Olivia looked at the reflection of the back of her head in the second mirror that Mags was holding up behind her. Most satisfactory. Her short bob was neatly cut and, thanks to Mags’s expert highlighting, all the grey was covered and her hair was back to the correct shade of honey. Her eyes shifted from her hair to her face. She could still pass for forty, she reckoned. She peered at her eyes – almost no crow’s feet and no bags. Good skin care was the secret; the Queen knew that and look how well she had aged.

‘Thank you,’ she said to Mags.

She reached for her purse and extracted a fiver which she passed over. ‘A bit extra for doing such a good job.’

‘No problem,’ said Mags, stuffing the note into her trouser pocket. ‘And thanks.’

‘And what do I owe?’

‘Janine’ll sort that out for you, and make you another appointment if you’d like. See you, Mrs L.’ Mags disappeared out to the back of the salon and Olivia went to pay. She was glad the weather was still decent. The forecasted rain for later hadn’t materialised and she wanted to check out the state of the nature reserve. She’d heard rumours about children hanging around in it, getting up to no good. There’d been complaints and she wanted to see for herself how bad it was. Maybe the council needed to take action. The blue-haired receptionist rang up the bill on the till. Sixty pounds – good grief! Not that the price had gone up, but the amount always managed to shock her. She handed over her card and tapped in her PIN. She wouldn’t be admitting to Nigel what it cost to get her hair sorted. He’d been bloody funny about money recently and he’d go off on one – as her son Zac would say – if he knew what it cost to stay looking presentable. Half the time she was sure he didn’t notice. Sometimes she thought that he wouldn’t notice if she wore a bin bag or got a tattoo – OK, she conceded mentally, he’d notice a tattoo. But he wouldn’t notice if she left her hair unwashed for a month. Men.

With her head held high, proud of her newly styled hair, Olivia left the salon and headed down the high street to the turning that led to the nature reserve. Once she was off the main road the hum of traffic was soon replaced by the cawing of rooks and the alarm call of a blackbird startled by her presence on this quiet side street. She walked past the walled back gardens of the premises that fronted onto the high street, and then into open country. The lane was now flanked by an avenue of chestnut trees until it petered out at the entrance to the large meadow that formed the town’s nature reserve. The sticky buds on the ancient chestnuts were still shut fast against the sudden chills and bad weather that might still happen even though it was almost springtime but the lack of foliage made the trees starkly beautiful. The land ahead was bisected by the river Catte. The locals might call it a river but at this stage of its journey it was little more than a brook that babbled over a bed of chalk, shallow enough for kids to paddle in safely in the summer and where dogs splashed all year round. There was a stand of pines on this side, and a little network of paths that led walkers through the reserve, over the bridge that crossed the stream and took visitors through a copse, past the nest boxes nailed to the trunks of the willows that flanked the banks and the signs telling them what to look out for in the way of flora and fauna. The reserve wasn’t big but it was popular and even at this time there were a number of mums with their toddlers in pushchairs, and even more dog walkers. As it was the school holidays a few teenagers were hanging around one of the benches by the main path but they didn’t seem to be up to anything too antisocial.

Olivia cast a critical eye over the open space. On the face of it, it didn’t look too bad. Yes, the rubbish bin nearest her needed emptying, the lid wouldn’t shut properly, but at least it meant visitors were using it. She headed along the path that led to the bridge and then the copse. She stopped on the bridge and looked into the water. A small fish was visible – its tail waving lazily to hold it steady in the current. Olivia wondered what it might be. A minnow? A trout? She had no idea but she was pleased to see it. It meant the water quality was high. So far so good. She strolled on to the tiny wood and looked at the thicket of bushes that made up the understorey. There was a visible path, beaten through the light scrub. Olivia pushed her way along it. In the middle of the trees she stopped and stared at the ground in horror.

Empty bottles, discarded cans, pizza boxes, polystyrene cartons from the burger van, newspaper, plastic bags... the place was a tip. It was disgusting, disgraceful. Olivia shook her head. No wonder people had been complaining. She looked more closely at the bottles – mostly alcohol; no surprise there. She checked the labels; cider, vodka, Malbec... She did a double take. Malbec?! What the hell were the local yobs doing drinking Malbec? It was Nigel’s favourite tipple, quite apart from anything else, and far too sophisticated for the kind of youths who were likely to hang out in a spot like this. They probably nicked it from the supermarket in Cattebury and had no idea what they’d pinched and didn’t care either, just as long as it was booze.

Olivia sniffed. She’d tell the town clerk and get him to organise the town’s refuse team to sort it. But how they could they stop it from happening again? She knew for a fact the police wouldn’t be interested. It might be ugly and antisocial but it was hardly the crime of the century and even Olivia could see that littering would be the lowest of low priorities.

