Archive of Our Own

“Morecombe?” Audrey asked into the confused quiet that followed Siegfried’s dramatic tailing off at the end of the chapter of their latest book. It was one of their Peter Wimsey novels, Have his Carcase by Dorothy Sayers, and she had been enjoying the way Siegfried’s voice played with the words as he detailed the farcical following of a suspect across London. Only, the reveal of the suspect was rather anticlimactic, because she hadn’t the faintest idea why the name was meant to be familiar. “Do we know a Morecombe?”

She put her knitting to one side and picked up the small notebook she had been using throughout the book to keep track of all the bizarre circumstances, names and alibis of those involved in Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane’s latest seaside murder. She flicked back through, frowning, till she reached the particulars page for this murder mystery and glancing through the pages in search of the name.

To her left, when she glanced up, Siegfried looked equally puzzled, his eyes out of focus above the book he held loosely in his hands as he tried to recall. He had his own notebook, but as his writing was virtually impossible to read and his voice better suited to reading aloud, it was her notebook they fell back on when theorising.

“Not the widow?” He said slowly, putting a finger into the book and stroking his beard thoughtfully. “The landlady? Harriet’s and the lad’s landlady?”

“No, no, the widow is Weldon, remember – the smarmy young man’s ma – and the landlady… was no, I have her and she’s not Morecombe. I can’t find ‘a Morecombe in me notes,” Audrey made a note of what had been revealed in the chapter on the next available page and frowned at the page, at the name and the question mark that followed. “But we ‘ave ‘ad a Morecombe so far, I know it. I just… can’t remember when….”

“Nor I,” Siegfried mused, his hand still moving over his bearded chin, the glasses perched on the end of his nose as he thought hard on what he recalled of the first two thirds of the complicated mystery they had found themselves reading. “We could-”

“No,” Audrey cut him off sternly, “We don’t flick back through to see what we missed. We agreed.”

“Then I imagine we will find out in the next chapter why Morecombe is so important, and likely kick ourselves for not remembering them,” Siegfried said reasonably, though the put out look on his face showed his less than reasonable thoughts about not being able to check back. “Are you sure it’s not in your notes?”

“Can’t have seemed that important,” Audrey reasoned with a disapproving frown at her own notebook. “Must have just seemed like an incidental alibi check. I still think it’s Weldon, just so you know.”

He hummed thoughtfully, head falling back against the chair as she returned to checking the neat notes she made every evening they found to read another chapter or two of their mystery novel. In the moments she was occupied with trying to puzzle out this new clue, he just watched her fondly. He watched the distracted way she pushed an uncharacteristically loose lock of hair behind her ear, at the off-centred furrow between her eyebrows as her eyes scanned each bit of information she had recorded over the weeks they had been reading.

She was beautiful in the firelight and her frustration, and he looked away on purpose for as long as he could, mindful of the fact it was not his place to look. But it was hard to keep looking away, and his gaze returned to rest comfortably on her again.

This novel had been romantic, and ridiculous, and nonsensical, and full of ridiculous ciphers. It had shown that his remarkable Mrs Hall was as dismissive of the thought of love at first sight as she was his romantic notion of soulmates. Lord Peter Wimsey had proposed to Harriet Vane in virtually every conversation the two had shared in this book thus far, and Audrey Hall had spent the first half of the book utterly incensed by it, for some reason he decided not to look too closely at. She had ranted about how unfair it was to keep asking when someone might expect her to agree out of gratitude (Vane owed her life to Wimsey, after all). She had called Lord Peter a cad, and crossly informed the fictional character that if he wanted to get anywhere with Harriet, he needed to listen to her and trust her, not propose to her every five seconds. Because no woman wanted to feel like she was being hounded to the alter.

But now, the book was two-thirds done, and a highly suspicious character unmasked and… she was frustrated that she didn’t know who it was. Her frustration was endearing. A soft, gentle smile pulled at Siegfried’s mouth as he continued to watch her silently leafing through the pages just in case she had missed it.

He missed evenings like this when he was out with Dorothy – somewhere swish enough, with dancing, and the company of a wonderful woman who seemed, unfathomably, to like him. But there was something about the warmth of the fire in the waning winter, Audrey at his right on her sofa alternating between knitting and making notes as he read aloud to her. Something that made him feel both impossibly, wonderfully content and that pulled at his heart painfully as a reminder of what he could never fully have. She’d made her point, and he would recognise and honour it.

Audrey huffed and snapped the book closed. His smile widened, his eyes softened, though he didn’t realise it and she didn’t notice.

“So, do we want to read the next chapter?” he asked her with an arch to his eyebrow. They had determined one more chapter earlier, but time marched ever swiftly onwards and while he would happily sit there all-night reading to her and listening to her theories about the murder, it would make getting up early for breakfast and rounds tomorrow exceedingly difficult.

After a moment’s consideration, Audrey grimaced and shook her head, “No, we can’t. It’s getting late, and you’re out with Dorothy tomorrow night.”

He had forgotten that, and the habitually familiar swell of guilt accompanied the reminder that, yet again, he needed to focus on the woman who was available to him, and not the one who sat next to him.

“Ah, yes,” he put the bookmark in the book as set it to one side. “Well then, how do you think this will impact their alibis?”

It was their habit to read a pair or three of chapters and then discuss it to put their thoughts in order and into her notebook before they turned in, and inevitably had to wait a week or more to pick the story up again. Audrey put the notebook down and picked the knitting back up, before launching into her thoughts and observations on the chapter and how much she did like Harriet Vane, while he smiled in amusement.

There wasn’t much better than an evening together with her, he’d long surmised, and he didn’t think that theory would ever shake.

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The mystery of who Morecombe was dogged Audrey through the night, and the next morning as she plated up breakfast for the family as they trickled down. She did successfully put it aside long enough to laugh and joke with Jimmy and to help Rosie with her egg and soldiers, and to successfully divert an argument between James and Tristan about who was taking which list for the day.

She adored having her family all around her for meals. Having them there so she could see they were well fed and set for a day in the cold Dales meant more to her than she could rightly put into words. But even as she laughed at Tris with Jimmy, and slid toast under Mr Farnon’s newspaper, she couldn’t quite help the niggle of frustration that she had forgotten something and it frustrated her even more that it was just a clue in a mystery book that was doing this.

