Castlewick Crag

FINAL PART In a state of sorrow, Beth and Joe team up to uncover what truly happened to poor Bill

Joe felt a twinge of disappointment as Beth drew her hand away, her cheeks scarlet. She busied herself wiping down the already wiped bar top.

The simple gesture had touched him deeply and he was sorry she felt embarrassed about it.

He cleared his throat. “Something about the way Bill’s daughter was speaking just then didn’t quite ring true.”

She stopped wiping the bar top and stared at him, her eyes shocked. “You mean, you don’t think Bill is dead? But why would she say that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part but it was the way she worded it. You know how it is when someone’s choosing their words carefully so as not to tell an outright lie? I’d like to look her in the face when she tells me. Are you up for a trip to –” He looked down at the piece of paper Beth had been given with the address and telephone number of Bill’s daughter. “To Stafford?”

“What? Now?”

He shook his head and laughed. “No, in the morning. I don’t know about you but I’m bushed. That was quite an evening shift, wasn’t it?”

“It certainly was, but I enjoyed it. And I still haven’t bought you that pint that I promised you.”

He smiled. “I owe you more than a pint for stepping in the way you did. I feel bad enough about cutting in to your holiday. So forget I asked you to come. It’s not right for you to give up yet more time.”

“But I’d like to. I’m as anxious to find out what happened to Bill as you are. But what are we going to do about Monk?”

The way she’d said “we”, like they were a team, gave Joe a warm buzz.

“We’ll take him with us,” he said. “If Bill is still at his daughter’s, Monk will know.”

Poor Monk,” Beth said as the dog’s eagerness when she picked up his lead disappeared the moment he saw Joe’s car. “I think he’d prefer to go for a walk.”

Joe smiled as he took the lead from Beth. “In you get, boy. We’ll bring you back, I promise.”

Monk jumped into the back of the car

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She lived in a small neat house on the edge of the town. Joe checked the address they’d been given and, clipping Monk’s lead on, went up to the bright blue door.

As the woman opened it, Monk gave a low growl and pulled against the lead, his ears flattened. He’d have gone back to the car if Joe had let him.

“Mrs Baker?” Joe said. “I’m Joe Weston. We spoke yesterday. When you said that Bill was no longer with us, did you mean –?”

“You’d best come in,” she said, her expression stony. “I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. It was not intentional.”

Beth thought from the way the colour flooded into her face that it probably was intentional but said nothing.

“I expect you could do with a cup of tea now because I was worried. I always ring him every Sunday to check on him, but he didn’t answer. When I got there I found him in a pretty bad way with a nasty head wound. The cottage was freezing and he was confused and disorientated. He told me to stop fussing, that he’d just taken a little tumble, nothing more.” She shook her head and tutted. “He was more worried about losing his hat than anything else.”

“That sounds like Bill,” Joe said. “And, as it happened, we found it. Or rather, the dog did.”

“Where?” Ruth’s voice sharpened.

“On the path leading up to Castlewick Crag,” Joe said and Ruth tutted again.

“It was obvious he’d been neglecting himself,” she said as she handed them tea in delicate bone china mugs. “He was admitted to hospital and while nothing was broken, he was malnourished and dehydrated. When it was time for his release, he was found a place in a residential home here in Stafford. He agreed that it was time to give up the cottage, particularly as most of the houses around Castlewick are seasonal holiday homes and there’s no one around to keep an eye on him at this time of the year.

“I managed to catch Nesta at the pub just before she went on her cruise and said Dad was leaving. She said she’d let the place as a holiday cottage for now but that Dad could go back any time he wanted. But I couldn’t see that happening, so I cleared all his stuff out and Nesta arranged for the place to be redecorated.”

“And Bill agreed to this?” Joe asked.

“Of course.” Ruth’s expression was defensive. “No one can make my father do anything he doesn’t want to do, the stubborn old goat.”

Joe smiled. “He is that. So, what happened to Monk? Beth here has been staying in Bill’s cottage and the dog just turned up one morning.”

“That was my fault, I’m afraid. He couldn’t stay here. I’m out to work all day. So I was taking him to an animal rescue place near Kendal. But as I got him out of the car, he ran off. I reported him missing but no one saw him. Dad was desperately upset and furious with me.”

“He made his way back to Castlewick,” Joe said. “And has spent all his time since then up on the mountains looking for Bill.”

