Falling for you

Chapter 1

If she jumped high enough into the air, Maddy Harvey could see the party carrying on without her, blissfully unaware of her absence. Well, she could see in a blurry, abstract kind of way — the lights in the house, the trees surrounding it and the outlines of other party-goers either drifting from room to room or dancing manically along to Kylie Minogue (truly a girl for all age groups).

I bet this never happens to Kylie.

It was an inescapable law of nature that sometimes you went along to a party, everything went right and you had the best time ever. The flip side of the coin, needless to say, was that sometimes you didn’t. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong.

Like tonight.

Maddy heaved a sigh and considered her current predicament. She blamed Bean for launching herself joyfully at the backs of her legs just as she’d been poised to put her left contact lens in. The little dog had caught her by surprise, the lens had flown off her fingertip and, in good old contact lens fashion, had promptly disappeared. It could have fallen into the sink and slipped down the plughole. It could have landed literally anywhere in the bathroom. Bean could have stepped on it, eaten it. Not for the first time, a tiny transparent sliver of plastic had simply vanished into thin air.

Since wearing only one lens was no use at all, she had been forced to wear her glasses instead. But only in order to be able to drive herself the few miles from Ashcombe into Bath. Not to wear to the party itself. Oh no, good grief, she was far too vain to actually wear her glasses at a party, which was why they were currently stowed away in the glove compartment of her car.

So that had been mistake number one. Mistake number two had come about when, desperate for a wee and discovering that there was a major queue for the bathroom, she had slipped outside in search of somewhere discreet and al fresco. And since there wasn’t anywhere discreet in the back garden, she had climbed over a five-foot wall into next door’s, where a weeping cherry tree promised absolute privacy.

If she hadn’t been too vain to wear her glasses, she’d have spotted the nail sticking out of the wall, encouraging a clematis to entwine itself around it, and her trousers wouldn’t have got disastrously ripped.

Mistake number three had been climbing over a five-foot wall with the help of a sawn-off tree trunk without pausing to wonder if the drop might be greater on the other side, and whether there would be another handily positioned tree trunk to enable her to get back.

And I’m not even drunk, Maddy thought, exasperated. At this rate she could be stuck out here for the rest of the night.

Never had the sound of a door clicking open been more welcome. Realising that this could be her big – OK, only – chance, Maddy started bobbing up and down again like Zebedee, waving her arms in the air to attract attention. Spotting the outline of a figure and feeling completely idiotic, she called out, ‘Um, hello? Excuse me?’

Still, he looked tall. And tall was good, tall was definitely what she needed right now. Failing that, a circus dwarf with a stepladder.

Within seconds he’d crossed the lawn and was peering over the wall at her.

‘Are you a burglar?’

In the pitch blackness, Maddy couldn’t see what he looked like, but he had a nice voice. And she was hardly in a position to be choosy.

‘If I was a burglar I’ d have a swag bag,’ she told him. ‘And a stripy jumper and a mask.’

‘Sorry. Of course you would.’ He sounded amused. ‘So .. are you lost?’

‘I’m stuck. I jumped over the wall,’ Maddy explained, ‘and now I can’t get back. There’s no other way out of this garden except through the house, and all the lights are off, which means the people who live here are either out or asleep. If they’re asleep, I don’t want to wake them up.’

‘Probably don’t want to have to explain what you’re doing in their garden either,’ observed the man she was rather relying on to rescue her. ‘Out of interest, what were you doing in their garden?’

Oh dear.

‘A gentleman wouldn’t ask.’

‘Get him to help you over the wall then,’ he said lightly, beginning to walk away.

Letting out a muted shriek of frustration, Maddy hissed, ‘Oh please, don’t leave me, come back.’

This time, she heard him laughing. Returning, he gestured for her to move away from the wall, and the next moment had vaulted effortlessly over it.

Now he was close enough, despite the darkness and her own myopia, for Maddy to be able to tell that this was no troll. Dark hair, dark eyes, good cheekbones and a flash of white teeth as he smiled. She was about to be rescued – hopefully – by a rather nice-looking man. Blurry, but nice.

‘OK. Come and stand in front of me.’ He beckoned to her. ‘No, face the wall, then I’ll lift you up.’

‘Er ... I ripped my trousers jumping down. They caught on a nail.’ Maddy’s hand moved protectively to the gaping hole at the back of her trousers; if he lifted her, he was going to see it – and her fluorescent orange knickers – at close range.

Smiling, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll close my eyes.’

He was impressive, she’d say that for him. One moment she was on the ground, the next his hands were round her waist and she found herself being whooshed up into the air. It was all very Torvill and Dean. Her own arms outstretched, Maddy made a grab for the top of the wall, raised one knee and landed on top of it. Not very elegantly, she dragged her other leg over, wriggled to the edge and dropped down on the other side.

Oh, the relief.

Impressively, her rescuer hauled himself over too, his feet landing with a soft thud on the grass.

‘I’ve just been saved by Superman,’ said Maddy. ‘Thanks.’

‘No problem.’ He sounded entertained. ‘Nice pants, by the way.’

‘It hasn’t been my night.’ Twisting round, Maddy ruefully examined the rip in her white trousers.

‘I’ll have to go home now. God, they’re completely wrecked.’

‘You can’t rush off. I’ve only just rescued you. Come on, there’s a bench over there. We can stay out here for a bit.’

They sat down on the bench. He was wearing a pale grey shirt with the cuffs folded back, and black trousers that melted into the darkness. Breathing in, she smelled soap and the faint tang of aftershave, possibly Hugo Boss. Maybe the evening wasn’t going to be such a disaster after all. Cheering up, Maddy said, ‘So, Superman, what brought you out into the garden?’

‘Keeping out of the way of a jealous husband.’

‘Really? If he’s that jealous, why did you marry him?’

He smiled. ‘His wife wouldn’t leave me alone. I wasn’t encouraging her, but she’s a bit drunk.

Her husband was getting irritated so I escaped to the kitchen. Then, as I was looking out of the window, I saw a blonde head bobbing up and down like a ping-pong ball over the wall at the end of this garden.

Thought I’d come out and see what was going on.’

‘I’m glad you did.’ Maddy shivered as the cool night air sank through her thin purple top. ‘I wouldn’t have slept well over there.’ It struck her that as far as she could tell, she hadn’t spotted her rescuer at the party. ‘Have you been here long?’

‘Here at the party? Twenty minutes. Or did you mean here in Bath?’ His eyes sparkled. ‘In which case, I grew up around here, then moved away years ago. I’ve been back a few months now, running a PR company. Callaghan and Fox.’

‘Really? I know it!’ Brightening, Maddy said, ‘You’re on the top floor of Claremont House. I deliver sandwiches to the accountants on the first floor.’

He tilted his head to one side. ‘Sandwiches. Good ones?’

‘Excuse me! Completely brilliant ones. We do baps, bagels, baguettes, cartons of rice and pasta and salady things, homemade cakes, everything you could want.’ Spotting an opportunity, Maddy said innocently, ‘And very cheerful service. Everyone says we’re the best.’

‘Do they now? And you’re reliable?’

‘If we weren’t reliable, everyone wouldn’t say we were the best. Who does yours?’ asked Maddy, although she already knew.

‘Blunkett’s, the place on Armitage Street.’ Her rescuer pulled a face. ‘They’re OK, but sometimes they get to us late and all the best stuff has gone.’

‘That must be so annoying. We make-to-order. One of our clients is pregnant and we take her chicken and banana baguettes with spring onions and Marmite. I just feel sorry for the baby.’ Maddy shivered as another gust of wind sliced through her; it might be June, but this was England and everyone with an ounce of sense was inside.

‘You’re cold,’ he observed. ‘I’d lend you my jacket if I was wearing one. Look, take this.’

Digging his wallet from his back pocket, he pulled out a business card.

‘It’s not going to keep me very warm.’

‘Come and see us on Monday morning. Maybe it’s time for a change.’

Yay, result. Maddy tucked the card in her pocket, delighted by the happy turn this evening had taken.

Not only a nice-sounding man but a potential addition to her client list.

‘Excellent.’ Rising to her feet, she felt a draught as the L-shaped tear at the back of her trousers flapped open. ‘Around eleven o’clock, is that OK? You’ll be there then?’

‘I’ll be there. Just go to the reception desk and ask for—’

‘I know.’ Maddy patted the pocket containing his business card and broke into a grin. ‘Ask for Superman.’

Kate was going home. Back to England, back to Ashcombe. Not because she wanted to, but because she didn’t have a lot of choice. New York was no longer her kind of town. Swish Park Avenue hotels weren’t interested in employing a receptionist with a scarred face; her appearance didn’t fit with the ambience. Basically, she was a bit of a turn-off. Kicking up an almighty fuss and threatening to sue them might have been an option, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. She was sick of being treated like a freak anyway. Every time she ventured out onto the streets there were another million or so New Yorkers ready to point and stare at her. After a while it really got you down.

Turning away from the window of her loft apartment in East Village, Kate caught sight of her reflection in the oval mirror on the wall opposite. Even now, almost a year later, an unexpected glimpse of herself – that can’t be me! Oh God, it is me – still had the power to give her a jolt.

There was no getting away from it, she was now officially ugly. Oh, how everyone in Ashcombe would laugh when they saw her. Not to her face, maybe, but certainly behind her back. She was under no illusions about that. It wasn’t a comfortable thing to have to admit, but if anyone truly deserved their comeuppance, it was her.

‘How’s it going with the packing?’ Mimi, her barely-there flatmate, poked her head round the bedroom door. Honestly, Mimi spent so little time at their apartment it was a wonder sometimes that Kate recognised her.

‘Slowly.’ Kate picked up a pair of Calvin Klein pink denims and half-heartedly folded them into one of the cases lying open on the bed.

‘We’re off to the movies, you’re welcome to come along if you want.’ Mimi flashed the kind of over bright smile that signalled: Look, I’m saying it but I don’t actually mean it.

‘No thanks. I’d better get on with this.’ Kate wondered what would happen to Mimi’s smile if she’d said, ‘Oh yes please, I’d love to!’

‘OK. Have a nice da-ay,’ Mimi sang out, and swiftly disappeared before Kate could change her mind.

The apartment door slammed shut and Kate slumped down on the edge of the queen-sized bed, angrily brushing away a tear. She was glad to be leaving New York, so why should she care?

Except she already knew the answer to that one: going back to Ashcombe would undoubtedly be worse.

Chapter 2

Anyone living in a city might visit Ashcombe and call it a village, but officially it was a small town, ravishingly pretty and prone to tourists, nestling in a valley of the Cotswolds in true Cider with Rosie fashion. Everyone knew everyone and in-corners, traditionally, were regarded with suspicion. The unwritten rule was that until you’d lived there for over fifty years, you were a begrudgingly tolerated outsider. After that, if you were very, very lucky, you might be accepted as a local.

Somehow, when Juliet Price had moved down from London five years ago and opened the Peach Tree Delicatessen, the rules had been magically broken.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ said Maddy, when ancient Cyrus Sharp had shuffled out of the shop in his wellies, the carrier containing his morning pain au chocolat and a loaf of walnut bread tucked under one arm. ‘You should have heard Cyrus in the pub five years ago when he found out the old ironmongers was being turned into a deli. Bloody yuppies and their fancy foreign food ... stinking the town out with herbs and garlic ... what’s wrong with Fray Bentos pies and a can of peas ... And just look at him now, practically your best customer! And he fancies you.’ Maddy smirked. ‘I’m telling you, you’ve definitely pulled.’

‘He’s a sweetheart.’ Smiling, Juliet reached for the broom and quickly swept up the dried mud — at least she hoped it was only dried mud — that had crumbled off Cyrus’s wellies. ‘If he was fifty years younger I’d take him up on it. Well, I might if he didn’t smell so much of farmyards.’

It never failed to impress Maddy, the way Juliet had mysteriously, effortlessly, managed to become a bona fide local within the space of, at most, a couple of months. Maybe it had something to do with her lustrous dark eyes, glossy black hair and gloriously old-fashioned hourglass figure.

Maybe it was her warm velvety voice and innate compassion, but whatever it was, it worked. Juliet was kind, wonderfully discreet and adored by everyone. A single parent, she had arrived in Ashcombe with two-year-old Tiff, who had inherited his mother’s winning smile and — presumably — his absent father’s blond hair. Now an entrancing, boisterous seven-year-old, Tiff — short for Christopher — was best friends with Maddy’s niece Sophie. The two of them, almost exactly the same age, were inseparable.

‘Anyway, look at you,’ said Juliet as Maddy emerged from the kitchen lugging four cool-boxes. ‘All done up on a Monday morning. Eyeshadow and mascara, I’m impressed.’

‘Oh God, too done up?’ Maddy pulled a face; normally she didn’t make too much of an effort for her delivery round. ‘I don’t look like a dog’s dinner, do I?’

‘Don’t be daft. The regulars are going to wonder what they’ve done to deserve it, that’s all.’

Juliet raised a playful eyebrow. ‘And I’m pretty curious myself.’

‘I’m touting for business.’ Maddy rested the cool-boxes on the floor.

‘Sweetheart, you’ll get it.’

‘Sandwich business, Miss Clever-drawers. I met someone at a party on Saturday night. Play my cards right and we’ll have ourselves a new customer. He’s with Callaghan and Fox;they’ve been using Blunkett’s until now.’ Maddy couldn’t help sounding a bit smug; winning clients from your rivals was always a thrill. Especially when that rival company was Blunkett’ s.

‘And would this happen to be a rather attractive new customer?’

‘Well, I didn’t have my lenses in, but I think so.’ Maddy grinned and reached for the cool-boxes once more as a couple of tourists wandered into the shop. ‘I’ll know for sure when I see him again.’

Juliet, her eyes sparkling, said, ‘Just don’t forget to come back.’

One of the best things about seven-year-olds, Maddy had discovered, was that when something was irretrievably lost, you could offer them fifty pence each to spend on sweets if they found it and they wouldn’t give up until they did. On Sunday morning Tiff and Sophie had gone through the bathroom with all the attention to detail of a pair of forensic pathologists, finally locating the missing gas-permeable lens stuck to the side of a pack of make-up remover pads.

Solemnly presenting it to Maddy, Sophie had said, ‘I think probably that might be worth a pound each.’

Delving back into her purse, Maddy shook her head sorrowfully. ‘You are your father’s daughter.’

Sophie looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Of course I’m my father’s daughter. Otherwise he wouldn’t be my dad.’

