Secrets of the Mist Read online

  Also by Kate Ryder

  Summer in a Cornish Cove

  Cottage on a Cornish Cliff

  Secrets of the Mist

  Kate Ryder

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Kate Ryder, 2019

  The moral right of Kate Ryder to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788541114

  Cover design © Charlotte Abrams-Simpson

  Aria

  c/o Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Become an Aria Addict

  For Helena

  who witnessed the very first spark

  1

  As I looked towards the huddle of cottages nestling on the far side of the village green I noticed how still it had become – like an expectant, held breath – and somewhere deep within my soul I felt tendrils of distant memory reach out to me.

  The sun was warm on that early summer’s evening and yet I shivered. A thick haze hung in the air and the sounds of the pub seemed muffled, as if the world was somehow suppressed; waiting for something to happen. What, I did not know, but my senses were on high alert. Something was coming. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I detected the slightest breeze and a wisp of air languidly encircled my body as if investigating me.

  I looked towards Dan to see if he had noticed anything, but he seemed distant from me, as if I was cushioned and remote from the world. I didn’t feel threatened. In fact, I revelled in the sensation of that warm, tender kiss of air as it gently caressed me. As if in some way being guided, I watched the shadows fall across the mellow-coloured cottage on the far side of the village green and shivered again.

  Earlier that afternoon, when one of the film crew suggested a drink after work at a local pub he’d discovered I was only too pleased to be invited. We had endured a hard day’s filming; one that proved particularly trying for me, having to deal with a star whose ego was extremely large, and I had already used up most of my diplomacy and patience during the previous three weeks’ filming. A bit of good old R&R was in order.

  They were a great crowd at Hawkstone Media and I had happily worked there for the past eight years since first arriving in the UK as a fresh-faced, enthusiastic girl from Dublin, full of raw ambition. Ken Hawkstone – the man behind the company – was a demanding, but fair, whirlwind of creative force and he recognised that ambition, offering me numerous breaks along the way. I had worked my way up from continuity girl to assistant director and loved the work, even though it was all-consuming and left little time for anything else.

  However, over the past couple of years, I’d found sleep increasingly fitful and was often awake in the small hours battling strange, disconcertingly deep thoughts about the random nature of choice, fate and destiny; thoughts that made no sense at all in the cold light of day. And, although I could never recall the details on waking, I was visited by a recurring dream; one that left a lingering memory of a pair of tender, blue-grey eyes and a feeling of a hand having touched my heart. As the years slipped by, however hard I tried to ignore it, I was aware of an underlying, nagging insistence for change.

  The sounds of a busy pub enveloped me as we entered the Blacksmith’s Arms – a charming seventeenth-century country inn with flagstone floors and heavily beamed ceilings. It was obviously a popular haunt. Clusters of people sat in private alcoves enjoying an early evening drink and through an open archway I saw tables being set for dinner. We booked a table for eight o’clock and then, having ordered drinks, walked outside into that early summer’s evening towards the first moment of my future.

  I looked across the village green, beyond the massive oak tree standing proudly at its centre, towards the stone cottage and saw a red and yellow ‘For Sale’ board erected in its garden. Again, I detected the slightest breeze and as I watched the shadows from the oak fall across the cottage I shivered involuntarily.

  ‘Cold, Mads?’ asked Dan, one of the camera crew and my occasional lover.

  He was a kindly soul.

  ‘Not really. I’ve just got this feeling I’ve been here before. Kinda spooky, in a comforting sort of way, if you know what I mean,’ I finished lamely.

  He drew me to him and gently squeezed my shoulder. ‘Have you ever been to this part of Dorset?’

  ‘No, I’ve never been to Dorset before. You know me, Dan. The bright lights, the next drink, the latest wine bar, the hippest party! I’m not a country girl, I don’t know what I’d do with myself all day, and yet…’ I swept my hand before me, acknowledging the village green and the cluster of cottages across the way ‘…this feels so familiar.’

  Tim, the stunt co-ordinator, was listening to our conversation and now joined in.

  ‘Perhaps you lived here in a former life?’ he said, tongue-in-cheek.

  ‘Perhaps you were the blacksmith’s wife,’ contributed Emma, the newest of the make-up girls and on her first assignment. ‘And I bet you lived in that cottage over there.’

  She pointed to the ‘For Sale’ board and the hairs on the back of my neck stood erect.

  ‘Mads, are you OK?’ Dan asked, peering at me intently. ‘You’ve gone really pale.’

  ‘I’m OK.’ I could see he wasn’t convinced. ‘Really I am, but I’ll just sit for a while.’

  I joined the remainder of the crew sitting at one of the wooden picnic benches provided by the pub.

