Page 9 of The Dead Come to Stay

Wellington boots made for excellent footwear to keep your feet dry. Why they didn’t also come with actual tread to keep you

from falling on your ass, Jo didn’t know, but the fact remained. It was one she unfortunately learned the hard way.

Gwilym managed to pull her up without falling down himself, but only just. The previous day’s sunshine may have dried out

the puddles, but the trail remained slippery and muddy. It was lonely, too. The effect might be softened by late-spring greenery,

but these were the environs of Wuthering Heights and every bit as isolated.

“How did Roberta walk this whole trail by herself?” Gwilym asked.

“Fourteen generations of Wilkinsons,” Jo explained.

Roberta had genetic fortitude. Jo, on the other hand, had a wet backside.

She’d spent most of her life between Chicago and New York, scarce able to catch a bit of unbroken sky between high-rises, or more than a few stray stars above the pink haze of light pollution.

Out here, the land rolled away like the gathered edge of a bed skirt dotted blue yellow with furze and heather.

Clouds had moved in, but across a fat stretch of sky wide enough to bend at the edges.

If Roberta could still hike it at eighty-three, she would, too. “Where was I?”

“Your uncle Aiden.”

“Right. So, we already knew he was the one with Evelyn’s photo. He also kept the original—and he wanted to bring Evelyn ‘home,’ whatever that means. But here’s the weird part. Even though the Ardemore

estate was technically under his management back in the eighties, he never lived there. Didn’t even seem to want to take care

of it. When did he suddenly get interested in our family history?”

“I guess about the time he went to such great lengths to get the painting repaired,” Gwilym offered. “But since we’re talking

about him, if not the Ardemore estate, where did he live?”

“Had his own flat in York, which was sold after his death. But according to the neighbor, he was almost never there, either.”

“Another home someplace?”

Home. Funny word; it had never been the sort Jo collected for cutting her teeth on, but neither was it as straightforward as it

pretended. Had she ever felt at home in Chicago, with her mother and aunt? Had she felt at home in the Brooklyn flat with

her ex?

“Where is home, though, anyway?” she asked. “Is Swansea home for you?”

“I suppose. I’m Welsh.”

“Tula’s Irish, but Ireland isn’t her home.”

“Fair point. Always meant to ask about that,” Gwilym admitted, sidestepping a particularly opaque puddle.

“She probably wouldn’t tell you much,” Jo said. “But Abington is her home. Mine too, I guess, now. What about Evelyn?”

“As in, Painting Evelyn?”

“As in, Ancestor Evelyn, yes.”

“Well, she’s also from Wales, if I recall from our research, but I see your point. Note on the photo you found from your uncle

says ‘Evelyn comes home,’ but who’s home?”

These were the questions that kept Jo up nights, and that was no euphemism. Did it refer to Evelyn’s home in Wales, before she moved in with Gwen and William?

“We searched for months and never found evidence of Evelyn living anywhere else,” she reminded him.

“Or any mention of a baby mysteriously turning up in Abington,” Gwilym agreed. “I mean, assuming the baby lived, you would

think an orphan would get some kind of attention around here.”

He kicked a dirt clod from the path. That had been his hobbyhorse: orphan hunting. Jo had focused on William and Gwen, but

no child of any sort ever darkened their door—there weren’t even nieces or nephews to hand. And not a mention of Evelyn herself,

either, alive or dead.

“Maybe Aiden meant Evelyn’s home here in Abington, you know? Ardemore House? Assuming you gained home status by being buried

somewhere.”

“Ugh. That is not a nice thought.” Jo frowned. “Maybe Aiden meant his own home. Either York or... somewhere else. I’m not

giving up.”

“Of course you aren’t! We aren’t. But you have to admit, murders in ditches during town celebrations are very distracting.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

“There it is, I think,” she said. Just beyond them was a rise in the landscape; the North Pennines surrounded Abington on

three sides, and the Pennine Way could be picked up from Upper Lane. She’d learned all that from Tula and Ben, and been forced

to walk it more than once with Roberta. Up ahead, police tape flapped in the wind, and Gwilym gave his hoodie strings an enthusiastic

tug.

“Oh gosh. That’s banging! C’mon!” He skipped down the trail till he reached its nadir. Jo leaned over with care. Ditch wasn’t quite the right word— culvert ? Steep sides and a mucky middle that police boot prints had turned into a slovenly pond.

“That can’t have been easy,” Jo said, trying to imagine getting a body out of it. Gwilym was imagining it, too, but with greater

appreciation.