Anyway, two pounds had been a complete bargain, her lenses were back where they belonged, in her eyes, and the dreaded glasses had been relegated once more to her bedside drawer. Poor old glasses, they weren’t really that bad, they certainly didn’t deserve to be regarded with such loathing and contempt. For a moment, as she headed into Bath, Maddy almost felt sorry for them. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She had a deep psychological aversion to her glasses, hated them with a passion. When you’d spent your entire time at school being taunted and called Speccy Four-eyes –

unoriginal but cruelly effective – it was hard not to. Just the thought of that first pair of hideous pink plastic NHS specs was enough to bring all those old feelings of inadequacy flooding back. She was nine again, not only short-sighted but distressingly plain, the archetypal ugly duckling with her badly cut hair, wonky teeth, pale eyelashes and matchstick legs. Basically, not a pretty sight. No wonder everyone had spent the best part of twelve years making fun of her.

Oh well, at least it had been character-forming. And, thank goodness, she had blossomed since then.

The traffic in Bath had slowed to its habitual morning standstill. While the engine was idling, Maddy checked her face in the rear-view mirror, making sure she didn’t have cornflake bits stuck to her teeth (teeth that were no longer crooked, thanks to three years of intensive brace-wearing – oh yes, her other nickname had been Metal Mickey. She’d been an absolute stunner at school).

Ruffling her hair – it was blonde, layered and responded well to a quick ruffle – Maddy smiled experimentally at her reflection, as she would soon be smiling at ... um, thingy.

Superman. Like an idiot she’d chucked her ruined white trousers in the bin on Sunday morning, forgetting that the business card he’d given her was still in the back pocket. Oh well, didn’t matter. She’d find out soon enough.

Another quick practice smile reassured Maddy that she was looking OK (God bless eyelash dye), her lip gloss was still intact and her nose hadn’t gone shiny in the heat. She was wearing a turquoise top, above-the-knee pink skirt and green and pink striped sandals – smarter than her usual T-shirt and jeans, but the staff at Callaghan and Fox wouldn’t know she was only doing it to impress their handsome boss –

well, hopefully handsome – ooh, traffic’s moving again. Nearly there now.

The offices were on the top floor of Claremont House. Having parked in the visitor’s car park, Maddy delivered the regular order to the accountants on the first floor before venturing on up the stairs. Through a glass door she saw a plump girl typing away behind a sleek yellow and white reception desk. As Maddy’s cool-box clunked against the door frame, the girl looked up. Maddy manoeuvred herself through the door and said, ‘Hi, I’m from the Peach Tree Deli, I was asked to—’

‘Oh brilliant, you’re here!’ The girl stopped typing and jumped to her feet. ‘We were told to expect you – I can’t tell you how excited we all are. Everyone’s so fed up with being messed around by Blunkett’s, but you just kind of get used to rubbish sandwiches after a while, don’t you? If they bring something you actually like, it’s a bonus ... oh, wow,’ she went on happily as Maddy began lifting out the contents of the cool-box, lining up the blue and white plates and deftly removing their cellophane wrappings. Within seconds they’d been joined by half a dozen other members of staff, all exclaiming greedily over the prospect of free food. But there was no sign of Superman.

‘Is ... um, your boss here?’

‘In his office, on the phone to a client. He’ll be out in a minute – ooh, is that smoked salmon?’ The receptionist looked as if she might start drooling. ‘And what’s in that one – some kind of chickeny stuff ?’

‘Chicken in tarragon mayonnaise. Here’s a list of some of the other things we do, and these are our prices.’ Maddy felt her heart break into a gallop as somewhere, out of view, an office door opened and shut. All of a sudden realising how much she was looking forward to seeing her rescuer again, she prayed she wouldn’t blush.

‘About time too,’ exclaimed the plump receptionist as footsteps grew louder down the corridor.

Glancing over her shoulder she sang out chirpily, ‘Food’s here! Any longer and we’d have started without you.’

Maddy looked up and saw him smiling at her. Her mouth went dry and her ears began to buzz.

No, it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t.

‘Hello there,’ said Kerr McKinnon, coming over to join them. He clearly hadn’t a clue who she was, other than the girl he had lifted over a high wall on Saturday night. Well, that was hardly surprising when you considered the evidence. His hair may have been a lot longer then, and he’d filled out generally, but otherwise he was more or less the same. She’d changed, far more than he had.

Oh God, this was horrible, horrible ..

‘ Kerr, you’ll have to break it to Blunkett’s.’ One of the other girls was greedily cramming a chilli tuna sandwich into her mouth. ‘We don’t want them any more, they’re sacked. Josh, you big pig, don’t eat both the prawn ones!’

‘Looks like you’ve got yourself some new clients,’ Kerr McKinnon told Maddy with a wink.

Turning to the receptionist he said, ‘See? Don’t say I never do anything for you.’

Kerr McKinnon.

‘ Excuse me.’ Maddy took an abrupt step backwards, her mind in such a whirl she almost couldn’t speak. Clumsily, she turned away from the receptionist’s desk.

‘Are you OK?’ Looking concerned, Kerr McKinnon reached out to put a hand on her arm.

Maddy pulled away, nodding and wondering if she might actually faint, which would be ridiculous .. .

Needing to get out, she left the offices and stumbled down the stairs. The sun had turned the inside of the car into a furnace. Maddy sat sideways in the driver’s seat with her feet outside the car and her head in her hands. The greatest shock wasn’t seeing Kerr McKinnon again; if she had passed him in a crowded street in Bath, say, her knee-jerk reaction would have been far more straightforward: initial recognition swiftly followed by a rush of disdain. Or hatred. Maybe anger, followed by contempt. And then within a few seconds it would have been over. She wouldn’t, for instance, have raced over and started attacking him. If he’d caught her eye she would simply have shot him a look of loathing, before walking on.

But this was completely different, and the greatest shock of all was realising how much, after meeting and talking to Kerr McKinnon on Saturday night, she had been looking forward to seeing him again.

Maddy let out a groan of despair. She’d really liked him, and he had seemed to like her. There had been a spark there, the chemistry of mutual attraction. She had spent all of Sunday thinking about him, hoping he was as nice as she thought he was and, ironically, wondering what his name was. If Marcella hadn’t emptied the contents of the Hoover bag into the dustbin, all over her chucked-away white trousers, she would have hauled them out and retrieved his business card from the back pocket.

Then she would have known.

Ah, but would she have come here today, to Kerr McKinnon’s offices, bringing carefully prepared food to impress him with?

Of course she wouldn’t. Absolutely not.

And now she’d left the cool-box upstairs.

‘Hey, are you all right?’

Maddy jumped; with her face buried in her hands she hadn’t seen him emerge from the building.

Crouching down in front of her, Kerr McKinnon held out a bottle of iced water and said, ‘You poor thing, you look terrible. When I saw you turn white back there I thought you were going to pass out. Here, have a drink.’ He unscrewed the top of the bottle for her. ‘Are you still feeling faint?’

Maddy flinched as he pressed the flat of his hand against her forehead, just like Marcella used to do whenever she complained that she was too ill to go to school.

‘Hot,’ he observed. ‘Being in this car isn’t helping. Look, put your head between your knees. As soon as you feel strong enough, we’ll go back up to my office. Or I could carry you, if you like.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I had no idea I had this much of an effect on women.’

He was being kind, reassuring her that it didn’t matter. Maddy couldn’t smile back. She took a couple of deep breaths and said, ‘I’m not going to faint.’

‘Well, that’s good.’ He waited, then said, ‘It’s really nice to see you again. I was starting to wonder what I’d do if you didn’t turn up.’

He was even better looking than she’d imagined on Saturday night; he had the best eyelashes Maddy had ever seen. And as for those eyes ... God, even George Clooney would be jealous. Worst of all, he was being so lovely, so concerned about her being ill and possibly about to throw up all over his shoes.

‘By the way, they love the food,’ Kerr went on. ‘So it looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other.’ He paused. ‘You could look a bit happier if you like.’

This was truly awful. It was no, good, she had to tell him.

‘Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.’ Maddy really was starting to feel sick now; why did he have to be so nice?

‘I’m not with you.’ Even as he spoke, he was encouraging her to drink more of the ice-cold water.

‘You don’t even know my name,’ Maddy said helplessly.

‘And that’s a major problem? How about if I – this is just off the top of my head – how about if I just ask you?’ He thought it was funny, that she was making a ridiculous fuss about nothing.

‘It’s Maddy. Maddy Harvey.’

She saw it register, saw it click into place. Finally Kerr McKinnon’s expression changed.

‘Shit. Are you serious?’ For a split second, doubt flickered in his eyes.

Maddy couldn’t blame him. She nodded, shivering violently despite the heat.

‘Maddy Harvey? But ... but you’ve ...’

For a traitorous second Maddy wished she hadn’t said it. Everything was spoiled now.

‘I know.’ Almost unbelievably she found herself feeling sorry for him. ‘I don’t look like I used to.

I’ve changed.’

JFK airport. Millions of people, and no one there to see her off. Kate was wearing her beige floppy-brimmed hat in the forlorn hope that it would divert attention from her face. When she’d stopped for a cappuccino at Heathrow three years ago, she’d been chatted up by a six-foot Australian archaeologist.

He’d even bought her another cup of coffee.

This time nobody chatted her up, not even the ancient lavatory attendant. Kate wasn’t surprised. She paid for her own coffee and thought of her mother, who was driving up to meet her off the plane at Heathrow.

At least someone would be pleased to see her again.

All my own fault, thought Kate, flicking distractedly through the New York Times. Nobody to blame but myself.

She paused at a photo of Brad Pitt, arriving at the premiere of his latest film. Once upon a time she had fantasised about meeting a famous movie star, someone the whole world drooled over.

They would bump into each other quite by chance, in a supermarket checkout queue or something, and fall effortlessly into conversation. Naturally, besotted by her ravishing looks and winning personality, the famous movie star would fall in love with her – oh yes, it would have been Notting Hill all over again, complete with dazzling Richard Curtis script.

Crossing her legs, Kate flipped over the page with the Brad Pitt photo on it. She didn’t bother having that fantasy any more.

Chapter 3

Jake Harvey had an audience, but he didn’t let on that he was aware of it. This was the way potential customers liked it to be. He carried on working, they stood and watched, and after a few minutes he would turn and smile at them, maybe exchange a friendly greeting, then return his attention to the task in hand. It was a low-key, low-pressure sales technique and it worked for Jake. He enjoyed his job and it showed. Sooner or later, curiosity always got the better of his visitors. He allowed them to open the conversation. His easy manner, indicating that he really couldn’t care less whether they stayed or not, more often than not did the trick. And when it didn’t, well, he genuinely wasn’t that bothered anyway.

These were tourists, impulse buyers, quite as likely to leave Ashcombe with a couple of postcards or a pot of homemade jam from the Peach Tree. You couldn’t win them all.

Then again, in his line of work, you never knew when they – or their relatives – might, at some time in the future, be back in touch.

Putting down his glue gun, Jake straightened up and stretched his arms. Stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of drastically faded jeans, he knew he looked good. Working outside had tanned him to the colour of strong tea, and when he stretched, the muscles in his back rippled beneath his skin. Turning finally, he saw that the girl waiting was the type least likely to buy anything: the Scandinavian backpacker. He knew she was Scandinavian because she was blonde, and wearing khaki shorts, sturdy hiking boots and white socks.

Actually, she wasn’t even that pretty, but Jake flashed her a smile anyway. He didn’t mind.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi. This is fascinating. I have never seen this kind of thing done before.’ The girl’s English was excellent. ‘Is the coffin for someone in particular?’

Nodding, Jake ran his hand lightly over the lid of the casket, lacquered in lapis-lazuli blue and studded with the glass jewels he had been applying with the aid of the hot-glue gun. The coloured jewels glittered like fairy lights in the sun. ‘Oh yes, this one’s going to a seventy-six-year-old Englishwoman living in Cyprus.’

The girl pulled an appropriately sympathetic face. ‘And she is dead?’

‘Not at all. Fighting fit.’ Jake grinned and took a swig of Coke from the can at his side. ‘She’s planning on using it as a coffee table in the meantime. She told me that when she goes, her body might be all wrinkled and ancient but at least her coffin will be gorgeous.’

‘That is such a beautiful idea.’ Entranced, the girl peered past him into the shadowy workshop. ‘I think it’s wonderful. But if your clients die first, how do you—’

‘Just work faster,’ said Jake good-naturedly. ‘It’s fifty-fifty. Some like to choose their own Coffins and design them themselves. Other times, the relatives contact me after the death and we choose something together. As long as they don’t want anything too complicated, I can finish it in a day and send it to them by Parcel Force. The caskets are made of cardboard, so they aren’t that heavy.

And they’re cheaper too. Commissioning a hand-decorated coffin ends up costing about the same as a plain old wooden one. Feel free to look around,’ he went on, waving towards the workshop where photographs were pinned up along the back wall. ‘Those are some of my past works. And I have a portfolio of standard designs on the table in the corner.’

Having stopped for a break, Jake followed the girl into the workshop and switched on the kettle to make tea. She was studying the photos of a particularly extravagant coffin covered in vibrant purple velvet, trimmed with gold and painted with white regale lilies.

‘Lill. DeLisle, the rock singer. That was hers,’ said Jake. ‘Her husband asked me to do it after she died in that plane crash. You can’t see from the photo, but the lyr ics of her song "Take Me" are etched all the way round the gold border. Gave my business no end of a boost,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Everyone who saw it wanted to know where it came from. The stamens on those lilies were real diamonds.’

‘And letters from satisfied customers,’ exclaimed the girl, moving on.

‘Well, maybe not the customers themselves. But after the funeral the relatives quite often write to tell me what a difference it made.’

‘I like this one.’ The girl touched the edge of a photo displaying a casket simply decorated with white clouds in a cerulean blue sky, with a silver bird soaring above them.

‘One of my bestsellers. Fancy a cup of tea?’

‘I’d love one. But I’m not about to die, so I won’t be needing a coffin, if that’s what you’re hoping.’

‘Don’t speak too soon,’ said Jake. ‘You don’t know what I could be putting into your cup.’

They sat outside together, companionably drinking their tea and chatting about the famous bits of Bath which Trude had spent the morning exploring.

‘Very nice,’ she said, nodding seriously, ‘but so terribly crowded. It would be far better if there weren’t so many tourists.’

