It was an unusually warm week. It was half term and the castle was filled with visiting families. A few of them stood for a spell to watch the two old men playing chess. They didn't watch for long, the kids would get bored and wander off, parents in tow.
Timothy sat on one side of the table. Peter sat on the other. Timothy had just moved his knight and was putting Peter’s Queen under pressure. Neither of them minded who won. They were just glad to be playing. Peter moved his pieces slowly, concentrating on the motion of his fingers. The game was helping his recovery. It was helping Timothy’s too. His heart was still giving him pain but it was nothing like as bad as it had been. He hoped never to need to run like that again. He wasn't sure he would survive it.
Timothy looked up when his daughter appeared next to him. “Good afternoon Cathy,” he said. “How are you?”
"I brought her. She wouldn't stop going on about it."
"I asked how you are. How are you, Cathy?"
"How do you think I am? You nearly get your Granddaughter killed and now you act like nothing happened. I can't believe she still wants to see you."
"I think she likes it here. So do I. You might like it up here too."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
He turned from his daughter to Peter. "I'll be back in a minute."
The conversation lasted a long time. Timothy was patient. Cathy shouted, then cried, then sat and listened. Then they hugged for the first time in years. After the talk was over, Jenny came up to her Granddad. “Mum says she asks you to look after me and this happens. She wants to know why I’d want to come back here so soon. She tried to get me to stay at home.”
“Why did you come back?” Timothy asked.
“Because I want to spend time with you.”
“Tell her that,” he replied, ruffling her hair. “And tell her that’s the power of family. Then ask her if she wants to stay for the picnic.”
Once the game was finished, which Peter won, against expectations, the picnic was retrieved and laid out on the grass. To the visiting families, it looked like just any other picnic. But they didn’t know the story behind it. Or how hard it had been to bring all these people together.
Timothy and Peter sat in camping chairs. Jenny sat with her mother on the red and green striped blanket. Beside them was Martha, Ben serving out the sandwiches next to her.
“To think this could all have been tarmac,” Peter said, looking around him.
Nobody talked about Samuel Lyons. He was gone. They would all deal with what happened in their own way, separately and together. Jenny would need the most help to come to terms with it. But she had a lot of people around her who were only too willing to assist in any way they could.
The police case was still ongoing and the memory of Chloe's funeral was fresh in all their minds. There was a lot that could have been said about both things but nobody talked about them during the picnic. It didn't seem right.
Nor did anyone mention what had happened to Alex and Erin. They didn’t need to. Someone had leaked the details to the local papers and it would serve as gossip for Helmsley for years to come. Alex had indeed bribed a number of officials on the local planning committee to approve his plans for the castle. He had gotten in too deep by taking money from investors and spending it on himself, hoping to use the purchase of the castle and future profits to get himself out of the hole he’d gotten himself into. When the sale didn’t happen, one of the investors started digging.
Alex and Erin went bust when the truth came out. Charges were probably going to be filed but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the castle was safe.
Peter had made clear what he wanted to happen and Ben had no desire to go against his father’s wishes.
Ben and Martha would run the place together. They were happy to oblige. Ben’s only trouble was with the car hire company. They were not pleased that their vehicle needed retrieving from Yorkshire. In the end, he arranged to drive it back up with Martha. He wanted to show her his Scottish house at least once before settling down in Helmsley for good.
The two old men talked about chess while they ate. Ben and Martha talked about the future and about their future. Jenny talked to her mother about the siege of the castle during the Civil War. Martha thought for a brief moment she could see someone who looked like Chloe over near the Great Hall. When she looked again, there was no one there.
Behind them all, the sun slowly began to set.