‘I’ve had a look at the map,’ Marty said, ‘and I think I’ve come up with a good, fast route. Now, whose turn is it to pay for petrol?’ he asked, and watched in undisguised dismay as Magnus and Granville proceeded to find their respective cutlery and handkerchief worthy of prolonged examination.
After cross-questioning the landlord of The Swan as to the whereabouts of her car, Molly stormed back out into the car park.
‘If you hadn’t had so much wine, you might have remembered where you’d parked it!’ the surly landlord yelled after her. It wasn’t the reaction she’d expected from a Cotswold publican. She’d naively thought that the people in this part of the country would be as mellow as the Cotswold stone but they were far more brick-faced. Anyway, there was no doubt in Molly’s mind where she’d left it, and it wasn’t there now.
‘Well, it’s a good job I didn’t leave you in Old Faithful,’ Molly said, picking Fizz up and hugging his furry body to her. It was also lucky that she hadn’t left any money in it too. Two and a half grand was quite enough to lose in one go.
So what had been worth stealing? It was nothing more than an old banger with a boot full of gerbera. She had to laugh at that even if she had also lost most of her clothes. Being a woman, she’d packed virtually her entire wardrobe for the trip and would have to go out and replace it all. Still, even though she objected to spending money on herself, she’d try and make the experience a fun one.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes up to the blue skies above. There was no getting round it: she’d have to buy a replacement for Old Faithful too. She couldn’t continue her one-woman crusade of England on foot, that was for sure, especially with Peeping Tom and the Bailey bunch on her tail.
With a weary sigh, Molly walked back to the hotel to ring for a taxi. The girl on reception greeted her with a warm smile.
‘Me again,’ Molly said.
‘Decided to stay another night?’
Molly returned her smile but didn’t say what she really thought about her time spent in the village so far. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I was wondering if you could help me?’
‘Sure. What is it?’
‘I don’t suppose you know where the nearest Volkswagen showroom is?’
Carolyn was beginning to wish that she hadn’t been guided by the Bailey men and had such a hearty breakfast.
‘It’s all included in the price, so I’m having the works,’ Old Bailey had said earlier that morning, and Carolyn had followed his lead but, as Marty navigated the back roads into Wales at breakneck speed, Carolyn thought she was going to throw up right there in the car. They’d already stopped twice and she could see that the Bailey men were going to hold her personally responsible if they missed Molly, but she couldn’t help it; she felt dreadful.
‘Marty,’ she said in a low voice as he took a hairpin bend at thirty miles an hour.
‘What?’ he said, his voice a deep growl.
‘Can you please slow down?’
He took his eyes off the road for a second. ‘You OK?’
‘No!’
‘Carsick? You’ve never been carsick before.’
‘Well, I am now! So bloody slow down.’
Marty flinched at her expletive. ‘Caro!’
‘Slow down!’
Marty hit the brake and everybody jerked forward a foot.
‘What’s going on?’ Old Bailey yelled from the back. ‘Why have we stopped?’
‘We haven’t stopped. We’re just slowing down. Caro’s not feeling so good,’ Marty explained.
‘Wind a window down,’ Magnus said.
‘Have a rich tea biscuit,’ Old Bailey suggested, digging into a voluminous pocket and procuring a crumpled packet which he shoved under Carolyn’s nose.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, her nose wrinkling in disgust. They smelt of mothballs.
‘Not up the duff, are you?’ Old Bailey harrumphed.
Carolyn felt herself blushing and quickly glanced at Marty to see his reaction.
‘Granddad! For goodness’ sake! She’s just a little carsick, that’s all.’
‘’Cos once you start having kids, you won’t have a spare penny to rub together, I can tell you that for nothing,’ Old Bailey continued, undeterred. ‘They absorb all your money like a dry sponge. You can wave goodbye to holidays and fancy clothes.’
‘Yes, thank you, Granddad, but you’ve no worries on that count.’