Then Helen studied her over Rosie’s head as Audrey poured more tea for Mr Farnon and another for herself and tried to find the answer to Morecombe in the steam above her cup.

“You alright, Aud?” she piped up suddenly, and Audrey found the attention shifting to her. “You look miffed.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Audrey reassured them over her tea with a smile, “It’s nothin’”.

In the corner of her eye she saw Mr Farnon’s newspaper quirk as he also examined her carefully. Helen didn’t look entirely convinced.

“You still can’t work it out, can you,” Mr Farnon said with a tone of increasing delight at this development, dropping the newspaper to the table to smile gleefully at her.

“Have you?” she reflected back at him, glad to see it hit and his expression sour briefly.

“No, but I’m not the one who usually remembers all the details,” Mr Farnon argued with a raised eyebrow and a smirk that made her insides wobble.

Helen looked between them, puzzled.

“They were reading their mystery last night,” Tristan supplied for her, inserting an overly large forkful of egg into his mouth “Just settling in when I left for Charlotte’s.”

Audrey wasn’t sure she liked the look of instant understanding that crossed the Herriot’s faces.

“She didn’t write a clue down only now it’s become relevant to the plot, and neither of us can quite work out who it is,” Siegfried filled them in succinctly, picking up his tea and mock toasting her with it. Jimmy giggled.

“I’m certain it’s part of an alibi,” she corrected him sternly, and then faltered, “I just can’t quite remember who’s.”

She averted her focus from Helen’s far too knowing look, and stood to fetch Jimmy another slice of toast.

Before Christmas, before Dorothy, Helen had teasingly referred to their fireside evenings reading Peter Wimsey mystery novels together as dates. At the time, Audrey has told her not to be daft, laughing.

Now though, Mr Farnon’s evenings were spent wooing Dorothy when previously he’d have been sat next to her reading, and she found she missed their evenings together terribly. She hadn’t known she’d taken them for granted till Mr Farnon’s evenings belonged to Dorothy first. She missed the ease of it, how comforting it was to know he was just there.

Now she faced the reality that, perhaps – just perhaps – she’d missed out on a chance she hadn’t known was waiting for her. Perhaps she had wanted that too. Now she felt like she needed to jealously guard the few evenings where he was with her, and feeling guilty as she did so. He wasn’t hers to keep, after all.  

“Well, if all else fails, we will undoubtedly find out who in the next chapter,” Mr Farnon informed them all confidently, before switching immediately to the more pressing matter of who was doing what on the list today.

Then they had dispersed, Mr Farnon and James with little Jimmy to their cars, and Tristan to open surgery for the day. Helen was left with Rosie sat on her lap, examining Audrey with careful eyes.

“You know you can talk t’me about anythin’, right Aud?” Helen said into the new peace of the kitchen as Audrey tidied things away, her voice far too heavy with meaning for Audrey’s liking.

“Like what?” she asked instead, sure her face was a perfect mask of baffled happiness that she didn’t rightly feel inside. Helen only pressed a resigned smile together, before Rosie announced, quite fortuitously, that she needed a wee.

Audrey’s chores passed quickly that morning, a routine she had perfected over the years and picked up again easily on arriving back to Skeldale despite her years away. She stood for a moment, considering all the chores she could do, before reaching into her pinny for the notebook, and returning to the aggravating issue of Morecombe.

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Tristan Farnon was not quite as oblivious as people often assumed he was. He just knew that some things required delicate handling, and some things required a silent support rather than outright interference. Like whatever was happening with his idiot brother and the irreplaceable Mrs H.

 As he let his final morning surgery patient out the front door, he waited for only a moment to consider the empty waiting room before he hung his lab coat on the hook and made his way to keep his dear Mrs H company and her mind off just where Siegfried intended to spend his afternoon and evening for as long as he could.

After all, he wasn’t oblivious. He’d been downright surprised when Siegfried had announced he was stepping out with Dorothy, newly returned from Malta, when Mrs H was right there. When he’d found that his brother remained almost stubbornly committed to that truly absurd path, he decided that he would stay close to Mrs H to make sure she didn’t – at any point – take it into her head to leave again. He was demobbed now, and he refused to consider living in a Skeldale without Audrey Hall at its helm.

That day, he waltzed into the kitchen whistling cheerfully, hoping to charm something a little extra from the pantry, and to tease something from her about how she felt about his ridiculous brother. Though, he’d been trying for several weeks and only received variations of “I think she’ll be good for him Tris, and he for her.” It was bloody aggravating. He knew there was more going on there than she wanted to admit, and he was determined to be patient. However hard that really was proving to be.

“Hello, Mrs H- what is going on in here?” He stopped, puzzled, to find an old blackboard they’d dragged out for Jimmy and Rosie propped up on the sideboard with pieces of paper stuck to the glass around it. There was a hand-drawn map, a few scattered pieces of papers with names written in her neat, bold print, and on the blackboard a grid of times, and locations, and smudged, squashed words. In front of this chaotic mess stood the woman who’d been like a mother to him, frowning intently at the board as if it had personally wronged her.

“Oh, ‘ello, luv, you after a brew?” she turned around at once, putting a smile onto her face that felt forced even to him, and dropping the notebook down to the table. “I’ll get th’kettle on.”

She bustled off, and Tristan picked up the notebook, flicking through to the pencil wedged in the book. His eyebrows rose as he took in the neat lists, the names and lines, the question marks and the scribbled answers that made up each page.

He’d thought they were just enjoying the books they read, and for all he teased them about the quiet domesticity of it, he hadn’t quite realised how much Mrs H must enjoy those evenings. He’d thought they did all the bickering about who was right for Siegfried’s sake, not because it was something they both genuinely took interest in. This book in his hand, the care she put into it, put paid to that idea.

“Your case with my brother?” Tristan looked at the notebook, then leant against the table to examine the mess of papers. “Do you do this with every one of your murder mysteries?”

