises of hurt dignity and reassurance, but my heart wasn’t in them. What’s more, my fingers were tightly crossed. Not that there was anything amiss in the house that couldn’t be righted by a concentrated session with vacuum cleaner and dusters before my aunt returned; but the shattered gates of the drive were going to be rather more difficult to restore to their original condition.

  I couldn’t even attempt to disown the damage. It was my appalling misfortune that it coincided, exactly, with a grievous bash in the front off-side wing of Aunt Madge’s cherished Renault.

  I cleared my throat and changed the subject. ‘Yes, of course, don’t worry. Has Dad got rid of that bad cold he had when you came up to London to see me?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s quite better now. But if we seemed a little – well, lukewarm about the play, you do understand that it was his cold that put us off? We wouldn’t have come when we did, except that you warned us that they were going to take it off so quickly. Such a shame after all those weeks of rehearsal … When do you start rehearsing for your next play, dear?’

  I crossed my fingers more tightly. ‘Oh … before very long, I hope. You have to remember that there’s a lot of competition, though. It’s very difficult –’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble! But do ask for a bigger part next time, Alison – and if you could get on television it would be so much more convenient for us. Only you will come home for a few days before you go back to London, won’t you? Philip Osborne was asking after you again yesterday – he’s doing so well in Customs and Excise and he’s really quite good-looking, you know. That terrible acne he had in his teens has hardly left a mark … Oh, and did I tell you that they’re building some new bungalows just off Cedar Road …’

  I told myself that it was for the sake of diminishing my father’s telephone bill that I invented a caller at the door and rang off; my mother has less idea of the passage of time when she’s making a telephone call than she has of the odds against an aspiring actress, and it’s no use trying to explain to her about either. But in fact I had slapped down the receiver on the conversation because whenever, not content with finding me a prospective husband, my mother also establishes me in a suburban property equidistant from home and the man’s place of work, I am liable to explode with unfilial irritation.

  I whirled out of the kitchen door, banged it shut behind me, hastily checked that I hadn’t compounded my troubles by breaking the glass, and then walked moodily along the grassy lane that led from the back gate towards the highest cliffs on the north Norfolk coast.

  It was an attractive walk, hemmed in on one side by flowering back gardens and on the other by a windswept hawthorn hedge creamy with blossom, but I hardly noticed my surroundings. The telephone conversation had brought my problems jostling round me, and Philip Osborne – with or without the residual craters of acne – was the least of them.

  The lane ended at the rear of the mock-Tudor pavilion that faced one of the municipal putting greens and gave a view, sloping down to my left, of the small seaside resort. On my right, another path led back at a sharp angle towards the woods that covered the hills behind the town. Ahead of me and to my immediate right undulated the open turf of the cliff-top, rising to a crest where the cliffs reached their highest point. And beyond the edge of the cliffs stretched the flat blue-grey sea.

  I walked towards it, the turf springy under my feet, the salty breeze helping to dissipate my irritation. But the depression remained. Near the edge of the cliff – but not too near because I knew that at that point there was a considerable overhang – I stretched myself on the turf, propped my chin on my hands and contemplated my bleak situation.

  Being out of work is no novelty for an actress. ‘Resting’, we like to call it, but it comes to the same thing; I seemed to have spent most of my career, since leaving Drama School, resting.

  Not that I’d been idle. I couldn’t afford to be. Between anxious visits to the casting agencies, I spent most of my time in London working – unknown to my parents – in a big store, in order to earn enough to pay the rent of the flat I shared.

  When I landed a bit part in a new play, I thought that my luck must have turned. Unfortunately, it had the effect of reducing my income considerably. When the play folded – to no one’s surprise except the playwright’s – I already owed two weeks’ rent. It seemed sensible, then, to leave London and live more cheaply somewhere else while I worked to raise the money I owed.

  Going back home to Leicester would, of course, have been cheapest of all, but I wasn’t prepared to admit to my parents that my acting career was a flop. So when my aunt mentioned that she was reluctant to put her pet in a cattery while she went abroad for a holiday, my offer to cat-sit was downright enthusiastic.

  My devious scheme might have succeeded, too. Although it was early in the season, the hotels were already busy and I found a job that would have enabled me to pay off my debt in full, providing I lived very frugally.

