by Shaun Baines
“There’ll be no point asking you where you’ve been,” he said, “so I’ll ask for the car keys instead.”
Holly handed them over. “Is there anything I can say?”
“Yes,” Derek said, “but it should have been said days ago.”
“I didn’t want this.”
“Who would?” Derek asked. Glancing at Callum, he let out a sigh. “I just want you to be happy.”
Holly’s bones ached. Her head spun. She wanted it to be over. Not the marriage. Looking at Derek now, she was reminded of the man she’d married. He appeared resolute, more contained than he’d been in a long time.
Holly’s parents had enjoyed a happy and successful marriage. Couldn’t she have the same? She could forgo the money and the status of success. She could endure the humiliating defeat by Arcadia Leisure.
But she needed something to cling to.
Holly and Derek had hit hard times and instead of pulling together, they’d shattered into separate pieces. The marriage hadn’t failed. They had failed as people.
She wanted the uncertainty to be gone, the doubts and the worries. If that burden could be released, fall like broken shackles from her feet, maybe their journey together wasn’t over yet. Maybe there was more.
Holly knew the decision wasn’t hers. It belonged to her husband.
“At least, I’ll get your man shed if you go,” Holly said, half-smiling.
Derek rolled up the sleeve of his coat, revealing cracked leather padding tied to his forearm.
“Not exactly,” he said, extending his arm into the shed. “It actually belongs to someone else.”
“What are you doing?” Holly asked.
“Shhh,” Derek whispered back. “You’ll scare her.”
There was a fluttering of feathers followed by a squawk.
“Well, I think she’s a she,” Derek said.
A bird hopped out of the shadows, launching into the air to alight on Derek’s wrist.
It had a regal yellow beak and regal yellow eyes, and its head rotated with disdain. The feathers were a dusty black, except for a tail which spread outwards like a white fan.
Derek’s arm strained under the bird’s weight and he lowered it to the T-shaped stand by the door.
“Where did you find her?” she asked.
“By the side of the road on the way to the village,” Derek said, doing up the buttons of his coat. “Looked like she’d been hit by a car. I’ve done the best I can, but she’ll need to be cared for until she’s fully recovered.”
Holly remembered all too well the night she’d collided with the bird. The thud and the rattling of the body as it rolled over the roof of her car. She’d had no idea what she’d done and by the morning, her thoughts had turned elsewhere. Holly was ashamed to say, she’d forgotten all about it.
“That’s what you were doing in there?” Holly asked. “In the shed?”
Derek untied the leather padding from his arm. “She put up a bit of a fight to begin with. She’s quite tame now, but you better use this glove until she gets used to you.”
The bird ruffled its feathers and stared down her golden beak at Holly.
“We were quite a team. Me and her,” Derek said.
A familiar sense of guilt washed over Holly. Even with two jobs, she’d taken on a missing person case. She’d filled her days running around the estate and interrogating its residents. Holly hadn’t meant to, but she’d done it with relish.
Anything to keep herself away from Derek.
It looked like he’d done the same.
“Is that what I think it is?” Callum asked, his jaw slackening.
Derek stiffened at his approach, but managed a shrug. “Don’t know what she is. Some sort of kestrel?”
“That’s no kestrel,” Callum said.
“Whatever. I forgot you were Dr Dolittle,” Derek said before turning to Holly. “She’ll probably stay a few more days. Her mate is close by. I think they’re keen to get back to their nest.”
“Her mate?” Callum asked.
Derek bristled, puffing out his chest. “Yes. Her mate. I’m not from around here. You’ve made that abundantly clear, so I don’t recognise all these bloody animals and plants, but I think she has a mate. Okay?”
“What is it, Callum?” Holly asked.
She watched as his slack mouth turned into a grin.
“That is a white-tailed eagle,” Callum said. “It’s an endangered species.”
Holly shuddered from the electricity shooting up her spine.
