Читать книгу The Dream Weavers онлайн | страница 25

Setting the pile of paper down on the table, she was acutely aware that part of her wanted to go back into the dream to find out what happened next. She glanced round the room. It was growing more shadowy now that the sun had moved round. She ought to go home, but if she did, what was she going to say to Simon, or to Chris for that matter? She hadn’t been able to interact with the woman in the garden, much less ask her to move on, and they expected answers. And she wanted answers. What, if anything, had Offa’s feast and the young handsome prince to do with this cottage? Beyond the name.

This was Offa’s Ridge. He must have been here at some point. Or perhaps not. She had never really thought about it. Offa was famous. Perhaps because his name was so easy to remember compared with some of the Welsh names of the villages roundabout, he was everywhere. There were Offa’s cafés, Offa’s giftshops selling Offa’s fudge in the villages round about. And of course the Offa’s Dyke footpath that wandered backwards and forwards more or less following the length of the actual dyke and then on from sea to sea, as described by Asser and quoted in Simon’s manuscript, the footpath that ran almost past the door of this cottage.

Did the answer lie in the dream world? She glanced back at the manuscript. Was that the woman in the garden’s way of communicating her story? Was it Simon’s imagination that had triggered this sudden ghostly visitation, as they had joked. This hadn’t happened to her before, but then every case she had dealt with had been different. She pictured the young and beautiful princess with her cornflower blue eyes and tried to match the figure to the shadow in the garden. No. That didn’t seem to fit, but was that somehow where the answer lay?

‘Bea?’

The voice from the terrace made her jump.

‘Simon?’ she hurried over to the door. ‘I didn’t hear your car.’

‘That surprises me. The poor thing groans in mortal agony every time I drive up the hill in a cloud of smoke.’ He stepped inside and she saw him glance round. ‘So, have you sorted it?’