Who had taken a jemmy to our garage? Someone, I assumed, that didn’t know that one thing Mazza had enjoyed at school was whatever they called metalwork these days. Though not friends – Mazza, it transpired, was a year or so younger than Burble – they rubbed along enough for Burble to have told him how casual we were about our outbuildings’ security. So Mazza had found a piece of metal and fashioned it into a backing plate for the edges of the garage doors. He’d also sneered at the padlock we’d hoped would guard our shed, sending me off to B&Q to upgrade it to something suitable for protecting the Tower of London. If, of course, we could remember the combination, which he insisted was not written down anywhere obvious or kept on my phone.
‘We only keep old spades and flowerpots in there,’ Theo had protested.
‘Look, Vic, double glazing this old, locks this weak, all you need to do is shove a spade under a door frame and Bob’s your uncle.’
‘Or in these enlightened times, your aunt,’ Theo had murmured, with a wry grin at me.
But we’d been glad of the boys’ activities when we saw the scars on the garage doors. And – bother having to wait for a faculty – I brought in a locksmith to improve as far as he could the security of the rectory itself. It was actually Theo’s idea. He’d counselled enough victims of crime to know that even if thieves didn’t get away with hundreds of pounds’ worth of loot, just having someone break into your home could leave you feeling violated.
‘I assume it won’t break your bank?’ he said.
‘I hope not. Though I could always sell a Monopoly money house,’ I said lightly. It would worry him to know that the little terrace house I’d first lived in in Primrose Hill, the very first property in my portfolio, would probably fetch over three million pounds. Its next-door neighbour had. It’s nonsense, the London property market. And getting crazier by the minute.
‘A green one or a red one?’
‘The red ones are hotels, darling. I’ll never make a capitalist out of you.’
Without explanation, three scraps of newspaper arrived on the back step. In the first were a dozen repellent-looking fungi, which might equally be mushrooms or toadstools; next came what looked like a cross between bulb leaves and spring onions and smelt strongly of garlic; and in the third were green things I simply didn’t recognize.
‘Very Shakespearean,’ Theo said, picking up the green things. ‘King Lear,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘The scene where Edgar pretends he’s on the cliffs of Dover, with samphire gatherers down below.’
I dimly remembered. ‘But what’s all this to do with us? Apart from nourishing our new worms?’
‘I fancy it’s the result of some forager’s activities.’
‘Foraging? Mazza said something about Burble foraging; is that just another term for scrumping?’
‘Not if by scrumping you mean stealing food from people’s private property. Foragers claim they only take food from public areas – woodland, verges, the seashore. Which could well be true of this – wild garlic: smell! – and the mushrooms, assuming that’s what they are. I might just check on the Internet before you put them in a risotto.’
I did. They were delicious. We lived to tell the tale.
Meanwhile, the bramble patch got smaller, Burble having apparently twigged at last that regular hours brought in regular money. He went quite pink with embarrassment when I thanked him for the food, and offered to pay for the vegetables.
‘Nah. Free to me, free to you.’
‘Your mum must be grateful for what you bring in.’ He’d never talked about his family, so I knew I was taking a risk.
His face closed completely. He was ready to walk away. In other words, I knew what I could do with my nosiness. I’d save asking about his dad till another day. Meanwhile, I had to make the first move: ‘Look, how about a bit of digging – it’d be a change from brambles.’
Apart from helping Burble, if indeed that was what I was doing, I made sure Mazza and I ran further each day. He had a real talent that someone should have spotted when he was younger. Soon I’d be able to get him on the hill circuit with the lovely views, not that I expected him to break into raptures and compose a sonnet even if, as the country greened up and even got a powdering of blossom, I was increasingly tempted to do.
