Barking Up the Right Tree E-Book

Leigh Russell

• Herausgeber: Crime & Mystery Club
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

THE LAUCH OF A BRAND NEW COSY CRIME SERIES FROM MILLION-COPY-SELLING AUTHOR LEIGH RUSSELL.

When Emily's boyfriend walks out, she is devastated. As she is puzzling over what to do with the rest of her life, she is surprised to learn that her great aunt has died, leaving Emily her cottage in the picturesque Wiltshire village of Ashton Mead. This inheritance comes with a condition: Emily must take care of her great aunt's pet. Not knowing what to expect, Emily sets off for the village, hoping to make a new life for herself.

In the village, she soon makes friends with Hannah who runs the Sunshine Tea Shoppe, and meets other residents of the village where she decides to settle. All is going well... until her unknown pet arrives. Then Emily's ex-boyfriend turns up and against the advice of her new friends, she takes him back. When her next-door neighbour's daughter disappears in mysterious circumstances, Emily decides to investigate, unwittingly putting her own life in danger...

'Fun and heartwarming with all the mystery and tight plotting you'd expect from Leigh Russell' - VICTORIA SELMAN, Sunday Times bestselling author of Truly, Darkly, Deeply

Leseprobe

Critical Acclaim for Leigh Russell

‘A million readers can’t be wrong! Clear some time in your day, sit back and enjoy a bloody good read’ – Howard Linskey

‘Taut and compelling’ – Peter James

‘Leigh Russell is one to watch’ – Lee Child

‘A brilliant talent in the thriller field’ – Jeffery Deaver

‘Brilliant and chilling, Leigh Russell delivers a cracker of a read!’ – Martina Cole

‘Leigh Russell has become one of the most impressively dependable purveyors of the English police procedural’ – Times

‘DI Geraldine Steel is one of the most authoritative female coppers in a crowded field’ – Financial Times

‘The latest police procedural from prolific novelist Leigh Russell is as good and gripping as anything she has published’ – Times & Sunday Times Crime Club

‘Another corker of a book from Leigh Russell… Russell’s talent for writing top-quality crime fiction just keeps on growing…’ – Euro Crime

‘Good, old-fashioned, heart-hammering police thriller… a no-frills delivery of pure excitement’ – SAGA Magazine

‘A gritty and totally addictive novel’ – New York Journal of Books

This book is dedicated to the real Poppy. You know who you are.

(Well, you probably don’t, but I have told you.)

It is also dedicated to Michael, Jo, Phillipa, Phil, Rian and Kezia.

Prologue

‘It’s all right for you. I’ve got my work to think of. Not everyone can swan around doing nothing. How am I supposed to concentrate with you hanging around all day?’

Ben glared at me, as if it was my fault my employers had gone out of business less than six months after giving me a job. He was probably afraid he would end up having to support me. He always was tight-fisted.

‘I won’t get in your way,’ I assured him. ‘Honestly, I won’t make a sound. You won’t even know I’m here. I don’t mind staying in the bedroom while you’re working.’

He grunted, and carried on packing his clothes. He didn’t seem to notice he was using my case, but I didn’t let that distract me from my attempt to persuade him to stay. I put my arms around him from behind, as he leaned forward over the bed, but he pushed me away.

‘You can carry on using the table. We’ll manage,’ I insisted. ‘It won’t be for much longer, a few weeks at the most.’

‘You don’t know that,’ he replied. ‘It could be months before you find another job.’

‘That only happens to people who are fussy. Seriously, how long can it take, as long I’m prepared to accept anything I can get?’

‘Who knows? No one knows what the hell’s going on these days. In any case, we have to be realistic. What are the chances you’ll find another job that pays as well? You might be prepared to accept just anything, but I don’t want to see you reduced to doing some crappy menial work just to make ends meet. You deserve better than that.’

1

In many ways I was lucky. Admittedly my boss had been forced to let me go, as he had put it, but losing my job was no big deal. If anything, I was relieved at being saved the stress of having to make a decision about whether to pack it in or soldier on. Ben had encouraged me to keep going and I had stuck at it, mainly to please him. Less easy to shrug off was my boyfriend’s decision to walk out, once he realised I would be at home all day. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did, but he worked online from the kitchen table.

