by Shaun Baines
“Oh, no. My wife has put on quite the spread,” Derek said. “My wife wants you in the kitchen.”
Holly actually wanted to cry. The embarrassment was killing her. She bit down a sob as her fury blazed.
Derek dragged his finger around the rim of his glass, creating a high pitched keen. “I don’t want you here, but my opinion counts for nothing. However, I insist on keeping my carpets clean.”
“That’s enough,” Holly said.
Callum hovered on the doorstep, his eyes flitting from Holly to Derek. Slowly, he heeled off his boots and kicked them to the ground.
Derek smirked. “No-one home to do your darning?”
Callum’s big toe jutted through a hole in the thin material of his socks. “Haven’t got around to doing it myself.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of women out there aching to do it for you.” Derek lifted the glass to his lips before realising it was empty. “I better leave you two alone then.”
His shoulder collided with Callum as he pushed past, weaving his way to the new shed.
Holly and Callum watched him fumble with the lock before he fell inside. Derek swore as he hit the floor and he kicked the door shut behind him.
“Through here,” Holly said, retreating down the hallway.
“What’s all this?” Callum asked as he followed her into the kitchen.
The room consisted of pale coloured cupboards and a stone floor. It was tired, but functional. The wooden counter ran around three-quarters of the room and one quarter was laden with food. Sausage rolls. Sandwiches. Salad in a Tupperware bowl.
Holly took the flowers from Callum and placed them in a vase. She uncorked a bottle of wine.
“I just wanted to make an effort,” she said.
“No, I mean that,” Callum said, pointing at the kitchen table buried under a pile of paper.
Holly leaned against a kitchen counter and folded her arms. “That’s what I found in our mystery man’s bag and I don’t think they’re his.”
Pulling a chair loose, Callum sat by the table.
“Would you like some wine?” Holly asked.
Callum selected a sheaf of curled paper and studied pencil drawings of the estate from various angles.
“That’s Angel’s Basin,” he said, tapping his finger on the first picture. “I recognise this other one, too. It’s nowhere. A boulder run down to Aker’s Bay. I heard rumours of wildcats living there a few years back, but other than that, it’s a blank bit of map.”
“Do you recognise anything else?” Holly asked.
“All of it.” Callum rubbed his temple. “There’s no connection other than they’re locations within the estate. What’s this?”
He held up a clipping from an American newspaper. Holly placed the wine bottle back on the kitchen counter and took the clipping from his hand.
“I’m not sure. The ink has run and it is difficult to read, but it’s an article about gun control in a rural town called Eureka. And there’s this.” Holly shook free a page from a tattered glossy magazine. “It’s a rich list. I can’t tell where it’s from. The page is damaged and water-stained, as if it’s been read in all sorts of weathers. All I know for certain is there are no journalists on there.”
She waited while Callum scanned the list comprising of industrialists, retail kings and tech giants. The poorest of them all had an estimated worth of two-hundred-and-nine million pounds.
“Aren’t many gamekeepers, either,” Callum said as he finished. “We appear to be the lowest of the low, especially in Derek’s eyes.”
A breath caught in Holly’s throat and she struggled to swallow. “My husband isn’t well.”
“Funny,” Callum said. “He looked drunk to me.”
Holly backed into the kitchen counter, disturbing a pile of cheese sandwiches. They tumbled to the floor and she hurried to gather them up.
Callum slipped from his chair to his knees, scooping cheese slices into his hands.
“This is a lot of food for two people,” he said.
“I went overboard,” Holly said, tossing dishevelled sandwiches into the kitchen bin. “Stupid, really. Who’s going to eat it all? Derek is on a liquid diet at the moment.”
“That liquid being wine?” Callum asked.
With the kitchen floor cleared, Holly stood and turned to the sink. She washed her hands, watching the water pour through her fingers.
“We never have guests here,” she said. “We used to entertain all the time in London. We’d have dinner parties and bloody cocktail parties, but not now. I know us two working together is a bit weird, but can’t it be normal? Can’t I feel okay for a bit?”