The day he and Burble had to sign on at the Job Centre, both oozing resentment at what they clearly felt was a futile bureaucratic exercise, happened to be so temptingly bright and mild that, with Theo at some diocesan meeting, I allowed myself the luxury of a private run. I would do my complete circuit, even though the comparative lack of action over the last few days showed on my timing. Then I found something to slow me down even more. Yes, the view. But this time I wasn’t about to wax lyrical about the countryside’s delicate colours and the sweet scents and the fact that this time the birds were definitely singing. I was peering at the deep valley where I’d seen heavy plant – as in serious machinery – being used to clear what looked like mature trees. Now the same site was busy with workmen: what were they up to? Surely that nice bit of historic-looking woodland wasn’t about to become a building site? Apart from the fact that none of them sported regulation yellow hard hats, it looked very much like the activity I’d watched from thirty storeys up as builders squeezed another skyscraper on to a spot previously occupied by a perfectly usable but not sufficiently prestigious tower of office space. The higher you meant to go up, the further you had to go down – and bother the priceless Roman site you were destroying. But no one was going to build a Shard in Kent. No, my eyes – or my ignorance of agricultural buildings – were deceiving me. Surely. But the lack of hard hats was a shame – safety issues aside, they’d have looked like bright buttercups in the sunshine, an image I thought Burble would like.
I pushed myself reasonably hard down the hill and didn’t drop my speed to a jog, as I usually did, as I hit the village. I was too keen to get to my computer to see if I could discover what was going on.
Zero information.
Clearly I needed to tap into a local grapevine, or bring my ear nearer the jungle drums.
So when Elaine, the Lizzie Siddal lookalike from the WI, phoned to ask me over for a cup of tea that evening I accepted with alacrity. Theo was taking a confirmation class in one of his outlying villages, and I still found it hard to relax, either with music or a good book, in a house that didn’t feel as if it would ever welcome me. Perhaps it had heard about the changes I wanted to make and resented them.
Theo bit his lip when I told him I’d be setting out on my own, and on foot, too, since he needed the car. The only car. I’d just have to change his mind on the matter of one for me; not a key-attracting Porsche, however.
‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ he asked. ‘You city types tend to rely on your street lights, don’t you?’
‘As if there aren’t lights in Birmingham! Come on, you tell me to be careful every time I go out alone,’ I said, hugging him. ‘I’ve got my trusty torch, the one that’s a cross between a cudgel and a lighthouse, and I’d back myself to outrun most assailants.’
‘But in the dark, on uneven pavements?’ He shook his head in resignation. ‘If only that guy on the parish council wasn’t so keen on astronomy and didn’t veto every single proposal for street lighting each time it comes up at their meetings.’
‘I suppose there’s a lot to be said for reducing energy consumption and light pollution,’ I said, adding more honestly, ‘in the summer at least. But I shall be all right. I’ll even wear my high-vis waistcoat over my jacket if you want.’
I might have been half-joking, but clearly, from the intensity of his gaze and the fierce grip on my arms, he wasn’t. He said, in the tones of a man who’d lost one dearly loved wife and didn’t want to lose her substitute, ‘I do want, Jodie. Very much.’
Elaine’s house was in the old heart of the village, in what had once been the main shopping street (I didn’t get the impression it was ever quite Bond Street). Now many of the houses had names like The Old Co-op, Bakery Cottage and The Brewer’s House: they were older and less elegant than The Old Rectory. From the outside, Elaine’s – The Hops – looked like a typical Kentish cottage, complete with peg-tiles; inside, Tardis-like, it was bigger than you could imagine, with a rather dark, narrow hall leading to a kitchen as up-to-date as mine in St John’s Wood. Ours in St John’s Wood.
As I’d expected, Elaine’s kitchen smelt of baking, but I’d not expected the overlay of good coffee from a machine to die for. Instant decision: my next bit of expenditure must be on something like that. I’d had enough of instant or half-cold cafetière coffee. I’d even turned to tea, but since my taste in tea was as expensive (in proportion) as my taste in cars, I didn’t drink too much of that either. Water? In this part of Kent it was so hard you could almost chew it. Perhaps that was why the tea and coffee tasted so bad?