If I’m honest, I think we both realised our relationship hit a rough patch once I lost my job. We had got along well enough before that, when we were going out every weekend, and enjoying a few drinks with friends on weekday evenings. Life had been a blast for us, and we were young enough not to think too far ahead. I had just assumed we would end up together, slowing down when we were ready, and maybe buying a home of our own, although it was hard to see how we could save enough for a deposit when we spent every penny we earned. Sometimes I daydreamed about moving out of London to a quiet little village where white ducks scudded around a pond and we went for long walks and spent our evenings snuggling in front of a cosy fire.

That was our life until I lost my job, and we found ourselves spending more time together, with a lot less money. Before that, our flat in Finsbury Park had been an ideal base for our busy lifestyle, even though we only had one bedroom. That was all we had needed, because we were hardly ever there together, except to fall in and out of bed. Ben worked from home but he only needed his laptop so that was no problem. Overnight everything changed. I would have adapted without too much fuss, but it turned out that wasn’t good enough for my boyfriend. And so, after living with me for nearly six months, Ben packed his bags and walked out a week after I lost my job.

His abrupt departure left me devastated. I lay in bed weeping for days after he left, making only a desultory attempt to find another job online. My sole consolation was that my mother didn’t know about the split. My sister, Susie, called me one evening, and I blurted out the devastating news. We had always been close, even though she was ten years older than me, and we rarely saw one another since she had married and moved to Colchester. She had always been unfairly critical of Ben, and she sounded guardedly pleased when she heard that he had left me. But my mother adored Ben. She was bound to make a terrible fuss if she knew we had broken up. She didn’t really know Ben very well, but he was a man, and that was enough to make him eligible in her eyes.

‘You get a ring on your finger before he changes his mind,’ she told me on more than one occasion, her eyes bright with concern.

‘For goodness’ sake, mum, this is the twenty-first century, not a Jane Austen novel,’ was the pithiest response I could come up with.

My father was no help, muttering irritably about young people and fecklessness. So when Ben walked out, I was keen to keep the break-up from my parents, and swore my sister to secrecy. I saw no point in sharing the news with anyone else in my family. Instead, I reassured my mother that all was well with me, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

‘Ben’s fine,’ I lied. ‘My job’s great.’

It was hard enough coping with my heartbreak without having to fend off my mother’s fussing. It wasn’t as if she was likely to turn up unannounced and discover that Ben had moved out. I did try to find another job, but it wasn’t easy, and with no income it was difficult to scrape together enough to pay my rent, let alone go out. The few girlfriends in whom I confided didn’t offer much support. They listened to me before launching into monologues about their own preoccupations: they were frustrated with their jobs, disappointed in their relationships, excited about their holidays, each of them engrossed in her own concerns. I wondered if my friends had always been so self-absorbed, or if the recent pandemic had turned us all into narcissists.

While others were flying around the world on long-awaited holidays, my bank account was virtually empty. It was an effort to look smart for job interviews, but there was nothing else for it if I didn’t want to be thrown out of my apartment. Changing my clothes and putting on make-up was easy enough. Keeping my shoulder-length hair looking tidy was more of a challenge. But the last thing I wanted to do was crawl back to my parents’ house, an utter failure at twenty-four. So I tied my wild red hair back in a ponytail and tried to smile, even though I felt like crying.

One afternoon I returned home from a depressing interview at an employment agency to find a letter in my mail box telling me that my great aunt had passed away, leaving me as her sole heir. At first I assumed it was a scam. I had only met Great Aunt Lorna a few times, when I was very young. All I remembered about her was that she had seemed very sad, and she had given me a little bag of boiled sweets and asked me to write to her. My mother took the sweets away from me because, she said, they were bad for my teeth. I never discovered why our family had fallen out with my great aunt after my grandmother died, but I felt sorry for her and wrote to her for several years, without receiving a single reply. I put my own address on the envelopes and my letters were never returned, so I assumed they were delivered. Years passed and my letters grew less and less frequent, until eventually I stopped writing to my great aunt altogether.