Callum climbed to his feet. She could sense him standing behind her, almost feel his breath on the back of her neck. It was wrong and she told herself she didn’t like it, but right now, it was all she had.
“You want normal?” Callum asked.
More than anything, Holly thought, turning to face him. Her eyes roamed to the kitchen table and the papers from the squatter’s bag.
Callum followed her gaze and smiled. “So let’s get back to why we’re here then.”
Returning to his seat, he picked up the rich list and waved it at her. “Why would Nancy keep this?”
“She was searching for the owner of Black Rock,” Holly said. “She was using this list to figure out who he was.”
“Did she find him?” Callum asked.
Holly ran a finger down the page, finding a section that hadn’t been touched. “Most of the names have been crossed out, but there are a few that haven’t. Perhaps she suspected them.”
Pouring herself some wine, Holly pinged her fingernail against the glass. Callum had purposely steered her back to work. He wasn’t always so intuitive, but his gamble had paid off and Holly raised her glass to him.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” she said.
Callum glanced at the hole in his sock. “Derek is lucky to have you.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Holly said. “I can be pretty sharp with him at times.”
“Well, he was lucky today. He made me look like a right idiot. If you hadn’t been there to protect him, he might have found himself in trouble.”
Although Callum was smiling, there was something about it that made Holly feel nervous. Now it was her turn to steer them back to work.
“I think Nancy found out who the owner was and that’s why she went missing,” she said.
“Doubtful. I mean, whoever the new owner is, it’s not a secret, is it? They’ll show up eventually and it’s not worth killing an old woman over.”
“We don’t know Nancy is dead,” Holly said.
“I’ve lived in Little Belton all my life. The last scandalous thing to happen was Mr MacFarlene cheating at last year’s Spring Fair. There was no way he grew that leek.” Callum drummed his fingers on the table. “One sister is missing. The other was assaulted. It has to be connected and I suspect its worse than we think.”
Holly sipped her wine. “We need to find the squatter. This is Nancy’s file. He took it from her so maybe he knows where she is.”
“Maybe he did something to her that he doesn’t want us to know about.” Callum pushed the papers around the table. “And how do we know these even belong to Nancy?”
Holly strode to the table and showed Callum a letter she’d found among the papers.
“The squatter took Nancy’s notes, doing God knows what to get them,” Holly said. “Find him and we find Nancy.”
Callum turned his eyes to the letter, but Holly was already halfway out of the door.
Chapter Seventeen
It had taken an hour’s drive to reach Crockfoot. Holly and Callum sat in silence while they corkscrewed through country lanes. Occasionally, Callum would brake to avoid a sheep or crumbling pothole. Otherwise, they kept to a steady, monotonous pace.
Holly stared out of the passenger window, supporting her chin in a hand. The scenery was a muddle of greens and browns.
This was big sky country, she thought. The landscape was a rugged sliver under a vast steel bell.
“I called the hospital,” Holly said, “to check on Regina’s condition.”
Callum fumbled with the clutch, his teeth grinding with the gears. “Whoever hit her, hit her hard.”
“She’s stable, but unresponsive. The doctor said, she’d have been a lot worse if the paramedics hadn’t arrived so quickly.”
“Which was pretty strange, if you think about it? You didn’t call the paramedics because you couldn’t get a signal. How come they happened to be passing at just the right moment?” Callum asked.
Holly was about to answer when she saw the sign for Crockfoot. The village was bigger than Little Belton. The high street was longer. The shops were more expensive. It started at the top of one hill, sinking into a trough before rising again on the other side. The road was a smile drawn in tarmac. There were art galleries, artisan craft makers and a music shop. There was even a vegan café; something Holly hadn’t seen since leaving London.
As Callum parked, he took in the high street through narrowed eyes.
“They think they’re so great because they’ve got a Starbucks,” he muttered.
