by Amanda Wills
Nethercote's tall chimneys cast shadows at her feet as Poppy pushed her bike up the drive. It was late afternoon and the sun burned orange in the sky. She'd told Caroline she was cycling to Scarlett's, but instead she'd turned in the opposite direction and had followed the narrow lanes to the horse rescue sanctuary.
Poppy walked past the ivy-clad farmhouse to the stables. The yard was quiet save for the reassuringly familiar sound of horses chomping their suppers, and they lifted their heads to watch her from their stable doors as she passed.
There was no sign of Jodie.
Poppy rang the bell outside the feed room but it failed to summon the older girl. Poppy dithered, not wanting to knock on the door of the house. She sidled over to Biscuit's stable and stroked the appaloosa's spotted face.
‘Where's Jodie?’ she asked the rescue pony. ‘I need to talk to her.’
‘I'm here.’
Poppy spun around. Jodie was behind her, a water bucket in each hand.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
Poppy didn't know where to start. ‘It's a long story. Is there somewhere we can sit down?’
‘Sure. Follow me.’ Jodie set the buckets down, splashing water over her boots. She led Poppy through the feed room to a tack room beyond. One wall was lined with saddle racks. Bridles hung from hooks on another. The only light came from a tiny, grimy window on the back wall. The old stone walls had leached any warmth from the room. Poppy shivered.
Jodie flicked a switch. A strip light flickered and died. ‘Bloody light. Yet another thing that needs fixing.’ She waved Poppy to a shabby tub chair in front of an ancient electric fire. ‘What's up? It's not Red, is it?’
‘Red's fine. He seems to have settled in and Scarlett's still treating him like royalty. We hacked out yesterday and he was as good as gold. Nothing to worry about there.’ Poppy realised she was gabbling.
Jodie raised her eyebrows. ‘So what's the problem?’
‘You and Caitlyn were best friends, weren't you?’
Jodie fiddled with a loose strand of cotton on the arm of her chair. Her fingers were trembling. ‘Did Tory tell you?’
‘I haven't seen Tory for ages. I found an old newspaper clipping. You competed in the South Devon Open Showjumping Competition together. You won it.’
‘And Caitlyn was second. Boy was she sore about that.’
‘Why didn't you say anything when you recognised Cloud at the fete?’
‘Seeing him brought it all back. I've spent the last seven years trying to forget what happened,’ said Jodie.
‘I'm sorry.’
‘Why should you be? It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was one of those things. He's a lovely pony. I'm glad he's found a good home.’
‘Do you still have Nero?’ Poppy asked.
Jodie's features darkened. ‘He went when Dad went...away. If that's it I'd better get on. There are a hundred and one things I should be doing.’
‘There was something else,’ Poppy said. ‘It's about Witch Cottage.’
Jodie was still for a second, then shrugged. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘The old cottage on the moor towards Princetown that's supposed to be haunted. Where the wild swimmer drowned.’
Jodie shook her head. ‘Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.’
‘But you do!’ Poppy cried. ‘I know you and Cait used to hang out there. I found her diary and your trophy under the floorboards. Exactly where you'd left them.’ Poppy took Jodie's silence as an invitation to continue. ‘I've found something else in the cottage. Something that shouldn't be there. And I don't know what to do.’
‘What have you found?’ Jodie asked sharply.
The palms of Poppy's hands felt sticky. She wiped them on her jodhpurs. ‘Mobile phones. Dozens of them. All brand new. They're hidden under a tarpaulin in the attic.’
‘What's that got to do with me?’
‘I don't know what to do about them,’ said Poppy.
‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘Only Scarlett. She says I should call the police.’
Jodie wound the cotton around her index finger and gave it a sharp tug. The thread snapped. She met Poppy's eyes. ‘And will you?’
‘Will I what?’
‘Call the police?’
‘I don't know. That's why I wanted to talk to you.’
‘I'm all ears,’ said Jodie, flicking the cotton onto the floor.
‘I think the phones are the ones that were stolen from the warehouse in Plymouth. There was a story about it in this week's Herald.’