Jake managed to keep a straight face. ‘Sometimes it can get a bit much.’

‘You know, my grandmother is very old. I’m thinking she might enjoy one of your coffins. Do you have a leaflet, perhaps, so I could show her your work?’

‘I do. Better still,’ said Jake, loping into the workshop and returning with a brochure and a packet of biscuits, ‘it has my website address on it. That’s how I get most of my business.’

Trude tucked the brochure carefully away in one of the pockets on her backpack.

‘I like your business, very much. But how did you start? What gave you the idea to do this thing?

Oh, thanks.’ Blushing slightly, she took a digestive from the packet, showering crumbs down the front of her khaki shorts.

‘Well, my sister died when I was fourteen,’ said Jake, and Trude shot him a look of anguish, unable to speak through her mouthful of biscuit.

‘It’s OK,’ said Jake, ‘I get asked this question all the time. Anyway, April was sixteen, and my dad thought she wouldn’t want to be buried in a plain coffin: He made one himself, a proper wooden one, and painted it pale pink, because that was April’s favourite colour. Then the rest of us put our handprints on it, and Dad painted wildflowers and butterflies over the rest. April would have loved it.’

He smiled briefly. ‘So there you go, that’s how it all started. I knew at once it was what I wanted to do. I left school at sixteen and set up the business. And here I am, almost ten years later, still here.’

‘In a tiny place like this,’ Trude marvelled.

‘Ah, but it’s my tiny place.’ Spotting Marcella and Sophie heading towards them along Gypsy Lane, Jake waved and broke into a grin. ‘I’ve lived in Ashcombe all my life.’

Moments later Sophie hurtled the rest of the way down Gypsy Lane and flung herself into his arms.

It was like catching an exuberant wriggling puppy. Swinging her round, Jake kissed the top of her neatly braided head and said, ‘I’m getting too old for this. What have you two been up to then?’

‘Making daisy chains.’ Proudly, Sophie showed him the bedraggled chain in her left hand, before placing it round his neck. ‘This one’s for you, Daddy.’

‘Now everyone will think I’m a girl,’ said Jake.

‘They won’t, because you’ve got stubble on your chin.’ Lovingly, she ran a grubby finger over his jawline. ‘Anyway, there’s a surprise for later. At six o’clock in the back garden, and you have to put a shirt on.’

‘What kind of a surprise?’

‘Me and Tiff are getting married.’

‘Really?’ Jake raised his eyebrows at Marcella, who was leaning against the wall lighting a cigarette. ‘Mum, did you know about this?’

Marcella gave a what-can-you-do shrug. ‘Darling, I tried to talk them out of it, tried to persuade them to wait a couple of years, but would they listen? You know how it is with young people today.’

‘Fine.’ Jake lowered his daughter to the ground. ‘Just so long as you aren’t expecting a wedding present, because I haven’t had time to get to the shops.’

Beaming, Sophie said, ‘That’s OK. You can give me a cheque.’

Behind Sophie, Trude was looking puzzled, clearly struggling to work out the dynamics of the family before her. Jake smiled to himself, because confusion was a fairly common occurrence and always a source of entertainment. He knew exactly what was going through Trude’s mind.

‘Come along, pet, we’d better start getting you ready.’ Marcella held out a hand. ‘Every bride has to have a bath before her wedding.’

‘Oh Gran, why?’ Sophie pulled a disgusted face. ‘I just had a bath on Saturday.’

‘No one wants to marry a girl with muddy knees.’

‘Tiff wouldn’t mind. He hates baths too.’ Rolling her dark eyes, Sophie gave up and made her way over to Marcella. ‘OK. And Daddy, don’t forget. Six o’clock.’

Jake shook his head in mock despair as Marcella and Sophie headed back up the road to Snow Cottage.

‘How old is she?’ said Trude.

‘Seven.’

‘You were very young when you became a father.’

‘Seventeen.’

‘She’s beautiful. You must be very proud.’ Trude hesitated, as he had known she would. ‘And the lady with her? You called her Mum. But she is your mother-in-law, right?’

‘No, she’s my mum,’ Jake said easily.

Trude, confused all over again, said, ‘Please, forgive me if this is impertinent, but your daughter is ... um, black.’

‘Well spotted,’ said Jake with a grin.

‘And your mother, she is the same,’

Jake said helpfully, ‘Black.’

Poor Trude was now frowning like Inspector Morse, doubtfully eyeing Jake’s streaky blond hair, green eyes and golden-stubbled chin.

‘So, I’m sorry, but you’re not ... um ...’

‘It’s OK.’ Jake nodded encouragingly. ‘You can say it. I’m not black.’

‘Exactly,’ Trude exclaimed with relief. ‘But I don’t understand. How is it that you are white?’

Chapter 4

When Robert Harvey had lost his young wife Annabel to acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, he was devastated. Left alone to grieve and bring up their three small children, he couldn’t imagine ever finding love again. Two years later, meeting Marcella Darby in a cafe in Keynsham where she was working as a waitress, he wondered what he’d done to deserve a second chance of happiness. Marcella, then twenty-two, was funny and irreverent, feisty and passionate. Robert, convinced there had to be a catch somewhere, tried — with spectacular lack of success — to conceal his true feelings. But it soon became apparent that there was no catch. Within weeks he knew he’d found his soulmate.

Unable to believe his luck, he brought Marcella back to Ashcombe and introduced her to his children. April was by this time six years old, Maddy five and Jake four. It was risky, but it had to be done. Marcella hadn’t been scared off when he’d told her of their existence; indeed, she had declared that she loved kids, but saying it and actually meaning it were two different things. There was no guarantee that it wouldn’t all go horribly wrong.

It hadn’t. The bond between Marcella and Robert’s children had been instantaneous, irrevocable and touching to behold. Marcella had adored all three and made her feelings so plain that they in turn had adored her. A fortnight after that first meeting, Maddy and Jake had asked their father why Marcella couldn’t live with them. The following weekend she moved in, and by the end of the month all three children were calling her Mummy. Three months after that, they were married.

Marcella’s arrival in Ashcombe caused a bit of a stir. Some of the older residents got quite het up about it, never having seen a black person in the flesh before. But most of the villagers, sympathetic to the family’s tragic past and delighted to see Robert smiling again, welcomed Marcella with genuine warmth. Marcella herself, with her natural enthusiasm, exuberance and dazzling smile, soon won over the rest, the ancient old farmers who seemed to expect her to start smoking spliffs in the pub and turn Ashcombe into a den of vice, and those doubters who whispered that she had only married Robert Harvey for his money.

Not that he had any, but that was the first rule of small-town tittle-tattle: when stuck for a spurious excuse, make one up.

But who could doubt Marcella’s genuine love for her new family when, at that year’s summer fête, April was crowned carnival queen. Nobody could have been prouder than Marcella, who had spent weeks sewing sequins onto the Barbie-pink dress she had painstakingly made by hand.

The little girl, who suffered from cerebral palsy and had never won anything before in her life, had insisted on making her own faltering speech at the crowning ceremony, and Marcella had applauded with tears of joy in her eyes.

Eight years later, the unthinkable happened. Tragedy struck again one sunny Saturday afternoon in May. April left the cottage and made her way up Gypsy Lane to visit a friend. A car, losing control as it rounded a bend at speed, mounted the pavement and catapulted April fifty feet into the air. According to the coroner at the inquest, she was probably dead before she hit the ground.

Robert and Marcella were inconsolable. Their grief was compounded at the trial when it was suggested that April’s handicap had contributed to the accident, that she had been wandering in the road when the car had rounded the bend.

‘April never wandered in the road,’ Marcella stormed. ‘She always kept to the pavement. How dare they say that, just to try and get that snivelling little fucker off the hook?’

In the end it didn’t, and the seventeen-year-old snivelling little fucker — Kerr McKinnon’s younger brother — was found guilty of dangerous driving. Den McKinnon was sentenced to two years’

imprisonment, which didn’t pacify Robert and Marcella one bit.

‘Two years,’ Marcella wept on the steps of the court, so incandescent with rage she could barely get the words out. ‘Two years ... how can that make up for killing our beautiful girl? If I ever see that murdering bastard again, I’ll kill him with my bare hands, I swear I will.’

Marcella had done a lot of swearing during those dark days, not least when a rumour spread through Ashcombe that the mother of the teenage driver had been heard outside the courtroom pointing out that it wasn’t as if the Harveys had lost a normal child, everyone knew the girl wasn’t all there.

When Marcella heard this, she had to be physically restrained. ‘Jesus Christ, are these people human?

What are they saying, that April had cerebral palsy so they’ve actually done us some kind of favour? That killing her was on a par with running over an animal? Is that it? Am I hearing this right?’ Wild-eyed with grief, she was almost literally tearing her hair out. ‘So what do they think we should do to cheer ourselves up, buy a cute little rabbit?’

But as the months passed, the family gained strength from each other. Love pulled them through. Somehow they survived and learned how to be happy again. Marcella and Robert devoted themselves to making the remainder of Maddy and Jake’s childhood idyllic and when Maddy wrote in a school essay that she had the very best mum and dad in the world, she knew that — unlike all the other kids in her class, who only thought they had — she was writing the absolute truth.

Estelle had reached Heathrow in plenty of time to meet her daughter off the flight from New York.

Now, waiting at the arrivals gate for Kate to appear, she found herself being jostled by an excited family unfurling a huge homemade Welcome Home banner. Touched by the sight of them, Estelle wondered how Kate would react if she emerged through the doors to find her mother waving a Welcome Home banner.

Well, maybe not. It wasn’t the kind of gesture Kate would appreciate. Somehow, they just weren’t that kind of family.

The toddler in the pushchair next to her spat his dummy out on Estelle’s shoe. Retrieving it and handing it back to him, she was rewarded with a face like thunder, as if it was all her fault. Strongly reminded of Kate at that age — the haughty attitude, the indifference — Estelle straightened up and quelled the butterflies in her stomach. She loved her daughter, of course she did, but she was also slightly afraid of her.

Oh Lord, that was an awful thing to even think. Not afraid, intimidated. Kate had inherited her father’s somewhat aloof manner, and the emotional distance had been furthered by the school she had attended. Estelle hadn’t been convinced that sending her to super-expensive Ridgelow Hall was necessary, but Oliver had insisted. ‘Can you imagine how she might turn out if we dumped her in the nearest comprehensive?’ he’d demanded. ‘Good heavens, woman, are you out of your mind?’ So Estelle had capitulated, thinking that maybe she was wrong after all, but the long-suppressed doubts had come back to haunt her. And as for the local comprehensive, well, it hadn’t seemed to do Maddy and Jake Harvey any harm. They may not have PhDs and stratospheric careers, but they were thoroughly nice people and had grown into the kind of young adults of which any parent would be proud. Plus, of course, they adored their mother. Despite all the truly terrible things that had happened to Marcella over the years, Estelle secretly envied her.

‘There he is! Dad, Dad, over here!’ The family at her side began screaming and Estelle was forced to dodge out of the way to avoid getting entangled with their frantically flapping banner. Dad, letting out a roar of delight, raced over and hauled several small children into his arms. As they showered him with kisses and he told them how much he’d missed them, Estelle saw him catch his wife’s eye and mouth: Love you. The wife, who was forty if she was a day, beamed like a teenage bride and blew him a kiss, happy to wait her turn.

Estelle’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. Now she was reduced to envying total strangers –

total strangers waving the kind of banner her own daughter would sneer at and pronounce naff.

She wouldn’t mind betting this couple would be having fabulous sex tonight.

Then she straightened, because Kate was coming through, pushing a trolley piled high with cases and looking like a celebrity travelling incognito in a sleek charcoal trouser suit, dark glasses and trilby-style hat.

‘Darling! Yoo-hoo,’ Estelle called out(slightly naffly), waving an arm to attract her attention.

Catching sight of her, Kate altered course and came over, proferring the undamaged side of her face for a kiss. Hugging her rather too enthusiastically in a feeble attempt to keep up with the neighbours, Estelle dislodged the trilby, which managed to land in the lap of the toddler in the pushchair.

The small boy stared at it as if it were a bomb. Kate snatched it up and thrust it back onto her head. Estelle flinched as one of the small children said, ‘Mum, what’s happened to that lady’s face?’

‘Sshh,’ his mother chided. ‘It’s not nice to say things like that. Poor girl ...’ She pulled a sympathetic face at Kate. ‘I’m so sorry. You know what children are like.’

Shooting the woman a look that could have pickled walnuts, Kate said brusquely, ‘Mum, can we get out of here? Now?’

Kate waited until they were racing down the M4 in the Lancia before speaking again. ‘Will Dad be there when we get home?’

Estelle shot her an apologetic look. ‘Sorry, darling. He had to work.’

‘Par for the course.’ Kate watched her mother light a cigarette. Estelle, a furtive smoker when her husband was around, had needed the boost of a Marlboro in order to brave the terrors of the motorway.

‘But he’ll be home soon,’ Estelle went on brightly, as she had done for the last twenty-odd years,

‘and he can’t wait to see you.’ She paused. ‘I thought we’d have dinner tonight at the Angel, just you and me.’

Kate shuddered. The Fallen Angel was the only pub in Ashcombe. Just you and me could be roughly translated as: the two of us sitting at a table while everyone else in the pub ogles us from the bar and sniggers at the posh bird’s comeuppance.

She hadn’t asked to be the posh bird, they’d just saddled her with that label God knows how many years ago, and ever since then she’d been stuck with it.

‘Darling. I know. But you have to face them at some stage.’

Estelle was only too aware of what gossipy small-town life was like.

Kate sighed and gazed out of the window as Berkshire sped past them in a blur of motorway-constructed emerald-green turf and geometrically planted trees. She knew her mother was right.

Aloud she said, ‘We’ll see.’

‘You’ll have to tell Mum,’ said Jake.

‘I can’t tell Mum.’ Maddy covered her face with her hands. ‘She’ll go ballistic.’

‘You still should. She at least has a right to know he’s back.’ Jake kept his voice low. They were outside in the back garden of Snow Cottage, Maddy sitting cross-legged on the grass and Jake lounging in the hammock, his eyes shielded by dark glasses, a can of lager in his hands. Upstairs, Sophie was having her hair rebraided by Marcella, in preparation for the ceremony.

‘He’s been back for months and she hasn’t known about it. He’s living in Bath,’ said Maddy.

‘What are the chances of her bumping into him?’

‘About the same as the chance of you bumping into him,’ Jake pointed out. ‘And you managed it.

