‘I like your gold hot pants,’ I say to Odette.
She does have good legs, to be fair, although I’m not sure if her pearls and twinset go all that well with the overall look. A belly top might have been better.
‘Thanks,’ she replies. ‘I bought them on eBay. Now, give me that mic. It’s my turn on the karaoke machine.’
‘What are you going to sing?’ I ask curiously.
‘“Secret Lovers”, of course! For Edward!’ She wiggles her hips, then leaps on to the stage, and the crowd in Matty’s pub goes wild.
I wake suddenly. What a funny dream. It’s such a shame I won’t get to see what happens next. Still grinning, I reach to turn on the bedside lamp and illuminate the inky blackness. I have no idea what woke me or what time it is. It’s so dark here – there isn’t even a chink of light peeking through the curtains, not like the city where there’s always a street lamp to depend on. My fingers are just grappling with the switch when I hear it. A rustle outside the window. Someone’s there. Someone’s trying to break in! I know immediately who it is – it’s the Mad Man of the Woods Matilda told me about! He’s back. He’s heard that a single city girl is living alone in Rose Cottage and he’s come to ransack the place and do God knows what to me. He must have been hiding out in Glacken Woods all this time. He could have been spying on me since I got here – he could have been watching my every move, waiting for this opportunity to pounce.
I lie frozen with fear, my heart thumping. What on earth should I do? Turn on the light to scare him away, scream for help, try to phone the police?
Before I can decide, I hear a muffled grunting. He’s trying to get in through the window – if I don’t do something I’ll be murdered in my bed. Forcing myself to move, I leap up, grab my mobile phone and bolt from the room, my mind racing. I need to get out of here before he gets in. Not stopping to think any more, I wrench open the cottage door, run up the path and on to the road towards Edward’s – he’ll know what to do. Heart pounding, I race along, my knees almost buckling with fear. At last I see the manor house and, with one final gigantic effort, I sprint to the front door and hammer on it until Edward appears, his sleepy face startled.
I’ve obviously woken him up because he’s wearing rumpled pyjamas – not that I would care if he was standing there in his long johns. I just want him to help me.
‘The Mad Man’s trying to kill me!’ I gasp, my breath ragged from the exertion of sprinting all the way.
‘What?’
‘In the cottage! The Mad Man of the Woods!’ I feel a trickle of sweat roll down my neck and into my cleavage. I probably haven’t run that fast since I won the egg-and-spoon race back in primary school.
‘A mad man?’
‘Yes,’ I pant. God, is he dense? Which part of this does he not understand? ‘He was trying to break into the cottage – I heard him trying to climb through the window,’ I manage to wheeze. Then I promptly burst into tears. This is all too much.
‘Right.’ His face is grim now. ‘I’ll get the keys.’
The keys? How about a rifle? He must have a rifle surely. For hunting? We are in the country, right?
‘What on earth is going on?’
June appears behind Edward and frowns at me. She’s wearing a long white nightdress and has old-fashioned rag curlers in her hair. Evidently she’s been woken from a deep sleep too and she’s very displeased.
‘Maggie thinks there may be someone trying to break into the cottage, June,’ Edward says. ‘I’m just going to have a look.’
‘A burglar? That’s ridiculous!’
‘I heard noises!’ I snuffle through my tears. ‘Someone was rattling the window.’
‘Nonsense!’ she tuts. ‘It was probably the wind in the trees. Honestly, what a lot of fuss over nothing – you’ve woken the entire house!’
‘It wasn’t the wind!’ I protest, rubbing my dripping nose on my arm. I’m suddenly very conscious that I’m barely dressed and Edward and June are watching me shiver in a teeny T-shirt. This must be the third time Edward has seen me like this. But what can I do? It’s not like I had time to pull on my dressing-gown before I ran screaming from the scene of the crime that was about to be committed.
‘Well, let’s check it out, shall we? I’ll be back as soon as I can, June.’
Edward shrugs on a fleece, then takes me by the elbow and steers me outside towards his Land Rover. I can see June scowling at me as we leave, her bushy grey eyebrows pulled low over her cold eyes.
