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to his more quixotic, facetious, approach. They made a good team.
    Sitting beside her, sipping his coffee, Ben glanced at her to see if she might be receptive. Too late - her head was buried, as usual, in a wad of papers.
    He shuffled to the other end of the sofa, lounged back, and watched her, deep in concentration. He liked her hair most of all. It displayed every shade of light brown, from milk chocolate to light gold. It was always clean and shining, and flowed in a curve to her shoulder like fresh molten lava. There was no make-up, no trinkets, just an everyday 40-something face that spoke of strength, serenity, generosity. She was beautiful, and he loved her, and more than this, he respected her.
    Eventually, she put the papers down on the coffee table, and glanced at him. ‘Fancy a walk? I’ve a couple of letters to post.’
    The walk took them north along the lake’s tree lined east shore, around Scarness Bay, skirting the grounds of Scarness Manor, followed the stream across the fields, and over the hump back bridge into the village; still farming, not yet given over to tourism; the smell of manure always in the air.
    The post box stood in front of a group of farm buildings whose erratic confluence of rooftops and chimneys framed against the smooth shaped backdrop of Skiddaw always caught Ben’s eye. He kept promising himself to capture it on canvas one day. Today, it reminded him of tragedy.
    As they turned to go home, this time via the lanes, not the lakeside, Ben was still looking up at Skiddaw. ‘Remember those deaths up there a few weeks ago?’ he asked.
    ‘The government minister?’
    ‘And his wife.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I was talking to someone who believes the minister was murdered by his colleagues...’
    ‘Go on, get it over with,’ Helen sighed. ‘You know I can see your awful jokes coming. And you know I don’t like cruel ones....’
    ‘No ...it’s not a joke. Somebody really thinks he was murdered...’
    ‘By his colleagues?’
    ‘Yes...well, by agents acting on behalf of his colleagues.’
    ‘Acting on behalf? You make them sound like solicitors. Are you really serious?’
    ‘Absolutely.’
    ‘Who told you this nonsense? Somebody with a glass in their hand, no doubt.’
    Ben latched on to the suggestion. ‘Well, he had, but he wasn’t drunk. It was a journalist with the Workington Herald. Their paper’s part of a big group. He said the rumour was going around their London head office.’
    ‘Well,’ Helen scoffed. ‘You know what they’re like in London. Nothing better to do than make up rumours. Keeps the chattering classes entertained.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Oh! Come on, you can’t.........what’s the motive supposed to be...pinched their parking space, or slept with their secretaries?’
    Ben winced. ‘Bit more serious than that! Something to do with his involvement with the nuclear industry...look out.’ He grabbed Helen’s arm and guided her on to the grass verge as a tractor and trailer loaded with manure rumbled past.
    Helen stepped back on to the tarmac. ‘It all sounds to me like a load of what’s just gone past on that trailer,’ she said, pointedly. ‘These conspiracy theories always come to nothing. Remember Kennedy, remember Monroe? Nothing is ever proved. If the police don’t find anything, then there’s nothing to find.’
    ‘The police still don’t think it was an accident,’ Ben countered. ‘But they have no evidence of foul play. The Coroner reconvened the inquest last week and they came up with an open verdict. So it looks like it’s going to be just another unsolved mystery. I’m pretty sure they were murdered.’
    ‘You might be sure, but you’re not pretty,’ Helen gibed, as she playfully slapped his bottom and started running down the lane.
    This was her way of ending a conversation she didn’t like. She had never been keen on politics, deep and meaningful discussions, or the darker side of humanity. Sometimes Ben found it frustrating when