  Emma, however, had warmed to the subject. ‘I bet you were born in this village and lived here all your life. You married the local blacksmith and brought up a batch of dark-haired children who were all very practical and good with their hands.’

  A ripple of laughter reverberated around the table.

  ‘And I bet it’s called The Stables,’ she finished triumphantly, pointing to the cottage on the far side of the village green.

  ‘No,’ I contradicted quietly, ‘it’s called The Olde Smithy.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Let’s see!’

  She ran across the grass, stood at the cottage’s rusting gate that
opened directly onto the village green and peered at the property. I watched her hesitate and slowly turn; her mouth agape. By now, the rest of the table listened with interest.

  Emma ran back across the green. ‘Maddie, how did you know? You couldn’t have read the nameplate from here. It’s hidden by all that foliage around the front door. I could only just make it out from the gate!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered, ‘I just knew.’

  Standing behind me, Dan placed his large hands on my shoulders. ‘I expect Mads is just putting two and two together and coming up trumps. You all know how creative she can be.’

  There was murmured acknowledgement of my storytelling skills from around the table.

  Dan squeezed my shoulders. ‘Come on, guys. Time’s marching on and I’m hungry. Let’s eat.’

  So, we filed into the pub and were soon immersed in ordering food and enjoying the merriment of the evening, and the déjà vu feeling subsided. Once again, I was Madeleine O’Brien, assistant director at Hawkstone Media, down from London to film a period drama at an elegant country house not far from Dorset’s magnificent Jurassic coastline. But, as we left the pub much later that evening, I detected a whisper on the wind and as I climbed into Dan’s car I knew The Olde Smithy was to be mine.

  *

  It took a further three months to finish filming and by the time I arrived back in London I had purchased the cottage. My colleagues were incredulous and kept reminding me of my city-girl lifestyle, my cosmopolitan attitude and my need of the Underground to ferry me between watering holes. And when I handed in my notice they actually pleaded with me to see sense.

  ‘But what are you going to do there stuck out in the country all by yourself?’ Dan asked. ‘You said it yourself: the bright lights, the latest wine bar, the hippest party. If you’re fed up with your job, join a different production company. If you want change in your life, get a dog! But don’t burn your bridges, Mads. Please…’

  We’d been to the cinema to see the latest Bond movie with his sister, Caro, and her husband, John, and were now eating at our favourite Soho bistro. Dan and I were good companions. There was no great passion between us, but life was easy. We made no demands on each other, being free to date other people, and no questions were ever asked. Nothing ever rocked our boat.

  I smiled and touched his face. He meant well.

  ‘Dan, it’s OK. I know what I’m doing. I’m going home.’

  He stared at me in surprise.

  ‘What do you mean, Maddie?’ asked Caro curiously.

  ‘I can’t explain it but when I first saw the cottage it just spoke to me.’ I looked at their anxious faces. ‘I knew I had to have it…’

  ‘But, Maddie, Daniel Craig speaks to me and I know I have to have him,’ Caro exclaimed. ‘I also know it’s just not going to happen,’ she added forlornly.

  I laughed but quickly grew serious again. ‘When I approached the estate agents they said that despite the cottage being on the market for some time there were only two interested parties. Both pulled out at the last minute. It hasn’t been occupied since the previous owner moved three years ago, apart from a few months when it was tenanted. Basically, it’s been standing empty all that time.’ Their worried faces made me defiantly state, ‘It needs to be lived in and brought back to life!’

  ‘Sounds odd to me,’ Caro commented. ‘Well, you know if it doesn’t work out you can always come and live with us, can’t she, John?’

  She smiled at me. Like her brother, Caro was a generous soul.

  ‘Yes, there’s always room for you in Clapham, Maddie,’ John echoed his wife’s offer. ‘No loss of face there.’

  ‘Thanks, you two. That’s comforting.’

  ‘And if you ever get bored stuck out in the sticks, I’ll always come down at the click of your fingers to entertain you with stories of the latest ego I have not had the pleasure of working with,’ teased Dan. He squeezed my knee meaningfully under the table.

  I smiled at them all. Such good friends amidst the bustle of what could sometimes be a lonely city and, for a split second, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I gazed at Dan, my dearest friend in whose arms I’d unexpectedly found pleasure, but we were going nowhere fast and, try as I might, I couldn’t imagine a future with him. I was on a roller coaster and nothing could halt me now.

  And so, one early October morning, I peered out from the third-floor window of my rented Victorian flat at the acres of chimneys stretching as far as the eye could see. Then, taking a final look around the empty apartment, and with a deep breath, I closed the door on my London life.

  Following my leaving bash at the local pub the previous weekend, Dan had stayed with me. We hadn’t planned it that way but I couldn’t remember getting home from the party and when I did wake up the next day, sometime around mid-afternoon, he was there to ease the hangover with cups of strong coffee and soothing, cool hands and, well, he’d sort of remained…

  As I said, we were companionable together.

