‘Did you see anyone, Claude? You must have been pretty close to the villains.’

  ‘That’s what puzzles me, Mr Rowan. I mean, you’d think I’d have heard somebody running away or even seen

  ‘em on one or other of these paths. But I never saw a soul. Maybe he heard me coming, eh? And got himself hidden somewhere pretty quick. I’m not exactly a little chap.’

  ‘You barging through those trees and bushes would be a bit like a bull elephant lumbering after its mate, Claude.’

  ‘Aye, well, I might have frightened him off, whoever it was. But I got here first, eh?’

  ‘You did, and maybe you stopped him from doing something worse, so thanks, Claude.’

  ‘Aye, well, us law enforcement officers have to stand together, Mr Rowan. See you in court, eh?’

  ‘Court?’

  ‘As chief witness in my blocked footpath case, remember! I’ve arranged to see my solicitor tomorrow, to start my action against Walker. I’d best be off now. Come on, Alfred, this is no place for you. You might get glass in your paws.’ He lumbered away, followed by Alfred.

  Nick went inside the house, where Kate had taken Jane and was making a cup of warm, sweet tea - always a good means of combating the initial effects of shock.

  ‘Jane,’ Kate was saying, ‘you can’t stay here now.’

  ‘They’re not going to drive me out, Dr Rowan, they’re not!’

  ‘Do you think it is Raymond Walker?’ Nick had to ask the question. ‘He could be very interested in acquiring this cottage and land.’

  ‘I just don’t know’ Jane spoke through her tears. ‘I can’t think of anyone who would be so horrible to me. My greenhouse, years of work gone. Mr Walker would surely never do that. Charlie built that for me, you know, by

  himself. So I’d have something to do, some interest in my old age …’

  ‘I’m going see Walker now,’ said Nick.

  ‘Now?’ cried Kate. ‘But it’s midnight!’

  ‘Strike while the iron’s hot,’ said Nick. ‘Look, you stay here with Jane and I’ll collect you on the way back. Jane, do you think we should ask Jennifer to take you in for tonight?’

  ‘No,’ she said with determination. “They’re trying to get me to go and live with them, and I don’t want to. I want to keep my independence.’

  ‘But after what happened tonight, it could get worse … Whoever is trying to get you out of this cottage might do something worse next time …’

  ‘Oh, Doctor, I don’t know what to do,’ and the old lady dissolved into tears as Kate put an arm around her to offer a little comfort.

  ‘Give me half an hour,’ said Nick.

  In spite of the late hour, the lights were still blazing at Walker’s farmhouse when Nick drove on to the forecourt. He rang the bell and Walker came to the door within seconds, clad in smart evening dress and a bow tie. Quickly, Nick examined his shoes and trouser bottoms -they were clean, with no sign of mud.

  ‘Constable Rowan? To what do I owe the pleasure at this time of night?’

  ‘You’ve been out?’ asked Nick, who was not invited in.

  ‘I have. My wife and I, and some guests who are staying with us, have been to the annual dinner of the National Farmers’ Union at Ashfordly. We’ve only just returned and we are having a nightcap before retiring. Why this late visit? Greengrass been shot at again, has he?’

  ‘No, there has just been a case of malicious damage,’ and Nick explained what had occurred at Jane’s cottage, including an account of the cut telephone wires and the past incidents. ‘I was wondering if you’d heard or seen anything, especially as you were just on your way home.’

  ‘No, never saw a thing, never saw anyone on the road back there.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking you have made an offer to buy her cottage?’ Nick pressed home his questions.

  ‘I have, and that’s no secret. When Charlie was alive I made him a good offer but he rejected it, and when he died, I had words with the Bradshaws, but they refused and that was that. The cottage is in my way, I’ll admit that. I could expand my land and even think of utilising some of it as a building site if I could get my hands on Jane’s house.’

  ‘Worth getting her out, is it?’ said Nick.

  ‘Constable Rowan, I think you are going too far!’ snapped Walker. ‘Are you suggesting I am stooping to harassment to get an old lady out of her home?’

  ‘I am not suggesting anything, Mr Walker. I am just trying to establish what’s going on and why someone is apparently doing everything possible to persuade Jane to leave.’

  ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve, coming here at this time of night and making such insinuations! I have not done anything intended to drive her out!’ And he slammed the door in Nick’s face.

  When Nick returned to the cottage, Kate was still with Jane, who had calmed down and was sitting beside her dying fire.

  ‘No luck?’ said Kate.

  ‘I don’t think it was Raymond Walker. He’s been out all night and besides, he still had his shoes on, and they were clean. They’d have been muddy if he’d come here. Are you going to spend the night at Jennifer’s?’ Nick asked Jane.

  ‘No, I am not! They want me to go there and I want to stay here …’ the old lady insisted. ‘And stay here I will!’

  So Kate and Nick had to leave Jane in her remote and vulnerable cottage. As they drove home, Nick said, ‘I’ll pop up there regularly.’

  ‘And so will I,’ smiled Kate. ‘She can become our joint social conscience!’

  Next morning, Nick received another irate phone call from Sergeant Blaketon, who, ignoring his protests, instructed him to attend his office at ten fifteen on the dot.

  As Nick rode through Ashfordly, he spotted a most unlikely sight walking along the street - Claude Jeremiah Greengrass dressed in a smart suit. His hair had been cut, he had had a shave and he was carrying a briefcase. The surprise was so great that Nick braked and eased his bike to a halt to continue his observations. Claude strode on, nodding his good mornings to passers-by, and then turned towards an office block. He mounted a flight of steps and entered through a large, ornate doorway. Nick chugged forward and saw that it was a solicitor’s office. So Claude had meant every word about his threat to sue Raymond Walker!

  Nick then drove around to the police station and parked in the yard before entering the lion’s den of Sergeant Blaketon’s office. The signs from Alf Ventress suggested that Blaketon’s mood was far from cheerful. ‘Rowan? Is that you?’ came the call. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ ‘In here, Rowan, now!’

  Yet again, Nick found himself sitting, while an angry Sergeant Oscar Blaketon marched up and down his office with his hands behind his back.

  ‘This has gone far enough, Rowan,’ he was saying. ‘This is almost victimisation, harassment by the police, and I am not having it in my section. It is criminal, Rowan!’ ‘What is, Sergeant?’

  ‘This continuing persecution of an upstanding member of the community, Raymond Walker no less. He has made another complaint, Rowan; he says you called at his house at midnight last night and got him out of bed to accuse him of harassing an old lady out of her home. He says you claimed he had vandalised her greenhouse, cut off her telephone and performed other acts calculated to cause her to abandon her house.’

  ‘He was not in bed, Sergeant, when I called,’ and Nick went on to explain his version of last night’s events, stressing that at no time had he accused Walker of any unlawful acts. He had merely been making enquiries to ascertain whether Walker had seen or heard anything suspicious.

  ‘Look, Rowan, Raymond Walker is not the sort of person who would attempt to frighten an old lady out of her home purely for his own financial gain. Now listen. Go home, get out a map of your beat and put a big ring around Raymond Walker’s farm - and then consider it a no-go area!’

  ‘Greengrass is going to make it very much an all-go area, Sergeant.’

  ‘Greengrass? What’s he got to do with all this?’

  Nick explained the legal action that Claude was intending, adding that he had just seen the very fellow, in a smart suit, visiting a local solicitor.

  ‘I don’t believe this, Rowan! His sudden wealth has affected his sanity! You mean to tell me that Greengrass is volunteering to go to court?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, and he’s calling me as a witness!’

  “This I cannot believe. Things are going from bad to worse. Aidensfield has never been the same since you arrived, Rowan, and now, with you and Greengrass working together, I don’t know where the police service is heading, I really don’t’

  ‘We’re working together to stop villainy, Sergeant. Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, Rowan, that is all,’ sighed a heavy-hearted Sergeant Blaketon.

  That same morning, Jane Thompson stood and surveyed the wreckage of her greenhouse. She had not slept at all during that awful night and now, in the cold light of this new morning, all her hopes and aspirations

  had gone. Her life lay before her in a jumble of broken glass and ruined plants, precious plants that she had nurtured from seed. With them gone, there was no hope left. They had won, whoever they were; they had forced her out of her home and she could fight them no longer.