Jesus, I can’t believe he didn’t recognise you. You must have been even uglier than I remember.’

‘I was.’ Memories had nothing to do with it; Maddy had the unfortunate photos to prove it, but she reached over and gave the hammock a shove anyway, causing Jake to spill ice-cold Fosters over his bare chest.

He flicked lager back at her with his fingers. ‘Thanks. So what happens now? I take it you won’t be delivering to his company.’

Maddy paused. She’d already told Juliet, who could betrusted to be discreet, and Juliet had reacted with typical pragmatism: ‘Look, I’m not just saying this because it means more business for us, but we are only talking sandwiches here. And you did say his staff were keen on our stuff. I mean, why should they miss out?’ She’d shrugged, then gone on in her gentle way, ‘Of course, it’s entirely your decision.

Whether you want to or not. You said he was a nice man; what did he have to say about it?’

‘That it was up to me.’

‘Well, just think it over.’

This was what Maddy had been doing ever since.

‘Daddy!’ A cross voice bellowed out and Sophie’s head appeared at her bedroom window. Put some clothes on. I can’t get married if you’re not wearing a shirt.’

Rolling sideways out of the hammock and landing with practised ease on his feet, Jake handed Maddy his half-empty can of lager.

‘I still think you should tell Mum.’

Maddy pictured Marcella’s reaction. As far as family feuds went, the Harveys and the McKinnons knocked the Montagues and the Capulets into a cocked hat. She thought of Kerr and her stomach contracted.

‘Maybe. But not yet.’

Chapter 5

Marcella worked as a cleaner at the Taylor-Trents’ house, which was how Maddy knew that Kate Taylor-Trent would have arrived home by now. It seemed almost incredible to imagine that they had once been best friends, playing happily together and sharing everything, right up until the age of eleven.

Then Kate had been sent away to boarding school — Maddy vividly remembered their tearful parting — and that had been the beginning of the end. When Kate returned from Ridgelow Hall after her first term there, she had invited along her new best friend, a confident twelve-year-old called Alicia whose father was a newspaper magnate. Alicia had resisted Maddy’s efforts to join in with them, and Kate, anxious to impress Alicia, had begun to slavishly follow her lead. Finally, Maddy had overheard Alicia drawling, ‘She wears those awful glasses, her father drives a taxi for a living and her stepmother’s black. Daddy would have a fit if he knew I was associating with someone like that.’ Bursting into the Taylor-Trents’ vast kitchen, Maddy had given Alicia a resounding slap before racing out of the house. For the rest of the afternoon she’d expected Kate to come over to the cottage and apologise. She didn’t, and Maddy hadn’t set eyes on her for the rest of the school holidays.

After that, Kate only had time for her bitchy rich school-friends. When they did encounter Maddy in the town, they smirked and sniggered behind her back, but always loudly enough for her to hear.

Glossy-haired and immaculately turned out themselves — teenage It-girls in the making — they made fun of Maddy’ s clothes, the clanking great braces on her teeth, her general gawkiness and, of course, her National Health specs. The rest of the time they talked loudly about their parents’

wealth, the exotic holidays they were taking this year, and how ghastly it must be to be poor and knobbly-kneed.

Oh, how they’d laughed at her knees.

Maddy hadn’t let the experience mentally scar her for life. Kate and her snobbish new friends may have found it amusing to sneer at her and her friends, but it had been just as enjoyable making fun of them in return, ruthlessly mimicking their la-di-da voices and loudly discussing whose daddy had the biggest helicopter or the plushest yacht.

This had carried on until Kate had left Ridgelow Hall. From then on, throughout her time at finishing school in Switzerland, followed by university, then the move to New York, their paths hadn’t crossed. Very occasionally Kate paid fleeting visits home, but never ventured into the town. More often, Estelle and Oliver flew out to visit her, or to meet up with her for long holidays in glamorous locations across the globe.

Then had come news of Kate’s accident, and Maddy hadn’t known what to think. Vacationing out in the Hamptons with a group of friends, Kate had crashed the car she was driving and had sustained horrific injuries to her face and neck. Estelle, naturally enough, had been distraught. Oliver had organised the best possible medical care and lined the pockets of the world’s most skilled surgeons. Maddy had been horrified and ashamed to discover that although it was a terrible, terrible thing to have happened to anyone, a small subversive part of her couldn’t help picturing Kate’s beautiful smirking face and thinking serves her right.

Now, almost a year on and despite the best efforts of the surgeons, Kate Taylor-Trent was arriving back in Ashcombe with a face that bore the still very visible scars of the accident. If she saw her – and sooner or later they were bound to bump into each other – Maddy wondered if she would have to be nice to Kate, the one-time friend and latter-day enemy she hadn’t set eyes on in over eight years.

Despite the countless hurtful names Kate had once called her, Maddy didn’t suppose she’d be allowed to retaliate now. When you were twenty-six, it was probably one of those things that was frowned upon. Even if you did sometimes still feel fourteen years old inside.

The wedding was a huge success, despite Tiff and Sophie’s refusal to kiss each other when Marcella declared, ‘You may now kiss the bride,’ on the grounds that kissing was, yeeugh, gross.

Now, having spent the evening watching a celebratory Rugrats video, the bride and groom were upstairs in their bunk beds, fast asleep. Sleeping over at each other’s houses two or three times a week suited their single parents perfectly, and when both Juliet and Jake wanted to go out on the same night, like tonight, Marcella was always happy to babysit. (Not that anyone was allowed to call it that.

As Sophie had loftily pointed out, ‘We aren’t babies. You just look after us.’) Looking in on them, Maddy tucked her niece’s spindly brown leg back under the duvet and carefully removed a cross-dressed Action man (wearing one of Barbie’s tutus)from under Tiff’s neck. She headed downstairs and found Marcella stretched across the sofa eating jalapeno-chilli crisps and watching a documentary on BBC 2. Since meeting Vincenzo d’Agostini three years earlier and moving into his house up on Holly Hill, Marcella had found new – and much deserved – happiness. Everyone adored Vince and declared that they were perfect together. With a pang, Maddy saw that the documentary was about foster carers. Marcella’s inability to have children of her own had been a source of sorrow to all of them; even now, at the age of forty-three, she still harboured powerful maternal urges.

‘I could do that.’ Marcella pointed at the TV screen with a crisp. ‘D’you think they’d let me, or am I too old and decrepit?’

Maddy leaned over the back of the sofa and gave her mother a big hug. ‘You’d be brilliant, but don’t just rush off and come back with one as a surprise. It’s the kind of thing you need to talk about first.’

‘That was different, Bean was only a puppy.’ Marcella recognised the dig. ‘There wasn’t time to discuss it. The man said if I didn’t take her, it’d be curtains for Bean. So what else could I do?’

‘Ooh, I don’t know, how about wave a placard saying, "Go on, tell me a heartrending story, I’m a total pushover"?’

‘But look at her!’ Marcella reached for Bean, who was curled up beside her, and swung the little dog into the air. ‘Even if the man was lying to me, how could I have said no? If you’d been there, you wouldn’t have been able to either.’

‘I wouldn’t have paid him fifty pounds,’ said Maddy, because Marcella truly was the queen of gullibility. The traveller who had sold Bean to her on a busy street corner in the centre of Bath surely hadn’t been able to believe his luck.

‘Are you saying Bean wasn’t worth it? Oh, sweetheart, don’t listen, cover your ears! Anyway,’

Marcella went on, folding the puppy’s long floppy ears lovingly under its jaw, ‘isn’t it time you were gone? If this programme’s going to make me cry I’d rather do it in peace.’

Maddy imagined telling her mother that the man she’d met on Saturday night and liked so much was in fact Kerr McKinnon. Marcella might not burst into tears, but the torrent of abuse that would pour forth would be spectacular.

Surely it was kinder not to let her know.

The Fallen Angel was busier than usual that Monday evening. Joining Jake and Juliet at the bar, Maddy was struck once again by the beauty of the pair of them, Jake so lean and blond and tanned, like a surfer, next to Juliet with her bewitching dark hair and eyes, lily-white skin and voluptuous figure.

They made the perfect couple visually, got on like a house on fire and adored each other’s children, yet there wasn’t so much as a flicker of chemistry between the two of them. It was such a waste, but there was nothing anyone could do about it; they simply didn’t fancy each other — ooh, drink.

‘Thanks.’ Maddy sat down next to Juliet, who had thrust the glass of Fitou into her hand. ‘No sign of the other team yet?’

Monday night was darts night and this evening they were up against the Red Fox from the neighbouring village of Claverham.

‘They’re always late. So did you tell Marcella yet?’ Jake waved his empty lager bottle at Nuala, behind the bar. ‘Another one of these, darling, thanks. Well?’ He returned his attention to Maddy, one eyebrow raised.

‘No, I just couldn’t. That smells fantastic.’ Keen to change the subject, Maddy lifted her head as one of the waitresses emerged from the kitchen with an array of plates balanced on each arm. To the right of the bar was the restaurant area, where several tables were already occupied.

‘Coward,’ retorted Jake.

Juliet gave him a prod. ‘Leave her alone. I don’t see why Maddy has to tell her at all. Even if Marcella does find out that this chap’s moved back to Bath, she could always pretend she didn’t know he had.’

Maddy nodded. That made sense, actually. OK, so maybe it was a little underhand, but if she was only doing it in Marcella’s best interests .. .

Anyway, why had it suddenly gone so quiet in here? As the conversation died, Maddy swivelled round on her stool, realising that someone had just walked into the pub behind her.

Oh shit, please don’t let it be Kerr McKinnon.

It wasn’t, although the new arrival had caused just as much of a stir. Although stirs were supposed to be noisy, weren’t they? And this was the opposite of noisy, more of an anti-stir.

Along with everyone else, Maddy couldn’t help gazing at Kate Taylor-Trent. She would have done it anyway, even if Kate’s accident hadn’t happened; it had been eight years since she’d last seen her, after all. But the livid scars were there for all to see, despite the baseball cap pulled down over her forehead. As Kate followed her mother through the pub to the restaurant area, she gazed determinedly ahead, refusing to catch anyone’s eye.

Under his breath, Jake murmured, ‘It’s like that bit in High Noon.’

Apart from a few of the locals acknowledging Estelle with a nod and a mumbled, ‘Evening, Mrs Taylor-Trent,’ nobody else was speaking. Desperate to break the embarrassing silence, Maddy burst out laughing as if she’d just heard a brilliant joke, then realised too late that she sounded as if she was laughing at Kate. Hurrying to cover the faux pas, she said brightly, ‘Juliet, you should have seen them, they were so funny,’ and promptly realised that this only made her sound more guilty.

For good measure, Kate chose this moment to look back over her shoulder and stare directly at her.

Feeling dreadful and prickling all over with embarrassment, Maddy pretended she hadn’t noticed and took a huge glug of Fitou.

‘Who were so funny?’ said Juliet, puzzled.

Highly entertained, Jake ruffled Maddy’s hair and said, ‘Nobody. Well, apart from my sister.’

‘Tiff and Sophie, I was talking about.’ Maddy decided to go for the bluff and pretend she hadn’t just been blurting out any old rubbish. ‘They looked so sweet tonight in their bunkbeds, that’s all I meant. Sophie insisted on sleeping in her wedding dress.’

‘And you’re still blushing,’ Jake couldn’t resist pointing out.

‘Oh, shut up.’ Seeing Kate had caused her to regress; she was feeling stupid and inadequate all over again and now to cap it all she was redder than her glass of red wine. Right, stop it, enough.

Nuala Stratton leaned across the bar, agog. ‘Is that her? Is that the one who was always so horrid to you?’

As if Estelle Taylor-Trent were likely to bring any number of half-stunning, half-scarred 26-year-olds into the restaurant for dinner.

‘Come on,’ said Jake cheerfully, ‘time we hit the dartboard before the opposition gets here. We could all do with the practice.’

Kate was hating every moment. Everyone was pretending not to look at her. They had ordered from the menu and now she longed for a cigarette, but the dining section was non-smoking and she definitely wasn’t going to venture through to the bar to be ogled at close quarters.

‘Hungry, darling?’ Valiantly attempting to pretend there was nothing wrong, that this was just a normal, happy mother-daughter outing, Estelle was struggling to keep the conversation going. ‘The new chef’s much better than the old one. Daddy and I had a fantastic bouillabaisse last time we were in.’

Kate pointedly examined the salt cellar. In desperation, her mother gazed around the other tables.

‘Ooh, those mussels look nice.’

How could mussels look nice? Mussels were mussels, for crying out loud, nothing more than a heap of black shiny shells.

‘Sweetheart, trust me, everything’s going to be fine,’ Estelle whispered. ‘Just give them a few days to get used to you and—’

‘Oh please, Mum, don’t treat me like a kid,’ Kate hissed back. ‘Everything isn’t going to be fine. How can it, with me looking like this? I’ve had almost a year to get used to it,’ she went on bitterly, ‘and it hasn’t happened yet.’

‘But darling, it’s only a few little scars! How you look on the outside isn’t important, you’re still you ... oh Kate, where are you going? Sweetheart, come back.’

Chapter 6

It was no good, she couldn’t do this. Feeling horribly trapped, Kate stood up so fast she almost tipped her chair over. If she was going to cry, she had to get out of here before it happened. But pushing back through the crowded bar – past the darts teams limbering up for their match – would be too much of an ordeal.

Glimpsing the corridor to the right, Kate abruptly veered towards it. The ladies’ loo was through a door on the left. Locking herself into the cubicle with trembling hands, she collapsed onto the lowered lavatory seat and took several deep breaths, tilting her head back and willing the tears to go back down.

Thankfully it worked. When it was safe to return her head to the upright position, Kate snapped open her Prada bag, took out her cigarettes and lit one. This was what she was reduced to now; hiding in the toilet, smoking a Marlboro Light, hideously aware that out in the bar people were laughing and talking about her, and. there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop it.

All her life she’d adored being the centre of attention. But not like this.

Exhaling furiously, Kate pictured Maddy Harvey, whom until tonight she hadn’t seen for eight years. The change in her was amazing; Maddy had been the original ugly duckling.

If Estelle hadn’t kept her up to date with developments, she might not have recognised her. But having been told what to expect, she had known at once that the sparky blonde at the bar was Maddy.