Dropping the letter on my bed, I changed into comfortable pyjamas and made myself a cup of tea before calling the executor as instructed. To my surprise, I was given an appointment with a partner at the offices of a West End firm of solicitors. With nothing else to do, I looked up the address they had given me, and confirmed that the phone number I had called was genuine. Intrigued, and more than a little excited, the next morning I put my interview suit back on, pulled a brush through my hair, and went to meet my great aunt’s executor. The offices of Williamson, Prendergast and Glynn were situated in a swish glass-fronted building in Central London. A receptionist took my details, and handed me a visitor’s badge.

‘Take the lift to the sixth floor,’ she instructed me, opening an electronically operated gate.

On the sixth floor, another receptionist directed me to Mr Williamson’s office. I knocked and entered to see a grey-haired man seated behind a large wooden desk, which looked quite out of place in its modern setting. Over his shoulder there was a view of London through a huge window.

‘Emily Wilson?’ he greeted me.

‘Yes, that’s me.’

Mr Williamson nodded and invited me to sit down before telling me that my great aunt, Lorna Lafferty, had altered her will some years ago, naming me sole heir to her estate. He was sorry to tell me that she had recently suffered a fatal injury as the result of a fall. After reiterating his condolences, he confirmed that my elderly relative had left me her house.

‘A house?’ I repeated, unable to take in what the clipped voice was saying. ‘What do you mean?’

He gave the address of a property in a village called Ashton Mead, which allegedly now belonged to me. For a moment, I thought he might be trying to sell me a house. That was a joke, seeing as I couldn’t even afford to pay my rent and it was only a matter of time before my landlord started kicking up a fuss.

‘I haven’t got any money,’ I stammered.

It was almost impossible to believe what he was actually telling me.

‘There’s no mortgage on the property,’ he went on impassively. ‘We can put the house on the market for you if you like.’

‘No,’ I blurted out without thinking about what I was saying. ‘That is, at least let me look at it first. I mean, that’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘The property is yours to dispose of as you wish.’

‘So you’re saying it’s really mine? My house?’

‘Yes, according to the terms of the will. It’s extremely straightforward,’ he added, his tone almost accusing, as though he thought the house would be wasted on a simpleton like me. ‘You are the sole beneficiary.’

I had never really known whether my great aunt had received my letters or not. Now I had my answer and it came in the form, not of a letter, but a house bequeathed to me in her will. At the age of twenty-four, single and unemployed, all at once I owned a house in a village I had never heard of, somewhere in Wiltshire. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

‘The property is yours to dispose of as you wish,’ he told me calmly, as though acquiring a house completely out of the blue was an everyday occurrence. ‘There is one condition,’ he added in his unemotional drawl. ‘Your great aunt has stipulated that you take care of any pet she might own at the time of her death.’

I couldn’t remember her owning a pet, and hesitated. ‘What happens if I don’t want to look after her pet?’

‘Then the house is left to another relative, providing he or she is willing to care for your great aunt’s pet.’

‘What kind of a pet is it?’

‘The will does not specify. All I can tell you is the terms of the will.’

To be given a house was an almost unbelievable stroke of good fortune, but my aunt’s pet could be a problem, and I needed to find out more before committing myself. It was important to be clear about my position before sharing the news with anyone, especially my mother who was bound to be strident in her views about what I should do. Feeling awkward, I explained that I would like time to think it over, and Mr Williamson nodded.

‘Take as long as you need,’ he said.

I left, promising to return in an hour. Resolved to say nothing about my inheritance, I phoned my mother as soon as I could. It would have been difficult to hold a conversation with traffic roaring past, but I found a quiet alleyway and made the call from there. To my relief, she answered straight away.

‘What are you talking about?’ my mother demanded when I put my question to her. ‘Why on earth would you want to know? I’ve no idea if my Aunt Lorna had a pet, and I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would be interested in anything to do with her, especially after all this time. I haven’t heard from her for at least twenty years. What’s going on, Emily?’

With some difficulty, I did my best to jog her memory, telling her that I recalled my great aunt had owned a dangerous pet, like a rat or a snake, or even a tarantula. That was a lie. I had no such recollection.

