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Little Woodford by Catherine Jones (44)

When Bex finished her shift and returned home, Amy was busy mopping the kitchen floor.

‘Hi, Bex,’ she said in her usual cheery way.

‘What’s this I hear about you trying to drown your boyfriend?’

‘Oh, that... Yeah, bit of a disaster. Who told you?’ Amy didn’t sound thrilled that, for a change, she was the subject of gossip, not the purveyor.

‘Belinda.’

Amy concentrated on her mopping and didn’t respond.

‘She says your bloke was really cross.’

‘Who wouldn’t be, getting a half pint of wine and lemonade dumped in their lap? He had every right to be cross – I made him look like he’d wet himself.’

‘Oh dear.’ Bex suppressed a grin. ‘These things happen, though.’

‘True.’

‘Has he forgiven you?’

Amy looked up sharply and dumped the mop in the bucket. ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? He didn’t stay around at mine like he was supposed to this weekend.’

‘Oh, dear.’

Amy wrung out the mop. ‘It might’ve been for the best if he was going to be arsey about what happened.’

‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder,’ murmured Bex.

‘Yeah, and out of sight out of mind,’ shot back Amy. ‘On the other hand, I thought he was going to want this back.’ She put out her hand for Bex to admire the ring.

‘Blimey.’ So that was the ring. Bex was genuinely impressed.

‘But as he wasn’t around to get it back I’m hoping it’s mine for keeps. He says he bought it at a car boot. No idea what it’s worth.’

Bex took Amy’s hand and had a closer look. ‘If those are rubies and not garnets I think you should get it properly valued and insured.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I would.’

Amy looked at her new ring again. ‘Do you think whoever sold it to Billy knew it’s worth a bomb? Cos I can’t imagine Billy spending hundreds, can you?’

‘Not ever having met Billy...’

‘And maybe I shouldn’t wear it to work but it’s probably safer on my finger than at home, what with all these break-ins. Anyway, I can’t stand here gassing if I’m going to finish everything, and you ought to be off to get the kids.’ She returned to her mopping.

*

Olivia was, once again, going through the bank statements and the credit card bills, trying to balance the books. The first of the estate agents had been round that morning to give her a valuation and had been full of gloom and doom about downturns in the market and a slump in the price of houses and negative equity. She suspected the guy was preparing the ground for them getting less than what she hoped for – or needed; less than the sum he’d told her the house might be worth. Which left her trying to work out what was the minimum she and Nigel could accept and still manage to pay off his debts and afford another house in Little Woodford.

Her eyes began to glaze over as she studied the figures and she threw down her pen. Sod it, she needed a walk to clear her head. Oscar was in his basket, his head resting on the edge of it, his eyes closed, the epitome of a happy dog – a dog that knew he had fallen on all four paws when they’d selected him from the dogs’ home. Mind you, he hadn’t had a hard life before, since he’d had a very loving owner – but an owner who’d had to go into a nursing home and had been unable to take Oscar with him.

‘Walkies,’ called Olivia.

The dog reacted in a split second; out of the basket, eyes open, tail wagging.

How could any living thing go from sleep to lively in that space of time? wondered Olivia as she grabbed the lead and her keys from the hook behind the front door. It was something Zac could do with copying – although he was better than he had been, when it came to being prised out of bed in the mornings. She clipped the lead to Oscar and the pair set off into the sunshine towards the nature reserve. As she walked down the hill she thought about other changes in her son, changes that were now a sign of his recovery, and wondered how she’d missed the other, sinister signs that he’d been on drugs. He still suffered from mood swings – one moment he’d be reasonably normal and then, at the least thing he’d be raging and angry and almost out of control, and he was still a grouch first thing in the morning, but he didn’t look half asleep most of the rest of the day. And his room didn’t smell of that revolting body spray now he wasn’t trying to disguise the smell of weed. Once again she asked herself how she could have been so naive. She also wondered why the school hadn’t spotted anything but she didn’t think it would do Zac any favours by confronting them, retrospectively, over their failure – given their zero tolerance, it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that they’d take punitive action, which was hardly going to help matters. It was one thing if they had to take Zac away from St Anselm’s for financial reasons; it would be quite another thing if he got expelled for drug-taking.

Once they reached the open space Oscar was released and he bounded off into the long grass. Olivia strolled along a path and followed the black and white feathery tail that was all that was now visible of the dog. Unusually, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the reserve. Olivia supposed it was because the stay-at-home mums were busy with the school run, everyone else was at work and the regular dog-walkers had taken their pooches out first thing and it wasn’t yet time for the last walk of the day. Maybe she ought to come down at this time more often – it was certainly very pleasant.