“No,” Mrs H leant next to him with a much more genuine smile, “But this one ‘as so much going on my notebook ‘asn’t been enough. And as we aren’t getting through the book as quick as we usually do-” Tristan noticed the minute falter at this involvement that Siegfried didn’t has as much time for her these days only because he was waiting for it “Well, sometimes it’s easier to see a pattern when it’s spread out like this. I know who I think did it, but I can’t work out how.”

“That’s what makes it a mystery, I suppose,” Tris teased, handing back the notebook. He’d heard the debates, seen the maps scribbled on pieces of paper and the timetables that had made their home on the kitchen table for a week when they’d been reading the one about Herrings. But he was used to seeing two heads bent over the theories as they bickered back and forth of an evening, not one.

“Normally Mr Farnon and I discuss it between chapters,” Mrs Hall added absently, turning to make up the tea. “Sandwich on the table for you, love.”

“You are a star, Mrs H,” Tristan picked up the sandwich and ate with his usual gusto, before Mrs H pushed the plate against his chest to catch any crumbs with a very pointed look. He grinned at her, a mouth full of bread and cheese and she rolled her eyes back at him – but she smiled so it was a win. “But as he has been more… occupied, I suppose would be a good word for it, lately, I guess you two haven’t had as much theory time.”

He looked at Mrs H out of the corner of his eye as he said it, blasé and pretending to be focused more on the sandwich and the mystery board in front of him. He still almost missed the tightening of her jaw, the quick blink of her eyes, the careful drawing of breath. Tristan knew she was hurt by Siegfried’s stepping away with Dorothy – but for the life of him he couldn’t work out why his brother was doing that in the first place, nor how to encourage Mrs H to be anything approaching honest about how it made her feel.

Helen kept trying too, but James was of the opinion that the more they stuck their noses in, the harder it would be for Mrs H in the end, that the last thing she’d want is anyone forcing opinions or feelings or confidences on her. And that, if anyone knew what was going on in Siegfried’s head with the whole Dorothy thing, it would be Mrs H. Helen and Tris had tried to argue that it made it more important for Mrs H to have someone else to talk to, as her usual confidants were currently occupied with each other. James had told them to let it be.

“Why don’t you explain it to me?” Tris offered, chewing on the crust thoughtfully. “I don’t know anything so you’ll have to start from the beginning but maybe in the telling you’ll find something.”

“Well, right now, I’m trying to work out who the bloody hell Morecombe is before your brother does,” Mrs H huffed, “He’s been commentin’ on me notetakin’ skills and I won’t be ‘aving that.”

Tristan grinned, replaced the plate with his tea and waited patiently for her to start her explanation.

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“MORECOMBE!” Siegfried all but yelled as she climbed into the Rover, and Dorothy stopped in the movement of closing the door behind her to stare at him.

“Hello to you too,” she teased, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek and pulling the door closed properly. She’d gotten off at the stop on the other end of the village, and while she could have happily walked over to Skeldale to see Audrey, it had been a stroke of luck that had her spotting the Rover and raising her hand to wave Siegfried down.

“Yes, hello,” he grinned at her, and then directed the car down the lane. “I need to pop home for something, I presume that’s your intended destination?”

She’d made a point, fairly early into their tentative relationship, to make sure she spent some afternoons with Audrey a week – Audrey being the reason she had selected Brawton in the first place. She didn’t ever want Audrey to feel like her fun with Seigfried took precedence over the years of friendship they had shared – however pretty he was to look at.

“What’s Morecombe, then?” she asked, one hand on her hat as he wove through the market square and past the front of Skeldale to the drive behind the house.

“What? Oh, just something I need to tell Mrs Hall,” he said brightly, launching himself out of the car eagerly as soon as it was parked and heading directly to the back door. “Oh, wait,” he doubled back and opened Dorothy’s door for her, to help her out. “Sorry.”

She only laughed at him, following him into the kitchen where he – predictably – immediately began shouting for Audrey. Audrey called back as Dorothy closed the door behind her, and she peered round the partition to an interesting and entirely new sight. Which was frankly saying something for Skeldale’s kitchen.

Audrey had one hand up to forestall Siegfried, the other pointed at a point on a piece of paper taped up to the sideboard. Tristan had a notebook and a piece of paper in front of him, grinning up at them both from his seat at the table.

“I know who Morecombe is!” Audrey announced gleefully.

“Oh,” Dorothy wanted to laugh at how put out Siegfried looked at that announcement. “I just remembered – Dorothy flagged me down and reminded me-”

“That ‘enry Weldon’s alibi ‘inges entirely on ‘im being driven to and from the village by Mrs Morecombe,” Audrey jabbed the shelf with the last words, looking victorious. “Told you I’d remember.”

“Yes,” Dorothy glanced at the soft, proud inflection of Siegfried’s voice that Audrey seemed to have missed. “Though you’ve made rather a mess of our kitchen to do so.”

Dorothy slid into the room then, laughing at the picture they made, and turned to Tristan, “What’s all this about?”

“This, Dorothy,” Tristan informed her laughingly, “Is what Siegfried and Mrs H get up to of an evening.”

Dorothy raised her eyebrows at the slightly suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows before she turned back to her friend for more information.

“Oh, behave,” Audrey slapped Tristan on the shoulder before sidling past Siegfried for the kettle. “I’ll put us a brew on.”

Siegfreid, meanwhile, had pulled his glasses out of his pocket and was carefully examining each aspect of the note-wall and the blackboard with all it’s scribblings, a delighted half-smile on his face.

“So, what is this? And who is Morecombe?” Dorothy asked again, removing her hat and stepping back to hang her coat up by the door.

“We’ve been reading Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers,” Audrey informed her, shuffling past her again to the stove. “And last night there were a name neither of us could remember. So this is all the clues and the evidence we’ve ‘ad so far.”

She gestured expansively to the sideboard.

“And,” she said victoriously, “I remembered who Morecombe was.”

“So did I,” was Siegfried’s somewhat petulant reply.

“I wanted to just flick through the book and find out that way,” Tristan rolled his eyes and sat back, and Dorothy recognised the careful way his eyes flickered between the three of them – it was the same way her Harry’s eyes had watched men interested in her back in Malta, the careful study of a son wanting to protect his mother. Dorothy would need to talk to him soon – reassure the lad that she had no intention of hurting or pushing Audrey out, no matter how her relationship with Siegfried went. “But apparently that’s against the rules.”