  ‘You always said I should never leave, Charlie,’ she whispered, ‘it would be like pulling up my own roots, you said. You were right; look at these roots, scattered around and dying. Like me. I shall die soon, like my plants. But not here. I wanted to die here, Charlie, and have you near me when I drew my last breath. That was my hope. I never thought it would come to this. Forgive me, Charlie, but I can’t stay here. Not now.’ And she went inside to begin packing.

  It was several days later when Kate decided to pay another visit to Jane; she’d not come to the fitness class on Wednesday and no one had seen her around the village. She’d not been for her shopping either. Worried that some harm might have come to the old lady, Kate drove to her picturesque home and was startled to see a builder’s lorry parked near the entrance and some men busy within the grounds.

  Raymond Walker was there, apparently giving orders to the builders. Kate strode in; the house looked deserted. There were no curtains at the windows, and none of the sills bore the pots of plants which had been so much a part of Jane’s life and happiness. ‘Mr Walker, hello. I’m looking for Jane Thompson.’

  ‘She’s gone, Dr Rowan. She’s left here, and taken all her things.’

  ‘Gone? But where?’ Kate demanded.

  He spread his hands in a gesture which said he didn’t care. ‘I’ve no idea, have you asked at her daughter’s?’

  ‘No, I’ll try there next. She’s not been in the village today, I was worried.’

  ‘I’ve not heard she’s died, if that’s what you mean, Doctor, but she has got a new home somewhere. This is my place now, I’ve bought it.’

  ‘Really?’ Kate said, and after a quick look at the devastation still apparent in the garden, she left. She went straight down to Jennifer’s house, only a short distance away, and knocked. Jennifer’s husband, Eric, answered the door.

  ‘Is Jane here?’ Kate asked him. ‘I’ve just been to see her at the cottage, but I understand she’s left.’

  ‘Yes, she didn’t want to stay there any longer.’ He kept her at the door. ‘Me and Jennifer tried to get her to come and stay here, with us, but you know how stubborn she is. She refused point-blank.’

  ‘So where is she now? I need to know, Mr Bradshaw, she is a patient of mine.’

  ‘She’s in an old folks’ home. High Lawns in Ashfordly. It’s very nice, she’s got her own room and we’ll help to pay for her keep. She seems to have settled in. Jennifer’s over there now, in fact, she had some shopping to do in Ashfordly and said she’d pop in to see her mum.’

  ‘I’m surprised, to be honest, Mr Bradshaw. She was always so determined to stay in her home.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t see her like we did, Dr Rowan. But it’s all for the best. She refused outright to come and live with us and she really was getting beyond the stage of looking after herself. And you know she always talked to old Charlie, she believed he was looking after her, just like he did in life.’

  ‘You’ll tell Jennifer I called?’ Kate said, turning to leave.

  ‘Sure,’ said Eric Bradshaw, closing the door. Kate decided to drive immediately to Ashfordly to visit Jane. There was something in the tone of Eric Bradshaw’s voice and in the manner of his dealings with Kate which she found unacceptable. She could not say what her uncertainties were, for, on the face of things, the arrangement did seem entirely reasonable and practical. Kate knew how Jane had loved her home, and Aidensfield and the people in it, and yet, throughout her trials, she had stubbornly refused the hospitality of her own daughter and son-in-law. In Kate’s view, that seemed odd.

  High Lawns occupied a beautiful position on the western edge of Ashfordly. The former home of a shipping magnate, it had once been a hotel and was now a very pleasant home for old people. Privately run, it was clean and modern, and it enjoyed a superb aspect across the North York Moors.

  Kate was shown to Jane’s room where the old lady, her sparkle gone and her face pale and drawn, was sitting in a wicker chair on a balcony. The open window looked out over the grounds and there was a beautiful bunch of

  flowers in a vase on her dressing table. But Jane was far from happy.

  ‘I didn’t expect to find you here,’ Kate said.

  ‘I never expected to be here,’ she said quietly, it’s good of you to call, Doctor, I do miss Aidensfield and those classes. And my plants.’

  ‘I see you’ve been given a lovely bunch of flowers,’ Kate indicated her dressing table.

  ‘Mr Greengrass brought them,’ she said.

  ‘Claude? Good heavens!’