She’d heard the burst of laughter, too, after she and Estelle had made their way through the bar. And when they’d been seated at their table she’d found herself covertly glancing over at her. Being prepared for an improvement was one thing, but this much of a transformation had come as a major shock. Maddy may only have been wearing a little black vest and black trousers, but the colour enhanced her bouncing, layered, white-blonde hair and golden tan. As she drank and joked with the visiting darts team, she exuded down-to-earth glamour and the kind of easy confidence that Oh hell.

Kate shrank back instinctively as the door handle to the loo began to jiggle. She stared at it, willing the intruder to give up and leave her in peace.

The jiggling stopped, then started up again, accompanied by the creak of wood as someone leaned against the door. Go away, thought Kate, wondering if it was her mother come to see how she was. Just go away.

‘ Hello?’ called a voice that clearly didn’t belong to Estelle. ‘Is anyone in there?’

Drawing hard on her Marlboro, Kate rose to her feet, lifted the wooden lavatory seat and dropped the rest of the cigarette down the loo. Then she flushed it away.

‘Oh, sorry!’ the voice sang out. ‘Sometimes you think there’s someone in there and it’s just that the door’s got stuck.’

A shiver went down the back of Kate’s neck. Was that Maddy’s voice? Swivelling round, she peered up in desperation at the tiny window, but it was no bigger than a cat flap. You might just be able to squeeze a loaf of bread through there, but a grown woman? Forget it.

So she was trapped. The only way out was through the door. Meanwhile, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that the voice on the other side belonged to Maddy Harvey.

Bracing herself, Kate unlocked the door.

And there she was, leaning against the sink, looking even more spectacular close up, those emerald-green eyes no longer hidden behind geeky spectacles.

‘Oh. Hi.’ Maddy hesitated. ‘Sorry about the door. It gets stuck sometimes.’

Kate reached the second door, the one that would lead her back out into the corridor.

‘And I’m sorry about your ... um, accident,’ Maddy went on awkwardly.

Bitch. I’ll bet you are.

‘Yes.’ Kate fixed her with a look of utter derision. ‘I heard you laughing.’

Maddy flinched as if she’d been slapped. ‘Oh, but I wasn’t laughing at—’

‘You,’ Maddy insisted to Jake and Juliet when she rejoined them. ‘I was about to say, "I wasn’t laughing at you," but she just slammed the door shut in my face! God, it was awful, I was only trying to be polite. And then when I came out of the loo they were sitting there eating their meals and I wondered if I should go over and explain, but what if she’d started causing a massive scene in front of everyone, chucked a bowl of mussels over me or something?’ Maddy shuddered. ‘I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and now everything’s more awkward than ever.’

‘So?’ Jake was typically unconcerned. ‘Don’t let it bother you. Scars or no scars, she’s always been a bitch. Anyway, we’ve got a match to play.’

‘And someone here has his eye on you.’ Juliet gave Maddy a nudge. ‘You could be about to pull.’

The last time they’d played the team from the Red Fox, Maddy had been charmed by their captain, a burly rugby-player type called Ed. Throughout the evening they had flirted happily with each other, until last orders were called and Ed had regretfully confided that he’d love to take her out some time, but he had a girlfriend. Which was sweet, of course, and showed he was the faithful, trustworthy type, but at the same time not what she’d wanted to hear.

Maddy glanced across at Ed now, throwing darts and pretending he didn’t know he was being watched.

‘He’s already seeing someone.’

‘Wrong. He sidled over when you were in the loo and asked if you were available.’ Juliet looked smug. ‘Then he casually mentioned that he’d finished with his girlfriend. I think you’ve definitely made a conquest.’

Maddy wished she could feel more enthusiastic. Before, she had been quite taken with Ed, but somehow this news no longer filled her with delight. It was like seeing a great pair of Timberlands and not being able to afford them, then walking into the shop two months later with your birthday money in your purse, realising that the yearning to own them had evaporated and that, actually, you’d much prefer a pair of fantastically sleek stiletto-heeled boots.

Oh God, was she seriously comparing Kerr McKinnon with a pair of boots?

‘Come on, you’re miles away.’ Jake pushed her forward. ‘You’re next.’

Needless to say, they lost the match. Not because Maddy’s mind wasn’t on the job but because they invariably lost. They were the worst team in the league, the upside being that their opponents were always delighted to play them.

‘Bad luck,’ said Ed, joining Maddy at the bar where she was sitting with Juliet.

Spotting the glint of intent in his eye, Juliet slid off her stool and murmured, ‘Back in a minute.’

For a single woman with no love life of her own, Juliet was an incorrigible matchmaker.

Whenever Maddy tried to interest her in a man she simply pulled a face and said easily, ‘He’s nice, but not my type.’

‘Hi.’ Now that his way was clear, Ed said casually, ‘Did you hear I’d broken up with my girlfriend?’

‘Well, yes. You told Juliet. She told me. I’m so sorry,’ said Maddy. ‘You must be devastated.’

He looked offended. ‘No, no! I finished with her. Anyway, the thing is, I wondered what you were doing this weekend, Friday or Saturday night. Maybe we could go out somewhere.’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ Maddy said sorrowfully, ‘I can’t. I have to babysit my niece.’

‘Both nights?’

‘Both nights. Sony.’ Aware that Jake was listening behind her, she prayed he wouldn’t give her a dig in the ribs and say embarrassingly, ‘That’s not true.’

But Jake waited until Juliet was back from the loo and Ed had slunk off in defeat before saying,

‘Hey, Juliet, fancy a wild weekend in Paris?’

‘Why?’

‘Maddy’s babysitting Sophie on Friday and Saturday, so she may as well have Tiff too. That leaves you and me free to do whatever we want brilliant restaurants, loads to drink, fabulous sex ...’

‘Thanks,’ Juliet gave his arm a consoling squeeze, ‘but you’re not my type.’

Behind the bar, vigorously polishing glasses, Nuala said with frustration, ‘You always say that. But what kind of man do you go for? I mean, what was Tiff’s dad like?’

Since Juliet had spent the last five years not elaborating on the subject of Tiff’s father, Maddy didn’t get her hopes up. True to form, Juliet simply smiled her dazzling, enigmatic smile.

‘Oh, he was definitely my type. But he was married.’

‘Enemy on the move, enemy on the move,’ Jake murmured in Maddy’s ear. ‘Approaching at three o’clock ... draw your weapons ..

Flushing, Maddy saw that Kate and Estelle had finished their meal and were heading back through the bar. ‘She isn’t my enemy.’

‘She may not be your enemy,’ Jake whispered wickedly, ‘but I think you could be hers.’

As first Estelle then Kate made their way past them, Kate shot Maddy a look of disdain.

Oh great. Maddy turned away.

‘Blimey,’ Nuala exclaimed as they swept out, ‘did you see her face?’

The door hadn’t completely closed. It swung back open, Kate glared ferociously at Nuala, spat, ‘At least I’m not fat,’ and slammed out again.

Visibly shaken, Nuala clutched the Guinness pump for support.

‘That’s not fair! She took it completely the wrong way. I didn’t mean did you see the ugly scars on her face, I meant did you see the look on her face! And now she’s called me fat,’ wailed Nuala, who was ultra-sensitive about her weight.

Feeling both guilty and relieved that it had happened to Nuala too, Maddy said, ‘Welcome to the club.’

Chapter 7

I didn’t know whether we’d see you again,’ said Kerr. ‘Come on through to my office.’

‘But—’

‘Seriously.’ He took the cool-boxes from her and put them on the floor next to the reception desk.

‘We need to talk.’

Heart in her mouth, Maddy followed him down the corridor and into his office. The desk, she noticed, was strewn with papers and three empty coffee cups. Not naturally tidy herself, Maddy was heartened by the sight of another person’s chaos. Over-organised people automatically made her feel nervous and defensive.

‘Coffee?’

‘Um, no thanks.’

‘OK.’ He paused, sat down opposite her in his swivel chair, picked up a Biro and began to tap it against the edge of the desk, probably because there wasn’t any space to tap it on the surface. Maddy was further reassured by the pen, so few people seemed to own them these days. Computer-only offices gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Kerr was looking on edge, hardly surprisingly under the circumstances. To get the conversational ball rolling, she said, ‘I wasn’t going to come back. I talked to my boss about it – her name’s Juliet - and she said it was up to me, but she didn’t see why your staff should be deprived of brilliant sandwiches because of something that has nothing to do with them.’

Kerr considered this, then nodded. ‘We should have brought the cool-boxes in with us. They’ll be out there helping themselves to all the best ones.’

‘That’s OK, you’ll love the maggot and cress baguette.’ Maddy stopped and laced her fingers together; she was joking and she shouldn’t be. It was inappropriate. Nerves were getting the better of her. Anyway, who was she trying to kid? If she didn’t find him so attractive she wouldn’t have dreamed of coming back. Putting the blame on Juliet was nothing more than a bare-faced lie and she should be ashamed of herself.

The thing was, did Kerr know that?

He looked at her. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

Relieved, Maddy sat.

‘I’m so sorry about your sister.’ Kerr came straight to the point. ‘There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about what happened. I don’ t blame your parents for reacting the way they did. How is your mother, by the way?’

‘She’s fine. Very well.’ They were finally talking about it; Maddy resolved not to cry. ‘She wouldn’t be fine if she knew I was here, talking to you.’

‘Even though it happened eleven years ago? And it wasn’t actually anything to do with me?’

‘Sixty years wouldn’t be long enough for Marcella. You’re a McKinnon and that’s all that matters.

As far as she’s concerned, you’re all beneath contempt.’

Kerr paused, digesting this statement. ‘But I wasn’t even in the country when it happened. I was in the French Alps—’

‘Nobody ever apologised,’ Maddy blurted out, ‘that’s what she could never get over. Your family lived three miles away. OK, we may not have moved in the same social circles, but we knew who you were, and you knew us by sight. Then the accident happened and your family didn’t even have the decency to say sorry. No message, no letter, nothing. As if we weren’t even worth apologising to.

That’s what Mum’s never been able to get over. Well,’ she amended, ‘that and .. . something else that was said.’

Sitting very still, Kerr McKinnon said, ‘Which was?’

‘Apparently your mother was heard outside the court saying it wasn’t as if April had been normal.’

The room was silent.

Finally Kerr spoke.

‘I did apologise.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘Nobody did. That’s what made Marcella so mad.’

‘OK, listen. Before the trial, my brother’s lawyers stressed that none of us should make any attempt to contact your family. That was their number one rule. But after the trial, when Den had been sentenced, I did apologise, to your father.’ Kerr waited. ‘At least, I tried to. He didn’t want to hear it. I came over to your house one morning when I knew you and your brother would be at school. I wanted to see Marcella as well, but she wasn’t there. I did my best to tell your father how sorry we all were, but he wouldn’t let me get more than a few words out. Basically he told me to clear off out of his sight and never come near him or his family again. I thought he was going to punch me. I’d gone there to try and make things better and all I was doing was making things worse. So I did what he wanted me to do and left.’ Shaking his head, Kerr said, ‘And he never even told anyone I’d been there.’

‘Never. Not a word.’ Maddy wondered if she was being gullible here. Could Kerr McKinnon be spinning her a sob story?

Catching the look in her eyes he said flatly, ‘You don’t believe me? It’s the truth. Ask your father.’

Maddy stared at him. ‘I can’t.’

‘Look, it was eleven years ago. I’m not expecting him to forgive me for being a McKinnon, but he could at least admit that I went to your house that day and did my best to apologise for what happened.’

‘He couldn’t,’ said Maddy. ‘He’s dead.’

Now it was Kerr’s turn to look at her in dismay. ‘God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘Clearly.’

‘When did that happen?’

‘Six years ago. He had a heart attack.’ Maddy blinked hard. ‘He was only forty-four. I don’t know, life doesn’t seem fair sometimes, does it? We didn’t have any warning. Poor Marcella, as if she hadn’t already had enough to cope with.’

‘Not only Marcella,’ Kerr said gently.

‘She’s amazing. I don’t know how she does it. We’re so lucky to have her.’

‘She’s lucky to have you.’

Maddy swallowed the lump in her throat; sympathy was the last thing she needed. ‘Anyway, Mum’s fine now. Three years ago she started seeing this new chap who’d just moved into the village. His name’s Vincenzo d’Agostini, he’s a master carpenter and we all really like him. They live together now in his house on Holly Hill, and he’s only thirty-eight so we call him the toyboy. We keep dropping hints about wedding bells but Mum says it’s more fun living in sin.’

For the first time that morning, Kerr smiled.

‘Well, good for them. I’m glad she’s happy. And how about your brother, where’s he living now?’

Maddy began to relax. ‘Oh, still in Ashcombe. Jake has a seven-year-old daughter—’

‘Jesus. Seven?’

‘ Yes, well, it wasn’t exactly planned. He and Nadine were both seventeen. She didn’t want the baby, but Marcella persuaded her to go through with the pregnancy. Actually, she paid her not to have an abortion. After Sophie was born, Nadine handed her over to Jake and took off. Jake was granted sole custody. Mum helps out, of course, but he’s brilliant with her. To be honest, I never thought he’d manage it, I expected him to get bored after a couple of months, like he did with his Lego space station when he was eight. But it’s been seven years now and he hasn’t got bored yet.’

‘And you’re in Ashcombe as well. Whereabouts?’

‘With Jake and Sophie. We’re still in our old house. Marcella’s the only one who’s moved out.’

‘Snow Cottage,’ said Kerr, remembering the name.

‘The three of us,’ said Maddy with a wry smile. ‘Not the most conventional of set-ups, but then our family never did specialise in being run-of-the-mill. Anyhow, it works for us. We’re happy.’

‘Good,’ said Kerr, and he sounded as if he meant it.

‘How about you? Your family, I mean.’ She felt obliged to ask, but was curious too.

Following the trial, Den had gone to prison. Kerr had returned to complete his university degree, then taken a job in London. Meanwhile their mother Pauline had retreated, alone, to the secluded family home midway between Ashcombe and Bath. Pauline McKinnon was rumoured to have become an eccentric recluse — though Maddy had always wondered how, if she was such a recluse, anyone could possibly know she was eccentric.

‘My family?’ Kerr sighed. ‘Haven’t done as well as yours, I’m afraid. When Den was released, he.

moved to Australia. He wasn’t happy, couldn’t settle, drifted from job to job and from woman to woman ... we lost touch over five years ago. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing now.