“It is,” Audrey insisted, lifting the whistling kettle. “But we got there in the end, didn’t we? Without the book!”

“Any theories?” Siegfried asked, his finger pressed to one of the pages.

“Only that the time of the murder is going t’be important,” Audrey huffed, “Tris and I have gone over it twice now. That and I still reckon it’s the smarmy son is all I have.”

“I want to know what happened to that poor horse,” Siegfried murmured, frowning at the board.

“You would,” Audrey teased, handing a cup over to Dorothy and another to Tris. “You staying, or just passing through?”

Siegfried span around, looking around the table in puzzlement. Dorothy watched in interest as Audrey sighed, and then began to list names until a spark of recognition lit his eyes.

“Oh, I needed to get some calcium injections,” Siegfried pointed at her and left the room to Audrey’s amused eye roll.

Dorothy waited till Siegfried had left before turning back to Audrey and Tristan. “So, you all read the Wimsey books together and try and work out the crime then? That’s adorable.”

“Oh, not me,” Tristan crunched into an apple and pointed across the table with a grin. “I’m just the occasional sounding board when she’s trying to beat Siegfried to the murderer.”

Dorothy swivelled her head to Audrey, catching the slightest hint of a blush on her cheeks. Interesting.

“No, no,” Tristan continued breezily, “Mrs H here knits, and Siegfried reads them to her. And they make notes and then they spend the next few weeks arguing about who the murderer could be and why. And we all get dragged into it one way or another by the end of the book.”

It sounded all so deliciously domestic – the sort of soft evenings she’d enjoyed with her husband before he passed when the children had gone to bed and it was just them and the wireless. She felt a pang of sadness for the times long gone, and half wondered why she couldn’t imagine such peaceful evenings with Siegfried.

“I usually get the why before him,” Audrey added proudly, “Though ‘e’d never admit it.”

Tristan, across the table, smiled in such a way that Dorothy felt sure the Farnon brothers were equally as proud of Audrey for working out the motivations behind the murders.

In fact, Tristan would never tell Dorothy, Siegfried actually cared very little about being right when it came to his evening reading with Mrs H – he cared far more that whatever theory he put forward was sufficiently outlandish and fit the evidence to make her laugh each time. Tristan wasn’t sure either Mrs H or Siegfried were quite aware that was what he was doing, but there it was.

“We’re getting close to the end of this one now,” Audrey continued, pouring a cup of fresh tea seconds before Siegfried whistled his way around the corner. “Only a few chapters left, right Mr Farnon?”

“Oh, yes, I should think if we put our minds to it, we could read the rest in an hour or two,” he sank down into the free chair with an easy smile and picked up the tea, “Thank you, Mrs Hall.”

“Can I be there for the final bit?” Tristan asked, gnawing on his apple core in such a way that Dorothy thought he might just eat the core and all like a horse. “Only, I feel invested now after going through it with Mrs H. I want to know if we’re right, or if Siegfried has a counter argument to put forward.”

Dorothy was watching Siegfried as Tristan said this, and while Audrey immediately declared it a wonderful idea, she saw Siegfried stiffen slightly, his eyes fixed on his tea, before he forced a smile and agreed. It occurred to her that she hadn’t spent much – if any time with Audrey and Siegfried since New Year and she wondered now if that had been on purpose.

“Why not tonight?” Dorothy suggested from the rim of her teacup. “We were only going to the pub, but I find myself more than a bit curious as well. I don’t mind a night in reading a murder mystery together.”

Audrey, Dorothy noticed, was the one to stiffen now.

Very interesting.

“I don’t have plans with Charlotte,” Tristan added, “Why don’t we?”

Siegfried and Audrey agreed that it was, indeed, a good idea, though Dorothy couldn’t help but feel they both hated it. She glanced over at Tristan, whose eyes were once again fixed firmly on his Mrs H.

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Tristan had made sure to guide Dorothy to the armchair closest to the fire that evening, when the Herriot’s had begged their excuses with their children and retired up to their bedsit, babbling on about the warmth and the best seat in the house. She was seated before she could offer up her own opinion on the matter.

Siegfried bustled about with the drinks cart and passing out drinks, the book already waiting on the arm of the armchair next to her, and clearly Siegfried’s preferred seat. When she arrived a few minutes later, Audrey settled into the side of the sofa closest to the chairs quite comfortably and without thinking, easily untangling her knitting needles from the pile of wool sat under the table there and holding it up briefly, before winding the wool around her fingers and getting started.

Tristan sat down on the other side of the sofa and kicked his feet out, Dash immediately jumping up to his lap and the gap between them. Dorothy wanted to applaud him for how well he had managed the situation.

It seemed that Audrey and Siegfried had their seats, and Tristan had made sure she didn’t disrupt that.

Tristan amused her sometimes, for while he appeared to be a carousing young man after a good time, occasionally his behaviour reminded him of the charm Siegfried could ooze when he chose to, tempered by the sense of her oldest friend. He was certainly a very, very perceptive young man indeed. She watched him lean his head back to throw a teasing comment to Siegfried over his shoulder, before leaning over to insist Audrey show him what she was working on for little Jimmy.

She’d known they were a family before, that Audrey considered them all her family, but it struck her then that this was its own family with the wider Skeldale family. This was Tristan and Audrey and Siegfried, all happily laughing and making jokes she couldn’t understand without the years that had shaped them. A boy and the parents who’d raised him.

“Do you do this book club often then?” Dorothy asked brightly, accepting the gin and tonic from Siegfried with a winning smile, before turning back to Audrey and Tristan.

“Well, we do read some things, all of us, though less so now James and ‘Elen ‘ave the children,” Audrey paused to count her stitches with a slight frown. “We got though quite a lot of the ‘obbit before Christmas with the ‘erriot’s though. That were nice.”

“And Siegfried and Mrs H have been reading these Wimsey books since I went away to war,” Tris piped up, raising his glass to them. “The way I heard it told, Siegfried bought a heap of books and they somehow started reading murder mystery books to each other between night shifts and night calls.”