  Generously, he agreed to drive me to Walditch. We hired a van on the Tuesday and loaded the majority of my possessions – not that they amounted to much – and decided to leave early the following morning to miss the worst of the commuter traffic. As soon as the outskirts of London were left behind, a sense of well-being replaced any slight hesitation I’d previously experienced, and by the time we joined the M3, Dan commented that the metropolitan girl had been well and truly left at the city gates. When we reached the A31 I had visibly chilled… and all the time a sense of ‘coming home’ grew deep within me. I couldn’t understand it.

  I was born in Dublin, the youngest of three girls, to Matilda and Finn O’Brien; successful, self-made business people. My sisters and I grew up in an environment that encouraged us to follow our dreams. For me, this was theatre, film and TV, whereas Mo had pursued her interest in photography to become a successful photojournalist, known for ‘the look’ of her subjects that no other photographer was able to capture. Martha, the eldest by ten years, had set the level. Having studied interior design, she now owned a fashionable outfit just off O’Connell Street and was often called upon to remodel homes for titans of industry – one particular project being to refit hotels owned by some famous musicians. They were a hard act to follow… my sisters.

  Turning my back on a career in the film industry for an uncertain future was not something my family easily understood. However, Mo – the closest in age and character to me – said that if it was something I needed to pursue then I should follow my heart.

  It was a beautiful, clear autumn day and an ever-increasing sense of excitement promised to engulf me. We broke the journey for breakfast at a charming café in the New Forest that Dan had discovered a few years before on a film shoot.

  ‘You’ve certainly got some colour in your cheeks now,’ he said, drawing me to him. Twisting a strand of my hair in his long, slender fingers, he kissed me. ‘Don’t forget what we have, Mads, will you?’

  I was surprised at the mellow tone to his voice.

  ‘Good heavens, Daniel Chambers, you’re not going all sentimental on me now, are you?’ I teased in the broadest of Irish accents, but was stayed by the look in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for you, Mads, you know that,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d hate to think this was it between us.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ I punched him gently on the chest. ‘This is a big adventure. If you think I’m not going to share it you’ve got another thing coming.’

  He smiled but I could tell he wasn’t happy. I asked the waitress for the bill and opened my handbag to take out my purse. Dan had never hinted at any level of commitment or permanency in our relationship before and this expression of feeling was something new. Frankly, it threw me.

  ‘I’ll get this,’ Dan said in a flat voice, producing his wallet.

  *

  We arrived in Walditch late morning, having first visited the Bridport estate agents, Randall & Mather, to pick up the k
eys for The Olde Smithy. As we pulled up alongside Walditch village green I noticed a few people already sitting outside the Blacksmith’s Arms. Casually, I wondered if there might be an opportunity of work in that establishment.

  Clambering down from the van, I stretched and rubbed my hands together. ‘OK, let’s get cracking.’

  Over the next couple of hours we unloaded the van, depositing bags and furniture in various rooms. Dan hit his head several times on the low beams of the downstairs rooms, but I had no such trouble. At five feet four inches I was a good ten inches shorter.

  ‘Must have been midgets in the seventeenth century!’ he muttered, ferociously rubbing his skull.

  According to Randall & Mather, the cottage dated back to the mid-1600s, in part. The property details stated: A charming, two-bedroom period cottage situated in Walditch, a village set deep in hilly countryside yet only a mile from Bridport and West Bay. The Olde Smithy offers discerning buyers an opportunity to put their stamp on a property steeped in history but with all modern-day conveniences.

  The sitting/dining room, kitchen and master bedroom were in the original part of the building, and all had heavily beamed ceilings and uneven floors, while a two-storey extension, built during the late 1980s, created a hallway, downstairs bathroom and first-floor guest bedroom. A small, overgrown, cottage-style garden to the front opened directly onto the village green and to the rear, immediately accessed from the kitchen, was a courtyard created by a collection of outhouses, one being an outside privy. A pathway led past the outbuildings to a further area of overgrown garden where there were three gnarled and twisted fruit trees, in desperate need of pruning, and the outline of a long-forgotten vegetable bed. To my delight, at the far end, was a neglected pond.

  The day passed quickly and we busied ourselves unpacking boxes, stacking shelves and filling cupboards. I had energy to spare. Soon, the cottage soon took shape and by the time the elongating shadows of the oak tree encroached upon the front garden it felt homely. Only the last remaining packing boxes stacked in the hallway and the lack of curtains at the windows declared me a new occupant. I made a mental note to buy fabric during the next few days to remedy this, as I’d been unable to salvage any window dressings from the flat. Being a Victorian conversion, the apartment had tall sash windows to which the landlord had fitted vertical blinds.