  But that was before y
esterday, when I had brought my aunt’s Renault into contact with her gates …

  An accident, of course. I was swerving to avoid a stray dog which, having treed her tabby cat, had come rushing guiltily out of the garden when I returned from work. It was true that I shouldn’t have encouraged the dog by leaving the gates open; but then, though she’d given me permission, I’d never have borrowed my aunt’s car if I hadn’t overslept and been so late for work that I was afraid I should lose the job if I wasted a minute.

  And now I was in a worse situation that I had been when I arrived in Norfolk. I stared gloomily out at the deceptively blue North Sea, then rolled over on my back, sighed, and lifted my face to the sun. I did a split shift at the hotel, mornings and evenings; I spent every fine afternoon on the cliff-top, and the sun was too precious to waste.

  There was no way now that I could extricate myself from my debts. I might just manage to pay the rent I owed, but as for Aunt Madge – who was known to relish a little family unpleasantness now and then – I’d simply have to throw myself on her mercy, give her an indefinite IOU, and promise to cat-sit whenever she needed me for the rest of my life. And then, because I couldn’t hope to fool my parents any longer, I’d have to trail back home to Leicester, a prodigal daughter, prepared at last to settle down to a secretarial course and the persistent company of Philip Osborne, whose mother and mine were openly conspiring to see us firmly married and bungalowed …

  I groaned and sat up, my back to the sea. It was, I had to admit, a pleasant place to be wretched in. There was no one in sight. I had the cliff-top to myself as I sat despondently on the sun-warmed turf, listening to the rise of the larks and the suck and roar of the waves on the shingle far below.

  And then someone appeared.

  He came from high up on my left, up and over the crest, running at full pelt as though his life depended on it. On this side of the crest was a steep slope. He slipped, slithered down it in a rush and then paused, balancing himself with one hand on the grass, looking about him as if to get his bearings.

  I watched with curiosity. If – for whatever reason – he was looking for cover, he’d find none this side of the woods, a good four hundred yards away; the putting green pavilion on the edge of the town was even further from his present position.

  He made up his mind, pushed himself to his feet, and started in the direction of the woods. Then, suddenly, he checked in mid-stride, turned and began to run in my direction, towards the edge of the cliff.

  I stared incredulously at the approaching figure. Surely he wasn’t hoping to try to climb down the cliff? There was an eighty-foot drop to the rocks and shingle below, a straight drop from the overhang; he’d have no chance at all. I gathered my legs uneasily under me, ready to spring up and warn him.

  He neared, his feet thudding heavily on the turf, his stride occasionally faltering as he turned to look over his shoulder. He was somewhere in his late twenties, clean-shaven with dark brown hair, dressed in old jeans and a blue sweater. He looked slim and fit enough, but his movements seemed mechanical and his head rolled as though it was too much of an effort to hold it steady. I could see that he was desperately tired, near the end of his strength. Obviously he had realized that he couldn’t make it as far as the wood – but what did he plan to do now?

  His face was grim with anxiety, his lips drawn back with effort. I could hear the harsh intake of his breath. Whoever was behind him must be pushing him very bard. Surely he wasn’t …?

  Please God he wasn’t so desperate that he was going to jump over the cliff!

  I leaped up and spread my arms wide, as if to block his path. ‘You can’t come this way,’ I cried. ‘There’s no path down the cliff, you’ll kill yourself! That way, down to the town!’

  I pointed urgently towards the pavilion. He glanced, shook his head and suddenly sagged to his knees in front of me.

  ‘I’ll never make it,’ he gasped, his voice cracking with exhaustion. ‘Please, you must help me!’

  My instinct was to mutter an excuse, turn and walk firmly away towards the nearest habitation; I’ve fended for myself in London too long to take appeals for help from strange men at their face value. But this man’s exhaustion was perfectly genuine and there was something about his attitude as he knelt, spent, on the turf – the angle of his bowed head, the smooth sunburned skin at the nape of his neck, the heave of his shoulders as he fought for breath, the cleanliness of his thick hair despite the sweat on his face – that made him seem touchingly vulnerable.

  I crouched to his level. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said helplessly, ‘but I don’t see that there’s anything I can do … What’s the trouble, anyway?’

  He looked up at me quickly, wiping the sweat away with the back of his hand. His eyes were brown, green-flecked, fringed with surprisingly long thick lashes that softened the square cut of his face. His chest was still heaving but he had managed to steady his voice.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to ask you this,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain, there isn’t time, but I’m being followed by people who’ve mistaken me for someone else, and I’m desperate to keep away from them. Oh, it’s all a mistake, I’ve done nothing wrong, I swear. I’ll tell you all about it later, but just for now – please?’