Jodie stared at the tack room's pitted ceiling. ‘So what if they were? I still don't get what this has got to do with me.’
‘You know what I'm talking about,’ said Poppy.
Jodie stiffened. ‘What did you say?’
‘I don't mean you know about the phones. You know about the cottage. I wanted to talk it through with someone who understood.’
Jodie exhaled slowly. ‘I understand alright.’
‘So you'll help?’ Poppy felt giddy with relief.
Jodie jumped to her feet and grabbed the Land Rover keys from a hook by the door. Her mouth had tightened into a hard, thin line. ‘I think you'd better show me.’
Jodie was silent as the Land Rover bumped along the stony track towards the cottage. Poppy stared out of the window. There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask. Top of the list was why Jodie was claiming to have never heard of the cottage when she and Cait had practically spent their last summer together there. But one glance at Jodie's granite-like profile was enough to make her bite her tongue.
They rounded a bend and the cottage came into view. From this distance you couldn't see the hole in the roof and the rotting windows. Poppy imagined smoke curling from the chimney and a white-haired man with stooped shoulders tending a vegetable patch, watched by an elderly border collie.
Jodie pulled in alongside the tarn, braking so sharply that Poppy's seatbelt bit into her shoulder. The older girl sat for a while, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Somewhere in the Land Rover a mobile phone pinged with a new text message, but Jodie continued staring blankly ahead. Poppy found her stillness unnerving. Surreptitiously she felt her back pocket for her own mobile. It wasn't there. She'd meant to pick it up from the worktop in the kitchen where she'd left it charging but had been in such a hurry to leave that she'd clean forgotten.
When Jodie turned to face Poppy, her face was expressionless. ‘Let's go.’
‘The mobiles are in the attic. I can show you, if you like. There are a couple of wooden boxes you can stand on so you're high enough to see. There's a hole in the roof but there's a tarpaulin over them to keep them dry. Whoever hid them here planned it properly,’ Poppy said, climbing the stairs. She knew she was babbling again but she couldn't help herself.
‘Oh, it was planned alright,’ Jodie said, following Poppy into the biggest bedroom. She pointed to the two boxes. ‘Sit down.’
‘Don't you want me to show you where they are?’
Jodie shook her head. ‘Sit down,’ she repeated.
Poppy did as she was told. Jodie walked to the window. She glanced over her shoulder at Poppy. ‘I already know where they are.’
‘I don't understand.’
‘I know where they are because I put them there.’
Chapter Fourteen
Poppy gaped at Jodie. Sunlight streamed through the window but the older girl's profile was in shadow.
‘What do you mean, you put them there?’
‘I told you my dad deals in mobile phones.’
Poppy cast her mind back to the day they'd first visited Nethercote and Jodie had mentioned her dad ran an import business. But this was all wrong. Questions bubbled up inside her.
‘But why is he storing them in a tumbledown cottage in the middle of nowhere? Is it because they were stolen from the warehouse in Plymouth? Where exactly is your dad, Jodie?’
‘He's precisely two and
a half miles north of here, staying full board at Her Majesty's pleasure.’
‘What do you mean?’
Jodie gave an impatient shake of her head, as if she couldn't believe Poppy's naivety.
‘He's in the slammer. The clink. He's a guest of HMP Dartmoor. He's in prison, Poppy. My dad the convict is serving time.’
Poppy swallowed. ‘What did he do?’
‘He didn't kill anyone or anything like that. He fiddled the books at the building company he worked for.’
‘Fiddled the books? What do you mean?’
‘It's easy for finance directors to steal a little bit here and there without anyone noticing, apparently. Only he got greedy. And careless. The other directors were suspicious and called in the police. Dad was convicted five years ago.’
‘When you were still at school?’
Jodie laughed hollowly. ‘He was sent to prison a week before my GCSEs. I bombed the lot.’
‘I'm sorry.’
‘You keep apologising, don't you Poppy? Even when it's not your fault. You need to toughen up, kid. Else people will trample all over you.’
Poppy recoiled at the bitterness in Jodie's voice. ‘I'm... I mean, why did he do it?’