‘So you’re not planning on making me a great-grandfather yet?’
Marty chuckled. ‘Haven’t we got enough to contend with at the moment?’
‘Your granddad’s right,’ Magnus chipped in. ‘The cost of living’s going up all the time. I wouldn’t like to bring up children in today’s society.’
‘Well, you don’t have to,’ Carolyn suddenly interrupted.
The car fell silent for a moment.
‘Feels as though I’m still bringing up my children with this behaviour of Molly’s,’ Magnus said, half to himself.
‘Nobody asked you to get involved,’ Carolyn said.
‘But we are involved,’ Old Bailey grunted. ‘Like it or not, when something goes awry, the whole family’s involved.’
Carolyn’s mouth dropped open. Had she heard him right? Had he completely forgotten about Cynthia? Old Bailey hadn’t exactly rallied around after she’d walked out on Magnus, had he? According to Molly there’d been ‘neither hugs nor tears’ between the two men. They’d wiped Cynthia out completely as if, by walking out on Magnus, she had erased her very existence.
Carolyn bit her lip in order to prevent her from rubbing Old Bailey up the wrong way again. Anyway, she had something more pressing on her mind. The whole world had gone woozy.
‘Marty,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Can you pull over, please? I think I’m going to be sick.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As the Bailey bunch crossed the border into Wales, Tom and Flora crossed back into England. Hot and annoyed, Tom didn’t dare think of the time and money he’d wasted listening to the so-called inside information of Carolyn Bailey’s. Wales had been a waste of time and he was now heading to the Cotswolds. He’d had a steady stream of email sightings of Molly and had left first thing that morning.
Flora, who seemed to be flagging with the constant upheaval, was sleeping beside him. He took a quick glance at her: lashes fluttering in deep dream time, rosy lips parted a fraction. Poor Flo, he thought. She should have been running round the garden in bare feet, or bucket and spading by the beach, not stuck in a hot car chasing a mad woman around the country. He smiled as he remembered what she’d said to him last night.
‘It’s all right, Daddy. At least I’ll have the best what I did in my holiday essay when I go back to school.’
But it wasn’t fair on her really, and he couldn’t help feeling guilty about it.
Flora stirred and a solitary grey eye peeped open.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
‘I have no idea,’ Tom said.
Flora opened both eyes and squinted, as if assessing whether it was worth her staying awake or not.
‘Can we check your email?’
‘Why?’
Flora shrugged. ‘Something to do.’
‘OK,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll pull into the next service area.’
Ten minutes later, they parked and set up the laptop. One, two, three, four…
‘Oh! Only eight today,’ Flora said sounding disappointed.
‘Still, not bad.’ Tom opened them and blushed.
‘What is it?’ Flora asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Let me see.’
‘Flo – they’re private.’
‘Are you still getting soppy messages?’
Tom frowned at his daughter. ‘Look, I’ve told you not to mention those again. It was very naughty of you to open those up last night. You shouldn’t read people’s private mail.’
‘Oh, Daddy! Don�
��t be so boring!’
Tom sighed. ‘If you must know – yes – most of them do seem to be from – bloody hell!’ Tom’s blush deepened until his whole face was robin-breast red.
‘What is it?’ Flora’s head popped round the laptop’s screen.
‘Don’t look!’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m deleting it. It’s obscene!’
‘What’s obscene mean?’
‘It means you’re not allowed to read it.’
‘Can’t you read any out to me?’
‘Not yet,’ Tom said, skimming through another two. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said at last.
‘What is it?’
Tom’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘If this lead is true, I think we might just have landed ourselves a front page.’
‘Really?’
Tom nodded and pulled his mobile phone out.
‘Who are you ringing?’
Tom shushed her with a finger held to his lips. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Is that Declan O’Hara? I’ve just received your email. You say you’ve got a story for me?’