She turned to go and barked her ankle on a sharp object. She looked to see what it was. A primus stove. Then she saw the tinfoil, the spoons, the tiny plastic bags, and a series of connections were triggered in her brain. She knew just enough about drugs to realise the significance. Dear God, supposing there were used needles here? Worse and worse. And yet, the police would have to take an interest in the misuse of illegal substances. Where there were drugs there would be dealers. Olivia shook her head, aghast at the implications for Little Woodford. Maybe if the police patrolled the reserve for a while the druggies would all move on elsewhere. Frankly, she thought, if there were children who wanted to ruin their lives by snorting banned substances she didn’t really care. If they wanted to grow up to be deadbeats that was their problem. Just as long as they didn’t do it in this town and spoil the place for everyone else or pass their noxious habits onto children like her Zac. Not that he’d ever do drugs; she and Nigel had brought him up properly.

Olivia shook her head and pushed her way back along the overgrown path through the thicket and out into the sunshine and the meadow. She stopped as she rejoined the main path; left would take her to the top end of town where she lived or she could retrace her steps and head for the town hall to report this matter. She was longing for a cup of coffee but her civic duty took precedence. She turned to the right and headed back to the town centre.

*

Belinda patted her newly cut page-boy bob and glanced at the mirror behind the shelves of glasses to admire it. Like Olivia, she reckoned she didn’t look too bad for her age but peered closer and checked out the start of a few crow’s feet by her grey eyes. Hmmm – she might have to increase the old night-cream regime if she wanted to keep them under control. It was all very well to call them laughter lines but everyone knew that was a euphemism for old and wrinkly. She focused her eyes from her face to the bar behind her. The three old boys who were lunchtime regulars were sitting at their usual table by the window and had enough in their glasses to keep them going for a few minutes. Good, she had a job she wanted to do. She put her head round the kitchen door.

‘Just popping upstairs,’ she told Miles, her partner. ‘I shouldn’t be long but if you could just keep an eye on the bar till I get back – in case we get another customer. Everyone else is all right for a mo.’

Miles nodded and carried on slicing carrots.

‘It’s the Stitch and Bitch ladies tomorrow – I want to get the room ready while I think about it and while it’s quiet,’ Belinda explained.

Miles nodded again. ‘Want to prop the door open till you get back?’

Belinda pushed a wooden wedge under the door with her foot. ‘Call me if there’s a sudden rush.’

She went back into the bar, grabbed a damp cloth and ran up the stairs to the room that snuggled under the eaves. They called it the function room but it was more of a meeting room – it was hard to fit more than a couple of dozen people in at any one time but it was a perfect space for the craft group to meet, and a whole host of other clubs and committees that kept the townsfolk of Little Woodford entertained or busy or both. And Belinda was more than happy for these little groups to use the room free of charge. More often than not she was asked to supply refreshments so it was good for business.

Swiftly, she rearranged the chairs there into a circle and placed some low tables in the middle. Then she wiped them down before she had a good look at the carpet. Did it need the hoover running over it? The light wasn’t terrific so she went over to the dormer and pulled the blind up fully. As she did a movement in the big house next door caught her eye; there was a blonde – youngish... mid-thirties? – at one of the upstairs windows. Duh – she remembered the news about the new people moving in.

Belinda’s eyes met those of the woman next-door. She smiled and waved and got a broad grin back. She wondered what the new neighbours were going to be like – rather nice if first impressions were anything to go by.

*

Bex Millar was wondering about the wisdom of moving in next to a pub as she stared out of the window and across the wall. The estate agent had assured her that it was really well run and the previous owners of her house had had no complaints on that score. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? She reckoned the walled garden, the shrubbery and the trees would act as a bit of a barrier against any noise and besides, however noisy it might be it was going to be a darn sight more tranquil here than where they’d lived in London. There they’d been on a route to a major hospital and under the approach to Heathrow. Planes flying over every waking moment and blues and twos twenty-four-seven. She didn’t think a few rowdy locals were going to impinge on her family’s sleep – not given what they could already sleep through. She noticed that there was a woman looking out of the dormer in the roof opposite. The landlady? She smiled and waved and looked really friendly so Bex couldn’t stop herself from smiling back. She felt quite bizarrely happy that this total stranger seemed to be welcoming her. Maybe moving here was exactly what the doctor ordered.

‘Mum, Mum, can Alfie and I go and play in the garden?’

Bex turned away from the window to look at her eldest son, eight-year-old Lewis. ‘Have you explored the whole house?’ she asked him as he ran across the floor towards her followed by his little brother Alfie who stumbled along on his chubby legs. She brushed Lewis’s floppy blonde fringe off his earnest face then stroked his cheek.

‘Everywhere, Mummy.’