‘He set up the sanctuary with the money my grandparents left him when they died, figuring that he'd be able to raise enough money to pay for the running costs. Of course he couldn't. Any idiot could have told him that. But then Dad's a dreamer, always has been.’
‘So he used the money he'd stolen to pay for the horses?’ Poppy said.
Jodie nodded. ‘He wanted me to follow my dream, too, so he bought Nero and a top-of-the range horsebox so we could compete all over the South West. Mum turned a blind eye to his thieving and I never knew until the morning the police turned up at the house and arrested him.’
‘What happened to Nero?’
‘The police took everything of value because they said it was proceeds of crime, including Nero. I'll never forgive Dad for that.’
‘So you had to give it all up?’
‘He left me with twenty four rescue horses to look after. I couldn't ride professionally any more.’
‘But you've managed to keep Nethercote going while he's been in prison,’ Poppy said.
‘Only just. And now the money's all gone.’ Jodie stared out of the window. The silence in the tiny attic bedroom was stifling. Suddenly everything fell into place. The mysterious text message on Jodie's phone. Her dad's import business. The hidden mobiles. The towering granite walls of Dartmoor prison just a couple of miles away.
‘You're going to try to smuggle those phones into the prison,’ Poppy whispered.
Jodie balled her hands into fists and Poppy felt her stomach clench. But the older girl didn't move.
‘It was his idea. He can sell a mobile phone for a flippin' fortune inside.’
‘But how are you planning to -’
‘Get them in? The wing Dad's in is nearest the perimeter wall. Two cells have windows looking out onto the moor. One on the fourth floor and the other directly above it. Dad's cell.’
Jodie left the window and sat on the box next to Poppy.
‘The prison's a listed building so his window hasn't got a grating over it. He's spent the last couple of days making a rope from bedding and is going to lower it out of the window and over the wall. I'll be at the bottom, waiting.’ She smiled mirthlessly. ‘I'll tie the bag of phones to his rope and he'll haul them up. We'll make enough money in one night to keep the horses fed for a year.’
‘Did you steal the phones from the warehouse?’ Poppy asked.
Jodie bristled. ‘I am not a thief. Not like him. He organised it all. I just met the men when they delivered the phones and hid them in the attic.’
Without thinking Poppy said, ‘We didn't see you.’
Jodie looked at her in astonishment. ‘What?’
Poppy glanced out of the window towards the conifers. ‘Charlie and I were watching from the trees.’
‘What the hell were you doing here?’
Poppy rubbed her hand across her forehead. It was all too much to take in. ‘Charlie wanted to see if the place was really haunted. We rode over on Cloud,’ she muttered.
‘What if they'd seen you? Those men aren't the kind of people to mess with,’ Jodie said roughly.
Poppy had been through a whole gamut of emotions in the last half an hour. Shock. Anxiety. Fear. Incredulity. Suddenly anger superseded it all. ‘What if we'd been seen? What about you? If you get caught you'll go to jail! Who'll look after the rescue horses then?’ she cried.
‘Don't you understand? I have to do this. I have no choice.’
Poppy shook her head in disbelief. ‘So why've you told me all this?’
Jodie stood up and stalked over to the window again. ‘I couldn't tell you at home because if my mum even gets a whiff that someone is onto us she'll go straight to the prison governor and incriminate Dad. She's already terrified I'll get caught. I couldn't risk you going to the police and reporting the phones. I had to stop you.’
‘Of course I've got to tell the police! Have you gone crazy?’
Jodie feigned surprise. ‘Well, well. Mild-mannered, quiet little Poppy actually has a backbone. Who'd have thought it?’
It was Poppy's turn to bristle. ‘I'm phoning them as soon as I get home.’
Jodie's lips thinned again. ‘You can't. I'll be sent to jail and you're right, there is no-one else to look after the horses. They'll have to be put down and it'll be your fault. Percy, Mr Darcy. Even Biscuit. Can you live with that on your conscience?’
Jodie was bluffing, Poppy was sure of it. ‘Nethercote isn't the only horse rescue centre in Devon. There are dozens of them! Someone else will take them in.’
