Chapter 33
Marnie had an email from Mr Wemyss that afternoon to inform her that her recommendations had been approved by the new owner of Wychwell, apart from the rental cost she had agreed for Little Raspberries because no one ever paid for living there, it was an unwritten law; but she was to go ahead and implement her other suggestions. Marnie couldn’t wait. She wrote letters to all the householders informing them of the new arrangements. In the case of Una and Kay, she put their rents up by an extra five pounds per month, not enough to have them seeking out the workhouse, but enough to make a point. They would still be paying a quarter of what they would anywhere else plus all their heating and lighting and rates were thrown in. Titus’s letter was especially long as she itemised everything that she had found he had been claiming for and demanded he pay it back.
She hand-delivered them as soon as she’d printed them out. Then sat back and wondered how long it would take for Mr Shit to meet Mrs Fan.
Nothing happened before bed, although Marnie was so keyed up for some reaction that she once again couldn’t sleep and so decided to take herself off for a walk around the green to tire herself out.
There was just a fingernail snip of moon that night, bright against a velvety black starless sky. She sat on the bench after she’d done three laps and marvelled at how quiet everything was. The only sound was Dr Court’s ginger tom stepping through the front-door cat flap. She liked it, though. She loved how the quiet of Wychwell seeped into her soul and she wouldn’t have wanted to go back to a busy street in a busy town, or worse, a city like Hilary Sutton craved. Hilary hadn’t adjusted to life here, but she had, too easily. Give or take the couple of village busybodies, as she and Hilary had touched on yesterday in the Red Café. She blurted out a giggle as she thought of Una Price opening up her door, standing there with her great saggy bosom propped up by her flabby arms, hint of triumph on her lips.
‘What do you want?’
‘I came to pass something on to you, Una.’
‘What?’
‘This.’
Marnie had picked up the cheesecake (thank goodness for the thick base she favoured) and slapped it straight onto Una’s face like a clown’s pie. It was a beautiful moment. Una had had a delayed reaction but a satisfying one. She’d screamed that she was blind. She had stumbled out of the house, slipped on some strawberry topping and landed flat on her bum on the road. She’d have an almighty bruise there by dawn and no Derek on hand to rub arnica into it for her, but Marnie didn’t care. Or rather, she wasn’t allowing herself to care.
Lilian would have hooted. They would have sat in her conservatory and laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks. Marnie looked across at the manor; it was such a beautiful house. Lilian had been so happy there in the last years of her life and it was a good thing, at least, that she’d died there and not in some impersonal hospital bed.
Then she saw it again. That pink light. But in the thick darkness she could also see a figure, she was sure of it. That was no ephemeral orb.
Marnie had the keys to the manor with her, on the same ring as her house key. She threw herself off the bench and across the green, past the end of Herv’s lane, up Kytson Hill, fast as her legs would take her. Past Emelie’s house, up the manor drive, key in her hand ready. She plunged it into the lock, barged through the door, flicked on the light and bounded up the stairs.
‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Who’s there?’
There was no orb of light, no spectral figure in the gallery. But deep in the belly of the house somewhere, she was sure she heard a door close. And ghosts, she knew, had no need of doors.
Marnie wasn’t quite brave enough to hunt around the house then. Not because she was afraid to encounter a ghost, but a human. Was it the new owner or a burglar? Had he stayed in the house all night? When she went to the manor the next morning, she checked all the doors and windows and found them bolted from the inside, so whoever it was could only have got in through the front door. It had to the new owner, surely? Cilla and Herv had keys, but what would they be doing skulking around up there at stupid o’clock?
She was in the dining room scouring through the ledgers when Cilla and Zoe came in. Cilla greeted her cheerily. In the letter Marnie had given them, she’d offered Johnny and Zoe a cottage each if they wanted one, the rent to be included in their wage deal. Or if they didn’t want to carry on working for the estate, she had offered them a much-subsidised one. In the case of Zoe, Marnie had proposed – and this had been endorsed by the new mystery owner – to help her with any costs she might incur if she went to university. She was sure by the following year there would be some money in the pot for that.
Cilla had confirmed, as asked, in writing that Johnny would very much like to move into one of the cottages and the promise to help Zoe was more than kind. And she requested that the new owner be thanked for confirming that The Nectarines would be theirs for the duration of their lives. Having it in writing meant a lot to Cilla and her nerves could climb down from high alert now. She was as chirpy as a spring sparrow though Zoe, Marnie noticed, was a little quieter than usual.
When Cilla brought Marnie a coffee, she closed the door behind her as if to impart a great secret.
‘I thought I’d let you know that Titus has called a meeting for everyone tonight in the Lemon Villa at seven o’clock.’
‘Oh really? That’s interesting.’ Not entirely unexpected though.
‘I think you should be there too,’ said Cilla. ‘You are part of this village as well. The new owner’s decisions affect you as much as us, I should imagine.’
‘Thanks for the tip-off,’ replied Marnie. ‘Just out of interest, you didn’t come up to the manor last night did you? About midnight?’
‘Whatever for?’ laughed Cilla. ‘Nope, not me. Or anyone in my house. We were all tucked up in bed for ten latest. Why?’
‘I was out walking and I saw the Pink Lady, so I ran up to catch her.’
Cilla shuddered. ‘You’re a braver person than me, then.’
Marnie had a sudden thought. ‘There aren’t any exits in the cellars, are there?’
‘Not that I know of. And I know this place inside out,’ said Cilla.
The cellars were the only place Marnie hadn’t checked. She thought she’d take a look after she’d finished her coffee.