‘Don’t worry, Maggie, it’s probably nothing,’ he says, opening the passenger door for me and looking away as I try to hoist myself up without exposing my bottom to him. Of course I’m wearing my greyest knickers. And my legs are probably the hairiest they’ve ever been. The city-centre waxing appointments are long gone and I haven’t bothered to shave for weeks now – my legs look like the Black Forest. Edward must be repulsed, not that I care what he thinks, of course.
‘Would you like a hand or …?’ he offers, as I struggle to get in, tugging my T-shirt down around me as best I can. The dismay on his face tells me he doesn’t know where to look.
‘I’m fine,’ I snap, annoyed that he and his horrible witch of a mother-in-law are dismissing my fears. I’ve almost been murdered and they’re reacting as if it’s nothing serious. Is this the way people conduct themselves here? Are they so used to rampant violence that they don’t bat an eyelid when something like this happens? Maybe they’re all suffering from violence fatigue. Or maybe some local tipped off the Mad Man that I’d moved in. For all I know, half the village is in cahoots with gangs of professional thugs who roam the countryside just waiting to attack vulnerable women. They’re probably all in on it.
‘Like I say, it was probably nothing,’ he says, as the engine jumps into life.
‘It was not nothing.’ I glare at him. ‘I heard someone trying to get in. He was – he was … grunting. God knows what he was up to.’ I shiver at the thought of what I may have escaped from – it doesn’t bear thinking about.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Well, if someone was trying to get in, I’ll deal with him.’
Deal with him? What does that mean? Maybe he has got a gun, after all. ‘Do you mean shoot him?’ I tuck my legs beneath me to try to keep warm. I can’t stop shivering, which is obviously the shock of what’s happened.
‘Shoot him?’ He turns to look at me. ‘Why would I shoot him?’
‘Well, isn’t that what you do down here?’
‘What? You mean like vigilantes?’
‘Well, yes. That’s what I heard anyway.’ I distinctly remember reading that country folk dealt with crime in their own way – which I took to mean an odd bullet or two in the kneecap for anyone who broke the law.
‘Maggie, this is Glacken village, not the Wild West.’ Edward chuckles to himself. ‘We don’t go round shooting people, even if they are breaking and entering. If …’ he pauses and looks sideways at me ‘… that’s what happened.’
‘I’m telling you,’ I say very loudly and clearly, so there can be no mistake, ‘someone was trying to climb into my bedroom window. I’m not making it up – I know what I heard.’
‘OK, OK,’ he says. ‘I’m not saying I don’t believe you – it’s just that it would be pretty unusual for something like this to happen round here. It’s usually pretty quiet.’
‘Except for last year, I suppose?’ I snap. I can’t believe he’s still not acknowledging all those burglaries that Matilda told me about. ‘Or have you conveniently forgotten about that?’
‘Last year?’ he says, sounding confused.
‘Yes, last year – when there were all those break-ins?’
‘Break-ins?’
It’s hard to read his expression because the interior of the Land Rover is so dark, but he’s certainly managing to sound surprised. Why the cover-up? ‘Yes,’ I bark impatiently. ‘And the Mad Man who’s been camping out in the woods? The one with the criminal record?’
Why is he keeping up this pretence of not knowing anything about it? Maybe he’s worried that I’ll leave the cottage and he’ll have no help in the stables until Claire gets back. After all, this piece of information could be grounds for discounting the lease agreement. He’s probably covering up the truth because he doesn’t want to be left in the lurch. But isn’t that dishonest? The more I think about it, the more convinced I am. Maybe Edward didn’t exactly have a legal obligation to tell me about the break-ins, but didn’t he have some sort of moral responsibility?
Wait till I tell Claire about this – she’ll die. Being attacked in the middle of the night wasn’t part of the bargain when I agreed to move here and take her place.
‘You think that there’s a mad man camping out in the woods,’ he repeats.
‘Yes, Edward, Matilda told me. He had a stash of knives – I know all about it. And I also know that he was spotted again recently, so you can stop pretending.’