Her face crumpled. “Oh, the poor thing. If Dad knew that he’d be heartbroken. At least, he would have been at one time. But now… to be honest, I’m worried sick about him. Since he went into that home, all the fight’s gone out of him. It’s like he’s fading away. He doesn’t even ask about the dog any more – or his damn hat.”

“Do you think it would help if we went to see him?” Beth suggested. “And maybe took the dog?”

“It might. I doubt they’d let the dog in the home, but Dad’s not a prisoner there. He can go out if he chooses, but he doesn’t want to. Just sits in the chair all day, staring at nothing.”

Joe looked worried. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

“I’ll take you there,” Ruth said. “Maybe if he sees that the dog is OK, it’ll perk him up a bit.”

When they reached the home, Beth stayed outside with Monk while Ruth and Joe went in to find Bill. They were gone for so long that Beth began to feel uneasy. Was Bill OK? Had they come all this way to find the old man didn’t even remember Monk?

Suddenly, she felt Monk stiffen by her side then strain at the lead. At the same time, the front door opened and Ruth and Joe came out, an elderly man leaning heavily on Joe’s arm.

Beth struggled to hold on to Monk but he was too strong for her. With a jerk of his head, he pulled the lead clean out of her hand and raced towards them.

“Best sit down before he knocks you over, Bill,” Joe said, fending off the dog and leading Bill to a nearby bench.

Monk was whimpering with excitement as he pressed himself into Bill, who held the dog close as tears streamed down his face.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “Where’ve you been, boy?”

“Up on the mountains, looking for you,” Joe said and Beth saw that he, too, had tears in his eyes. As, of course, did she.

“And you found me. You found me. Good boy,” Bill said, scratching the dog behind his ear. “I thought… I thought you were dead.”

“Not Monk,” Joe said. “He’s a survivor. But what about you, Bill? Ruth tells me you’re not eating. That you haven’t been looking after yourself.”

“I will now.” There was a flash of the old Bill in the stubborn set of his chin. “I need to get home. So does Monk, don’t you, boy? I’ll not be separated from him again.”

“You have to get yourself well again, Dad,” said Ruth. “Then we’ll see about getting you home.”

“You mean it?” Hope flared in Bill’s eyes and he tightened his grip on the dog.

She nodded. “There’ll have to be some changes made to the cottage to make things safer for you but Nesta will be OK with that, I’m sure.”

And, Beth assumed, Ruth needed the time to put Bill’s personal possessions back where they belonged.

“I’m home for good now, Ruth,” Joe said. “My young son’s coming to live with me, for who knows how long. So I’ll be able to check on Bill. And once the pub re-opens, there’ll be plenty of people around.”

Bill turned to Beth. Already his eyes were clearer, his back a little straighter. “I understand you found my dog. Thank you.”

“He found me,” she managed to say through the lump in her throat.

Monk had been reluctant to leave Bill now that he’d found him and it had taken a sharp command from Bill to persuade the dog to get in the car.

“It won’t be for long,” Bill had whispered to him. “Until I’m back. Be a good boy for Joe and don’t go running off again.”

As he drove back to Castlewick, Joe decided he’d take Monk with him when he went to collect Harry on Saturday so they could visit Bill on the way back. Harry would be delighted to have some canine company on the long drive, he was sure. But Saturday also meant that Beth would be going home. The search for Monk was over and now he had no excuse to seek out her company.

“Do you think Bill will be able to manage on his own?” Beth asked.

“For sure,” he said. “As Ruth said, he’s a stubborn old goat. And I managed to talk to Nesta today. She was horrified at what had gone on in the pub and is getting in touch with an agency that supplies bona fide pub managers so that the pub can reopen.” He gave a little grin. “She also said she’d been a bit hasty in banning the climbers from the pub and that, if I could spread the word around, she’d be grateful. That means Bill will have plenty of his old climbing buddies around to keep an eye on him as well.”

“That’s perfect,” Beth said. “A happy ending all round, then.”

“Hopefully. But what about you?” On the drive down, Beth had told him about the bombshell her sister had tossed at her about wanting to sell the family home so that she and her husband could buy a place of their own. And it had been on his mind.

“I’ll just … just head on back and get on with my life,” she said and Joe heard the catch in her voice as she spoke. “Amy and I need to start sorting out the house and getting it ready to put on the market.”