On the way out of the door, Cilla turned back.
‘I heard what happened to Una and Kay yesterday. They’ve had it coming for a long time. Good on you, that’s what Griff told me to tell you.’
Marnie carried on looking through the ledgers. What Emelie had said about Lilian seeing something in the pages that made her realise where the well might be had been niggling her. If it was here, Marnie was determined to find it.
When she eventually lifted her head to rotate the stiffness from it, she saw Herv in the garden through the window and her body began to respond to the sight. She’d thought of that fleeting kiss more times than she should have and wondered what would have happened had she not run off like a racehorse spooked by a gun. She knew she should go and clear the air because she didn’t want things to be uncomfortable between them. She walked through into the conservatory and out of the doors, aware of her heartbeat increasing the closer she got to him.
‘Morning, Herv,’ she called. Please don’t hate me for being the rudest woman on the planet to you. Please don’t ignore me. He didn’t. He turned and smiled and she wondered what the hell she was doing not letting him have free access to her heart. And all areas.
‘Good morning. How are you today? Calmer, I hope?’
‘Yes, much calmer,’ said Marnie, although she didn’t feel very calm next to him. She felt as if she’d been plugged into the mains. Her eyes dropped to his hands on the garden fork and she recalled how tenderly they’d cradled her face.
‘Garden’s looking lovely,’ she said, scouring her mind for something, anything to say to him to show that she was okay with him, and wanted the same in return.
‘Thank you. I do my best.’
‘Is that edelweiss?’ She pointed to the small white flowers covering a large patch of the garden. Lilian’s tall lilies, standing in them, appeared to be growing in snow. It was an odd combination – but then, that was typical Lilian.
‘Yes it is. Mountain flowers in a garden, not my idea,’ and he clicked his tongue mock-disapprovingly. ‘They need a different soil but Lilian insisted so I persevered.’
‘You’ve done really well.’ God that sounds so patronising.
‘Thank you.’
The air between them was thick with unsaid words.
‘Herv, about yesterday . . .’
‘Don’t worry, it’s okay.’
‘I don’t want there to be any awkwardness between us.’
‘There isn’t, I promise.’
‘Really?’
He gave a small nod. ‘Of course, I understand.’
He didn’t understand at all. He might have thought he did, but how could he?
‘I like you,’ Marnie said with a tentative smile. ‘I would hate to think I gave you any wrong . . . any signals that . . .’
Herv tilted his head to one side and studied her intently.
‘I can wait,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.
‘No one can wait that long,’ replied Marnie, unsure if he was joking.
God he’s sexy, said that ridiculous voice in her head. Are you out of your tiny mind?
‘I don’t suppose you fancy a trip down into the cellar with me?’ she asked. ‘Have you got a big torch?’
Well if that doesn’t sound like innuendo, nothing does, the voice scoffed.
‘Sure,’ Herv answered her. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘A pink lady,’ she replied.
The cellar, or rather cellars because there were eight of them, was accessed from the old boot room next to the scullery. Lilian had shown her underneath the house once, but it wasn’t a very exciting place. It might have been when her grandfather was alive with his collection of valuable wines that her father either sold or drank. Now there were just empty racks and alcoves and lots of old furniture that was surplus to requirements covered in dust sheets.
The cellars were cavernous and chilly but there was nothing of interest down there. No secret doors – or trapdoors, for that matter, though she supposed that whoever she heard the previous night could have easily hidden themselves here until the coast was clear.
‘It definitely wasn’t an orb,’ explained Marnie, ‘it was a person, I swear it, a figure holding a torch or a light.’
‘I have no answers,’ said Herv, examining an alcove, knocking on the wall to find it was solid.
‘We need Scooby-Doo,’ sighed Marnie, then started to explain to Herv that he was a crime-solving cartoon dog, but Herv cut in and started singing the theme tune in Norwegian.
‘Se på Scooby-doo, så mye skrekk og gru . . . We have him in Norway. And we also don’t like Scrappy-Doo.’
‘I used to look like Velma when I was younger,’ said Marnie. ‘But without the glasses.’
‘No, I can’t see that. You are a Daphne.’
‘I wish.’ Daphne had always reminded Marnie of Gabrielle.
‘So am I Fred or Shaggy?’ asked Herv.
‘A hybrid.’
Herv laughed, a deep merry boom of a sound that bounced back from the cellar walls, and she had a sudden vision of lying in bed with him, her head against his great chest, his arm draped possessively around her. A lazy Sunday morning where they’d be trading information about themselves, their histories, their memories. He would be talking about flowers and loving families, happy times in Norway and a perfect childhood and she’d be like a black cloud of doom with a backstory of rejection and resentment and her Guinness Book of Records entry for most mistakes in one lifetime. It couldn’t ever have worked between them. He might have been able to plant flowers in his soil and let something good grow from it but her garden was full of triffids. He’d had a lucky escape.
As they were walking back upstairs, Marnie told Herv that Lilian had seen something in the ledgers that might indicate where Margaret Kytson’s well was. He told her that there was a village meeting at seven that night and he thought that she should be present too.
Marnie went back to trying to read the ledgers through Lilian’s eyes but nothing sprang out at her at all. Nothing even made her curious, and she wondered if there really was anything to see or whether she’d be better employed concentrating on matters that needed her more immediate attention, such as trying to find costings for rebuilding those four dilapidated cottages or combing over the accounts again to see if she could find any more of Titus’s misappropriation of funds. The ledgers held still more secrets, she was sure.