‘Megan, Megan,’ came Bex’s voice from the bottom of the stairs.

Megan dropped her pen and went down to the landing where she leaned over the banisters.

‘Yes?’

Bex stood in the hall, her hand on the newel post.

‘Are you busy?’

‘Got a bunch of French vocab to learn.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why?’

‘Alfie wants to go and see the diggers and when I said I was too busy to take him he had a full-on meltdown. I’d do it, but I’ve got spammed for making cakes for the school fair as well as running a stall and I was hoping to get a couple of batches of fairy cakes baked before supper.’

Megan sighed. She supposed she could always do her homework after supper. ‘Look, tell Alfie I’ll take him in about fifteen minutes. Let me learn my French and then I can do the rest when we get back.’

‘Megan, you’re a star.’

‘And I can take Lewis as well, if he doesn’t mind watching JCBs for a while, and then we can go to the swings after.’

‘That’d be wonderful. Perfect. And I’ll save you some buns. You’ll have earned them.’

*

Getting Alfie to the diggers was a doddle but tearing him away was a whole other issue. Obviously, in his mind, because the battle had been so hard fought he wasn’t going to give up his victory lightly. Lewis, normally a placid child, began to get cross and whiny and resentful because every second spent watching earth-moving equipment meant a second less at the play park.

‘Come on, Alf. I’m bored.’ Lewis kicked at the security fencing surrounding the site, then he grabbed it with both hands and shook it in frustration. The fencing sections were secured by the metal vertical posts being driven into hollow breeze-blocks. As Lewis shook the fencing the breeze block split and the section of fence sagged rather alarmingly.

‘Stop it, Lewis,’ said Megan aghast. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

Lewis looked shocked. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to.’

‘Mean to or not, we need to go before someone sees the damage you’ve done and wants to have a word with us.’ Megan grabbed Alfie’s hand and dragged him away. Alfie must have picked up on the tension because this time he didn’t protest.

‘Play park,’ said Megan. ‘Twenty minutes on the swings for being patient and good.’

‘I wasn’t,’ mumbled Lewis. ‘I broke the fence.’

‘You didn’t mean to, I know that, really. It was an accident.’

‘Accidump,’ repeated Alfie.

‘Yeah, an accidump,’ said Megan.

When they got to the park, Megan had a quick scan of the skate ramps to see if she could spot Ashley and felt a pang of disappointment that he wasn’t there. Then her heart sank further; Zac was. She quickly turned back to the slide to pretend she hadn’t seen him and concentrated on looking after the boys – not that Lewis needed her but Alfie always wanted a helping hand or a push or someone to ‘watch me!’

‘Hiya, Megan. Thought it was you.’

Bugger. She turned. ‘Oh, hello, Zac.’ She hoped she sounded surprised.

‘Poor you.’

‘Why?’

‘Getting stuck with your kid brothers. That’s a bummer.’

‘Actually, I really like my kid brothers.’

Zac gave her a look like he didn’t believe her for a second. ‘Whatever,’ he said.

‘Look, just because you don’t seem to like your family very much—’

‘Very much? Ha. I hate them.’

‘If you’re going to be like that, I’m off,’ said Megan.

‘Don’t.’

‘Then stop being horrible about your mum and dad.’

‘But you’ve met my mum.’

‘So?’

‘So you’ve seen what a cow she is.’

Megan turned around. ‘Alfie, Lewis, we’re going home.’ The boys, queuing for the stairs to climb to the top of the slide, looked over towards her.

‘No!’ said Lewis.

‘Come on,’ said Megan, walking towards them.

‘Stop,’ said Zac. He grabbed her arm.

Megan stared at his hand and frowned. Zac let her go.

‘I’m sorry, don’t go. I need... I need someone to talk to.’

He sounded so miserable that Megan relented. ‘OK, boys. Ten more minutes.’ She turned back to Zac. ‘What about?’

‘I’m in deep shit.’

‘What have you done?’

‘I can’t tell you but... it’s bad.’

‘If I don’t know what it is, I don’t think I can help.’

‘Have you got any money?’

‘Not a lot. Why?’

‘I owe someone some money. I need to pay it back.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

There was silence for a few seconds as Megan and Zac watched Alfie zoom down the polished aluminium of the slide. Megan thought about her savings. She hadn’t been lying when she told Zac she didn’t have much cash but she did have a building society account – her grandparents had put in a hundred pounds each birthday so she’d have a nest egg when she got to eighteen. She knew where the book was – in the desk drawer in the study.

‘If I did get some money, when would you be able to pay me back?’

‘I thought you said you didn’t have any,’ Zac groused.

‘“Thank you” and a straight answer might be nice.’

‘Sorry. Yes, thank you and I’ll pay you back out of next month’s allowance.’

‘How much do you need?’

‘Fifty.’

‘How much?’ Megan was flabbergasted; she’d thought he say a tenner at the most. ‘How much is your allowance?’

‘Two hundred.’

‘A month?’

‘So?’

And yet he couldn’t manage his finances despite being given so much. ‘What the hell do you spent it on?’

‘Stuff – games, music, phone. I don’t know, it just goes. If you can’t manage fifty, forty would help. Anything...’ He sounded desperate.

‘And you’ll promise me you’ll pay it back.’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’

‘It might take me a few days to get it. I’ll have to go to Cattebury to draw the money out. It can’t be before Saturday.’

