LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      IT was a little after four o’clock when Shelley reached the turn-off Marsha had indicated in her letter. ‘Just a few miles beyond the Ripon roundabout,’ she had written. ‘Just look for the sign for Bedale and Leyburn. It’s the A684. You can’t miss it!’

      And she hadn’t, reflected Shelley thankfully, glad there was only about an hour of her journey left. In spite of the high speeds she had been able to maintain on the motorway, she was tired, and she half wished she had taken Marsha’s advice and come up by train instead.

      But at least this way she would have a car to use while she was here, Shelley reminded herself firmly. And she might be glad of that, bearing in mind Marsha’s own description of the area in which she lived. Craygill was not served by buses, and there were no convenient underground stations within walking distance of her home. Indeed, Shelley had always been amazed that her friend had adapted herself to life in a Yorkshire dale so easily, after spending the first thirty-eight years of her existence in London. But, evidently, Marsha liked it. Her letters were always full of the enjoyment she got from working in such picturesque surroundings, and the infrequent visits she had made back to the capital had never tempted her to remain.

      And ever since she had decided to go and live in the area, to be near her son, Marsha had been trying to persuade Shelley to come and visit. ‘You’re like everyone else,’ she exclaimed. ‘You think there’s nothing worth seeing north of Watford!’ she declared, completely forgetting that Shelley had been born and bred in Teesdale, and had lived there for the first six years of her life.

      Not that Shelley could remember those early years too well. Her father, the younger son of a farming family, disappointed all his relatives by showing more interest in books and learning than in how many ewes his father was breeding. Nevertheless, he stuck in at school and eventually gained a place in a university, returning home at twenty-two to teach in the local school. But there were changes being made. Small schools were being closed and the pupils bussed to larger establishments. Shelley’s father, married by this time and responsible for a family, found himself out of a job, and rather than accept his parent’s charity, he had moved south, to Hampshire, and resumed his teaching career.

      The only time afterwards that Shelley remembered visiting the farm at Tarnside was when she was twelve, and her grandfather died. Her parents went north for the funeral, but it had not been a comfortable occasion. Her father’s elder brother, Uncle George, seemed to imagine the only reason they had come was to stake some claim to the farm, that he had worked for since he was a boy. There had been a lot of unpleasantness after the funeral was over, and although her grandmother had tried to adjudicate between the two brothers, they had not parted on the best of terms. Neither Shelley, nor her parents, had gone back to Tarnside, and these days Shelley had no idea if her uncle was even still alive. Her own parents were dead, killed in an avalanche during a ski-ing holiday in Austria, just after she had started working for the Courier.

      It had been a crushing blow to the twenty-one-year-old Shelley, particularly as she had been a much-loved only child. But it was a blessing that because of her job with the London daily newspaper she was no longer living at home. After a tearful weekend, going through the rooms which held so many happy memories, she put sentiment

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