  ‘He’s a lot better than some,’ said Jane. ‘He was really good to me the night my greenhouse was wrecked.’

  ‘Was it that that really forced you to leave?’ Kate asked, recognising an opening for her to air her own concerns.

  Jane did not respond but the expression in her eyes was enough for Kate.

  ‘I’ll call again, may I? Just to keep an eye on you?’

  ‘It’s a free country,’ said Jane. ‘I can’t get to see you or my friends at the classes. I’ve no car, no transport from here.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get lots of visitors,’ said Kate, deciding it was time to leave. Jane clearly did not want to talk about the reasons for her departure from her beloved home.

  The following day, Kate received a telephone call from the old folks’ home. Jane Thompson had walked out that morning in pouring rain without even an overcoat, and the only thing she had taken was the bunch of flowers from her dressing table. She’d not been seen for about an hour and a half, so she could have been absent all that time.

  ‘I’ll tell the police to look out for her. Maybe she’s heading back home,’ Kate said. ‘You’ll ring us if she returns?’

  And so a search began for the missing woman. Kate informed Nick, who alerted Ashfordly Police with a description of Jane and then drove immediately to Jennifer and Eric’s house. Jane was not there. Jennifer had not seen her mother since yesterday, when she had seemed quite settled in the old folks’ home, but said she would ring round Jane’s friends in Aidensfield to see if she’d caught a bus back to the village.

  Nick then went to the churchyard; he wondered if she had returned to her husband’s grave in her moments of anguish. He had no idea where Charlie was buried and so had to tour the entire graveyard in his search.

  When he found it, Jane was not there, but there was a large and beautiful bunch of fresh flowers lying by the headstone. Nick stooped to read the card: it said, ‘From Claude Jeremiah Greengrass.’

  As he puzzled over why Claude would put flowers on Charlie’s grave, one of the church cleaning ladies appeared at the door carrying a mop which she shook in the fresh air.

  ‘Mrs Thompson was here not long ago,’ she said, seeing his interest in the grave and the flowers. ‘She put those flowers on the grave.’

  ‘Which way did she go?’ Nick asked. ‘We’re worried about her.’

  ‘Back up to her house,’ said the lady. ‘She looked a bit bedraggled, if you ask me. Certainly not fit to be out on a day like this with no topcoat.’

  “Thanks,’ said Nick, realising that her old cottage was the obvious place to begin such a search. He arrived within a few minutes and was greeted by Raymond Walker, who looked furious.

  This time,’ he snarled at Nick, ‘you might prove to be useful. The silly old bat’s come back into the house and is staging a sit-in! We want to start demolishing it and we can’t while she’s there. So can you get her out?’

  ‘But it’s her house, isn’t it?’ said Nick.

  ‘No, it’s mine. I bought it off her son-in-law, Eric Bradshaw. It belonged to him, Mr Rowan, and I’ve bought it, quite legitimately I might add, without harassing the old lady and without smashing down greenhouses or cutting telephone lines. Look, I just want her out, she’s trespassing. I’m asking you to arrest her and take her away.’

  Trespass isn’t a criminal offence, Mr Walker, and I can’t arrest anyone for it. It’s a civil matter, as I’m sure you know, being chairman of the NFU.’

  ‘Well, look, she’s holding up my work, I’ve got expensive machinery standing idle while she’s sitting in there. Can you have words with her?’

  ‘Sure,’ smiled Nick. ‘I’ll have words with her. I want to find out what’s behind all this.’

  Nick entered the now empty hall. The floorboards were bare, there was no furniture and all the plants had gone. The place was covered in the dust of some preliminary demolition to an outbuilding. As he walked further inside,

  he saw Jane sitting on the stairs. Oblivious to anyone else, she was talking to Charlie.

  ‘You were right, Charlie. You saw through him. She didn’t, though. That’s the trouble with our Jennifer, too trusting. I’m pleased you liked the flowers, it was kind of Mr Greengrass to bring them … I said Jennifer had made a mistake marrying that Bradshaw but would she listen? She would not …’ ‘Jane?’ Nick spoke softly as he moved closer to her. She looked up and smiled. ‘I’ll come quietly, Mr Rowan, I just wanted a last look at the old spot before they knock it down.’