He held onto the letter Holly had given him as they searched the high street for door numbers. Callum refused to acknowledge the designer clothes store or the restaurant boasting of a Michelin star.
Salting Building Surveyors was a single-storey building with a pitched roof and gutters blocked with weeds. The buildings on either side were three storeys high, dwarfing their companion in the middle. It looked like a hobbit hole set into a cliff. The shop window had yellowing blinds and a collection of dead flies on the sill.
A sun-bleached sign read – ‘Building a Better Future Tomorrow.’
“Why would Nancy be involved with a place like this?” Callum asked.
Inside was what Holly supposed was a reception area, but it looked more like a taxidermist’s shop. Stag heads, fox heads and badgers were mounted on wooden plaques on the wall. A stuffed stoat was posed on a branch, his head tilted as if sensing danger. A little too late, it seemed to Holly. She was drawn to a glass case on a counter where dead mice stood around a table playing poker.
Beside it was a picture of two men outside the same shop Holly and Callum had entered. They were shaking hands and grinning.
“Recognise anyone?” Callum asked.
And Holly did. One of the men was the person they were looking for.
She lifted her nose and sniffed the air, like the unfortunate stoat.
“Can you smell a barbeque?” she asked.
A second door creaked open and a head popped through the gap. It was a man in his late forties with round cheeks and a patch over one eye.
“Are you the two bods from The Crockfoot Mail?” he asked.
The floorboards groaned under Callum’s shifting weight.
“Little Belton Herald,” Holly said, stepping forward.
“Little Belters, eh? I can’t remember inviting you,” the man said. His single eye drank them in. “Well, I suppose you’ll do until the real journos turn up. After all, it affects you most of all. Come on through.”
The man disappeared and Holly and Callum followed, finding themselves in a walled garden filled with the scent of burning meat. This was less like a hobbit hole, thought Holly and more like Alice’s decent into Wonderland.
“Don’t act so cool,” the man said. “I was bowled over when we discovered this building had its own garden. Only one in the high street, mind. That’s why we never extended the shop. It gets the sun from 1.30pm to 2.00pm and you’re right on time. I’m Brian Salting and I’ll be your host.”
Drystone walls acted as a climbing frame for honeysuckle as it strained toward a chink of light. There were topiary bushes shaped into various animals, giving the impression the garden was a petting zoo. Flowers spilled over the lips of raised beds like tongues and the area was filled with the faint hum of insects.
“You did all this?” Holly asked.
Mr Salting stood by a smoking barbeque, poking the coals with a pair of tongs. “No, no. If I were to have green fingers, I’d go and see a doctor. No, this is the work of my brother, Arnold.”
“The man in the photograph on your desk?” Callum asked.
“The very same.”
“Will Arnold be joining us?” Holly asked.
Mr Salting may have been standing in his half-hour of sun, but his features clouded over. “This barbeque is about ready. What’ll you care for? Sausage or burger?”
They selected a burger each, admiring the black crust encasing the meat like a hard shell. Holly picked at the charred flakes to reveal a pinkness underneath. It was like every barbeque she’d ever been to. Holly scoured the garden for somewhere to stash it, silently apologising to a nearby Hosta when she slid the burger between its leaves.
Meanwhile, Callum had finished his and was accepting a second.
“This is quite the celebration, Mr Salting,” Holly said, producing her notebook and pen. “Can you tell our readers why?”
“Ah, Little Belton. You’re all about to become important,” Mr Salting said. “All the letters have been sent and the authorities have been alerted, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The residents of Crockfoot are well versed in Salting Brothers’ lore. I suspect the tom-tom drums have yet to reach the deserted plains of Little Belton so let me enlighten you.”
Holly cursed inwardly. There was a soliloquy coming and Mr Salting looked like his might be both lengthy and numbing. She saw Callum rolling his eyes. At least, they were in this together.