Molly sat at the wheel of her brand new Volkswagen Beetle, a huge grin plastered across her face. This was a dream of a car; a metallic symphony; ecstasy with an engine and, being a shade or two darker than dear Old Faithful, it looked like an enormous smile on wheels. Molly couldn’t stop grinning. It was beautiful, it was brand new and it was all hers. She’d never owned anything so new or so expensive before and the novelty of it made her body charge with excitement. She’d spent the whole morning spending money and her new, as yet nameless car was chock-full of clothes. She’d also bought a floral-festooned dog basket, two pink and silver dog bowls and all sorts of other doggie things including a very smart dog seat belt, which Fizz was wearing now. In her excitement, Molly had forgotten to buy a suitcase so the clothes were stacked in the boot and on the back seat in their shiny shopping bags.
She’d then test-driven the Beetle round the country lanes. Fizz had never had so many walks in his life as Molly insisted on parking and getting out to take photos with her new camera. She had a photo of her car in virtually every village of the Cotswolds.
Now, it was a beautiful evening, the sunshine singing through the trees, creamy clouds lacing the sky and birdsong threading through the hedgerows. There was only one thing worrying her as the day wore on: No vacancies. No vacancies. No vacancies.
Molly drove on, wondering if she and Fizz were going to have to make do with the back seat of the car, but the hand of fate pushed her on round the next corner and she slowed down as she spied a sign on a honey-coloured gatepost, half hidden by thick ivy.
She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. The board with the handwritten ‘B & B’ didn’t exactly look official but she was tired so, trying hard not to think about Janet Leigh pulling off the highway in Psycho, she turned into a long driveway.
The last rays of the day’s sunshine were being sucked into a navy sky but there was still enough light to see Chartlebury Court. Molly wasn’t very good with her architectural history but this place was definitely old. Tudor? Elizabethan? Jacobean? She had no idea. Four storeys high, in the fantastic honeyed stone of the Cotswolds, it filled her eyes with wonder. Huge mullioned windows winked darkly in the low light of sunset, and the castellated turrets of the towers at either end of the house gave it the sort of grandeur that made Molly want to salute it.
Parking her car and leaving Fizz on the passenger seat, she went in search of the front door. It didn’t take her long to find. It was about the size of the front of Molly’s florist’s and there was another handwritten sign in poster paint which read Please knock very loudly. Molly bunched her fingers up into a fist and banged on the door. It didn’t sound very loud to her; not like the echoey bangs in films when unsuspecting victims knock on castle doors before being consumed by a posse of sexy vampires.
Molly took a few paces back and looked up at the windows for signs of life, but there weren’t any. She wondered whether to knock again but didn’t think her fist was up to it, so hastened back to her car and gave her new horn a quick pip. Fizz looked up at her expectantly and Molly shook her head.
‘I think we’re going to have to find somewhere else,’ she said, getting back into the car. She was just putting it into reverse when she saw a tiny woman in her rear-view mirror.
‘Hello,’ Molly began, getting out of the car again and beaming a smile. ‘I’m looking for the bed and breakfast.’
The old woman, dressed from head to toe in maroon wool, with multicoloured beads clasping her throat, narrowed her eyes by way of response.
‘Bed and breakfast?’ the old lady croaked.
‘Yes. There’s a sign on the gatepost.’ Molly pointed.
‘Oh, God, yes,’ the old lady said. ‘It’s such a long time since anybody actually drove by, I’d forgotten it was there. How did you find this place?’
Molly shrugged. ‘By accident, really.’
‘See.’ The old lady held her gaze. ‘Nobody comes here but by accident.’
‘But you do run a bed and breakfast? I can stay here?’
At last, the old lady smiled. ‘Of course you can. Follow me. And bring your dog with you.’
Molly grinned. So she’d spied Fizz.
With a shopping bag in one hand, and Fizz on a lead in the other, she followed the old lady back towards the house and in through the door on which she’d almost cracked her knuckles.
‘I know,’ the old woman said, as if reading Molly’s thoughts, ‘I should get a bell.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ Molly said without thinking how rude it sounded. ‘Sorry,’ she added quickly.