“Well, there was a little more to it than that!” Siegfried countered, placing a sherry perfectly within Audrey’s reach without it interfering with her knitting or the pattern propped up on the table.

“Well, not really,” Audrey corrected him absently, her fingers weaving the yarn expertly across the needles. “You did buy an ‘eap o’books we didn’t need, and then wouldn’t stop laughin’ at one when I were knittin’ and so I got you t’read aloud so I din’t ‘ave to keep getting cross wi’you.”

“Like I said, a bit more to it than Tristan said,” Siegfried finally sat down in his chair, and immediately propped his slippered feet on the ottoman before them. Once he was settled, Tristan stretched his own legs to the leather top rather than under it. A family dance worn in with use and time. “And then we found we rather like the series, and it made for some entertainment during the long evenings of the war.”

“At one point Helen had to confiscate the book from them,” Tristan told Dorothy cheerfully, resting his head back against the sofa. “Siegfried kept trying to read ahead and Mrs H kept telling him off and she was afraid they’d wake Jimmy.”

Audrey slapped him lightly on the arm and told him to give over. Tristan grinned, feigning an injury, and a look at Siegfried’s face showed a warm glow in the slight smile as he watched them.

“Are we readin’ or not?” Audrey asked teasingly, “Dorothy’ll need drivin’ ‘ome and I’d rather that were before midnight.”

“As would I!” Dorothy joined in with a laugh, feeling how Audrey had deliberately bought her into the joke, that she had needed inviting into the circle. “Come on then, Siegfried, let’s go.”

He smiled at her, and patted his chest with one hand while picking up the book with the other, looking confused for only a moment before Audrey poked him with his glasses. His smile to her creased his eyes.

“Thank you, Mrs Hall,” he propped them on his nose and flipped to the bookmark. Then he peered at Dorothy over his glasses and it really was quite unfair of him to look so attractive while he did something like that. “Has Mrs Hall bought you up to speed on the murder? We don’t take questions.”

“She did,” Dorothy settled her shoulder into the back of the armchair to watch him, eyes twinkling and smile warm. She noticed, absently, that Audrey was all but framed by his face and the book when she was sat like this. “I am as up to speed as I can get!”

“Marvellous, then we had better begin,” Siegfried’s smile was warm when it glanced, and his gaze transferred instantly to the book. She took a moment to study him, all the parts that made up his face and how his hands adjusted on the book. But even as she studied the neat line of his beard, and the way the firelight glanced off his glasses and was struck once again by what a well-looking man he was, she had Audrey in the corner of her eye, not doing more than knitting but with a comfort that she’d thought lost.

Audrey’s hair was loosed from the snood it had been in all day, tumbling over orange clad shoulders and her cheeks a little rosy from the warmth of the washing up she’d not long completed. While her gaze was fixed on her knitting, Dorothy knew her friend’s attention was fixed on the story, on the man who was telling it.

Siegfried cleared his throat a little pompously, and Tristan bade him to just get on with it. Siegfried glared at him over the book, then turned his gaze back, and started reading. His voice was crisp and clear and warm, tripping over the words with a playfulness she hadn’t expected from him. His was a voice made for reading aloud by the firelight, a voice for children’s stories and characterisations and dragons and griffins. And it was a voice for the lilting prose of the murder mystery.

Dorothy had never thought she could be taken by someone voice before, but good lord if he wasn’t good at talking when it was someone else’s words in his mouth. There was a confidence to him as he read, a performer at work, that he missed when he was trying to flirt with her so carefully. It was devastatingly attractive. She had to force her attention away from watching his mouth form the words long enough to take a sip of her gin to wet her suddenly dry mouth.

How on Earth could Audrey concentrate on her knitting with a voice like that reading to her of an evening? How did she know what was happening in the book?

She let his voice wash over her, mesmerised by the sound and the cadence and watching him as he read. This, she found herself thinking dreamily, this was what she hadn’t known about him, a part of himself for private not public life.

Carried by the sound of his voice, and watching him turn the pages, it was a surprise when the melody stopped.

“You can’t tell me you don’t have any thoughts,” Siegfried’s voice had changed, teasing and smiling where it had been lyrical, though still as lovely. Dorothy jolted back to herself and looked to Siegfried to answer, only to find him looking expectantly at Audrey, eyebrows raised and lips quirked in a challenge.

Audrey seemed entirely unmoved by the shift from narrative to room, and only made a point of finishing her row before looking up at him, eyebrows raised in return and trying not to smile as she met his challenge head on.

“You told Dorothy we don’t interrupt,” she reminded him, a little archly, amusement oozing from her face.

“That was clearly for Tristan’s benefit,” he replied instantly, “As you well know. You always wait till the end of a chapter, I couldn’t say the same of him.”

“I am sitting right here,” Tristan complained jokingly, an absolute picture of self-satisfied ease. “And I know the rules of the house as well as anyone. No interrupting whoever is reading until the end of a chapter.”

“Exactly,” Audrey patted his hand, clasped as it was on his belly, fondly. “So don’t you go putting it onto poor Tris.”

“Shall I assume you have no comments on the things revealed this chapter, and continue?” Siegfried asked her with a somewhat roguish tone and Dorothy watched Audrey drop her eyes to her knitting with interest. Perhaps Aud wasn’t as unmoved as she’d thought.

“Dorothy, any questions before we continue?” Siegfried turned to her to ask, peering at her through the spectacles this time, rather than over it.

“Not in the slightest,” Dorothy answered cheerfully, swirling her hand warmed drink. She couldn’t have told any of them what had happened in that chapter if pressed, only that his voice made her feel warm and comfortable as whisky did. “Please, continue.”

He did, and she slipped happily back into listening to his voice, if not the words, and it was only because she was listening to his tone so intently that she noticed when he faltered, heard the extra swallow before he continued, his voice a little less melodic and a little more forced. She blinked back into the room, and from her position with her head rested against the chair back facing Siegfried, she had an almost uninterrupted view of Audrey.

