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Hunted Hare , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Fay Sampson

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155 pages

English

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Description

CRT Awards - Fiction Book of the Year 2013A wonderfully atmospheric story of sudden death in a secluded Welsh valley.Pennant Melangell lies at the head of a mountain valley in North Wales. It consists of a church, with the medieval shrine and pilgrimage site of St Melangell, a few cottages - and a newly constructed hotel, the House of the Hare, built by its imposing director Thaddeus Brown.To the House of the Hare come Aidan and Jenny Davison, with their seven-year-old daughter Melangell. Jenny has advanced cancer: will the sacred location become a place of healing? Or will the hotel's new facilities - for instance, its impressive archery range - become a place of death? In this secluded setting, who might be the victim?The first of a series of new mysteries featuring Aidan and Melangell and set in what Fay Sampson describes as the 'thin' places of the Celtic world.

Informations

Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	17 juillet 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780857213402
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Also by Fay Sampson
For adults:
The Land of Angels
The Flight of the Sparrow
A Casket of Earth
The Island Pilgrimage
The Silent Fort
Star Dancer
The Suzie Fewings series:
In the Blood
A Malignant House
Those in Peril
Father Unknown
The Morgan le Fay series:
Wise Woman s Telling
Nun s Telling
Blacksmith s Telling
Taliesin s Telling
Herself
Daughter of Tintagel (Omnibus edition)
For children:
The Sorcerer s Trap
The Sorcerer s Daughter
Them
Hard Rock
The Pangur Ban series:
Pangur Ban
Finnglas of the Horses
Finnglas and the Stones of Choosing
Shape Shifter
The Serpent of Senargad
The White Horse is Running
Non-fiction:
Visions and Voyages: The Story of Celtic Spirituality
Runes on the Cross: The Story of our Anglo-Saxon Heritage
The Hunted Hare

Fay Sampson
The first volume in The Aidan Mysteries
Copyright 2012 by Fay Sampson
The right of Fay Sampson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the UK in 2012 by Monarch Books (a publishing imprint of Lion Hudson plc) Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England Tel: +44 (0)1865 302750 Fax: +44 (0)1865 302757 Email: monarch@lionhudson.com
www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 0 85721 204 7 (print) ISBN 978 0 85721 339 6 (Kindle) ISBN 978 0 85721 340 2 (epub)
British Library Cataloguing Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
With thanks to Pollinger Limited, Authors Agents, www.pollingerltd.com
Cover image: Lion Hudson
To Jack
Author s Note

All the characters in this novel are fictitious, and bear no resemblance to any real person, living or dead.
The shrine church at Pennant Melangell and the St Melangell Centre are real, and well worth a visit. For the purposes of this novel I have added the fictional House of the Hare and Capel-y-Cwm. My apologies to local landowners, some of whose land I have appropriated for this.
I have also invented Caradoc Lewis s museum in Llanfyllin.
My thanks to the priest and congregation of St Melangell s Church and the St Melangell Centre for their welcome. The site has a special aura of holiness. My apologies for the fictional damage I have inflicted on their historic church in the course of the novel.
I am grateful to Sergeant Darren Brown for advice on local policing.
To Joyce Perry for her careful critique.
And to my husband, Jack, for allowing me to drag him over steep and thorny Welsh hillsides.
Contents