  He glanced anxiously behind him and then suddenly began to strip off his sweater. I jumped up and backed away, but he gave me an apologetic smile as he emerged from the folds of wool in a white cotton tee-shirt.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, it’s just that they’re after a man in blue … They’ll be up and over the hill any minute now – but the point is that they’re looking for just one man. They’ll take no notice of a couple.’

  I remained standing and took one sideways step nearer the town. ‘A couple?’ I stared at him warily. Was this some extraordinary overture to an assault?

  ‘Oh, please don’t misunderstand me! I won’t harm you in any way. I won’t touch you, I give you my word. But if I can just lie here on the grass near you, they won’t realize that I’m the one they were chasing. Will you please let me do that?’

  I swallowed hard. It was preposterous, of course. I ought to make a bolt for it now, before he recovered his breath …

  He was still kneeling, his shoulders tired, his hands resting palm upwards on his thighs in an attitude of exhausted supplication. His long-lashed eyes looked up at me earnestly.

  ‘Please, I beg of you. If – if a cat were being chased by dogs and ran to you, surely you’d give it protection? Can you do less for a fellow human being?’

  It was an appeal I couldn’t dismiss lightly. Wasn’t it only the day before yesterday that – though having once been bitten, I’m wary of dogs – I’d flown out of the house to defend my aunt’s tabby against a villainous-looking bull terrier? Could I really do any less for a man if it lay in my power to help him?

  ‘Well … I suppose …’ I began shakily.

  He sighed with relief: ‘Thank you.’ And then he flopped beside me on the turf, the tell-tale blue sweater rolled underneath him, his back to the crest of the hill. ‘Tell me the moment you see them, won’t you?’

  I nodded and sat down stiffly, a cautious yard away. On the whole, and against all reason, I believed him. But what had led to this extraordinary situation? Why was he being chased? By whom?

  And why did I believe him? Honestly, now …? Wasn’t it simply because he was young and personable, long-limbed and long-lashed – because, in short, I was a gullible woman?

  Was he fooling me? Perhaps he was a lone wolf of a holiday-maker, who had seen me from a distance and amused himself by planning this novel approach that I’d fallen for so easily. Or possibly – oh no, this didn’t bear thinking of – he might even be a psychopath, on the run from his own fantasies; running himself near to exhaustion and then cunningly persuading me to sit beside him until he recovered the strength to attack me …

  I drew in my breath sharply and inched myself a little further away. Whatever happened, I mustn’t panic. I must try to act no
rmally, to give the appearance of co-operation.

  His eyes were watching me with steady intensity. ‘It’s true,’ he said, and I was marginally relieved to hear that now he had recovered his breath his voice was perfectly even. ‘I’m not imagining things,’ he said. ‘They’ll come. Any minute now …’

  My mouth was too dry for me to moisten my lips, and my husky voice gave the lie to my words. ‘I believed you the first time,’ I said.

  I sat tight as a high-tension spring, one eye on him, the other watching the crest of the cliff for whoever might be coming: policemen? prison warders? men in white coats?

  Chapter Two

  They appeared almost before I realized it, two men in ordinary casual clothes, drifting up over the top of the hill and standing there, surveying the wide view. One had his hand thrust deep in his bulked-out jacket pocket; the other focused a pair of field-glasses on the edge of the wood.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a movement on the grass beside me. He had stretched out his hand, not to touch me but to draw my attention. It was, I thought irrelevantly, a good hand – strong, square, practical, browned and hardened by outdoor activity; trustworthy, I found myself thinking, though where the logic was in my decision I couldn’t for the life of me explain.

  ‘Are they there?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yes – two men. And they’ve got field-glasses.’

  He groaned, turning his face to the grass in despair. ‘Oh no! If they’ve got glasses, this’ll never fool them … Look, you’d better run while you can – go on, they’re dangerous men. You don’t want to be involved. Beat it!’

  I looked quickly up towards the men on the hill. They were still surveying the wood, pointing to possible paths.

  ‘What about you?’ I demanded. ‘They haven’t looked properly this way yet – why don’t you run too?’

  He shook his head. ‘That’d make it dangerous for you. Anyway, I’m all in. Go on, run while you’ve got the chance – they won’t bother you as long as you’re on your own. Run, I tell you!’