‘Are you willing to risk it? Anyway, you're implicated now. You lifted the tarpaulin to have a look at the phones, right?’
Poppy nodded, unsure where this was heading.
‘Your prints will be all over it. All over the cottage, in fact. I'll tell the police I recruited you and your brother to act as scouts.’
Poppy felt the blood drain from her face. ‘You wouldn't!’
‘Needs must,’ Jodie said grimly. ‘It'll be your word against mine. And let me warn you, I'm a very good liar. I'll take you down with me, for the sake of the horses. For the sake of Nethercote.’
Chapter Fifteen
Poppy slumped onto the box again, her head in her hands. What if Jodie was telling the truth, that she really was prepared to incriminate her? She couldn't believe the police would actually think she'd been involved, but you read about miscarriages of justice in the papers all the time. And if they heard that the son and daughter of a BBC war correspondent had been questioned about a prison smuggling ring the tabloids would have a field day. Her dad would probably lose his job and they'd have to move. Suddenly she was struck by a thought so terrible it pierced her heart. Without Riverdale she'd have to sell Cloud and Chester. That's if she wasn't already doing time in a Young Offender's Institute.
‘It's not nice, being forced into something you don't want to do because you have no choice, is it?’ said Jodie. ‘Now you know how I feel. I don't want to break the law, but Dad gave me no alternative.’
‘When are you doing it?’ Poppy asked dully.
‘Tonight at eleven. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.’
‘He'll make you do it again, you know that, don't you?’
For the first time Poppy saw a flicker of doubt cross Jodie's face. The older girl shook her head.
‘I've told him it's a one-off.’
‘And you believe him, do you?’
Jodie gave an imperceptible nod.
‘He probably even believes it himself,’ Poppy said. ‘When he decided to steal money from his company he probably told himself it would be the first and last time. But people get greedy. You said it yourself.’
Jodie exhaled loudly and stalked out of the room. ‘It's happening tonight. End of.’
They drove back to Nethercote in silence. As Jodie pulled into the drive Poppy made a last ditch attempt to change her mind.
‘There must be other ways to raise the money. Scarlett and I will help you.’
Jodie gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Two gormless thirteen-year-olds? I don't think so. It costs thousands of pounds a year to run this place. Where are you going to find that kind of money? In your piggy banks? Down the back of the sofa? I promise you, this is the only way.’
‘At least let us try.’
Jodie grabbed her arm. ‘Haven't you been listening to anything I've said?’ Her voice was thick with menace. Or was it unshed tears? Poppy couldn't be sure.
A door slammed. ‘There you are! I made bacon butties for tea but you'd disappeared,’ said Jodie's mum, appearing from the house.
Jodie let go of Poppy's arm, leaving a red hand-shaped imprint.
‘I had a call about a mare that had been left tethered to a tree on the Tavistock road without food or water. Poppy and I drove over to have a look but we couldn't find her, could we, Poppy?’
Shocked at how smoothly Jodie had lied, Poppy said nothing.
Jodie's mum seemed oblivious to the undercurrents and smiled brightly. ‘Would you like a bacon butty, love? There's plenty to go around.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘No thanks. I've lost my appetite. Anyway, I need to get going. My stepmum will be wondering where I am.’
Poppy retrieved her bike but as she was about to pedal off, Jodie blocked her way.
‘I'm not doing this for me or my dad. I'm doing it for the horses. So please, please don't tell anyone. You'll ruin everything.’
Poppy rushed past, too appalled to reply. Unshed tears burned her throat and anxiety knotted her stomach. Jodie went to grab her handlebar but Poppy swerved out of the way. The bike almost lost traction on the gravel but Poppy stamped on the pedals and brought it back under control. Once on the main road she put her head down and cycled as fast as she could towards Riverdale, relishing the burning pain in her thigh muscles as she attacked each hill because it took her mind off everything else. She wished she could turn back the clock. She wished she'd never asked Jodie for advice, never found the mobile phones, never let Charlie talk her into going looking for his stupid ghosts. She longed for blissful ignorance. But deep in her heart she knew it was too late for that.