‘A snake?’ my mother repeated, sounding even more bemused. ‘A tarantula? I think I would have remembered if she owned a tarantula.’ She laughed. ‘Really, Emily, I do wonder what you’re talking about sometimes. You and Ben haven’t been experimenting with drugs, have you?’

Feeling optimistic that my great aunt’s pet might be harmless, after all, I decided there was only one way to find out, and phoned Mr Williamson. The woman who took my call explained that Mr Williamson was with another client.

‘Can you tell him I’d like to go and see the house before I make up my mind?’

‘Mr Williamson has left the key at reception for you,’ she said, and she rang off.

Having collected the key to the house and booked a train ticket to Swindon, I prepared for an excursion that was hopefully going to change my life. Afraid of having to cope with yet another disappointment, I tried to keep my expectations in check as I set off, with a sleeping bag and a suitcase. It was time to view my property.

2

As the train approached Swindon, I struggled to control my excitement at the prospect of seeing my great aunt’s house, because it wasn’t my great aunt’s house any more, it was my house! I had held back from researching the village, because I wanted to see it for the first time as it was in the real world, not in an image someone else had posted online. Leaving the train at Swindon, I enquired where to catch a bus to my destination and, half an hour later, set off on the final stretch of my journey to the village of Ashton Mead. The bus meandered along twisting country lanes through gently undulating fields and picturesque hamlets. Having lived for so long in London, it was strange and wonderful to see fields and trees and gently rolling hills passing by the cloudy window of the bus. I did my best to take it all in, but was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the view.

The closer the bus drew to my destination, the more apprehensive I became, although there was no reason for me to worry. The lawyer had made it clear that having inherited a house of my own, I was under no obligation to accept the bequest. I knew it would be crazy to turn down the offer of a house, but there was still the mystery of Great Aunt Lorna’s pet. With any luck it would turn out to be a cat, old and lazy, and content to doze all day. That would suit me very well. A cat might be a poor substitute for Ben, but at least it wouldn’t break my heart, and it might be agreeable company. By the time I arrived at my destination, my doubts had been swept away by a surge of optimism and I couldn’t wait to see my new home.

It was a bright morning in early April, the sky blue with a scattering of white clouds, when I stepped down from the bus in Ashton Mead. My first view of the district where my great aunt had lived was encouraging. The village was a collection of quaint cottages, clustered around a brick-built bridge across a narrow river. As yet, I had no idea which of the houses belonged to me, but I was in no hurry to find out. According to my phone app, the entire village consisted of no more than half a dozen streets that fanned out from the river. It would probably take less than an hour to explore the whole place on foot.

The contrast with the streets of London was stark. At midday on a Monday, the village appeared to be deserted. Removing my raincoat, I walked away from the bus stop down a street lined with shops. A sign in a grocery store window promised ‘Best Fresh Produce in Ashton Mead’, probably not a difficult boast to fulfil. Next to it was a tea shop decorated in bright yellow paint, with a yellow and white awning. Beyond that were a butcher’s red frontage, and then a fancy-looking hair salon. A pub stood on the corner, at a bend in the road. Large and square, its window boxes were packed with flowers that made a colourful display. The whole street looked cheerful and well maintained, like an illustration of a village in a children’s book, almost too picturesque to be real.

I made my way along to the pub and back down to the grocer’s, which was the only place that looked open. In the stuffy interior, shelves were packed with a miscellany of groceries: magazines, biscuits, bread and chocolate near the counter, with vegetables and all kinds of packets and cartons and tins further back. An assortment of toiletries and cleaning materials were stacked in the corner furthest from the entrance beside which a grey-haired woman in a grey cardigan was seated, the first person I had seen since my arrival in the village. A magazine lay open on the counter in front of her. She rustled the pages as I entered, and didn’t look up.

‘Hello,’ I greeted her.

The woman raised her head and scrutinised me through narrowed eyes, as though she suspected me of pilfering. I half expected her to challenge me to empty my pockets.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Can I help you? Are you looking for anything in particular?’

She peered at me over the top of her rimless glasses as she waited for a reply.

‘Actually, I’m not looking for anything,’ I said. ‘That is, I am, but not in here. I’m looking for a house, Rosecroft.’