Mr Salting broadened his stance and placed a hand on his chest. “My brother and I are known for being a small company with a long reach. The sign says building surveyors, but we are also estate agents, land valuers and development entrepreneurs.” He paused to glance at Holly and her notebook. “You are writing this down, aren’t you?”
So far, Holly had drawn a horse’s arse, but decided she better comply. “Of course,” she said and began to scribble.
“Today is the culmination of three years hard work,” Mr Salting said. “Our customers are distinguished and wealthy. The Salting Brothers trade on their good name and their discretion, but today I can reveal we have completed Phase One of a development putting Northumberland on the map.”
“What exactly is this development?” Holly asked. “Is it yours?”
Mr Salting waved her away. “We were merely facilitators and the individual investor doesn’t wish his name to be made public until the folk at Little Belton have read their letters. What I can say is he is extremely wealthy and only wants the best for the little people.”
Holly cast her mind back to Nancy’s Rich List, feeling surer than ever that the investor’s name was on it. “This investor? He’s the new owner of Black Rock Manor, isn’t he? He owns the estate.”
Mr Salting smiled coquettishly. “I couldn’t say, but Little Belton will never be the same again. In a good way, of course.”
“What are these letters you’re talking about?” Callum looked a little green around the neck. Even for a man used to eating rabbit stew, Mr Salting’s raw burgers appeared to have been a step too far.
“Is it the same as this one?” Callum asked, producing Nancy’s letter from his coat pocket.
“No, my man,” said Mr Salting. “I don’t know what that is, but the letters for Little Belton will be dropped on them tomorrow.”
Callum approached Mr Salting, waving the paper in his hand. “This was found in your brother’s possession, but it’s addressed to Nancy Foxglove. Can you explain that?”
Mr Salting’s visible eye swivelled in its socket. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, young man.”
“The letter is threatening Nancy Foxglove with legal action,” Callum said. “You posted it to her a few weeks ago. We have the date mark and envelope to prove it.”
The hand dropped from Mr Salting’s chest and his lips clamped sh
ut, but he didn’t need to speak. Holly could see he recognised Nancy’s name. It was all over the letter they’d found in Arnold Salting’s bag and all over his brother’s face.
“Why were you threatening to take away her home?” Holly asked. “What was she to you?”
“You’re not here for the celebration, are you?” Mr Salting asked them, stepping in front of the barbeque. The smoke from the coals rose above his shoulders like dark wings.
Holly forgot about writing and held her pen like a sword, cutting a swathe through the smoke. “Nancy Foxglove is missing. Her sister is in hospital. We have a menacing letter from you and Arnold stole a file Nancy was keeping on your wealthy client.”
“Not to mention your brother was in the vicinity when Regina was attacked,” Callum said.
“Arnold is on a sabbatical.” Mr Salting’s puffed chest deflated and his single eye was wide and wary. “He would never hurt anyone or anything. He simply detests my hunting trophies in the reception area. He called me a monster because of it.”
“He assaulted a Little Belton shop owner,” Holly said.
“Do you have proof?” Mr Salting asked.
Callum batted away a cloud of barbeque smoke. “There’s something you’re not telling us, but I think you’re as worried about your brother as we are.”
Mr Salting’s eye went from Callum to Holly and he licked his dry lips. With a sigh, he reached to his patch and flipped it to his forehead.
“I’ve been telling everyone it’s conjunctivitis,” he said.
But it wasn’t. It was a black eye with swollen lids lined with a nasty cut.
“Arnold did that to you?” Holly asked. “Because of a stuffed stoat.”
“We were acting on behalf of our client,” Mr Salting said. “Ms Foxglove wrote several letters to us. Came to our offices a number of times. Always angry. Always accusing us of selling Northumberland to the highest bidder, but we weren’t.”
Mr Salting returned a trembling hand on his heart. This time he looked sincere. “My brother and I grew up here. Our parents grew up here, but this area isn’t what it used to be. Once the mine closed, the jobs went and the people went with them. Our project was about regeneration. About bringing people back into the area.”