The Knapthorne Conspiracy by Malcolm Ballard (best english novels for beginners txt) 📕

which he had parked next to her car. The fact that the windows had been broken didn’t greatly concern Bella. What did occupy her thoughts, however, was the distressed state Alfie had been in when she had found him. It was an image she found difficult to dismiss. After she had left The Lamb Bella had decided to walk to the shops, leaving her car in the pub’s car park. While everything was fresh in her mind she wanted to think over what Samuel had told her, unable to shake the niggling feeling that it didn’t add up in some way.

Happy to be out in the fresh air and enjoying the warm embrace of the sun she walked in an unhurried fashion looking at her surroundings absent-mindedly and not really seeing them. They registered on her consciousness in a fleeting, ephemeral way as though her mind were a spinning disc, the images touching the surface only to be tossed away. The dun-coloured cottages, over a century old, the tall plane trees with their patchwork bark, the uneven pathway along which she walked and the broad strip of road with its steep camber. Everything imprinted itself briefly on her vision as she rummaged through the details of her conversation in the gloomy atmosphere of the pub’s parlour. An evocative smell caught her attention, breaking Bella’s train of thought as she searched to identify it. Then she saw the little black, shiny bubbles on the road’s surface. The blisters of melting tarmac gave off a pervasive, sweet odour reminding her of holidays on the Adriatic coast, when she was a child. And then, while her mind was diverted, it came to her. A slow smile formed on her lips. What had been so obvious it was staring her in the face she hadn’t been able to see. There was nothing at all wrong with Samuel’s story or with Cora’s explanation about the flowers but the very thing that had prompted her to speak to Cora in the first place, her recurring dream, had no place in the landlord’s version of events. It was, Bella thought, rather like looking at a completed jigsaw that had one piece missing. In this case the piece she was missing was far too large to fit into the puzzle which she had so recently had explained to her. The realisation was like a breath of fresh air except it meant either that Samuel and Cora had been lying or there was more to the story than she had been told. Whichever was the case it added an air of mystery to the whole situation. Bella had, by this time, found herself opposite the small parade of shops and crossed the pavement to the kerb. Checking either way for traffic she set off across the road and it occurred to her that there was another option to think about. It could just be that her dream was the result of an active imagination and had no basis in fact whatsoever. Paul Aristides was out the front of his shop cleaning the windows and she gave him a friendly wave. “I wonder what he dreams about, at night? Perhaps I ought to ask him,” she murmured.

As so often happened when she had her day neatly planned out something came along to upset things. The quick trip into the village had turned into something of a marathon effort taking the best part of two hours. With the mysterious glazier now having departed Bella took the opportunity to relax for ten minutes before going upstairs to start work. Only now was she beginning to get excited about the fact that Kyle Lucas would be turning up the following day. Would it be a brief visit, she wondered. If not, could she tempt him to take her out somewhere far away from the village. Somewhere where there were lots of people. People she didn’t know. She relished the thought of becoming absolutely anonymous for a time and certainly was in no mood for lunch at The Lamb. Ubix crept quietly down the stairs and padded silently towards the kitchen.

“I see you!” she exclaimed, accusingly. “Thought you could creep past unnoticed, eh?” Another piece of the puzzle as yet unexplained. At least she had found out how the cat got in and out, solving that little mystery. There was one set of double windows in the laundry, facing the back garden. Against the wall outside was a stack of firewood which must have been there for years, Bella presumed. One day she had been coming back from a walk across the fields and, as she came down the garden, saw Ubix leap up onto the woodpile and disappear through the closed window, as if by magic. Closer inspection had revealed that the bottom panel of the window on the left was in fact perspex and not glass, cleverly hinged to give the cat access to the house. If only she could come up with some other answers quite as easily but no doubt, she imagined, it would all become clear in time. Kyle filled her thoughts again and she recalled the detail of his face and the sound of his voice but her mind wouldn’t settle and it flitted on to memories of Ben and the previous weekend finally alighting on the image of Laura as though it was the terminus for her train of thought. Laura! Bella could never have imagined that she would come back into her life so blatantly. It was impossible to think about her in any sort of rational way because there was absolutely nothing about her sister that did justice to the word. Gloomily, she had to admit that, if it wasn’t for the cottage, their relationship would have stumbled on as it always had with its infrequent, strained meetings harbouring the ever-present threat of acrimony. How she would have loved to have had a sister she could have got along with. Shared secrets and