Callum wiped his brow and laughed. “We better get Arnold. A white-tailed eagle. I can’t believe it.”
He opened his arms for an embrace, beckoning Holly to join him.
Her heart raced, her fingertips tingled, but Holly took a step toward her husband.
“All this time,” she said, wrapping herself around Derek. “You had the answer all this time.”
“What are you talking about?” Derek asked, holding on tightly.
“You have to stay,” she said.
A shadow fell over Derek and he sagged. “I can’t. My brother is waiting for me. I have a job to go to.”
Holly released him, tripping over Derek’s suitcases as she backed off. She kept her feet, but her face blushed red.
“You saved us all,” she said. “You saved the village and our home.”
Derek stared at his shoes, his mouth clamped shut.
Holly’s days had been spent asking questions, of others and herself. She had reached the end and found what she’d been looking for. As with most things, it had been right under her nose. She’d saved the village, or rather Derek had and only one question remained.
Could Derek fix their marriage too?
Chapter Fifty-Two
Holly’s shoes squeaked on the hospital floor. The corridor heaved with trolleys and medical equipment. Nurses in blue scrubs scuttled from room to room. Voices called to one another and somewhere a radio was playing.
“I got a call,” Holly said. “Regina woke up yesterday and she stayed that way.”
Nancy’s dirty boots were silent on the floor. Her woollen clothes hung limply off a body which had spent too many weeks not looking after itself.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Nancy said, stopping by a vending machine. She fished in her pockets for money only to retrieve a handful of dried leaves.
“Do you want something to eat?” Holly asked.
Running her finger down the glass, Nancy studied the selection. “Not really, no.”
Regina was ten paces further along the corridor. The Foxglove sisters had never been apart for so long. They had lived each other’s lives. When Nancy disappeared, Regina had withered. This was their chance to be reunited.
“Why don’t you want to see your sister?” Holly asked.
“I do want to see her. Of course, I do, but you don’t know what it was like.” Nancy turned her back on the vending machine and watched the nurses buzzing about their work. “That house was like an oven. There was no air and every night was the same. We’d sit by the fire and watch it die. Wentworth had turned her caustic. I swear Regina could pickle onions just by looking at them.”
“You went to The Travelling Star.”
“And I practically had to carry her there and back,” Nancy said. “By the time our meal arrived, there was a cloud over both of us.”
The radio was switched off and Holly became aware of the sounds of the hospital, of the machines that worked to keep people alive.
“What’s this really about?” she asked.
Nancy picked soil from her many skirts. “Could you ask her, dear? Could you ask Regina if she wants to see me?”
“Why?” Holly asked.
“Because I feel like I’ve let her down.”
Looking into Nancy’s beleaguered eyes, it felt like the least Holly could do. Both sisters had suffered and Holly was in no place to judge a relationship spanning decades.
With a pat to Nancy’s shoulder, Holly left her consulting w
ith one of the nurses.
Regina’s room was filled with flowers, though the floor was dusted with fallen petals. The blinds had been drawn and Regina was tucked under a bundle of blankets, her head poking out of the top like the Grandma from Little Red Riding Hood.
“It’s good to see you,” Holly said. “How have you been?”
Regina searched the room with watery eyes. “Where is everyone? The nurses told me I had visitors while I was unconscious, but they haven’t been back since I woke.”
Her flowers were fading with no new bouquets to replace them. Little Belton was in tumult and there was work to be done. An eagle had landed, changing everything. Busy villagers were reconstructing their lives, but Holly suspected that wasn’t the only reason they had stopped visiting.
She thought of pickled onions and forced a smile.
“Nancy is here,” Holly said. “She’s waiting outside.”
Regina turned to the window with a snort. “Finished her silly rambling, has she?”
“She’d like to see you.”
“Who do you think put me in here?”
The room morphed out of focus and Holly reached for the bed to steady herself. “Nancy hit you?”