“Like excavating a bog body or something. On the other hand, plenty easy to put him in. There’s a good incline—you’d just have to roll him out and let gravity do the work.”

Unpleasant. But he had a point.

“Why here, though? Just the solitude?”

“Sure! No one would find him right away. Oh. Well. I mean, in theory.” Gwilym turned in place. “It beats odds, doesn’t it?

Roberta walking right up on him.”

Jo scanned the horizon. Maybe—or maybe not. It was close to a pull-off; people parked there sometimes. In fact, someone appeared

to be parked there now. Up ahead on the road, something stood out against the brown and green. Two somethings, as it happened.

A hiker, maybe, and something bigger...

“Look up there. Is that a car?” Gwilym squinted but couldn’t differentiate at a distance.

“I see a yellow blur and a white blur?”

“Windbreaker and the backside of something—an SUV maybe.” It was a lonely place, but not deserted after all. Of course, if

you weren’t familiar with the area, you might not know that.

“I see her now.” Gwilym raised his arms and cheerfully hallooed.

“Please don’t do that.” Jo grimaced. She was not in new-people mode. This did not stop Gwilym, who was always in new-people

mode.

He started jogging to catch up. Now Jo had to scamper after him. When they had covered about twenty yards, he gave another

shouted greeting, and this time the hiker turned around. Jo caught a distant glimpse of her face, but she didn’t stop. She

didn’t even slow down.

“Headed for the van, I guess?” Gwilym asked, slowing to a walk. “That is a van, isn’t it?” Jo’s vision was better, but they were still half a football pitch away.

“Seems to be,” she said. “It has letters on one side: B-U-T-T-Y .” The word lived nowhere in Jo’s extensive mental catalog, however. “Butt-tee? Boot-ee?”

Gwilym erupted in laughter.

“Laird, have you never eaten a bacon butty?” he asked. “I love a bacon butty, me—and a chip butty. Gorgeous. Like a cwtch for your insides.”

“Is this a Welsh thing?” Jo asked.

“It is a sandwich , Jo. A right guilty one. Butter and back bacon on thick white bread—didn’t expect a butty van out here, but I’ll take it!

Let’s get one, shall we? You’ll love it.”

Jo had experienced the British equivalent of bacon and wasn’t sure love was the right word. Maybe they also did chips. Essentially a food truck, a window opened to one side, and a tiny counter

jutted out with condiments of various kinds. Gwilym tapped on the window and the thick jowls of a mostly bald man appeared.

“What can I do for ye?” he asked.

The accent was thick; Jo tried to place it— glottal stops , she thought. The audible release of air after complete closure of the glottis. Cockney? No. Something else. Gwilym asked

about her order, but her brain couldn’t get past the other blur they had just seen.

“Where’s the hiker?” she asked.

Gwilym took a quick look around. “Maybe she already ordered?”

“But she’s not here ,” Jo insisted. She stood on her tiptoes to better see the proprietor. “Excuse me, did you see a woman in a yellow rain slicker?”

“Nar.”

“Did you see anyone ?” Gwilym asked.

“Nar, I seed. Ye gan order something or nowt?”

“Oh! Yes, um. Bacon butty, please,” Gwilym said, hunting his clothes for cash.

“Aye. In a min’t.”

Gwilym dutifully awaited his sandwich. It seemed to be taking a very long time, so Jo climbed a little rise next the road

and peered out over the moors. No one. Not anywhere. It shouldn’t bother her. But like other unexplained errors in the general

skein of things... it did. A lot.

***

An hour and four minutes on the 694—surprisingly breezy driving for a Sunday. MacAdams stopped first in Whickham to put eyes

on Foley’s former address, a brick terraced house with sizable garage and impressive garden.

“Nice village. Good parks,” Green said. “Geet place, as the Geordies say.”

“Means big, yes?”

“You could keep a lot of kit in there, is what I mean. Leaves all this behind for a by-month rental?”

“A furnished one, at that,” MacAdams added, pulling away from the curb again.

“Right. So, where’s his stuff?”

It was an excellent question. Newcastle Uniform did a preliminary sweep the day before; everything, right down to the ice

trays, came with the flat.

“We’ve probably looking for storage, a unit. Something,” he said. An officer met them at the door, and proffered paper booties

for their shoes. It wasn’t a crime scene. At least, MacAdams didn’t think so. But then again... He tugged them over his

oxfords.

The inside had the appeal of a cheap chain hotel. Furnishings were perfectly serviceable—everything a shade of familiar beige.

“Where do you want to start?” Green asked.