‘Rosecroft?’ she repeated, with a slight shake of her tight grey curls. ‘That’s Lorna Lafferty’s cottage, but it’s empty now. The owner passed away. You’re not after buying Miss Lafferty’s place, are you?’

She looked at me with a calculating expression, weighing up my faded sweatshirt and worn jeans, my dishevelled hair, and the hint of panic in my eyes. There was no point in equivocating. If I decided to stay in the village, the local shopkeeper would learn the truth about me soon enough. If I took one look around my new house and decided to return to London straight away, then it hardly mattered what she thought of me and my unexpected windfall. As soon as she heard about my inheritance, the shopkeeper became very friendly, introducing herself as Maud and insisting on calling me by my first name. Shaking my hand across the counter, she told me how sorely my great aunt would be missed.

‘There’s the big supermarkets in Swindon, of course,’ she went on, once she had finished extolling my great aunt, ‘and we can’t pretend to compete with them on stock, but if there’s anything you need, anything at all, you only have to ask and we can get it in for you the next day. So you never need to leave the village unless you want to. Not for your shopping needs, anyway. We’re your local, and you’ll be surprised what you can find here. You won’t find better quality anywhere. It’s all fresh. And there’s nothing you might be in need of that we don’t supply.’ She gave a toothy smile. ‘We take good care of our local customers. Ask anyone in the village.’

‘Thank you. It all looks lovely,’ I replied. ‘I don’t need anything at the moment, but I’ll certainly be coming here when I do. Can you give me directions to Rosecroft, please?’

It was thrilling, asking the way to my own house. That’s what it was. My house. Following Maud’s directions, it took me less than ten minutes to find Rosecroft. I loved it at first sight, at least from the outside. It felt as though I was coming home. Like most of the buildings in Ashton Mead, Rosecroft was constructed of pale yellow bricks, with a steep sloping roof, and it had old-fashioned latticed windows. There was even a white picket fence, albeit in need of repair, and trailing around the front door a climbing plant was covered in buds. The path to the front door was bordered by rose bushes interspersed with other plants that might also flower. Making a mental note to find out whether they were actually weeds, I walked up to the front door with a sick fluttering in my stomach. This was it, my very own house, and it was more beautiful than I could have hoped. I loved it, and felt a pang of regret at having stopped writing to the old lady who had bequeathed me such a wonderful gift.

There was only one other house in the narrow lane where my great aunt had lived. On the other side of the lane, a gently sloping grassy plot led down towards the river. As I was rummaging in my bag for the key the lawyer had sent me, I had a curious feeling that someone was watching me. Looking round, I was just in time to see my next door neighbour’s front door close. It was natural that my sole neighbour would be curious to see who was moving in, and I was equally interested in them. So far I had caught no more than a fleeting glimpse of a figure. There would probably be an opportunity for us to meet, because I intended to stay in Ashton Mead, at least until the following day. My only concern was that I had yet to discover the truth about my great aunt’s pet. If it turned out to be an aggressive and uncontrollable dog, it might lose me my inheritance. My excitement tinged with trepidation, I turned the key and opened the door to my house.

Inside Rosecroft, I quickly discovered that the place wasn’t quite as welcoming as it had appeared from the street. A small hallway was lit only through a fanlight in the front door. When I flicked the light switch, nothing happened. Using the torch on my phone, I peered around, hoping the electricity hadn’t been turned off. The first door I saw led me to a front room, packed with heavy dark wooden furniture. Grimy windows let in very little daylight. The house had only been empty for a few months, but dirt appeared to have accumulated there for years. Evidently my aunt had not done much cleaning. Given her advanced age, that was understandable. Reluctant to touch anything, I explored the rest of the ground floor, feeling like a trespasser. There was a second reception room, slightly larger than the front room, and a square kitchen big enough for a wooden table and four chairs. The kitchen was not as filthy as the other rooms, and I suspected my aunt had spent most of her time in there. On a worktop next to the sink was a small fish tank. Relieved, I watched a solitary goldfish glide lazily up and down, shifting direction with an occasional flick of its tail. This was going to be even less trouble to care for than a cat.

‘Hello,’ I said, grinning. ‘What do you think about you and me living here together? We’re going to get along just fine, aren’t we?’