‘Evware,’ lisped four-year-old Alfie in solemn agreement. He gazed at his brother – his hero-worship plain in his grey eyes.

‘OK, go outside but you are must stay at the back of the house and if you hear the furniture van arrive you must both come in and tell me.’ The last thing Bex wanted was for the boys to get under the feet of the removal men. ‘Understand?’

Both boys nodded before racing down the main stairs to the ground floor. It might have been two small boys running through the house but Bex reckoned they made as much racket as a herd of stampeding horses. Silence fell a moment after the sound of the front door slamming behind them which reverberated throughout the house.

In the ensuing quiet Bex wondered about her stepdaughter Megan. The move was going to affect her the most and not only because she was fifteen and hormonal and painfully shy. She’d also had a lot of shit happen in her life – they all had – and although the move was to help them make a fresh start, a change of school at this time of year and in the year before she did her GCSEs was a gamble. It was no wonder, given all the circumstances, she wasn’t always calm; a fact not helped by the fact that her birth mother had been a Spaniard.

Bex often thought about Megan’s mother because, other than her nationality and the fact that she’d abandoned Megan when she had only been three, she knew next to nothing about her. Apparently Imelda, Megan’s mother, had upped and returned to Spain one morning and had ignored all pleas and exhortations from Megan’s father, Richard, to come home again. For a few weeks Richard had managed to rely on the goodwill of family, friends and neighbours for emergency childcare but, when none of his texts and emails to his wife had been returned and his phone calls went unanswered, he’d had to hire a nanny – Bex. Obviously, as the hired help, it wasn’t up to her to question the family’s circumstances and, when she’d wound up falling in love with her boss and then marrying him, all he was willing to say on the subject of his first wife was that she had been ‘a bit temperamental’. Bex suspected that the hurt Imelda had inflicted had been a terrible wound and she wasn’t going to pick at the scab – it wasn’t hers to pick. On the positive side, Megan had no memories of Imelda, although the fact she’d been deserted by her mother had to have on-going repercussions. To be ‘not wanted’ by a parent had to be a terrible concept for any child to grasp and Bex had spent the previous twelve years doing her level best to prove to Megan that she was wanted – very much. But then... then the accident had happened.

Bex decided to see how Megan was faring. She went across the landing to the precipitous, narrow stairs that led up into the attic.

‘Only me,’ she called at the bottom before she climbed the steep flight.

Megan was sitting on the floor of the bare room tapping the screen of her phone with her thumbs, her glorious black hair tumbled over her face.

‘Hello,’ she said to Bex without looking up.

‘I wanted to see how you are getting on,’ said Bex, brightly. ‘Have you worked out where you want your stuff to go?’

Megan shrugged.

‘You OK?’ said Bex.

‘Kind of.’ She looked at her stepmother with her dark brown eyes. Had she been crying – again?

‘It’ll be better here, promise. New school, new start, new friends...’

Megan shrugged.

Bex hunkered down on the floor beside her stepdaughter. ‘The thing is, no one here knows what happened back in London. We’ll probably have to tell them about Daddy but all they need know is that he died in a traffic accident. Everything else is no one’s business but ours.’

‘I suppose.’ Megan sounded far from convinced.

‘Now then, why don’t you go down to the garden too and keep an eye on the boys while I finish making sure everything is ready for when our van gets here. There’s a football in the boot of the car. Have a kick around with them.’

Megan trailed out of the room and down the stairs, watched by Bex whose heart broke again that her stepdaughter had had to endure so much sadness and awfulness over the previous months, and on top of what her mother had done to her. Bex sighed and hoped against hope that this move would push it all away and allow the family to move on. It was going to be hard without Richard but they’d manage somehow. They’d have to. And they were going to have to do this by themselves, what with her parents living in Cumbria and rarely making the trip south and her in-laws living in Cyprus and rarely making the trip back. Phone calls and emails meant they kept in touch but ‘keeping in touch’ wasn’t the same as having them around and that wasn’t going to happen much – not now. Her dad was losing his sight and her mum would only drive short distances so a journey down the M6 was right out of the question, and Richard’s parents had been badly hit by the fall in the exchange rate and, while their pensions kept them afloat, it didn’t really allow for the expense of flights from the Med.

She’d thought about moving to be nearer her relatives, of course she had, but had decided it wasn’t really fair on the kids. Where her parents lived in the Lake District there was breath-taking scenery but precious little for them to do – not for children brought up with easy access to shops, cinemas and all sorts of urban amenities. Yes, the boys would have probably adjusted in time but Megan? And as for taking them out to Cyprus... Well, quite apart from the issue of their schooling Bex really didn’t think it was fair to uproot them completely from all that was familiar.

Come the summer, thought Bex, she’d take the kids to visit their grandparents but until then they’d have to go it alone.