And as for my mother, well, she’s a chronic alcoholic, incapable of looking after herself. I’ve hired maybe a dozen housekeeper-companions over the years but they never stay more than a few months. Last Christmas I had to arrange for her to go into a home. That’s why I moved back to Bath. I’m going to need to sell the house to pay the nursing home fees. According to the doctors, she shouldn’t even still be alive, but apparently she has the constitution of an ox.’ He paused. ‘Needless to say, she’s not happy either. Maybe your mother will be pleased to hear it.’

Maddy automatically opened her mouth to defend Marcella, then shut it again. He was probably right. OK, be honest, he was right. How many times had Marcella vehemently declared that she hoped the McKinnons would burn in hell?

Whereas it was, in truth, just terribly, terribly sad. Pauline McKinnon had been through the mill and had declined into alcoholism as a result. She too had been widowed when her children were only young, losing her Scottish architect husband to a brain haemorrhage. And now her house was having to be sold to pay her nursing home fees. She wasn’t to blame for what had happened. The accident had been a tragedy affecting more than just one family. And Kerr — Maddy truly believed him now — had attempted to apologise to her father .. .

‘I’d better be getting on.’ She rose to her feet, realising how long they’d been closeted in his office exchanging family histories. ‘My other customers will be getting restless.’

‘But you’ll carry on coming here,’ said Kerr. When she hesitated he added, ‘I won’t always be around. I’m away in London a lot of the time, dealing with clients.’

Was that meant to be an incentive? Maddy nodded, already feeling oddly bereft at the thought of not seeing him while he was in London. ‘I’ll carry on.’

Another flicker of a smile. ‘Maybe when I get back we could go out to dinner one evening. If you wanted to.’

He was looking at her, gauging her reaction. Maddy wondered if he had the remotest idea how she was feeling right now.

If you wanted to.

Oh, she wanted to, all right. But wanting something and actually doing it were two entirely different things. She pictured Marcella’s reaction upon discovering that she’d had a civilised conversation with a McKinnon, let alone a dinner date.

Put it this way, there’d be no roof left on Snow Cottage.

‘Thanks.’ Maddy hesitated. ‘But that might be a bit ...’

Kerr raised his hands in acknowledgement. ‘OK. I know. Sony, I shouldn’t have said that. Oh, before you go, there’s one other thing that’s been puzzling me.’

Lovely. Something embarrassing, I hope. ‘What’s that?’

‘On Saturday night you didn’t recognise me. On Monday morning you did. I mean, I know it was dark in the garden, but it wasn’t that dark.’

Phew. Only semi-embarrassing, what a relief.

‘Vanity,’ said Maddy. ‘I’d lost one of my contacts and couldn’t bear to wear my glasses.’

‘So that’s what you’re wearing now? Contact lenses? I can’t see them at all,’ Kerr marvelled, moving closer.

‘Actually, that’s the general idea.’ Maddy obligingly tilted her head, allowing him to peer into her eyes. There was that aftershave again, and the giveaway fluttering action in the pit of her stomach. OK, surely ten seconds was enough .. .

Shifting her gaze, she saw that Kerr hadn’t been studying her lenses at all. He was looking at her. As their eyes met, the wing-flapping of the hummingbirds in her stomach intensified. Was he going to kiss her? He wanted to, that much was for sure. And she wanted him to, and he knew she wanted him to .. .

It was easy, Maddy discovered, to break the spell. All you had to do was imagine Marcella bursting into the office. Maddy took a step back and gave Kerr McKinnon a look of reproach.

‘Sorry.’ His smile rueful, he pushed his hair back with his fingers and shook his head. ‘Cheap trick.’

‘Very cheap trick.’

‘I couldn’t help myself.’

‘Just picture my mother with a gun in her hands.’

‘Right. That’s very helpful. Thanks.’

‘Any time,’ said Maddy, realising as she let herself out of the room that they were doing it again.

Making jokes about something that really wasn’t a joking matter.

Chapter 8

It was midday on Thursday and Kate was still in bed, buried under the duvet because in all honesty what was the point of getting up?

But she wasn’t asleep, which was hardly surprising considering the racket going on downstairs.

Her mother had visitors, judging by the snatches of laughter, the doors slamming and the click-clacking of high heels across the parquet flooring in the hall.

Finally she heard Estelle climb the staircase and call out something muffled.

Kate groaned and rolled over onto her back, wincing as the sunlight streamed in through the bedroom window and into her eyes. But trying to ignore her mother was pointless; when she wanted a reaction she was as persistent as Jeremy Paxman.

As the bedroom door swung open, Kate said wearily, ‘You’ve got a what?’

‘A surprise! Darling, come on, just slip some clothes on and come down to the kitchen. You’ll love it, I promise.’ Kate doubted it.

‘Who’s downstairs?’ She had successfully avoided Marcella Harvey so far, by the simple expedient of staying in bed until mid-afternoon.

‘No one.’

‘I heard noise. And voices.’

Looking suspiciously smug, Estelle said, ‘Oh, that was Barbara Kendall. She’s gone now. Come along, sweetheart, I can’t wait to show you!’

Grumpily, Kate crawled out of bed and pulled on a grey T-shirt and baggy jogging pants. At least if the house was empty she needn’t bother with make-up.

Triumphantly, her mother flung open the door to the kitchen. Presented with not one but two unwelcome sights, Kate took a step back and said, ‘Oh, good grief, what’s that?’

The thing straining towards her was dark brown, snuf fly and grossly overweight. Its claws scrabbled against the quarry-tiled floor while its stubby tail — like half an old discarded sausage —

juddered with excitement. Sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, hanging on to its lead, was Maddy Harvey’s mother.

‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ cried Estelle. ‘His name’s Norris!’

Norris the bulldog. ‘He’s gross,’ Kate declared. ‘And I thought you said there was no one here.’

She avoided looking at Marcella as she said it, but was acutely aware of the bright glare of sunlight on her own unmade-up face.

‘Darling, I just meant that Barbara had gone. Marcella isn’t a visitor, she’s part of the family.’

Family, indeed. Kate bit her tongue; now she knew her mother was officially losing it.

‘Hello, Kate, it’s been a long time,’ Marcella said easily. Raising herself from her chair she said,

‘Now why don’t I take a good look at you, then that’ll be the awkwardness put behind us.’

‘Good idea,’ said Estelle. ‘I’ll take Norris, shall I?’

Take Norris and drown him in a bucket preferably, thought Kate, scarcely able to believe that she was standing there like a statue in a bloody art gallery, allowing Marcella Harvey to walk round her studying her face from all angles. How Estelle could possibly think this was a good idea was beyond her.

The woman was hired to clean their house, for crying out loud.

‘Well,’ Marcella said finally, ‘I haven’t run screaming from the room. It’s only a bit of scarring, when all’s said and done.’

Only a bit of scarring. Kate could have slapped her.

‘You were lucky not to lose that eye,’ Marcella observed. Catching the mutinous look on Kate’s face, she smiled and said, ‘OK, I know, there’s nothing more annoying than being told to count your blessings. But all I’m saying is, it doesn’t change who you are.’

Of course it does, you stupid old witch, it changes everything.

‘ Not unless you let it change you,’ Marcella went on, ‘and it’d be a real shame if you did that.

You’re still a pretty girl, you know.’ Kate flinched as Marcella reached out and gently stroked her face, first one side then the other. ‘Anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth bothering with.’

Appalled, Kate realised that quite suddenly she was on the verge of tears; Marcella’s gentle fingers and matter-of-fact tone had got to her. She was talking absolute rubbish, of course, but at least it made a change from the endless sympathy.

She wondered if Maddy had told Marcella about the incident in the pub, and guessed that she hadn’t. Marcella’s loyalty to her own family was legendary. Giving herself a mental shake, Kate said,

‘So what’s the dog doing here anyway?’

‘He’s Barbara’s dog,’ Estelle proudly explained. ‘She rang me yesterday in a terrible state. They’re all off to Australia in a few days and they’d arranged for Norris to be looked afterby a neighbour, but the neighbour’s broken her hip and all the boarding kennels are booked up, so I said why didn’t we have him here with us?’

Kate could think of lots of reasons, not least that Norris was diabolically ugly, as fat as a pig and – on the current evidence – a champion drooler. If there was a national saliva shortage, they could donate Norris to the cause.

‘It’s only for six weeks,’ Estelle chattered on, ‘and he’s such a poppet, he has a lovely nature.

You’ll be able to take him for lots of long walks, darling ... it’ll do both of you the world of good. To be honest, Barbara spoils him rotten and he doesn’t get nearly enough exercise. I thought we could put him on a bit of a diet while he’s with us, work out a fitness regime—’

‘I don’t need to lose weight.’ Kate was stung by her mother’s comment that it would do her the world of good.

‘Darling, I know you don’t. But you can’t spend all your time in bed, you should be out in the fresh air, and taking Norris for a walk would be such a nice way of meeting people.’

‘I don’t want to meet people.’

‘But you must! Sweetheart, you’re twenty-six,’ Estelle pleaded, ‘you can’t hide away like a hermit.

Anyway, it was Marcella’s idea, and I think she’s absolutely right. Since they got Bean, they can’t imagine life without her. And Norris is here now; we can’t kick him out into the street, can we?’ Bending down and cupping Norris’s lugubrious face in her hands she cooed, ‘Eh? Of course we wouldn’t do that, because you’re beautiful, aren’t you?’

The world had gone mad. Her mother had never shown the remotest interest in dogs before and now look at her, crawling around on the floor making goo-goo noises like some besotted new mother.

Was this what happened when you hit the menopause? ‘Well, I’d better make a start on those windows,’ said Marcella.

About bloody time too. But Kate couldn’t help covertly watching as Marcella crossed to the utility room, took a yellow bucket out from under the sink and began to fill it with water and a dash of Fairy. She was wearing lime-green cotton Capri pants, a raspberry-pink shirt knotted at the waist, and orange flip-flops. Her skin was the colour of Maltesers, her black hair tied back with a glittery pink scrunchie. Marcella had to be in her early forties, but she possessed an enviable figure. As she vigorously swirled the Fairy Liquid around in the water, her high bottom jiggled like a 25-year-old’s. And her waist was tiny, Kate noted. Unlike Estelle, who had been letting herself go lately and could do with shifting a couple of stone.

‘Don’t drink it, you daft animal,’ Marcella gently chided as Norris investigated the contents of the bucket with snuffly, snorty interest. That was something else about Marcella: she had a beguiling voice, warm and husky with that hint of a Newcastle accent betraying her upbringing on Tyneside.

‘He’s thirsty. I’ll get him a bowl of water,’ said Estelle. ‘And we’re going to need some cans of food for him. Sweetheart, why don’t you have a shower and get dressed, then you could pop down to the shop and pick some up.’

Kate sighed; this whole charade was nothing more than a conspiracy to get her out of the house.

‘Can’t you do it?’

‘I have to hold the ladder while Marcella’s doing the high-up bits. Otherwise she might fall off.’ Estelle grinned. ‘And then who’d clean the windows?’

Shooting a look of hatred at Norris, Kate moved towards the door.

‘Actually, could you do me a favour?’ said Marcella. ‘When you see Jake, tell him to take the lamb chops out of the freezer. If he spreads them out on a plate they’ll defrost in a couple of hours. And remind him that Sophie has to be at the village hall by five o’clock for Charlotte’s birthday party.’

Could the day get any worse? Kate gritted her teeth; the very last thing she needed was to be forced to speak to Maddy Harvey’s brother. With barely concealed irritation she said, ‘Why don’t you just ring him?’

‘Because to get to the store you have to go right past Jake’s workshop. It’s sunny, so he’ll be sitting outside. Anyway,’ Marcella concluded with a dazzling smile, ‘why add to your parents’ phone bill when it’s not necessary?’

Oh, for crying out loud, thought Kate, increasingly tempted to literally cry out loud. My father’s a multimillionaire, a phone call costs less than ten pence, what are you talking about, woman?

But Marcella, armed with her brimming bucket and a whole host of window-cleaning paraphernalia, had already left the room.

Of course, Marcella had more than likely done it on purpose.

This thought struck Kate as she made her way down Gypsy Lane with Norris ambling along at her heels. It was by this time one o’clock; showering, washing her hair, dressing then carefully applying enough make-up to minimise the horror of the scarred side of her face had taken fifty minutes. The irony of this ritual didn’t escape her; once upon a time she had been a strikingly attractive girl and make-up had made her breathtakingly gorgeous. These days it was a tool necessary to prevent small children screaming with fright at the sight of her.

So long as it didn’t melt in this heat.

Thinking dark thoughts about Marcella, Kate rounded a bend and was brought up by the sight of the flowers on the verge opposite, a sudden profusion of poppies, ox-eye daisies and dog roses marking the spot where April Harvey had been killed. Marcella had planted them herself, shortly after the accident.

Each time she walked up the lane to Dauncey House, she passed them and was reminded afresh of April’ s death.

Although flowers or no flowers, she was hardly likely to forget it.

Kate paused to gaze at the flowers, remembering April with her funny, wobbly gait, slurred speech and lopsided smile. To her shame, she also remembered the way she and her friends from Ridgelow Hall had made fun of April whenever they saw her, mimicking her mannerisms and comical way of speaking.

At least, they had when the rest of April’s family weren’t around. Anyone caught making fun of her would have been swiftly and efficiently dealt with by either Maddy or Jake.

It was deeply embarrassing to recall now, but she had been only young at the time. Making fun of people because they weren’t perfect was what children did. It had never occurred to her that one day she might not be perfect herself.

Bored with waiting, Norris strained at his lead. Slowly Kate made her way on down the dappled, tree-lined lane. As they rounded the final bend, where Gypsy Lane joined the town’s broader Main Street, she saw Snow Cottage ahead of her on the right and beyond it the row of craft shops and galleries set back from the road, where metal-workers and artists and ceramicists produced and displayed their wares for visiting tourists.

And there was Jake Harvey, as Marcella had predicted, sitting outside his own workshop, chatting animatedly to an old woman while she examined one of his bespoke caskets.

Stripped to the waist in a pair of white jeans, Jake looked like something out of a Coke ad.

Deeply tanned, shinily muscled, with overlong hair streaked by the sun into fifty shades of blond, he was the archetypal bad boy at school, the one your mother always warned you not to get involved with.

Not that Kate had ever been tempted herself; during her teenage years she and her friends had spent their time lusting after public-school educated boys with names like Henry and Tristram.

Reluctantly she approached the workshop, aware that her stomach was jumping with trepidation.

God, all this hassle for the sake of lop.