The fish flicked its tail and continued on its journey around the glass tank. I watched it for a moment, wondering if it realised how circumscribed its movements were, and whether my own life was really any different.

The back garden had gone to seed. Knee-high weeds flourished on what had once been a patio behind the house, and nettles and brambles had taken over at the far end. Between these two patches of wilderness was an overgrown area of long grass riddled with weeds. A faint breeze ruffled the tops of a row of tall poplars planted along the back fence, but where I was standing the air was still. It was very quiet, with a silence I had only heard in my home in London during the lockdowns. Along the right hand side of my property a high metal fence separated my garden from next door, and I wondered whether my neighbour kept some kind of livestock, or perhaps a large dog. The other fence belonged to me. Wooden, with a few panels missing, it was more in keeping with the house than my neighbour’s smart metallic fence. As I stood gazing around the garden, a cloud drifted in front of the sun and I shivered.

Going back indoors, I climbed a narrow staircase and found two rooms as neglected as most of the ground floor. Cobwebs thick with dust draped the windows and hung from the ceilings, and every surface was covered in a layer of dirt. Finding a pane that was less grimy than the rest, I peered next door but my view was partially obstructed by the high fence and it was impossible to see the whole of my neighbour’s garden. All I could see clearly was the top of a tree that towered above the high fence. Turning my attention to my own property, I realised that only one of the bedrooms was habitable. This must have been where great aunt Lorna had slept. It was terribly sad to think that she had died alone among strangers. Even her own niece had not known about her fatal accident.

In the kitchen, I was relieved to find the electric kettle worked. The hall light was probably just in need of a new bulb. Shrugging off my melancholy mood, brought on by thinking about my great aunt, and the overwhelming task of sorting out the house, I returned to Maud’s emporium. She was ensconced behind the counter, engrossed in a glossy magazine.

‘You’ve decided to stay, have you?’ she enquired, as she rung up the items in my basket. ‘I thought you might.’

I nodded, paying for my purchases.

‘I’d better give you these, then,’ she said, rummaging in the till and picking out a set of keys. ‘Unless you’d like me to keep your spare keys here?’

Unsure what to say, I stammered my thanks and watched as she returned the keys to her drawer. Seeing my surprised expression, she explained that she had been feeding the fish before I arrived.

‘But I don’t suppose you’ll be needing me to do that any longer, not now you’re here to take care of things.’ She smiled ingratiatingly at me. ‘If there’s anything else you need, you only have to ask.’

What I really needed was someone to help me clean my house, but I doubted that was the kind of help Maud was offering. I went back to Rosecroft with a little tub of fish food, tea bags, milk, bread, cheese, a few light bulbs and several boxes of matches for the gas hob and oven, and set about making myself a simple supper. Having eaten, I turned my attention to giving my notice on my flat in London. There was no one significant moment when I reached my decision, but at some point I had decided to stay in Ashton Mead. If it turned out to be a terrible mistake, I would have to look for another home, but Finsbury Park was too expensive for me anyway, even if I managed to find another job straight away. In the meantime, I had one month in which to return to London, pack up my few belongings, and return my keys. The momentous decision reached, I hesitated for only a moment before hitting the send button to my landlord. Having spread my sleeping bag on the bed, I lay down and closed my eyes. The mattress was comfortable, but I was too excited to sleep. After a while I gave up trying, googled how to look after goldfish, and started making plans for the future.

In my mind I revisited each of the rooms in the house. I had to keep reminding myself that these were my rooms in my house. In the morning, after unpacking the few possessions I had brought with me, I would go to the shop and buy a stack of cleaning materials. I was determined to make Rosecroft habitable and stay there, at least until I had worked out a plan. Once everything I now owned had been thoroughly washed and polished, swept and scrubbed, and the garden brought under control, it would be a beautiful cottage. Even if I didn’t decide to live there permanently, I could find a tenant, or sell it. But first I was going to stay there for a few months and make it presentable, inside and out. It was the least I could do to repay my great aunt for her generosity. Even though she would never know about my efforts, I owed it to her to look after her house, and the little fish that had meant so much to her she had refused to hand over her house to anyone who wasn’t prepared to look after it. Having researched the life expectancy of goldfish, I googled pet shops in the area, determined to buy a proper fish tank. Eventually, I dozed off, still thinking about my fish and wondering if she ever fell asleep while swimming round and round her bowl.