Zac sagged with relief. ‘Thanks, Megan. I’ll make it up to you. Promise.’

*

Later that evening, Olivia took her place at the semicircular table in the council chamber and poured herself a glass of water before she switched on her iPad. She’d had a shit day, what with the row with her son, and now the planning committee meeting was due to discuss the new development and she was going to have to show her hand. And when she did... She just knew she’d be the subject of speculation and gossip. People would pry. She shuddered.

The other councillors drifted in and took their seats round the table, nodded greetings to each other, checked their iPads, and engaged in chit-chat. Olivia made an assessment on how they were each likely to vote on the new estate. She was pretty certain the promise of 40 per cent affordable housing would mean a block vote from the Labour councillors but there were precious few of them. She had a feeling a couple of the independents would go along with them too. Which left the Greens and the Tories... and herself. The developers had made a point about sustainable living with solar water panels to be installed on each roof, triple-glazed windows and high-spec insulation so the Greens might vote in favour too. On the other hand, it was another housing development, more farmland lost, so they might not. Olivia added up the votes. It was going to be tight.

Her calculations were interrupted when the chairman of the committee took his place at the head of the table and switched on his microphone whilst bashing his gavel on the wooden block.

‘I declare the meeting open,’ he said.

The first couple of items on the agenda were dispensed with and then came the moment when statements from the public were called for.

Len McGregor approached the microphone and rustled his papers. The town clerk started the stop watch for his allotted five minutes and Mr McGregor put his case as to why the land was ripe for development. As the five minutes neared the end he said, ‘And it’s no good for grazing,’ he said. ‘And it’s my understanding it’s a brownfield site.’

The chairman held his hand up to stop him as the clock ticked to zero. ‘Thank you, Mr McGregor.’

Len McGregor wandered back to his seat in the main body of the chamber and the chairman looked around the councillors.

‘Any comments?’ The mayor stared at Olivia. Everyone on the council knew what a Rottweiler Olivia was when it came to protecting Little Woodford from unwelcome developments. Surely she’d have a really strong view over this one.

Olivia looked at her hands. She was itching to point out the proposal for sixty houses would mean overdevelopment of the space, that the traffic during construction would be detrimental to the town, that, when the houses were occupied, parking in the town centre – already tricky – would become impossible, that the doctor’s surgery would be stretched... God, so many things to be said that justified refusing planning permission. Olivia took a deep breath and raised her hand. She might as well make her position plain now rather than at the vote.

‘Councillor Laithwaite?’ said the mayor.

‘I propose that the council recommends that planning permission is approved.’

The other councillors stared at her open-mouthed. Even Len McGregor looked gob-smacked.

*

Megan waited until Bex was upstairs reading Lewis a bedtime story before she tiptoed into the study and headed for the desk under the window. She stopped and listened before she opened the top drawer, hearing only the occasional creak of the old house and the very soft murmur of Bex’s voice. Slowly and carefully she pulled open the drawer while still keeping her ears strained for any change in the ambient sounds. She was confronted with a stack of papers which had obviously been chucked in there. Carefully, she pulled them out in a thick wodge and there underneath was her bank book.

And the memory book.

She stared at it, tears welling up as the book did what it was designed to do – bring back memories. The trouble was, the memories it was supposed to bring back were ones about her father, not ones that had been caused by the memory book itself. The book, a large, beautifully bound notebook, had been filled with mementoes, photos, pieces written and drawn by Megan, Lewis and Alfie and was designed to help them come to terms with their dad’s death. But then Megan had taken it to her old school – ‘bring your favourite book to school for World Book Day,’ her previous form teacher had instructed. So Megan had and the consequences of such an innocent action had had completely unforeseen repercussions; repercussions more ghastly than anyone could have imagined.

Shocked, Megan grabbed her bank book, threw the papers back in the drawer and pushed it shut, before she hurled herself up the stairs and into the sanctuary of her attic eyrie.

*

Olivia’s decision seemed to be the talk of the town by the next morning. Amy was full of it when she came to clean for Bex.

‘How do you know?’ Bex was certain that the last place anyone would find Amy on a Thursday night was in the town hall, attending a council meeting.

‘I heard it off of a mate whose husband is a chum of the chairman of the planning committee.’

Almost first-hand then, thought Bex. ‘But surely it can’t be such a big deal how Olivia voted?’ she queried. ‘Everyone knows there’s a massive housing shortage.’

‘You don’t know Olivia like I do,’ said Amy. Which was indisputably true. ‘She never does nothing for no reason.’

It took Bex a second or two to pick the sense out of what Amy had said from the storm of double negatives.

‘You mark my words,’ said Amy, ‘she’s voted for those houses because there’s something in it for her.’

‘Really? I’d say that Olivia is the one person I’ve met so far – with the possible exception of Heather – who would put the interests of this place way ahead of her own.’ Not, thought Bex, that she’d met that many people, but Olivia’s obvious commitment to Little Woodford was rock solid. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I’d be a bit careful who you say things like that to.’

Amy sniffed. ‘Whatever.’

When Bex got into work the conversation at the pub was much the same, with the lunchtime regulars speculating about the council’s decision. In some respects Bex found it slightly comforting that this little town had little better to worry about than how a councillor had voted. Frankly, she thought, if a few new houses was the worst thing that the townsfolk had happen to their town then they should think themselves blooming lucky.