Chapter 9

‘It’s perfect,’ the elderly woman was saying as she ran a gnarled hand over the glossy deep crimson surface of the casket. Alerted by the sound of footsteps — and possibly Norris’s laboured sumo-like breathing — she turned and greeted Kate with a cheerful smile. ‘Hello, dear, come and take a look, hasn’t this young man done a marvellous job?’

At least concentrating on the casket meant not having to meet Jake Harvey’s eye. Kate studied the picture of a leggy brunette in mid high-kick, presumably dancing the can-can. Frowning, she struggled to work out the significance.

‘It’s me,’ the woman explained with pride. ‘I was a dancer at the Moulin Rouge. I was nineteen when this photograph was taken. It’s where I met my husband. Such happy days.’

Intrigued, Kate peered more closely at the lid of the casket, wondering how the effect had been achieved.

‘You make an enlarged colour photocopy of the original print,’ said Jake, reading her mind, ‘and cut around the figure you want to use. Then you soak it in image transfer cream, place the copy face down on the lid and rub over it with a cloth. When you peel the paper away, the photo’s transferred to the lid. Couple of coats of varnish and you’re done.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Kate told the woman, careful to keep the left side of her face out of view.

‘I know, I can hardly wait to get in it!’ Her eyes brightwith laughter, the woman said, ‘And it’s going to drive my children demented.’

‘Why?’

‘Ha! If you met them you wouldn’t need to ask. I have three,’ said the woman, counting them off on fingers weighed down with glittering rings. ‘A bank manager, a Tory MP and a perfect-wife-andmother who lives in Surrey. I don’t know where I went wrong. They’re dreadfully ashamed of me. I’m the bane of their lives, poor darlings. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all I suppose. Jake, would you be an angel and pop it into the truck? I want to show it off to my friends.’

Jake effortlessly loaded the casket into the back of the woman’s muddy Land Rover. Reaching up, she kissed him on both cheeks, leaving scarlet lipstick marks, then hopped into the driver’s seat and with a toot and a wave roared off.

Norris was by this time flat out on the dusty ground, snoring peacefully in the sun like a drunk.

‘Business or pleasure?’ said Jake.

‘Sorry?’

‘Are you here to buy a coffin?’

Kate suppressed a shudder. ‘No.’

He smiled briefly. ‘So, pleasure then.’

Hardly. ‘Not that either. Your mother asked me to tell you to take the lamb chops out of the freezer.’

Jake laughed. ‘Sounds like one of those coded messages. You say, "Take the lamb chops out of the freezer," then I nod and say, "Lamb chops are excellent with mint sauce." Are you sure you aren’t a secret agent?’

She hadn’t expected him to sound so normal, friendly even. Stiffly, Kate said, ‘And she also said not to forget about Sophie’s party.’

‘Ah yes, the party.’ Still nodding in a spy-like manner, Jake said, ‘Five o’clock, in ze village hall.

Zat is when ze party begins. I haff ze situation under control – oh bugger, actually I don’t.’ He looked at Kate then, quizzically, at Norris. ‘Where did the dog come from?’

‘We’re looking after him for a friend of my mother’s. Just for a few weeks. Actually, it was your mother’s idea,’ said Kate.

‘Tell me about it.’ Jake’s greenish-yellow eyes narrowed with amusement. ‘Ideas are my mother’s speciality.’

‘She thought a dog would get me out of the house.’

‘And here you are, so she was right. Would you be on your way to the shop, by any chance?’

‘Yes.’ Kate eyed him warily. ‘Why?’

‘Ze party at five o’clock. I haff ze present, but no paper in vich to wrap it.’

‘OK,’ sighed Kate; was this where her future lay, as some kind of lowly gofer? She jiggled Norris’s lead and he opened a baleful eye. ‘Norris, come on, get up.’

‘ Leave him with me,’ Jake said easily. ‘You’d only have to tie him up outside the shop.’ Taking the end of the lead, he looped it over the gatepost, then dug a pound coin out of his jeans pocket.

‘There you go. Actually, I’m holding him hostage to stop you running off with my money. Bring me the wrapping paper and you’ll get the dog back.’

‘You’re assuming I want him back,’ said Kate.

‘And von more zing,’ Jake called after her as she headed along Main Street.

She turned. ‘What?’

‘Ze wrapping paper. No Barbies. No pink.’

The general store, a kind of mini supermarket-cum-tardis, was owned by a garrulous old spinster called Theresa who had run the place for the last forty years and knew everything that went on in Ashcombe. Kate couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

‘Hello, dear, heard you were back, look at your poor old face, eh? What a shame, what a thing to happen, that’s America for you though, isn’t it, everyone drives like maniacs over there, rushing around, I’ve seen ‘em doin’ it on the telly, what I always say is take your time and get somewhere safely, better than goin’ too fast and not getting there at all .. . What’re you doin’ buying dog food then?’

Beadily she eyed Kate’s basket, as if suspicious that the cans of Pedigree Chum might be lunch. ‘You

‘aven’t got a dog.’

‘Just ring them up on the till and stop yabbering, you nosy cow.’

Kate smiled blandly and wondered how Theresa would react if she’d actually said the words aloud instead of just thinking them.

‘We’re looking after one for a friend. And I’ll have a sheet of that wrapping paper. The dark blue one.’

‘Blue? Not your dad’s birthday, is it? Although if it is, we’ve got some nice boxed hankies, or maybe he’d prefer—’

‘It’s not his birthday,’ interrupted Kate.

‘Thought it wasn’t.’ Theresa looked relieved to have been proved right. ‘He’s January, isn’t he?

Your poor mum and dad, must’ve been a terrible shock for them, seein’ you with your face like that and

—’

‘How much do I owe you?’ said Kate.

‘In and out of Theresa’s in under twenty minutes.’ Jake shook his head in admiration. ‘Better contact the Guinness Book of Records.’

‘ What an old witch. She was bursting to know who the wrapping paper was for.’ Kate felt her mood lighten, like the sun coming out. The last time she’d properly known Jake, he’d been Maddy Harvey’s irritating little brother, a skinny ten-year-old covered in grazes, with a much prized dried worm collection. Now, all grown up, he was ... well, all grown up. For some local girl there was no denying he’d be quite a catch.

‘Are you looking at my chest?’ said Jake.

‘No!’

‘Oh. Just wondered. Actually, you could give me a hand with the wrapping if you like.’

Kate followed him into the cool gloom of the workshop. Bemused, she said, ‘A gun?’

‘ Don’t sound so shocked, it’s not a real one.’ Spreading out the sheet of cobalt blue paper on the workbench, Jake picked up the imitation pistol. ‘Fires potato pellets. Here, you make a start with the Sellotape.’

‘I thought it was a birthday party for a girl.’

‘It is, but Sophie chose this. She’s already got one, so now she and Charlotte can have shootouts. Or murder other girls’ Barbies. Sophie thinks dolls are feeble,’ said Jake. ‘She wants to be a police officer when she grows up. Last week I caught her and Tiff aiming a hairdryer at passing motorists. When I asked what she was doing she said, "Being a speed-trap."‘

Together they managed to wrap up the potato gun, although the end result was secure rather than stylish.

‘I’d better get back,’ said Kate.

‘Before they send out the search parties.’ Jake picked up the unused rectangle of paper. ‘Do you think I should wrap up a potato too?’

He was teasing her. Realising she had to say something, Kate began awkwardly, ‘Look, thanks for ... you know, talking to me. Being ... um, normal.’

‘That’s OK.’ Jake clearly found this amusing. ‘I am actually quite a normal person. Plus, I always do as I’m told.’

‘Told?’

‘By Marcella, anyway. Life wouldn’t be worth living otherwise.’

Suspicion crawled over Kate’s skin like ants. ‘You mean ... ?’

Smiling, Jake said, ‘She told me to be nice to you.’

‘When?’ She could barely get the word out.

‘Two minutes before you got here, I imagine.’ He patted the phone lying on the bench. ‘Hey, it’s OK.’

‘It’s not OK. It’s humiliating. I don’t need to be patronised—’

‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ Jake’s green eyes were by this time bright with laughter. ‘I was going to be nice to you anyway.’

But then he would say that, wouldn’t he? For just a few brief minutes, Kate realised, her mood had magically lifted and she’d almost forgotten about her scarred face.

Now everything was spoiled.

Nuala Stratton, having slipped away from her barmaiding duties for five minutes, was observing the exchange between Jake and Kate with a mixture of intrigue and indignation. From her bedroom window above the pub she had a clear view into his workshop. She knew, of course, that Jake was an habitual charmer who flirted effortlessly and always made you feel extra-special, even when all he was doing was ordering a pint of Guinness and a packet of crisps, but why on earth was he doing it now with Kate Taylor-Trent?

Maddy would go mental when she found out.

Sucking in her stomach – something she found herself doing almost instinctively whenever she looked at Jake – Nuala watched him saunter over to the bulldog, unhook its lead from the fencepost and cajole the overweight animal to its feet. Then he said something else to Kate, handed the dog over to her and gave her forearm a reassuring squeeze.

What a traitor. So much for family loyalty. Didn’t Jake realise that some people didn’t deserve to be smiled at like that?

‘Nuala?’ Dexter’s voice bellowed up the stairs. ‘Get a bloody move on, will you? If you’ve fallen asleep up there, you’re sacked.’

Not that she was jealous of the attention Jake was paying Kate. Not properly jealous anyway. She had Dexter – she and Dexter lived together – and he was all she wanted. It was just that you could be perfectly happy with one man and still harbour a teeny crush on another. If they were honest, probably every woman who met Jake had a teeny crush on him. It must be quite strange to be Maddy, having Jake as a brother and not secretly fancying him.

‘ Nuala! Get your backside down here this minute.’

Hastily, Nuala kicked her discarded four-inch turquoise stilettos under the bed and slipped her feet into less exotic but far comfier two-inch heels. She had Dexter and she was happy with Dexter, but he did like to see her dressed like a glamour girl and, being a man, he simply had no idea how excruciating four-inch stilettos could be. God knows, she’d never make it as a Playboy Bunny. Two hours of crippling pain was as much as she could bear in one shift. Tonight she would put the turquoise ones on again, but for now the low-heeled suede mules would just have to do. Quickly checking in the wardrobe mirror that her reddish-brown hair wasn’t too messy, that her cream top was still free of drink stains and that her new caramel skirt didn’t make her bum look vast, Nuala exhaled with disappointment. Failed on all three counts, and the wet patch of lager was situated directly over her left breast. Hastily she brushed her hair, slicked ohanother layer of glossy toffee lipstick and jacked the belt round her waist in by another notch.

Dexter wasn’t what you’d call an easygoing character. She loved him to bits but there was no denying that sometimes he could be tricky to live with. Volatile and impatient, he could teach Basil Fawlty a thing or two about being temperamental. Living and working with Dexter was like standing too close to a pyromaniac with a box of fireworks – at any moment the whole lot could go off.

‘We need another crate of Cokes from the cellar,’ said Dexter when Nuala arrived downstairs.

His gaze dropped to her feet. ‘Got your granny shoes on, I see.’

He wanted her to be Liz Hurley, Rita Hayworth and Jessica Rabbit all rolled into one. Nuala’s only comfort was in knowing that, with his receding hairline, expanding paunch and waspish put-downs, Liz Hurley wouldn’t look twice at Dexter.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she was the only one he insulted – anyone was fair game. And he was actually a lot nicer in private, when it was just the two of them together. Rolling his eyes in despair and mocking her shortcomings was his way of entertaining the customers; she knew he didn’t mean it, deep down.

‘My feet were hurting. It’s either these or my furry slippers,’ said Nuala.

‘God save us,’ Dexter roared, to his audience. ‘She’s turning into Nora Batty.’ Shaking his head in disgust at Nuala he said, ‘You are such a frump.’

Nuala smiled; she knew she wasn’t a frump.

‘I’ve just seen Jake chatting to Kate Taylor-Trent.’ Then, because he was looking blank, ‘The one who called me fat the other night.’

‘So? You are fat.’

He didn’t mean it. All for show.

Chapter 10

The lamb chops were sizzling under the grill when Maddy arrived home from work. Foil-wrapped potatoes were baking in the oven and a bowl of salad sat on top of the fridge. With Sophie out at her party, the house was silent apart from the hiss of the shower running upstairs.

By the time Jake appeared, wearing a red and white striped towel around his waist, Maddy had boiled the kettle and made two mugs of tea.

‘Thanks.’ Taking a mouthful, Jake froze then spat it back into the mug. ‘Jesus, what did you put in that?’

‘Tabasco. And salt. And mustard,’ Maddy added serenely, because Jake particularly loathed mustard.

‘Why? Oh fuck, that is disgusting, my tongue’s going to drop off.’ Racing to the sink as the slow-burn of Tabasco kicked in, he put his mouth under the mixer tap and tried to rinse away the taste.

‘Good. Maybe if you didn’t have a tongue you wouldn’t be able to chat up girls like – ooh, let me see, girls like Kate Taylor-Trent.’

‘I wasn’t chatting her up. Mum just said be nice to her. Polite, that’s all.’ Still vigorously rinsing and spitting, Jake reached blindly for the kitchen roll.

‘From what I hear, you were being more than polite. She’s a stroppy cow and you have no business chatting her up when she’s been so vile to me.’

Jake straightened up, drying his mouth with kitchen paper.

‘Look, you’re both adults now. She’s back, and in a place this size you can’t just ignore her. It’s stupid. Put it behind you.’

He really had no idea. He’d heard all her grievances before, but he hadn’t been the one on the receiving end of Kate’s snide remarks.

‘She and her school friends used to make fun of me because Marcella was black, Kate said hateful things about her—’

‘And she probably regrets it now. We all do stupid things when we’re young.’ Swallowing and pulling a face, Jake added pointedly, ‘Look at you, you’re twenty-six and still doing stupid things.’

‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’ Maddy watched him refill the kettle and drop a teabag into a fresh mug. ‘If she regretted it that much, she would have apologised.’

‘OK, I’ll tell her that, shall I?’ Jake raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ll be the go-between, let her know that if she says sorry really nicely, you’ll be friends with her again.’

Maddy gave him a pitying look. ‘It wasn’t just me, you know. She said horrible things about you as well.’

‘Not any more she doesn’t.’ Amused, Jake said, ‘She fancies me rotten now. Anyway, who told you about me talking to Kate?’

Maddy counted on her fingers. ‘Nuala was watching you from the pub. Juliet saw you. And Theresa from the supermarket.’