3

The following day, I set to work, starting in the kitchen. Hardly the most fastidious of people, even I baulked at what looked like mouse droppings tracing an erratic route across the red flagstones of the floor. In daylight which shone dimly through windows covered in a film of grime, cobwebs were visible, weighed down with dust. In a broom cupboard I came across an ancient feather duster which was more or less intact. Starting at the top, I did my best to remove the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. After a while my arms were aching and my hair was full of dust, but the ceiling was clear. I was desperate to wash my hair but I pressed on, wiping greasy worktops, scouring filthy corners, laboriously working my way down to the floor. By the time I turned up at the shop for a third round of cleaning materials, Maud was treating me like an old friend, and she even gave me a discount on some of my purchases.

‘You’re doing a lot of cleaning,’ she remarked as she handed me my bags. ‘Must be hungry work.’ Grinning, she popped a pork pie into my bag and refused to let me pay for it. Her kindness cheered me up more than she could have realised.

On my second evening, I ventured out and ate at The Plough, where I learned the corpulent landlord was called Cliff. He had a bald pate, smiling blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks. Tufts of ginger hair which stuck out above his large red ears combined with his bulbous nose to give him a slightly comical appearance. He chatted effortlessly as he served drinks without glancing at what he was pouring. Despite his apparent carelessness, I never saw him spill a drop. His assistant, Tess, was a stringy woman of indeterminate age, who seemed to be brimming over with nervous energy. As surly as Cliff was welcoming, she had a habitual scowl on her face. Initially worried I had inadvertently annoyed her, I soon realised she was crabby with everyone.

After a week, my arms were stiff from sweeping and scrubbing, and my nose felt as though it was stuffed with dust, but the house was beginning to look tolerably clean downstairs. By the end of two weeks I was able to relax my efforts, and start rifling through my great aunt’s belongings. It felt voyeuristic yet it was compelling, like working on an archaeological dig, or sifting through items in a charity shop, hoping to find some long lost treasure. There were dusty boxes of photos, some so old they were black and white or sepia. I recognised my grandmother in a few and toyed with the idea of keeping them for my mother, but in the end I discarded them all, afraid of raking up forgotten animosities.

Having fallen out with her aunt after my grandmother died, my mother had been far from pleased on hearing that Lorna had left Rosecroft to me in her will.

‘Why would she leave it to you?’ was her initial reaction on hearing my news.

‘Thanks for the congratulations,’ I muttered, too softly for her to hear.

Along with batches of photos, many of them in their original yellow Kodak folders, I came across a tattered black notebook in a drawer beside the bed. The cover of the book was unassuming, apart from the one word ‘Diary’ printed in gold lettering in the top right hand corner. My curiosity was instantly aroused. Resisting the temptation to start reading at once, I waited until I had undressed and was in bed, comfortably propped up against a few pillows. With a cup of cocoa gently steaming on the bedside table, I settled down to study the contents of the diary. It was disconcerting, reading the words of a dead woman I barely remembered.

After my anticipation, the diary proved a disappointment. If Lorna had any sensational secrets in her life, she had not recorded them in her diary, which was filled with shopping lists and jottings about wildlife. Nevertheless, I scanned through the pages, learning about my great aunt’s life in Ashton Mead. Some of her notes were repeated. She had written out a list of different garden birds which she ticked off, presumably when she saw them. A ‘big fox’ that lived in the vicinity was frequently recorded as crossing the lane or foraging in my great aunt’s garden. For some reason, the fox seemed to worry her unduly. Towards the end of her records she mentioned several times that it disturbed ‘P’, which was presumably a reference to one of the birds that regularly visited her garden.