Audrey whose hands had frozen mid-stitch, her face turned down but her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Siegfried’s face with a fierce, concerned intensity that had Dorothy following her gaze to Siegfried’s face. A face that hadn’t changed by any measure Dorothy could see beyond a little less animation as he read. Yet Audrey had noticed the tone change too, possibly before Dorothy had even surfaced back to the room.

She finally focused in on the words themselves as his voice faltered again and Audrey immediately dropped the knitting, reaching over to take the book, seamlessly exchanging it for his whisky.

It was about horses, was all Dorothy managed to catch, before Audrey had brightly interrupted him.

“Well, no wonder you’re goin’ ‘oarse, you’ve been readin’ fer ages, reckon it makes it my turn,” without giving anyone the option to disagree.

“Yes,” Siegfried’s voice was a little faint now, his relief palpable and Dorothy glanced over to see Tristan no longer exuding a relaxed atmosphere, he was stiff and tense on the chair, his eyes mostly closed but flicking carefully between his brother and Dorothy. As if he was worried she would notice, or perhaps more accurately, what she would do when she did.

She looked slowly back to Siegfried, while Audrey made a concerted show of finding the right page and skimming over it, clearly reading whatever was coming up as well in the final few pages of the book.

Siegfried hadn’t moved, hadn’t raised the glass to his lips. He was staring somewhat blankly ahead, his posture stiff and his eyes haunted in a way Dorothy had never seen of him before. His jaw was tight, lips pressed together while he took very deliberately even breaths. She wanted to reach for him, but caught a movement out of the corner of her eyes and looked over to see Tristan, eyes now open and staring at her in warning. He shook his head minutely.

Whatever this was, this wasn’t her place.

She’d seen shellshock before of course, in her husband over the years and the brute it turned Robert Hall into. She had her own triggers that crept out of nowhere and reminded her of being caked up to the elbow in blood as some poor sailor died beneath her hands. Her son had his own now, and she still couldn’t hear certain noises without being transported back to the siege and to Malta.

But what had caused Siegfried to go back to the war, she didn’t know. She didn’t know him well enough to be told. Dorothy nodded once at Tristan to show she understood, and made sure her face was charmingly interested in Audrey’s plan to take over the story, that there was nothing strange in it.

But Audrey clearly did know.

Dorothy watched the furrow deepen between Audrey’s eyes as she flicked the pages, flicking them up briefly to take Siegfried’s measure in a single, experienced glance before tracking between Dorothy and Tristan. She saw the moment Audrey decided they would need to continue, despite how it might upset Siegfried, because she was there and felt the guilt of it pool in her stomach.

Audrey shuffled forward on her sofa, until her knees almost nudged the ottoman and leant forward to rest an elbow on the arm of Siegfried’s chair. With one hand, she held up the book, clearing her throat noisily to Tristan’s forced laugh, and Dorothy watched her other hand rest lightly on Siegfried’s suited arm.

It had an instant effect. As Audrey began reading of a possible solution to the mystery that the two protagonists were putting forward, Siegfried blinked, and turned to look at her, a deep breath rattling through him. Like she was a lifeline thrown to haul him back.

Audrey read of a bay cobb horse, traumatised by something that happened on a seaside village somewhere and a murder that was witnessed. She read briskly, reading the words with none of the music Siegfried had, and Dorothy wondered if it was on purpose. She watched Siegfried’s spare hand come across to rest on hers, folding their fingers together as the horse was exposed to a spray of blood, the likes of which cavalry horses in their war were trained to be able to cope with.

He listened stoically through the scene, watching her face the entire time and Dorothy got the feeling he wasn’t listening to the words any more than she had been, that it was the sound of Audrey’s voice he was focussing on, on her hand beneath his. Grounding him.

And she understood that this was what had taken Siegfried back to the war, and that it was Audrey who bought him back to Skeldale again.  

Audrey got through two pages in record time, her pace slowing a little when Siegfried patted her hand gently and withdrew his arm from under her hand to finally lift his whisky to his lips. Dorothy watched as Audrey slowed, focusing a little more on the words of the final part of the murder, her shoulders relaxing slightly as she did so, and knew whatever danger her friend had seen had passed. She was glad of it.  

They finished the final pages quickly in that manner, all painfully aware of what had happened, and all equally ignoring it in favour of putting a normal front on.

Audrey read the final lines with a spectacular emphasis, as Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane declared they were done with the place and would return to town immediately. She nodded decisively as the final word was spoken, like she was marking her words with a period.

“Thank you, Aud, that were lovely,” Dorothy made sure the silence didn’t have time to gather in the cracks before smashing it with a cheery statement, sitting forward to down her gin with relief.

“More importantly,” Tristan stretched and Dash grumbled as his pillow moved, removing himself to in front of the fire rather than wait for Tristan to settle down again. “Mrs H was right.”

Audrey had, indeed, been right about the person to commit the actual murder.

“Oh, no, I didn’t see a three-way-conspiracy,” Audrey corrected, closing the book and putting it to one side, patting Siegfried’s arm as she did so and removing herself quickly. “So I don’t think either of us get the point ‘ere.”

“Nonsense,” Siegfried’s voice had regained its composure, his cheeks their colour, though the sparkle wasn’t quite back in his eyes. It flickered slightly into life when he looked over at Audrey, but didn’t quite reignite fully and was gone when he turned his head back to Dorothy with a smile that felt ever so slightly forced. “I think it counts as a win for you, Mrs Hall, wouldn’t you agree, Dorothy?”

“Aye, I do,” Dorothy said firmly, though her jovial attitude didn’t quite sit right in the room, like putting a damp coat on over dry clothes.

“Well, we only worked out ‘alf the answer,” Audrey insisted, hands smoothing out non-existent creases on her skirt before she stood up quickly and reached for her glass. She downed the remaining sherry in one smooth movement and held out a hand for Tristan’s glass. “Right, giv’us an ‘and getting these glasses through to the kitchen, Tris.”

Dorothy was about to leap up, finding she didn’t particularly want to be alone with this Siegfried at the moment when she’d had enough theories of her own falling like dominoes into place, when Siegfried beat her too it.

