He didn’t seem self-conscious, drying off the sweat from his torso in front of a lady and a relative stranger.
‘What’s this all about, Cook?’
‘You’ve been playing Monopoly all over the Forest,’
I said. ‘The Leckies were killed so you could repossess their property. Gives you the full set, every house with a view over the high ground.’
‘Look, it’s no secret I’ve been buying up a few places—’
‘Actually, it is,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘All the records have been removed,’ I said. ‘Someone’s trying to hide something.’
Vaughn looked to Margaret as if she were the referee. She kept her face blank.
‘No,’ he said. ‘This is backwards. I’m the one being threatened. The Leckies were a warning to me. And then my land agent.’
‘You don’t deny you’ve been buying the properties?’
I asked.
‘Why should I? Last time I checked, the law allowed a man to buy a house or two.’
He looked at Margaret, then me. Back and forth. He realised we weren’t there to be fobbed off with a few pleasantries.
‘If anyone treated any of my tenants badly, I can assure you it wasn’t on my instructions.’
‘Why are you emptying your properties?’
We both knew the answer. There was only one reason to move out the only people who had a view over the massive expanse of the Forest, right in the middle of the invasion zone, halfway between the coast and London. I expected him to be evasive, but he wasn’t. His face lit up, as if he’d been dying for me to ask.
‘I’ll show you!’ he said. ‘Come on!’
41
We walked, leaving his ornamental gardens behind, crossing a stream, out across the open expanse of heath, following a ribbon of white sand where the thin layer of soil had been worn away by years of footsteps.
A small downslope appeared gradually in front of us, the way it can on the Forest – an expanse that looks featureless from a distance resolving into hidden details as you close in, like the countryside between the Leckies and the works. We found ourselves amidst birch and pine. I smelt woodsmoke, and heard laughter.
Vaughn grinned, like a conjuror showing us a new trick.
We emerged from the trees, into a clearing of short-cropped grass and a small, thatched cottage, like a fairy tale.
Two elderly women sat on kitchen chairs that had been brought outside onto the lawn. Both of them had easels in front of them, with half-finished paintings. One of the women was dressed in a pastiche of the country life, a big floral dress and a floppy sunhat. The other was dressed in trousers and a shirt. Both were barefoot, and both were smoking.
An axe smacked into a log, splitting it with a satisfying thunk. It was the artist, down by the side of the cottage, hidden in the shade. The young man squinted at us, then returned to his task, picking up another log and dropping it onto the chopping block. His trousers were rolled up to hisknees, his shirtsleeves past his elbows, black braces holding his trousers up. Like the women, he was barefoot. He was sweating from the exertion.
‘Hello!’ Vaughn said cheerily, ‘mind if I pop in?’
‘Of course not, darling,’ the woman in the floppy hat said. ‘Always glad of an excuse to stop work on this abomination.’ She waved her cigarette at her painting.
‘Speak for yourself, dear,’ the other woman said, delicately dabbing a touch of colour to her own canvas.
‘I’m giving Mr Cook the guided tour,’ Vaughn said, as
I followed him out of the woods, onto the lawn. The artist swung his axe and the blade glanced off the log, burying itself in the grass near his feet.
