The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori Read Online Free Page B

appetite. This handyman job was probably only for the summer, but it would give him regular wages, and if he didn’t like it he could simply up and leave. It certainly wouldn’t do any harm to check out the place and see if it would suit.
    He got up, paid the woman at the till with a dazzling smile and £3.25, and went out into Main Street again. He looked down the thigh-tormenting slope. He had known nothing like this in his native Ireland—nothing quite like it in England, either, in his five weeks in the country, though the blackened stone was becoming familiar. After the towns, after the tourist venues, where he functioned as a one-man machine for screwing money out of the unwary, a small place would be nice. Maybe it would be a farm . . . pleasant, restful. On an impulse he went into thepost office and checked. Yes, Ashworth was a farmhouse near Stanbury, with a few cottages around. Declan felt a tug that was all but irresistible.
    He had been in Haworth long enough to know where Stanbury was. He retraced his steps until town suddenly gave way to moorland and fields, then took the road down the hill and followed it when it turned upward again. Stanbury, when he gained it, was approved of. The boy liked villages, came from one and felt at home in them. He stopped to ask an old man toiling along the street past the church how he could get to Ashworth, and had the path silently pointed out to him. As he turned off the road, to his right, his heart rose again: a broad, green valley. A farm with a cottage and dogs—just what he was used to. He was traveling, adventuring, but he was carrying his history with him, and was conscious of the fact. A conviction grew in him that Ashworth, when it was gained, was going to be somewhere where he could feel at home.
    As he descended and rounded a corner he realized that he must be there. It was exactly as the woman in the post office had described it. Not just a farm, but a hamlet centered on a farm. That looked wonderfully promising. The boy knew he got on well with people, that his appearance predisposed them to like him, and that that didn’t change when they got to know him better. He came to a gate, swung it open, and found himself among the little knot of cottages.
    There was a woman bending over to weed in the front garden of one of the little cottages—a cottage in the middle of a little terrace of similar ones, with roses and gladioliin the garden and a JESUS LIVES sticker in the window looking out on the lane. The boy cleared his throat.
    â€œExcuse me.”
    The woman straightened. She was wearing an old cream blouse and an even older tweed skirt, once green and brown, now generally muddy. Her face, unmade up and not particularly clean, showed a similar disregard for the opinions of others. She smiled, but he got the impression that strangers here were not frequent, were not particularly wanted, and were evaluated.
    â€œI’m looking for Ashworth.”
    â€œWell, you could say this is all Ashworth. We take the name from the farm.”
    â€œMaybe it’s the farm I want. There was this advertisement in the post office in Haworth.”
    She nodded, obviously interested.
    â€œOh, yes. You’re the first. It only went up Monday. . . . Well, you look sturdy enough.”
    â€œI can do most things.”
    â€œMind you, it’s not just physical stuff you’d be doing, not with Ranulph. You need strong mental qualities as well—tact, cheerfulness, friendliness.”
    â€œWell, I think I’ve got those,” said the boy, with the confidence of his twenty or so years.
    â€œI hope you have. I’m Jenny Birdsell, by the way.” They shook hands, then she leaned forward to impart information. “It’s Ranulph you’ll have most to do with in the house, if you get the job. What I’ve said probably has given you the impression that Ranulph is difficult. That’s not really fair.