Regina drew herself through the blankets, resting her back on the headboard. She rearranged the covers to keep her thin body warm. “Black Rock Manor has brought me nothing but misery. First, it was that awful Charles Wentworth spinning me lies and then it was my own sister. After everything I’d done for her. Keeping her safe. Protecting her from the outside world. You’d think blood counted for something.”
With one hand still on the bedframe, Holly wiped the hair from her eyes. “Why would Nancy hurt you?”
“I went looking for her,” Regina said, her lip curling. “Oh, I knew where she’d be. Nancy pretended she was walking that goat all over the estate, but when she returned, she’d always talk about the old days, about the fair and the pageants at the manor. I knew she’d been walking down memory lane, leaving me far behind.”
“But you’ve been together for your whole lives.”
“I hadn’t visited that horrible place in years, but my feet remembered it like it was yesterday. Sure enough, Nancy was there, talking to some fancy man of hers.”
“Arnold Salting?” Holly asked.
“He ran off as soon as he saw me and Nancy was furious.” Regina tugged on a blanket, holding it to her chest. “We argued. Like we always argued.”
“And she hit you?”
Regina shook her head. “Nancy ran off and I tried to follow, but I tripped. My legs aren’t what they used to be. Apparently, I hit my head and my sister left me there to die. Luckily, an ambulance must have been passing and saw me. The next thing I remember is waking up in an empty room.”
Holly finally let go of the bed and stood straight. “An ambulance? Just passing by?”
“How else do you explain it?” Regina asked. “No one could have called for an ambulance out there. You can’t get a phone signal, dear.”
You can if you have a satellite phone, Holly thought. Nancy may have been furious, but she would never have left her sister to die. She must have seen Regina fall and called for help, perhaps even waiting in the shadows until it arrived.
It was one story Holly didn’t want to investigate. Whatever happened was a private affair between two sisters and a lifetime of history.
“I think you should talk to Nancy,” Holly said, moving to the door. “There are things you should say to each other.”
The sneer slipped from Regina’s face and she looked lost among her blankets.
“It’s too late,” she said.
Holly heard echoes of her relationship with Derek and she didn’t want that to happen to the Foxgloves. Holly slipped into the corridor, searching for Nancy, but she had disappeared. She recognised the nurse Nancy had been speaking to. He was a man in his twenties, juggling several clipboards in his arms.
“Excuse me,” she said. “You were talking to my friend earlier. An older woman wearing too many clothes. Do you know where she is?”
The nurse grappled with his clipboards, securing them to his body. “Ah, yes. Not sure where she is, but she said she wasn’t going home. You’re both Little Belters, right?”
Holly nodded. “That’s right,” she answered, her mouth drying. “Did she say why she wasn’t going home?”
“She said, it wasn’t too late,” the nurse said. “There were more adventures to be had.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
A month later, Holly and Callum were back at the manor, surrounded by the clink of glasses and the scent of champagne. Flames danced in the fireplace, sending surges of flickering warmth around the room. Holly was dressed in a shimmering gown she’d borrowed from Mrs Masterly while Callum wore his wax jacket and moleskin trousers, not understanding the necessity of changing clothes to suit the occasion.
Regina was huddled by the fire, a woollen cap tied around her head. Her face was aglow, not just from the heat, but from too much champagne. She smiled at anyone who strayed too close, including Mr MacFarlene, who was making a point of doing so.
The Winnows ransacked the buffet table. It was stocked with everything from lobster tails to sausage rolls. For every bite they placed in their mouths, another morsel was secreted about their persons. Holly suspected they would be on sale at their convenience store by tomorrow morning.
Old Jack sat in a corner, swaying to the music. Big Gregg regaled Arnold with the tale of how he lost his leg. Arnold wiped laughter tears from his eyes and pointed his crutch at his own damaged knee. The Reverend and Bryan were by the sound system, bickering over who might choose the next song. Thrash metal or the soundtrack to Fame.