Since she seemed embarrassed about something, I jumped in with my query about the building work I’d seen. ‘Surely no one’s trying to build on green belt land,’ I concluded. ‘It may even be an SSSI.’
She blinked at all the sibilants.
‘Site of Special Scientific Interest,’ I explained, now into alliteration. ‘Maybe they’ve got rare orchids over there. Or a newt?’
Laughing at my ignorance, she said, ‘I’ll ask around for you – see if anyone else has spotted activity.’
‘Discreetly, if you wouldn’t mind, Elaine. Rectors’ wives are supposed to be like Caesar’s. Only in this case, it isn’t above suspicion, more above suspecting.’
‘I’ll talk to George Cox’s wife, Alison, she’s used to being discreet.’ She added, ‘You know she was once a prison governor? In charge of all sorts of notorious inmates. She still practises martial arts, by the way – I think she’s a senior champion at something or other.’
If only I could learn not to stereotype people. ‘You might give me the low-down on some of the others one day – Ted Vesey, for instance.’
‘Assuming I ever get to find out anything about him. Maybe you shouldn’t ask George Cox, though. No love lost there.’
I nodded. ‘Is there any reason why they loathe each other?’
I’ll swear she hesitated; she did know something. ‘No idea. Just a mutual antipathy, maybe. And now it’s my turn to pick your brains,’ she said, putting a pod into the coffee-maker. Ah, that must be a point against the things – not very envir-onmentally friendly. Unless I could get one with pods the worms could eat … ‘In fact, you gave me the idea the other night, and I’ve been mulling it over ever since.’
‘Eh?’
‘At the PCC meeting. I blurted something out and Ted Vesey shut me up. About all that food left over after WI meetings. We’re compulsive bakers, Jodie, and very competitive, though none of us would admit it.’
‘My poor cupcakes.’ I recalled them with an embarrassed sigh.
‘I’m sure you’re good at other things,’ she said briskly, not bothering to deny that they were substandard. ‘This business of the shop moving into the church, for instance. Brilliant. What you said about the domino effect of one institution closing was spot on. Unless they turn the pub into a gastropub and simply attract incomers for a posh meal, the Pickled Walnut will die. Of course we lose the pub either way. Try these biscuits – they’re a new recipe.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, absent-mindedly trying one: it was warm from the oven and so wonderfully full of bad things I wouldn’t let my Theo within fifty yards of one. ‘These are excellent, Elaine! Sorry. You were saying …?’
‘I was wondering if the WI could sort of take over the pub – out of licensed hours, at least – and turn it into a tea room. What do you think?’ She looked genuinely anxious.
‘Have you talked to the landlady about it? What’s her name – Suze?’ Why should I be involved? It was between the WI and the pub, surely.
‘I think the idea might … might have more credibility … if it came from you.’
‘As the local business guru?’ I snorted. ‘It might, Elaine, but what it gained in credibility it would almost certainly lose in popularity. Think about that PCC meeting,’ I added ruefully, helping myself to a second biscuit. Instant addiction. ‘I’m persona non grata with at least a third of the members.’
‘But you won the day. Or you will when we’ve presented the report, anyway. Violet’s absolutely desperate to move; the post office will make no objection so long as a fully trained clerk continues to work for her, which isn’t a problem because the existing one is afraid he’d never get another job, the way things are. Her nephew reckons he can fit a decent glass screen—’
‘That’s one job that has to be done professionally!’ I warned her.
‘He runs his own kitchen and bathroom installation company. Knows all the safety and fire and building regulations. Says he’ll compete in open tender against anyone.’
‘Excellent.’ It was. And so was the third biscuit. ‘All the same, Elaine, I’m an incomer and I’ve made enemies. For a project like the teashop, you might do better to get Mrs Mountford on side.’
Elaine paused to let me make my own deductions. ‘If you were to get involved,’ she continued, in a somewhat wheedling tone, ‘where would you begin?’
‘You’d need a business plan for starters.’