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Joe took a deep breath. Should he say something? What was the worst that could happen? She’d tell him to mind his own business.

“Look, it’s none of my business, but have you thought of suggesting to your sister that she and her husband, instead of buying a house somewhere else, buy your half of the family home? Didn’t you say his parents were happy to help them financially?”

There was such a long silence that Joe thought he had, indeed, put his foot in it.

“Look, forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said.

A strand of her silky blonde hair fell across her face and she twirled it around her finger. “No, it’s a great idea, but I’m not sure Amy will go for it. She probably has her heart set on one of the new builds on the edge of the town.”

As she spoke, Joe forced himself to concentrate on his driving and stop trying to imagine how it would feel to run his hand across that long, silky hair.

As soon as they got back to Bill’s cottage, Joe lit the fire for Beth while she fed the dog.

Joe had persuaded Ruth to let them take some of Bill’s things back to the cottage, hoping it would help the dog settle. And it worked a treat. As soon as the old, fire-scorched rag rug that Bill’s wife had made replaced the bland, shop bought one, Monk settled down on it with a sigh of contentment that made them both laugh. Then Beth went outside to phone Amy. “About selling the house…” she began. “Oh no,” Amy cut in. “Forget I said anything. It was only a passing thought.”

“No, hear me out. Do you have your heart set on a new build?”

“Not really, but it’s the only way we can afford a place of our own, even with some help from Daniel’s parents.”

“Then why not think about you and Daniel buying out my share of the house?”

Beth heard Amy’s sharp intake of breath. “Do you really mean it? But what will you do?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Beth said. “I only know I want – I need a change of direction, and this will give me the push I need.”

Beth had looked after her sister ever since their mother died and she’d taken the first job that came along to fit in around Amy’s school hours. For the first time in her life, she was faced with the prospect of doing whatever she pleased with her life. It was exciting yet scary at the same time.

“What do you think?” Beth asked when

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Amy didn’t answer immediately.

“I think it’s amazing,” Amy said. “That way the house stays in the family. It’s what I secretly hoped for but didn’t dare suggest. It already feels like we’re driving you out of your home.”

“Of course you’re not,” Beth said. “I really mean it. I’m ready for the next stage of my life. Wherever that may be.”

As she spoke, she looked around her, down the valley where the evening sun was slowly sinking behind the mountains. In the distance, a pair of buzzards drew lazy circles in the sky.

There would be worse places to start her new life than here, she thought. Especially since she’d heard Joe say that he’d be staying around. place back to how it used to be. Even the climbers’ photos have returned. They’re looking for someone to help in the bar. You interested?”

She caught her breath. “I might be. But I’d have to find somewhere to stay around here now that Bill’s coming home.”

“There are some old stone barns next to my house that I’ve converted into holiday cottages,” he said. “They’re warm and cosy. You’re welcome to stay in one of those. Unless,” he added and Beth could hear the laughter in his voice. “Unless our Lakeland winters are too much for a soft southerner like you.”

“I think I could cope,” she said, her pulse thudding at the thought of returning to a corner of the Lakes that had completely stolen her heart.

“Ruth’s bringing Bill home at the weekend,” he said. “Harry, Monk and I have been down to see him a few times. He’s looking really good. Harry wants us to make him a cake to welcome him home. You’re very welcome to join us. Especially if you can make cakes. If not, I’ll cheat and buy one.”

“I make a mean chocolate fudge cake,” she said. “Will that do?”

“That just happens to be Harry’s favourite,” he said. “And mine.”

Beth’s eyes shone with tears as she, Joe and Harry watched as Bill came back into his cottage.

“Now you be sure and take care of yourself this time, Dad,” Ruth said. “I don’t want you giving me a scare like that again. And make sure, too, that you wear that alarm I bought you. You press that button any time of the day or night and someone will come.”

“I will,” he said.

“And don’t you go wondering off on your own up on the mountain again,” she went on, still looking anxious as she walked out to her car, leaving Bill back in his favourite chair by the fire with Monk at his feet.

“Don’t worry, Ruth,” Beth said as she and Joe went out to her car to see her off. “He’ll be fine. We’ll look out for him.”

“We?” said Joe as they watched Ruth drive away. “You’re staying then?”

He gave her a smile that made her heart sing. And Beth thought that maybe, just maybe, like Monk, she too had found her forever home.

BY PAULA WILLIAMS