Towards the end of the book, I came across a few other cryptic remarks which caught my attention. ‘No sign of S’, my great aunt had noted in her spidery handwriting. A few pages later, half hidden among shopping lists and other notes, there was another comment, ‘Still no sign of S’, and a little further on, ‘Worried about S.’ There followed several pages of shopping lists, until the mysterious S cropped up again in the last few pages: ‘Asked about S’ and ‘Can’t find out anything about S’. I wondered why ‘S’ had vanished without any explanation, and why my great aunt had been so worried. Perhaps this mysterious S was the reason she had never married. Speculating about the identity of S, I fell asleep.

After a fortnight spent cleaning and sorting out, I had finally swept away every cobweb, sprayed the ants that had taken up residence along one wall of the kitchen, and thrown out dozens of bin liners filled with my great aunt’s belongings: homemade grey and beige clothes that even a charity shop would struggle to sell, musty old books stained with mildew, and numerous china ornaments, many chipped or cracked and mostly hideous, relics of a solitary life. As far as I could tell none of them was worth anything, and I consigned all but a few to the bin. There was no place for useless clutter in my house. Mr Williamson had been in touch to confirm my acceptance of the terms of my great aunt’s will, and Rosecroft finally belonged to me. After all my efforts, I felt as though I had earned my residence there. It was time to take stock of my life and decide what to do next. I liked Ashton Mead and decided to stay put, at least for the time being.

I fell into the habit of wandering along to the pub for a leisurely pint in the evening. The bar was spacious, furnished with comfortable well-worn chairs of dark wood with maroon leather seats. The polished tables were stained with many rings, in spite of a generous supply of coasters. No large screen television dominated the place, and a single fruit machine was discreetly placed in a corner so as not to intrude on those wanting to have a quiet drink. It was a relaxing place to sit for an hour or two after supper, and I had nothing to hurry home for. Besides, I was getting to know a few of the regular locals. I wasn’t used to living on my own, and even an hour of sporadic and perfunctory chat was welcome company.

Apart from Cliff and Tess, there was an old man who never budged from his corner table in the pub. He was there every evening, although I never saw him arrive or depart. I guessed he was at least eighty. When I asked him, he replied that he was as old as his tongue and a little older than his teeth. He cackled as he threw his head back and opened his mouth to display his few remaining teeth. I never once saw him on his feet. Whatever time I arrived, he was there, sitting in a corner of the bar, wrapped in an old raincoat, hunched over a pint. From time to time, Tess or Cliff would take him a glass of beer, although I never saw him signal that he was ready for another pint, or part with any money.

With the initial phase of my cleaning finally completed, a cream tea at the Sunshine Tea Shoppe seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate. The café lived up to its name, as a splash of dazzling yellow in the High Street. Below the bright yellow awning, the exterior wall was painted pale primrose. Stepping across the threshold was like entering a giant daffodil. The floor was tiled in yellow and white, the walls were painted a pale lemon colour, and the tablecloths were yellow and white checked gingham. There was no one else around so when the waitress came bustling over, we fell into conversation. Hannah was tall and voluptuous, with curly blonde hair and a friendly open face above her bright yellow apron. She proved as easy to talk to as her welcoming smile promised. In all the excitement and activity of moving into my new home, I had scarcely thought about Ben, but now I found myself telling Hannah about my recent failed relationship.

‘That’s men for you,’ she replied with a cynical shrug.

It turned out Hannah owned the tea shop, and she told me how she had come to open it with the money she had acquired from a divorce settlement.

‘He was older than me, quite a lot older, and I never should’ve married him. It was a damn fool thing to do, but you don’t think, do you? Well, I didn’t. He seemed so kind and sensitive and warm and funny. They all do, I suppose, until the honeymoon period is over then – pouf! The magic’s gone and you see each other as you really are. Not that my ex was a bad guy. He was generous to a fault. But he just couldn’t keep his pants on. After his third fling, I’d had enough. That wasn’t my idea of a marriage, and I told him so. He wasn’t even surprised. He’d been through it all before, more than once. He tried to talk me into staying, but it was over. Anyway, if your experience was anything like mine, you’re better off without him. I’m sticking to the single life from now on. Much less bother. Still, my ex was loaded and I came out of it with enough money to open this place and be independent of the lot of them.’ She grinned. ‘It’s not exactly a goldmine, but it’s a good little earner in the summer months and we make enough the rest of the year to keep ticking over.’