“I’ll help,” he said quickly, and Dorothy offered her empty glass up with a smile. He clearly wanted a moment alone as much as she did. Audrey glanced between the, but didn’t argue, only led him from the room with a pinched smile, worry still lining her face when she looked at him.

There was a heavy beat of silence, while Dorothy stared thoughtfully into the fire.

“I presume the best course of action is to pretend I didn’t see that,” she said at last to the flames and the pair of dogs before it, her voice soft.

“If by that you mean… switching readers… then yes, it would be best. Even I don’t know what happened to cause it, though I can guess. I’ve seen it happen before,” Tristan said, voice solemn and weighed down by his own demons now. “As for anything else you might have seen… I can’t tell you if you should forget that.”

Dorothy turned slowly to look at him, and he met her gaze steadily, a challenge in the look she wasn’t sure how to quite answer. It asked if she was going to ignore anything she’d seen, if she even could. If she was going to carry on courting Siegfried regardless. If she was going to drive his Mrs H away, drive his family apart.

“Don’t worry Tristan,” she said at last, smiling warmly at him despite what she was trying to tell him without telling him. That she had seen, and she had understood, and she wouldn’t get in the way of it. “I won’t be forgetting any of it.”

Audrey’s place was here far more than her place ever could be, after all. He narrowed his eyes at her, studying her carefully, before he nodded and looked away again.

She did wonder what they were talking about it the kitchen, whatever was making them take so long to return from putting four glasses on the side, but she didn’t press. Memories could shake you to your core, after all, and he probably needed a moment to rebalance in peace. A peace he seemed to find in Audrey.

“He does have a very good reading voice,” Dorothy mused aloud, not wanting to sit in silence, and wanting to know more of Tristan – Tristan as Audrey’s boy that is, not as a man she might hope one day to be related to. Audrey clearly meant the world to him, and so they had that in common as well as his brother. “Audrey’s a very lucky woman to have him readin’ to her so often. Did he read to you as a boy?”

Tristan sat back again, thinking a moment with a soft, wistful smile on his face. “When I was little, and still living with my parents, I always used to love it when Siegfried and Evelyn came to dinner because it meant that Siegfried would be the one to read me my bedtime story. He was the best at the voices. He made magic seem possible.”

She was glad. Audrey needed someone to remind her that magic and romance could exist and not hurt, that there was more to the world than practicality.

“And the year I went to war we were reading The Hobbit by that Tolkien fellow, and again just before Christmas with Jimmy and Rosie and…Siegfried still has the best voices of them all,” Tristan smiled at her again, though this one was tinged with all the sadness and the struggles of the war – an old smile in a young face.

“As I could hear,” Dorothy inclined her head towards his chair. “It’s lovely, that you all read together. I … think it’s really lovely.”

She couldn’t help the wistful crack of her own to seep into her voice, though she covered it with a smile.

“You should practice your voices,” she advised him, “For the young Herriots, and your own young uns if Audrey’s talk about your Charlotte is to be believed. Can’t let Uncle Siegfried have all the glory,” She paused, and then her smile turned a little wicked as she teased. “You should read to your Charlotte too, you know, if you read well you have no idea what it can do to a woman.”

Tristan frowned for only a moment before he grimaced at the thought and she decided it was fun to tease him. Who knows, one day she might be the same sort of honorary aunt she’s once been for Edward, after all.

“Dorothy, that’s my brother,” he groaned, dropping his hands to his face. “And Mrs H, I don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I weren’t talking about Aud,” Dorothy tucked her legs in and sat back, laughing at the mute horror on his face. “Though interestin’ that’s where your mind first went.”

If Siegfried’s voice was doing things to Aud she was very, very good at hiding it, and Dorothy couldn’t wait for the day she got to extract that particular truth from her. She expected there would be some sort of gin or drink involved, if they could get hold of it.

“I don’t particularly want to know what my brothers voice does to you, either,” Tristan said firmly, his face going pink, his expression disgusted.

“Think about what your voice could do to Charlotte instead then,” Dorothy replied promptly, enjoying the red that blossomed there instantly.

She laughed, and it was while laughing that Audrey came back into the room, Siegfried trailing behind her like he couldn’t bear to be away from her for too long. It wasn’t anything new, Dorothy realised, she just had a new way of looking at it. Evidence laid before a jury with a different counsel presenting.

“What’ve you said to poor Tris?” Audrey asked, laughing and resting a hand on his shoulder gently as she shuffled past to her seat, “You look like you’re in th’runnin’ to become a tomato!”

“Nothing,” Tristan said quickly, glaring at Dorothy and Audrey’s eyebrows shot up in interest. “Nothing I feel like sharing,” Tristan amended with a sigh, avoiding their eyes as he glanced between Siegfried and Audrey and somehow got more vibrantly coloured.

“Well, I couldn’t possibly say,” Dorothy primly told Audrey’s pointedly questioning look, before laughing a bright laugh. “Right, I’d better push on home before we do end up getting to midnight after all.”

“Ah, yes, right, of course,” Siegfried patted his pockets, turned and left the room immediately. Audrey watched him go with a frown. She was still worried about him and it occurred to Dorothy that Audrey didn’t want to let him go too far either, probably worrying about him on the road in the dark while not quite back to himself.

Dorothy couldn’t let them do this – not when they so clearly wanted to keep each other in sight.

“Actually,” Dorothy piped up as he wandered back in, spinning the keys around his finger. “I were thinkin’ Tristan here might take me home tonight. I know Siegfried was up early with a call out. Besides, it might be good for us to get better acquainted.”

It was the only argument she thought Audrey might actually listen to, and she immediately knew it was the wrong one when she saw Audrey’s shoulders tighten and her smile turn forced. Of course Audrey would take it as a statement of intent, how could she not when she had no other evidence to go on?

Siegfried made a blustering show of insisting he could drive her, that she didn’t want to get to know Tristan. Audrey kept her head down, shoulders stiff. Dorothy stood, adjusting her skirt, and raised an eyebrow at Siegfried.

“I know you were up early for a calving,” she said firmly, holding her ground against him, “And while I have had a wonderful time, and you’ve an excellent reading voice, I am sure Tristan won’t mind driving me back to Brawton.”

