Intents & Purposes

When Robert Clegg is killed in a car accident his reclusive cousin, Tallulah, is commandeered to help sort through his belongings. Robert's life is shrouded with mystery and from the moment Tallulah steps over the threshold of his dilapidated old house she senses that there was more to her cousin than met the eye.Meanwhile Veronica Rustin is a woman on the run from a destructive marriage. She has travelled over six thousand miles to escape the crime she has committed. And now she has arrived in Castleton to seek refuge in a small rental cottage on the outskirts of the village. But her plans are disrupted when she discovers that her husband is much more cunning and malicious than she ever imagined.With a wry turn-of-phrase Simon Temprell turns his satirical eye to rural life where folklore, superstition and mystery abound.

From the Back Cover

There are quiet corners of England where people go to hide... Castleton is a picturesque village nestled between the limestone crags of the Derbyshire Peak District; a tourist spot riddled with underground caverns and guarded by the watchful ruins of Peveril Castle. When Robert Clegg is killed in a freak car accident his shy, reclusive cousin, Tallulah, is commandeered to help sort through his belongings and prepare the house for sale. But Tallulah faces this challenge reluctantly; wrenched from her quiet life living alone in anonymity and disheartened by the prospect of venturing into unknown territory. Robert's life in Castleton is shrouded with mystery and from the first moment Tallulah steps over the threshold of his dilapidated old house she senses that there was more to her cousin than met the eye. Meanwhile Veronica Rustin is a woman on the run from a destructive marriage. She can't afford to leave anything to chance: She has bleached her hair, changed her name and travelled over six thousand miles in five days to escape the crime she has committed. And now she has arrived in Castleton to seek refuge in a small rental cottage on the outskirts of the village. But her plans are disrupted quite abruptly when she discovers that her husband Gideon is much more cunning and malicious than she ever imagined. With a wry turn-of-phrase Simon Temprell turns his satirical eye to rural life where folklore and superstition bear unforeseen consequences in the lives of these two very different women.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Veronica Rustin can't afford to leave anything to chance: She has bleached her hair, changed her name and travelled over six thousand miles in five days to escape the crime she has committed. And now she has arrived at her final destination; Brown Bread Cottage on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District. It would probably make more sense for a fugitive like Veronica to seek refuge and anonymity in the middle of a sprawling city like London or Paris but she has developed a desperate urge to avoid human contact wherever possible. On the flight from Miami to Frankfurt she travelled first class for the privacy it afforded her; keeping her eye-shades on for the entire nine hours and refusing all offers of food and drink beyond two bottles of spring water. She took sleeping pills, plugged her ears and slept on the flat-bed with the complimentary duvet pulled up to her chin. She spent one night in a small privately owned hotel in Frankfurt before taking another flight to Vienna. From Vienna she took the hydrofoil down the Danube to Budapest where she spent another night in a ghastly little place with a shared bathroom and rats scrabbling in the walls before embarking on a gruelling journey across Europe by train to eventually find herself in London this morning in the middle of the rush-hour. The smell of hot fuel, baking croissants and damp English autumn greeted Veronica the second she stepped down from the train carriage on to the platform and it was like opening the lid of a trunk filled with things long forgotten. Under less dramatic circumstances she might have been thrilled to be back in London after all these years but her only concern this morning was to get across town to St. Pancras from where she could catch a final train up to Chesterfield. She emerged from the station to stand in line for a black cab and the mossy dampness of the morning air curled around her with lazy indifference. The sun made patterns through the mist and steamed the windows of the cab as they wove between buses and cars in a slow, agonizing crawl from one train station to another. Familiar buildings nudged Veronica's memory and infused her with a strange kind of melancholy for a time when life was uncomplicated and simple. It was like flicking through the yellowed pages of an old photograph album and recognizing the imperceptible passage of time. The train journey was uneventful. The short walk from Chesterfield station to the car rental office was overlooked by the Crooked Spire; a twisted witch's hat of unseasoned timber leaning precariously against a stubborn expanse of patchy grey sky. The sun seemed to bleed from behind the texture of the cloud-cover creating a small patch of nicotine yellow in an otherwise colourless sheet of October noon. The girl at the rental place was cheerful; her accent achingly familiar and charming to Veronica. "I hope you don't mind," apologized the young girl with the tightly-bound pony-tail and the golden heart necklace, "we don't have the car you booked but we can offer you a free up-grade to a Toyota Avensis automatic if that's OK?" Veronica was relieved. She had somehow imagined that she would be able to cope with a stick-shift but after five days of travelling and very little sleep the thought of attempting the navigation of the English countryside after all these years away was making her nervous. Bad enough that she would have to drive on the left and sit on the right, but to tackle a gear stick at the same time; that would have been suicide in her current state of mind. She pulled out of the car park with caution and juddered uncertainly across several roundabouts until she was safely out of the town centre and headed out towards the tranquillity of the surrounding countryside. From this point forward Veronica Rustin has become Nicole Harvey; a name invented by her friend Daphne who joked that Veronica's new persona should reflect her love of shopping. And so they took the name of Veronica's favourite London department store and turned it in to a credit card, a bank account and a French ID. She still has her British passport but decided that it was safer to travel through Europe as a French woman, just in case. It is impossible to know how clever the authorities can be at tracking somebody down and Veronica has watched enough movies to understand the importance of false documentation. The rental cottage was booked via the Internet from Vienna. It was chosen for its location and its lack of glamour in order to fool any would-be pursuants. A woman like Veronica Rustin would be more at home in an opulently decorated boutique hotel than a place described as `quaint' in a holiday brochure catering to `nature-lovers, hikers and young families.' Nicole Harvey, despite her rather sophisticated name, is a different kind of woman from Veronica Rustin and she is looking for peace and solitude in a place without bell-boys, chamber-maids or front desk clerks. Brown Bread Cottage is situated less than a mile outside Castleton; a quaint tourist spot with a humble population of about twelve hundred residents. There is a ruined castle, several underground caverns and mile upon mile of bleak, unspoilt Derbyshire moorland where Nicole can vanish for a while until she decides what to do next. She has booked the cottage for a month and the owner - a Mrs. Harris - told her that it is empty for most of the winter so she can extend the lease if needs be. It is already starting to grow dark by the time Nicole pulls in to the lane leading to Brown Bread Cottage. She checks her watch. It is only four o' clock. She had forgotten how England is at this time of the year.

About the Author

Simon Temprell was born in Derbyshire, England and following several miserable years working in the hotel catering business he decided to go back to Art College to get a diploma in exhibition and display design. He worked as a window-dresser at Harrods in London during the early 1980's and then moved on to establish his own interior design business. He has lived in Washington, DC since 1992. His first novel, The Rich Man's Table, was published by Macmillan in 2000 and was followed by Previous Convictions (2001) and then Bitter & Twisted (2002). His fourth novel, Intents & Purposes, is his first attempt at self-publication.

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