‘Right.’ He clears his throat. ‘Well, let’s not jump to any conclusions. Maybe we should just wait and see, OK? Here, let me turn on the heater – your teeth are chattering. You’ve had a shock.’
A blast of hot air hits me and I rub my arms to warm myself. He’s right – I have had a shock. A very major one. I knew coming here was a bad idea – I just didn’t realize how bad. I should have stayed in the city – where it’s safe.
Less than a minute later, Edward pulls up outside the cottage and my stomach churns. God knows where the weirdo is now or what he’s doing. Maybe he’s inside going through my underwear. He could be a predator. A pervert. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
‘Well, it seems quiet,’ Edward says calmly.
‘You don’t expect him to advertise that he’s here, do you?’ I snap. ‘He’s hardly going to have the lights on and a welcome mat at the door! He’s a dangerous criminal.’ I can feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes again. Edward isn’t taking this situation seriously. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m some overreacting female, petrified of my own shadow.
‘Aren’t you going to call the police?’ I demand now.
‘Yes.’ Edward thinks about this. ‘I’m sure Jimmy would come if I called him, but I don’t want to wake him up at this time of night – he goes to bed by eleven. Let’s just take a look first.’
‘Jimmy? Who’s Jimmy?’
‘The local guard.’
‘The local guard goes to bed by eleven?’
‘He likes to, yes. He’s an early riser, you see. He walks his greyhounds at six every morning – he’s like clockwork. Didn’t you meet him that evening in the village hall?’
‘I don’t remember being introduced to a guard. Then again, I met quite a few people. It was pretty crowded.’
‘He was definitely there. He can seem a bit gruff sometimes, but he’s a nice fella underneath. He rescued those dogs from a shelter – they were about to be put down.’
‘Hang on a second.’ I start to put two and two together. ‘Are you telling me that everyone round here knows that this Jimmy goes to bed at eleven every night?’
Edward considers this. ‘I suppose they do, yes. He doesn’t make a secret of it.’
‘So, if you were a criminal, all you’d have to do is wait until after eleven to commit a crime and you’d get away with it?’
‘Well, now, like I said, there wouldn’t be much of that round here. Most folk are tucked up in bed pretty early.’
‘But this Jimmy – he’s the only guard in the village?’
‘Yes, the one and only,’ Edward agrees.
‘And you don’t like to disturb him in the middle of the night?’ I’ve never heard anything so ludicrous. Isn’t that why we pay our taxes, for goodness’ sake?
‘Well, I’d call him if there was some sort of emergency. But not unless it was absolutely necessary. It wouldn’t be fair. Like I said, he’s an early riser.’
‘And you don’t think that me almost being killed by an intruder is an absolute emergency?’ I can’t believe this – I’m starting to fume.
‘I think that may be a slight exaggeration, Maggie,’ Edward says, pulling on his waxed hat, ‘don’t you?’
‘Not really, no.’ I’m at boiling point. ‘If it wasn’t for my very quick response in getting out of the cottage, you could have been looking at a homicide. Jimmy would have been dealing with a murder inquiry – would he have got out of bed for that, do you think?’
‘Now, that would have been a first for Glacken,’ Edward says. ‘The locals would definitely be talking about you then, even more than they are now.’
‘The locals are talking about me?’
‘Of course.’ He opens his door. ‘The beautiful stranger in Rose Cottage is all anyone is talking about.’
Beautiful stranger? His face is in the shadows, but I can tell by his voice that he’s teasing me again.
‘Well, you go ahead and have a look, if you want,’ I say, as he gets out, ‘but don’t expect me to come with you.’
‘You’d better lock the door behind me, then,’ he says. ‘You know – to be on the safe side.’
I’m out in a nanosecond. If that thug knows I’m on my own he’s bound to come and get me. For all I know, he could be watching us right now, from the safety of the cottage. God only knows what could happen if I was left alone.
‘So, you’re coming, then?’ Edward says, switching on a torch he’s pulled from his pocket.
‘Yes,’ I mutter. ‘I’m coming.’