Also by Fay Sampson

Title Page

Dedication

Author s Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Preview
Chapter One

T HE B ERWYN MOUNTAINS closed in around the narrow lane. Bluebells gleamed in the hedge banks. Aidan wondered whether his camera could capture the subtle blend of young green ferns and violet-blue flowers.
The sign ahead warned them that there was no through road. They drove on.
Two walkers with backpacks flattened themselves against the hedge. The fair young man was almost dwarfed by his rucksack, while the darker-skinned girl carried a lighter load. Aidan steered round them.
In the rear-view mirror, he caught his daughter s small intent face, under its mop of light-brown curls. He grinned at her.
When your mother and I came, that s what we did. Walked all the way from the village. It s the best way for pilgrims to come to Pennant Melangell. In a little while, there s a footpath you can take over the side of the hill to the church.
I m sorry. I m going to be holding you two back. Jenny s quiet voice came from beside him.
Aidan glanced at her, guilt-stricken. The pink-and-purple scarf hid her bald head, which chemotherapy had robbed of its own unruly curls.
I didn t mean
I know you didn t. She laid a hand on his knee. Too thin a hand. Don t worry. Once we re at the House of the Hare, you two can set off wherever you like. You have to take Melangell to the waterfall.
Did you call me Melangell because I was conceived here? The child s voice came from the back seat.
The car swerved as Aidan started.
Don t look so shocked, Daddy. Michael Jackson called his daughter Paris because that was where she began. Everybody knows that.
Aidan caught Jenny s eye. Did you know that sort of thing when you were seven?
She smiled. Melangell knows a surprising number of things we didn t.
She leaned over the back of the seat. We stayed in that pub back in Llangynog last time. The one where we had lunch. There was no accommodation at Pennant Melangell then.
I m glad there is now. The House of the Hare. I like the sound of that.
Yes, the hare was St Melangell s animal. Even before that, it was an ancient symbol of new life. But, really, we called you Melangell because we just fell in love with the place, as soon as we got there.
It s one of those thin places , said Aidan. Like Iona. Where heaven and earth come close together. You can feel it.
Aidan! Jenny cried.
He braked sharply. A large car came hurtling down the narrow lane towards them. There was no room for two vehicles to pass. At intervals along the way he had seen passing places. There was none in sight here. The black Jaguar screeched to a halt, only feet from their bumper. The horn blasted. Two faces were hardly discernible from behind the tinted windscreen.
Aidan felt a surge of anger. Idiots!
He took a deep breath. He must not lose control of his temper. There were two precious lives, as well as his own, to consider.
He reversed the car back down the road until he reached one of the indentations. He pulled over. The Jaguar shot past. Through the side window Aidan had a glimpse of pale shirt fronts and darker suits. The driver did not raise his hand in acknowledgment.
He waited several seconds more, while his blood pressure steadied.
So much for the spiritual atmosphere.
They didn t look like your average pilgrim, Jenny said.
He pulled out on to the road again.

I can see it! I can see it! Melangell bounced on the back seat.
The low tower of the ancient chapel emerged from between the budding branches. It rose hardly taller than the slate roof, and was capped with a small latticed bell turret. Around it lay a scatter of whitewashed cottages, with their own slate roofs.
Aidan turned off the road and drew up by the churchyard. The car had hardly come to a halt before Melangell jumped out. She was running for the gate when she stopped dead. She stared up. Her mouth fell open in awe.
It s gi-normous! And that one! And those two!
Aidan glanced at Jenny and met her smile.
Around the church grew five gigantic yew trees. Centuries had swelled their girth to a size Aidan could not recall having seen anywhere else. These were not the disciplined churchyard yews he was used to, clipped into neat cylinders. Their canopies were vast. Two of them had split their trunks, so that you could see the sky between the two halves. The one nearest the gate had a hollow tall and deep enough to stand inside. Melangell ran and did just that. Her elfin face peeped out at them from a doorway of hoary bark.
Aidan swung the Nikon from his shoulder and caught the moment. The frame of his photograph held the frame of the yew tree, with his daughter captured inside both.
I m the hare. I m Melangell s hare, hiding from the hunters under her skirt. You re the hounds, and you can t get me.
She jumped out, too excited to stay still for long. Can we see the carvings in the church?
All in good time, Aidan said. Let s find the House of the Hare first. I expect your mother could do with a rest, before we start exploring.
I could murder a cup of tea, Jenny laughed. She turned slowly, taking in the remembered circular churchyard, the long, low shrine church, the whitewashed buildings beyond.
The St Melangell Centre s down that lane, isn t it? It was the Cancer Help Centre then. Funny. Her smile faded. When we came here before, it never occurred to us that I
He gripped her hand. There s a lot we didn t know then.
She reached up her free hand to stroke the bark of the yew. I seem to remember the women recovering from cancer saw these trees as part of their therapy. And it s true. You get taxol from yews. It s one of the best treatments for ovarian cancer. The only trouble is, if you strip too much of the bark, the tree dies.
Aidan was silent. They both knew that Jenny s condition was worsening. The drugs had not done what they hoped. Jenny had been given only months to live.
He turned his head towards the church. His heart filled with longing. If any place could work miracles, surely this was it. There was an aura of holiness about Pennant Melangell, these quiet meadows at the head of the valley, where the road ran out. Already, standing in the shadow of these yews, he could feel the stillness reaching to his heart. If they prayed here, if they really believed, could the power of this place reverse the conclusion of the oncologists?
Jenny was looking about her, more confused now. I can t see anything that