She crossed the stream, taking time to gaze into the water and see what aquatic species she could see. Not a lot, as it turned out, and then she strolled up through the meadow to the little copse to check if the council was keeping the littering under control there. Oscar lolloped along, bouncing through the grass, revelling in the smells that only his nose could detect while Olivia listened to the twitter of numerous birds including a lark, high in the sky and out of sight, which was singing its little heart out. Butterflies flitted around the spikes of rosebay willowherb and clumps of ox-eyed daisies and it was, thought Olivia, an English summer meadow at its best.

She approached the coppice. She could hear voices – two men, by the sound of things. And also, as she got closer, two men who were arguing.

‘Come off it. What do you know about risk? You’ve had keys to half of them.’

‘Two, Billy, two. I’ve had the keys to two places.’

‘And I’ve had to get rid of the gear. It’s risky.’

‘Risky? No one checks where the stuff comes from at a car boot sale. When was the last time you saw the fuzz prowling round the pitches?’

‘But if they do, I’ll be the one who gets nicked. Which is why this is all I’m going to give you. The rest – I’m keeping that as danger money.’

There was a pause and silence as Olivia strained to work out what was going on.

‘Two grand? Is that all?’

‘It’s all I’m giving you.’

‘In which case, Billy-boy, I might have to change my fence.’

‘Do that, Dan, do that. And good luck, because I don’t think anyone else will touch your stuff with a ten-foot bargepole. Not around here.’

Olivia backed off, her heart thumping like crazy, then she turned and headed swiftly back towards the stream. That was a conversation she was sure she shouldn’t have overheard. When she was a good fifty yards from the trees she turned and looked round and saw one of the men heading off in the opposite direction to her, either ignoring her presence or oblivious to it. She breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed she’d put enough distance between them and her to be dismissed as a middle-aged dog-walker and not someone who had been earwigging their very dodgy conversation – a conversation she thought Leanne Knowles might want to know about.

Billy and Dan – she mustn’t forget those two names. She repeated them to herself and wondered who they were.

*

Brian was on his knees but not praying – this time he was leaning over the beds in the vicarage garden and pulling up weeds from between the flowering plants and shrubs. The soil was warm under his fingertips and the mid-afternoon sun hot on his back and beside him a robin hovered around hopefully, darting in now and again to snaffle some little trifle unearthed by Brian’s trowel. Above him, the same skylark that Olivia had heard was soaring and singing, filling the air with its beautiful, warbling trill. Brian eased his back and sat back on his ankles. He felt, he realised, content.

‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world,’ he murmured to himself. Beside him, the robin cocked his beady black eye at him as if in agreement.

‘You think that too, do you, fella?’ He stared at the robin, which, unconcerned and emboldened by the supply of food Brian had been unintentionally supplying, eyeballed him back. Brian looked at the rest of nature that surrounded him: the spikes of the foxgloves with a couple of fat bumblebees crawling in and out of the pink bells; the campanula, buzzing with honey bees; a couple of red admirals basking in the sun on the ivy on the fence, lazily opening and closing their glorious wings; the roses – blowsy and heavy with petals, and suddenly he wanted to give thanks for it all.

He hauled himself to his feet, making the robin flutter off a couple of yards, and brushed down the knees of his trousers before he set off, purposefully, down the path to the church.

A minute later he’d pulled his heavy bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the ancient oak door and pushed it open. The deep peace of the empty church enveloped him but this time he didn’t feel as if he was in a vacuum but wrapped in a blanket. He could have sworn he felt warmer in the cool air of the church than in the heat of sunshine outside. It was... comforting. Very comforting. He walked up the aisle and took a seat in the choir stalls and let his mind drift as his thoughts ranged from the beauty of nature to the mystery of creation and, as they did, so too came the realisation that he had reconnected with his certainty about there being a God. He shut his eyes and leaned back against the hard oak of the pew. Bizarrely, he had the feeling someone was resting a hand on his shoulder. The feeling of being at ease, of being loved and cared for, grew.

‘Thank you,’ he said out loud. ‘Thank you.’

‘Blimey, Reverend, you made me jump.’

Brian snapped his eyes open. ‘Joan!’ Joan Makepiece was standing near the lectern with a box of polishing clothes and an industrial-sized tin of Brasso clutched in her hands.

‘What are you so grateful for, then?’ she asked.

‘Everything,’ said Brian, joyfully. ‘Everything.’

Joan eyed him as if he’d lost his marbles but Brian grinned at her like the proverbial Cheshire cat.

‘It’s a glorious day and everything is just fine. Don’t you feel it, Joan?’

‘I do. And I ought to tell you, those pills the doc gave me have worked a treat. I feel so much better.’

‘Oh, Joan, I am delighted. Yet more things to give thanks for.’ He beamed at her.

‘If you say so, Reverend. Although, I could do with the Good Lord sorting out my arthritis if He’s got a mind to. I’m a martyr to it and the doc says there’s bugger all he can do – pardon my French – it’s cos of my age. Now, if you’ll excuse me, these brasses won’t clean themselves.’

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