‘Here, take this so.’ He shrugs off his fleece and hands it to me. ‘It’s pretty cold and that T-shirt of yours is pretty short. Maybe you should think about borrowing Polly’s Pooh Bear pyjamas.’
I can hear the smile in his voice, even if it’s so dark I can’t fully see his face. Either way I’m offended. The cheek of him! I have a good mind to throw his grubby old fleece back in his face. Then, again, he’s right – it is freezing and now I’ve cooled down after my sprint to the big house I’m shivering with the cold and the shock. Refusing it would be biting off my nose to spite my face. I slip my arms into the sleeves and zip it up. It’s still warm from his body and almost immediately I feel better, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the lovely musky smell – but the feeling of it wrapped snugly round me is actually quite nice …
‘Now we’re ready to face these terrorists,’ he says.
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ I shake myself out of my reverie. ‘There was someone there – I heard them.’
‘I’m sure there was,’ he says again, and I’m not sure if he’s being patronizing or reassuring – it’s so hard to see anything in the pitch blackness. ‘Now, stay behind me – OK?’
I grip Edward’s fleece tightly round me, my hands trembling with nerves. Who knows what might be going on inside the cottage?
Holding his finger to his lips, a sign that I should keep quiet, he creeps forward and I stick close behind him. We tiptoe together through the open front door, left swinging after I sprinted from the place. Before my eyes adjust to the interior gloom of the cottage I can hear a rustling sound and I’m terrified. He’s still here – I can’t see him but I can hear him. I stumble forward and grab Edward’s back to balance myself. What will we do if he really is violent? Suddenly I wish I’d done those martial-arts classes I always threatened to take up. I try to remember what you’re supposed to do if you’re attacked – go for the eyes, I think, or is it the groin? Maybe both, although that could be tricky to do at the same time.
My head is spinning with the possibilities when I hear the switch click and I blink to adjust my eyes to the bright light. What’s Edward doing? Now we’re going to come face to face with the intruder! Surely it would be better to get out of here and call Jimmy – this is a legitimate emergency and we won’t stand a chance against a hardened criminal, not unless Edward has a black belt he hasn’t told me about. He doesn’t look the type to be able to throw a mean karate chop, but you never can tell. People have hidden depths – like, who could have thought that Claire would up and go to India? If she doesn’t get brainwashed and decide to stay, I’ll kill her when she gets back for forcing me to come here – it’s been the worst mistake of my life. All the years I’ve lived in the city, I’ve never been broken into. Not even when I was next door to that crack den during college – the dealers were quite decent once you looked past the criminal activity. They even loaned me sugar once when I ran out.
Blinking in the bright light, I look wildly round the room, trying to figure out where the burglar might be. I can still hear the rustling, but I can’t see anyone. He must have heard us coming – he’s probably hiding somewhere clever, ready to jump out and murder us. This isn’t the way I want to die, draped in a smelly fleece in the middle of nowhere. I’m too young to meet my Maker – there’s so much I still want to do. I want a Chanel 2.55 clutch, I want a pair of limited-edition Jimmy Choos. But most of all … I want to paint. I can’t believe it’s taken me until now to realize this. But it’s too late – I’m going to die tonight before I have a chance to pursue my real passion. I really am a tragic heroine.
‘I think I know who did this,’ Edward says gravely, as my life flashes before my eyes.
‘You do?’
I have a death grip on his back and I’m not letting go. Funnily enough, even though I’m scared witless, I can’t help noticing that his back is very lean, yet muscly too. A nice combination.
‘Yes.’ He stalks over to the bedroom door, me shuffling behind, and flings it open. The rustling gets even louder. ‘Mabel – is that you?’
Mabel? Who’s Mabel? That’s not a name a hardened criminal would use. What’s going on?
‘Come here and look at this,’ Edward says, his face solemn.
I peep over his shoulder, still uncertain whether it’s safe, and there, in the middle of the room, stands what looks like a sheep, munching happily on my best La Perla bra and knickers. She turns to gaze at us, an expression of mild surprise on her black face. As she does, I catch a glimpse of my prized turquoise lace and silk G-string disappearing down her gullet. An underwear-eating sheep called Mabel is my burglar.