‘It’s all right,’ the woman sighed, closing the heavy oak door behind them and watching Molly’s eyes double in size as she took in the entrance hall. ‘It’s money. Always money.’
Molly nodded.
‘By the way, it’s sixty-five pounds a night.’
Molly nodded again.
‘There are three rooms,’ the old lady said, leading Molly up a wooden staircase. ‘You can have the one that’s least damp.’
Molly suppressed a giggle and tried to concentrate on her surroundings. It was the most unusual bed and breakfast she’d ever seen. There was so much wood that she felt as if she’d walked straight into the heart of a tree.
‘Up this way,’ the old lady said as the staircase split in two.
Molly followed, gazing open-mouthed at the portraits that lined the walls, pale faces staring out of dark backgrounds.
‘Are these your ancestors?’
The old lady nodded. ‘Been glaring down at me for seventy-two years.’
‘You’ve lived here all your life?’
‘No other home.’
‘Who else lives here?’
‘Just me.’
Molly stopped and stared at her. ‘You live here alone? But it’s so huge!’
‘It might be huge but it’s still home.’
Molly gave a long, low whistle. ‘I only have two rooms at home.’
‘Think yourself lucky.’
‘Oh, I do. But it would be nice to have a little more space sometimes.’
‘Try living with twelve bedrooms for a few years. You’ll soon yearn for your old life.’
‘But it’s so beautiful,’ Molly sighed, her head trying to turn in every direction at once.
‘Oh, yes.’ She stopped at the top of the stairs and stuck her bottom lip out in thought. ‘It’s lovely all right but it’s bloody expensive.’
Molly smiled. She hadn’t quite expected such colourful language from a woman in wool and beads.
‘I’m not really the owner, you see. It’s mine in as much as I can live here but I can’t do anything with it other than try to keep it intact. I’m no more than a curator, really.’
Molly’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
‘Those heritage people have been badgering me for years to sell it to them and, much as I’d like to pass on the responsibility, the
y’re not getting their thieving hands on it. Not in my lifetime.’
‘You could always open it up to the public, couldn’t you?’ Molly suggested.
The old lady shook her head and tutted. ‘I refuse to live in a single room and watch coachloads of tourists wandering around picking plaster off the walls and sneaking cuttings into their handbags.’
Molly nodded. It was obvious that the old lady had spent a great deal of thought on the subject already.
‘Here we are – your room. Best room in the house. It overlooks the courtyard garden. It could be pretty if I could afford a gardener but it’s all gone to ruin now.’
Molly walked into the room and straight over to the window. The sun had dipped low behind a row of trees and the courtyard was full of shadows.
‘It looks quite magical,’ Molly said. ‘And it’s such a beautiful room,’ she added, nodding towards the grandiose four-poster and the forest of dark wood furniture.
‘Hope you’re not scared of ghosts.’
‘Oh? Are there any?’ Molly’s eyebrows raised in momentary excitement.
‘No,’ the lady smiled, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I don’t think so. There have been stories down the decades, much the same as any house of this age: headless horsemen, grey ladies, clanking armour – all that nonsense.’
‘But there aren’t any really?’ Molly asked, sounding somewhat disappointed.
‘No. But I have heard tell of a maroon lady who frequents the landing at night.’
Molly’s eyes widened.
‘But you mustn’t worry. It’ll just be me getting up for a glass of whisky.’
Molly grinned. ‘I’ll try and remember.’
The old lady nodded. ‘If you want to go out, use the door from the kitchen at the back of the house. There’s a key under the spider plant. Come and go as you will but don’t leave the door unlocked.’
‘OK. Thank you,’ Molly said, and watched as the old lady wandered back into the hallway.
‘By the way,’ she said, her hand stroking the multicoloured choker. ‘My name’s Eleanora. Don’t ask me why. Just call me Ellie.’ Her eyes sparkled and Molly smiled.
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