Holly wasn’t looking forward to either. She nudged Callum with her elbow. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and sipped from his champagne flute, pulling a face. “I could brew better in an old boot.”
“You’ve seemed a bit off since we got here.”
“I said, I’m fine.”
Bryan wrestled the CD player from the Reverend’s grasp and the soundtrack began.
“For chuff’s sake,” Callum said, storming off to have a word with the DJ’s.
Holly twirled the stem of her glass flute between her fingers.
“I’m sorry your husband couldn’t make it,” Mrs Masterly said, sauntering over. “We have a lot to thank him for.”
Derek’s white-tailed eagle was currently in an animal sanctuary in Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Abandoning his efforts to find the Star flower, Arnold had alerted Natural England to the eagle’s presence. He had also informed the national press and media. Not to be outdone, Old Jack ran a four-page spread on the eagle’s discovery. Little Belton had become a hub for bird-watchers and global conservationists.
The village was busier than ever. Holly had it on good word that the Winnows were attempting to change their spray-painted reindeer into eagles to cash in on their new found status. Thanks to the Little Belton rumour mill, Holly knew the results were less than spectacular.
“We’re expecting them to release the eagle in the next two months,” Mrs Masterly said. “They’re hoping to establish a breeding colony.”
“We got there in the end,” Holly said.
“And without bending any laws,” Mrs Masterly said, raising her glass.
Holly met it with hers. “What about your husband?”
“On to his next project. I persuaded him to let me manage the estate in his absence. It will be hard work, but we have a lot to be proud of here. I’m afraid you haven’t got rid of me yet.”
“Is he still speaking to you?” Holly asked.
Mrs Masterly shrugged. “He doesn’t know what I was up to. How I was trying to undermine him. We girls should be allowed our secrets.”
Holly had told Derek about the mixed-up scheme to save the village. After talking for an hour, she eventually found the courage to speak about her feelings. How she felt about Derek, how she felt about Callum. The pain
in Derek’s eyes was a memory she was unlikely to forget. No matter which way their marriage was heading, it needed to be done.
Holly still believed in the truth.
“I can’t share this estate with my husband,” Mrs Masterly said, staring into her champagne, “but I hope you might with yours.”
“I did invite him, but – ”
The doors to the room opened and Derek strode inside, dressed in a black suit and no tie. All eyes were on him. He walked up to Holly, planting a tentative kiss on her cheek.
“I didn’t think I would make it in time,” he said. “I’ve been on the phone to the sanctuary and then I got lost.”
“And how is our white-tailed eagle?” Mrs Masterly asked. “I want to see her.”
Derek pulled on the waistband of his trousers. “They’ve named her Derek. Apparently, she’s a boy.”
“Trust you to get that wrong,” Holly said, linking her arm through his.
Callum appeared and stretched out his hand.
“Derek,” he said.
“Callum,” Derek replied with a brief shake of hands.
“I never thanked you for what you did,” Callum said.
“Happy to play my part. Even though I didn’t know I was playing it at the time.”
“This calls for a toast,” Mrs Masterly said, tapping a manicured fingernail on her glass.
“As some of you know,” she said. “I am the new owner of Black Rock Manor. We’ve been through some trials to get here and I trust you’ll keep the details of that to yourselves. And that includes the journalists among us.”
There was a ripple of laughter and Holly beamed at the smiling crowd.
“My husband promised you prosperity at the expense of our village. I’m offering a different richness, something we can pass on to our children should they decide to stay. I want this estate to be a mecca for nature lovers. Those who don’t need flashing lights and merchandise to celebrate where they are. Our theme park is already here, carved into the hills for us to enjoy.”
“What about jobs?” Big Gregg asked.
“I have enough money to support your pub until you get back on your feet,” Mrs Masterly said. “I’ve also been informed the Little Belton Herald has been bought from its current owner, who has decided to sell for the good of his health.”