She turned a dazzling smile on Tristan, “Or I could always tell Siegfried and Audrey here just what I said to make you blush like a schoolgirl?”

Tristan slapped his thighs and stood up, grimacing, and held out his hand for his brothers’ keys. Dorothy pretended not to notice Audrey letting out a long breath that sounded of relief.

“You stay here, in the warm, Big Brother,” Tristan made a show of sighing dramatically. As if he was reluctant to drive her and was being forced into it. Siegfried made a move, as if he was going to pull his hand back, insist on driving out of principal, but instead Tristan caught his hand, gently tugging the key free. “I think Dorothy and I need a good chat. I promise not to besmirch your good name, such as it is.”

“As if you could,” Siegfried scoffed, and made to reach for the key again, a childish squabble played out in adulthood, when Audrey cleared her throat pointedly and rose. She wanted to laugh at how they both managed to look like boys with their hand caught in the biscuit tin.

“While you two settle that,” Audrey said drily, holding an arm out to Dorothy, “I’ll go get Dorothy’s coat, shall I?”

Dorothy chuckled at the chastised look on Siegfried’s face, knowing she could never say something to get him to behave so quickly, and followed Audrey to the hall.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said admiringly, and Audrey just huffed a laugh of disbelief.

“Practice,” she replied, and reached into the cupboard to hand Dorothy her coat, while Siegfried and Tristan resumed their argument in a whisper in the living room. Before handing the coat over to Dorothy though, she leant in, and whispered, “Thank you, for not mentioning it, and insisting Tris drive you ‘ome.”

“Audrey,” Dorothy rested a hand against her friend’s arm. Her friend that she wanted to see happy, not frowning and worried and genuinely relieved. “The only way he were driving me home tonight is if you were in the seat next to him. Easier for me to see how much I can tease your Tristan between here and Brawton, save us all the worry.”

Audrey gave a pinched smile in reply, and held the coat out to help Dorothy into it. Something, by rights, Siegfried should have been doing, not the hostess. And that was what Audrey had seamlessly stepped into, being the hostess.

“You and me though,” Dorothy flicked her hair over the collar and turned back to arch an wicked eyebrow. “We are having tea one of these days and we are talking about how bloody amazing Siegfried is at reading aloud!”

“Don’t let ‘im ‘ear you say that too often,” Audrey snorted promptly, “If ‘is ‘ead got any bigger ‘e wouldn’t be able t’fit through our front door!”

“Pass my coat out, Mrs H!” Tristan bounded into the hall, victorious, with the key dangling from his hand. “I win the honour of escorting fair Dorothy back to her humble abode.”

“If you keep that up, the honour will most assuredly be rescinded,” Siegfried barked, but Audrey just smiled in amusement at them both, and handed Tristan out his coat, followed by a knitted hat and scarf. Siegfried made a noise of protest. “Those are mine!”

“I ‘ave never seen you wear em,” Audrey pointed out briskly, pushing the hat onto Tristan’s head firmly and ignoring Siegfried’s outraged expression. “So they ain’t yours no more, they’re for whoever drives out late. Dorothy, will you be warm enough or d’you want to borrow some of me cold weather kit?”

Dorothy accepted a woollen hat of her own with some amusement, and placed it carefully over her pins.

“Well, thank you all for a lovely evening,” she said brightly, reaching for Siegfried’s arm. “You certainly know how to tell a tale, don’t you Siegfried.”

He brightened under the compliment he didn’t seem to have noticed before, and Dorothy winked across to answer Audrey’s eye roll. He might get big headed about it, but it was well deserved and if it pepped him up for the rest of the evening, well, she’d do what she could to help.

Siegfried led Dorothy through the house, Audrey and Tristan trailing behind to give them some privacy under the guise of speaking together in low tones.  

“Dorothy,” he said slowly, turning just outside the backdoor and looking incredibly sheepish. “About earlier…”

Dorothy shushed him, and placed a hand on his to offer something like comfort. She wanted nothing more than to reassure him that it was alright, that everything was alright. She wanted to ask if they could talk tomorrow, or soon, about bringing their outings to a close, but she didn’t want him to think that it was because he’d been revisited by the war. She wanted him to admit how he felt about Audrey, to admit he was done pretending to look elsewhere when what he wanted was right under his nose. That he was going to fight for her friend, for the woman he loved. That their time had been fun, but she wasn’t hurt by it ending.

But tonight was not the time to discuss that.

So instead, she squeezed his arm gently and reached up to press a featherlight kiss to his cheek.

“I had a lovely time,” she told him firmly, “You are an excellent storyteller, trust me. And I’m glad Audrey were right about the murderer!”

“She usually is,” he smiled, relieved and fond, and pressed a return kiss to her cheek just as the door opened and Tristan and Audrey followed them out. He pulled away quickly, and opened the car door for her instead. “Drive safe.”

“Aye,” she beamed up at him as she settled, then called a farewell to Audrey as well. When the door had closed, and they were safely away from Skeldale, Dorothy took a deep breath, turned to Tristan and said “So, Master Farnon, anything else I should know?”

-------------------

Back at Skeldale, Audrey and Siegfried each let out a matching sigh of relief. They were not used to entertaining during their reading nights, after all, they would have reasoned if they’d felt like it. But they didn’t feel like it, they just watched the car taillights disappear into the village, shoulder to shoulder, and were glad to see them go.

“Brew?” she asked, already turning back to the house. “We can discuss Bright’s evidence if you like.”

Siegfried watched as she led the way back to the house, and he felt something relax in his chest at last. This was how it was meant to be, if he didn’t try and pretend otherwise. Just him, and Audrey, in their own home, drinking tea, discussing murder mysteries by the fire.

He’d found that sharing his reading time with Tristan was irritating but manageable, but sharing her with Dorothy was utterly intolerable. Tristan, at least, was their boy. It had coiled in his spine all afternoon and into the evening, and only now that Dorothy had gone did he feel the tension release.

Now, at last, he could breathe again. He could think again. He could feel the energy starting slowly to replenish.

Audrey. Home. Peace.

He hurried to catch up, calling as he went: “Starting with how utterly obvious it was that Bright was Morecombe all along!”