She looked appalled. ‘Even if we’re volunteers?’
I nodded firmly. ‘Especially if you’re volunteers. I know you’d be amateurs, but there mustn’t be anything amateurish about the way you do it. Opening hours, rotas for cake-making, substitutes if someone’s ill. Is it just cakes and coffee or would you do light lunches too? If you did, would lunches come with alcoholic drinks? It’s a brilliant, brilliant idea, Elaine, but so that you all stay friends – with each other, with Suze and with the customers – you must all know exactly where you stand and what you’re committing to. Not just cooking the cakes, either: waiting at table, washing up, cleaning. And sourcing – do you buy wholesale, go to a supermarket or effectively subsidize the village shop, wherever that’s located, by buying there?’
Her face a picture of despair, she tossed back her hair. ‘It sounded so easy, just baking a few cakes and biscuits.’
‘I’m sure when you get into a rhythm it will be. Actually, I may be able to suggest a washer-upper or two, not to mention some waiting staff – but they’d have to be paid, and at the national minimum wage, too, if not the living wage. And you’ll have to watch the number of hours they work, so they don’t try to work full-time and still claim the dole.’
‘Not those awful kids you seem to have taken under your wing? Oh, Jodie.’ Her mouth turned down quite comically.
‘Something to discuss with your colleagues.’
She looked at me sharply. ‘Our colleagues. You’re a WI member too.’
Having agreed, with as much enthusiasm as if I was signing up to root canal work, to attend a special WI meeting the following week, I walked home as briskly as Theo would have wanted, my high-vis jacket like a buckler against the dark forces he feared might beset me, the torch a sword. In reality, the beam cast a broad clear light. I needed it. What pavements there were disappeared from one side of the road only to reappear twenty metres or so later on the other. They were uneven too, a mix of flagstone and tarmac. At least I was sure-footed enough in my new flat-heeled loafers, though my former colleagues would have gaped in disbelief that I could bear to wear anything so unfashionable. There were hardly any cars on the roads, and no sign of any of the youngsters who would have alarmed most people but whom Mazza and Burble had assured me were their mates and would therefore never harm me. A couple of elderly dog walkers (the ambiguity is deliberate) greeted me with a cautious wave. Only another three or four hundred metres to go and I’d be within sight of home.
There was one section of my journey I didn’t even like by daylight: a K-shaped road junction, the upright of the K being the main street. Any signal a motorist gave couldn’t be clear: was the car heading into an acute or an obtuse angle? A pedestrian needed eyes in the back of his or her head.
Even as I leapt backwards faster than I knew I could, I found time to wonder why on earth the car had no lights. I don’t think I hit my head as I went down, but I certainly landed hard and awkwardly in a banana-skin pratfall. I blinked hard at the pitch darkness enveloping me. If I hadn’t hit my head, why couldn’t I see? I had a nanosecond of panic: had the fall somehow detached my retinas? Both of them?
While I talked to myself sternly and found my feet, at last my eyes grew accustomed to the dark – there! I wasn’t blind! – and I was able to pick out on the street the squashed sausage that had once been the torch. It could, I reflected soberly, as I picked up the pieces, have been one of my limbs.
There was, of course, no sign of the offending driver.
Theo, whiter and shakier than I was as he checked me over for anything more than bruises, went into middle-aged mode. ‘It must have been one of your young protégés too busy nicking a car to look where he was going. I’ll get on to the police.’
‘Would they be interested? A near miss? And in any case, sweet one, I had a sense of a big, powerful car. I think. I couldn’t give any sort of description. I never saw the driver’s face – it could even have been a woman. You know the way some of these incomers drive when they’re off to collect their spouses from the station. Shame about the torch, though. Now, you tell me how that confirmation class went and pour me a drop of that Sauvignon Blanc while you’re about it.’
‘And we’ll also talk about a car for you – Monopoly money permitting.’ He added with a grin, ‘I suppose you could always sell Piccadilly Circus.’