‘Ah, the usual suspects.’ Pouring boiling water into the mug, Jake added modestly, ‘They all fancy me too.’

When Kerr McKinnon had moved back to Bath five months ago, he had rented a flat in the heart of the city, just a few hundred yards from the offices of Callaghan and Fox. He drove out to his mother’s old house every week or so just to keep an eye on the place, check that it hadn’t burned to the ground or been taken over by an army of squatters, but he hadn’t ever driven the extra couple of miles and revisited Ashcombe.

This time, purely out of curiosity, he did.

OK, it possibly had something to do with Maddy Harvey, but he thought it would be nice to see how the place looked, find out if it had changed much in the last ten years.

With the evening sun now low in the sky, Kerr put on his dark glasses and switched off the stereo as he approached the outskirts of the tiny town. There was the primary school — his old school — on the right. Slowing, he passed over the hump-backed bridge that crossed the River Ash. Ahead of him, he saw the war memorial. To the left lay Main Street; to the right, Gypsy Lane. Turning left, he drove even more slowly past the Fallen Angel and an assortment of shops — some he recognised, others he didn’t. There was the Peach Tree Delicatessen where Maddy worked, then a couple of antiques shops, the small supermarket ... Carrying on up Holly Hill, Kerr reached the outskirts of the town where a new housing development had been built. He turned and headed back down the hill, this time concentrating on the row of craft and workshops on the left hand side of Main Street. There was the sign for Harvey’s Caskets, Jake’s business. And now he was passing Snow Cottage where Maddy lived with Jake and his daughter; ridiculously, he found it’ hard to tear his eyes away from the low, honey-coloured Cotswold stone building. It was like being a teenager again, wondering if Maddy was in there, but he couldn’t stop, mustn’t draw attention to himself. Instead he carried on, turning into Gypsy Lane, mentally bracing himself for the moment when he would follow the winding road round to the left and reach the spot where the accident had happened.

There it was. And he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding his breath. Exhaling slowly, Kerr saw that the wild flowers planted by Marcella Harvey were still there, marking the place where her beloved stepdaughter had died. Strangers arriving in Ashcombe might wonder about the story behind this sudden burst of colour along an otherwise undistinguished stretch of roadside. He knew that April was buried in the churchyard, and that her grave would bear a profusion of flowers too.

Continuing up the narrow lane, he saw the figure of a woman ahead, walking a dog. With her back to him, wearing a baggy grey jogging suit and a baseball cap on her head, it was impossible to gauge the identity of the dog-walker.

Of course if this was a Hollywood movie, the dog would lurch suddenly off the pavement and into the road, dragging its owner after him. Kerr, paying attention, would brake in plenty of time but the juggernaut screaming down the hill at sixty miles an hour wouldn’t be able to stop or swerve to avoid them. If he hadn’t leaped out of his own car at superhuman speed and snatched the woman — and her dog

— to safety, they would have been killed outright. And — this still being a film — it wouldn’t be until the woman turned to face him, gibbering with tearful gratitude and thanking him for saving her life, that he’d realise it was Marcella Harvey .. .

Well, it was a nice fantasy. Kerr smiled wryly to himself as he passed the woman with the waddling, overweight bulldog huffing to keep up. Beneath the peak of her cap he couldn’t see much of her face, just enough to let him know that she was white, and younger than Marcella.

At the top of Gypsy Lane he swung the car round yet again. Heading back into the town, as he approached the entrance to Dauncey House, he saw the girl and her dog turning into the driveway. This time she briefly turned to look at him and he felt a flicker of recognition. A momentary glimpse of profile wasn’t much to go on but he was almost sure it was Kate Taylor-Trent.

Putting his foot down, Kerr sped past. He had an early start tomorrow, and wall to wall meetings in London. Time to head back to Bath.

When he was out of sight, Kate turned and stared down the empty, tree-lined lane. Had that been Kerr McKinnon? God, had it really? But what was he doing here in Ashcombe? As far as she was aware, he’d moved to London years ago and stayed there.

Then again, if his mother was still living in the same house, he must have to visit her sometimes. Although no one seemed to know for sure if Pauline McKinnon was still alive; according to Estelle, nobody had clapped eyes on her for years.

Kerr McKinnon, driving a dark blue Mercedes and wearing dark glasses. It had been quite a while –

OK, a decade – since they’d last seen each other, but Kate knew instinctively that it was him. Her heart was still beating like a tom-tom inside her ribs. She felt overheated and frozen at the same time. And Norris was at her feet, giving her the kind of world-weary look that signified he knew exactly what was going through her head.

She was fairly sure Kerr hadn’t seen the scars. She certainly hoped he hadn’t seen them – although this was a pointless exercise if ever there was one. If she was never going to see Kerr McKinnon again, what did it matter? And if they did meet up, well, sooner or later there was a chance he was going to notice her spooky new resemblance to Quasimodo.

Oh, forget it. If it wasn’t for her accident, she’d have been overjoyed to see Kerr again, may even have waved and gestured for him to stop the car. She had been smitten with him once and, modesty aside, he’d been pretty interested in return. Who knew, if he hadn’t left to go back to university at the end of that summer .. .

Anyway, too late now. The accident had happened, and unexpectedly bumping into old boyfriends was no longer a joyful experience.

‘Who’s uglier, Norris? You or me?’

Snuffling, Norris gazed up at her.

‘Except it’s easier for you.’ Kate gave his lead a let’ s-get going tug. ‘You’ve always looked like that.’

Estelle greeted them at the door with a beaming smile on her face.

‘Darling, fantastic news! Guess who just rang?’

Kate couldn’t help it; for a split second her thoughts flew back to Kerr McKinnon. He’d recognised her ... been too shy to stop ... reached for his mobile and dialled directory enquiries, then rung their number ... If she hadn’t spent the last ten minutes gazing after him in the lane before dawdling back up the drive, she’d have been here to pick up the phone herself .. .

‘Daddy!’

‘Oh.’ Bending, Kate unclipped Norris’s lead and watched him waddle like John Wayne through to the kitchen in search of food. Oh well, served her right for getting carried away. And in all honesty, since when had Kerr McKinnon been shy?

‘He’s coming home tomorrow,’ Estelle gabbled on, overdoing it as usual, ‘for a whole week! Isn’t that brilliant?’

‘Brilliant.’ Dutifully, Kate forced herself to smile. Not that she didn’t want to see her father, but it was hardly the most earth-shattering news in the world. Like most business tycoons, he was a workaholic, spending most of his time in London and jetting off at a moment’s notice around the world. When he was at home, he was constantly on the phone. It wasn’t as if she was suddenly going to have a dad to play endless cosy games of Monopoly with. Oliver Taylor-Trent preferred to play Monopoly with real money and proper hotels.

‘He’ll be here around midday, and he’s sorry he couldn’t get down before now, but he’ll make it up to you tomorrow.’ Her eyes sparkling, Estelle confided, ‘I think he’s bought you a present.’

It was like being seven again. Her father never changed.

‘You mean he’s told his secretary to pop into Harvey Nichols and buy me a present.’ But Kate couldn’t be cross, she was too used to it. Besides, it might be shoes. God knows, anything that drew attention away from her face had to be worth a try.

Chapter 11

The next morning was even hotter. With Oliver due home at lunchtime, Estelle had rushed into Bath to do a big supermarket shop. It wasn’t Marcella’s day to work. Finding herself alone in the house – well, apart from Norris, who didn’t count – Kate had changed into a pink bikini and wandered out to the pool. Now, after a few desultory lengths, she was stretched out on one of the recliners soaking up the sun. Swimming alone was no fun.

Closing her eyes, Kate remembered a magical summer long ago, when she and Maddy Harvey had played endlessly together in this very pool. They had been like sisters then. The following year she had been sent to Ridgelow Hall and had made new friends. She recalled the scorching, dusty afternoon when she and a couple of her new best friends had bumped into Maddy outside the sweet shop. How old had they all been? Eleven, maybe twelve? Nudging her companions, she had said gaily, ‘Hey, fancy a swim?’

Maddy, her thin little face lighting up, had said, ‘Oh, that’d be great.’

And she had smirked – God, actually smirked – and said, ‘Better go and jump in the river then.

Bye!’

It had seemed funny at the time. She and her friends had screeched with laughter at the look of disappointment on Maddy’s face. Now, Kate inwardly cringed at the memory.

There was no getting away from it, she had been a snobby little cow, seduced by the my-dad’s-richer-than-your-dad mentality of her fellow pupils. Once, visiting the spectacular home of one of the girls and discovering that the pool there was twice the size of her own, she had promptly broken off the friendship in order not to have to invite her back to Dauncey House. For weeks after that, she had even badgered her father to buy a helicopter purely to compensate for the embarrassment of not owning an Olympic-sized pool.

A cloud had drifted over the sun. Brushing a fly from her shoulder, Kate opened her eyes a fraction then let out a yelp of surprise, because it hadn’t been a cloud after all; the shadow on her face had been caused by a complete stranger who

‘Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you! Crikey, what must you think of me? I honestly thought you were asleep. Sorry, all my fault, I did ring the doorbell but there was no reply.’

Kate stared at him. If this was a burglar, he was the friendliest burglar she’d ever encountered.

‘And you are ... ?’

‘Will.’ He smiled, extended his hand and shook hers vigorously. When Kate continued to look blank, he said, ‘Will Gifford? And you must be Kate. Good to meet you, really good to meet you. Oh dear.’ He paused and shook his head in sorrowful fashion. ‘He didn’t tell you, did he?’

‘Who didn’t tell me what?’

‘Your father. God, I’m so sorry, I just assumed he’d have mentioned me.’

He was also the most apologetic burglar she’d ever met. Except it was fairly obvious now that he wasn’t a burglar.

‘Hang on. You rang the doorbell,’ said Kate, ‘and no one came to the door. So you assumed everyone was out and just decided to explore the back garden anyway?’

‘Oh Lord, it sounds terrible when you put it like that. Imean, I didn’t break down the front door, just wandered round the side of the house. I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait, you see.

And Oliver did invite me. I’ve got my case in the car.’

His case? ‘You mean you’re staying here? Look, I’m sorry,’ oops, now she was doing it too, ‘but who exactly are you?’

Kate was mystified; whoever this Will Gifford might be, he didn’t look like a business colleague of her father’s. In his mid-thirties, he was tall and indescribably scruffy, wearing crumpled black trousers and a baggy un-ironed checked shirt. His dark brown hair was all over the shop, sticking out in tufts, and his spectacles were Harry Potterish. The overall impression was of a gangly overgrown schoolboy, quite shy and clever but incapable of wielding a hairbrush.

As Will Gifford opened his mouth to reply, Estelle came into view, hurrying across the lawn calling, ‘Hello, I’m ba-ack.’

Will Gifford turned and said charmingly, ‘Mrs Taylor-Trent.’

Puffing, catching her breath, Estelle said, ‘Oof, it’s hot. You must be Will, how lovely to meet you. And please, do call me Estelle. You’re early!’

‘I’m a bit of a one for getting lost,’ Will confided, ‘so I set off from London at nine o’clock, to give myself that extra hour to get lost in. But it was like a miracle, I got the entire journey right first time.’ He shook his head, clearly delighted with this achievement. ‘Never happened to me before. Remarkable.’

Kate’s suspicions were growing. Her father had invited this man here to stay with them. Her mother had been expecting him, but hadn’t mentioned it to her. Was Will Gifford some kind of self-help guru, hired by her parents in order to teach her that looks weren’t everything?

They certainly weren’t as far as he was concerned. The man looked like a cross between a mad scientist and a scarecrow.

Oh God, was he supposed to be her present?

Gaily, Estelle said, ‘Right then, why don’t I make us all a nice pot of tea?’

Kate waited until her mother was back inside the house before saying, ‘I still don’t know what you’re doing here.’

‘Relax, you’re looking at me like I’m a dentist.’ Will grinned and flopped down on the grass a few feet away from her.

‘Is it something to do with me?’

‘Nothing at all to do with you, crosspatch. I’m making a documentary about your father and he was kind enough to ask me to stay for a few days. Although since the idea of the programme is to see Oliver Taylor-Trent both at work and away from it, of course I’d like you to feature in the film.’

A documentary. Well, she hadn’t seen that one coming.

‘Can I say no?’

‘Of course you can say no.’

‘Good. In that case, no.’

Mildly, Will Gifford said, ‘That’s a shame. Why not?’

‘Oh please, don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.’ Kate gazed steadily at him, hoping he’d be embarrassed.

‘Your face, you mean? Oliver told me about your accident. But I’m sorry, I don’t see how it’s relevant.’

‘OK, let me put it this way. Why on earth would I want to appear on TV, so that even more people can see my scars? Don’t you think it’s hard enough for me, just walking down the street?’

It was meant to be the ultimate riposte. Will Gifford spoiled it completely by tilting his head to one side and saying easily, ‘With dress sense like mine, you get used to it.’

If she hadn’t been lying flat on her back, Kate would have stamped her foot.

‘It’s hardly the same thing, is it? Please don’t try and compare your hideous shirts with my face—’

‘ Yoo-hoo, here we are! Dad’s home,’ sang Estelle, heading up the path with a tray of tea in her hands and Oliver Taylor-Trent following in her wake.

Despite everything, Kate felt a lump form in her throat. Being back in Ashcombe was having a weird effect on her hormones; for a split second she’d longed to scramble to her feet and hurl herself into her father’s arms. But since they weren’t a buggy family and Oliver certainly wouldn’t appreciate getting sun cream all over his Hugo Boss suit, she stood up and gave him a decorous kiss on the cheek instead. The next moment he was briskly greeting Will Gifford, while Estelle fussed around with the tea tray and attempted to tear open a packet of shortbread with her teeth.

Will, welcome to Dauncey House. I don’t think we want tea, do we? Got a bottle of something decent in the fridge, darling? We should raise a toast to an interesting and mutually profitable project ...

and Kate, maybe you’d be more comfortable slipping some clothes on?’

As ever, Oliver had taken charge of the situation, reorganising the family to his satisfaction. As Estelle rushed back inside with the no-longer-required tea and biscuits, he put his hand on Will’s frayed shirt cuff and said, ‘While we’re waiting, why don’t I show you the grounds? Afterwards you can see the rest of the house, then later on I’ll take you on a guided tour of our little town.’

Our town, thought Kate. Like he owned it.

‘Fantastic.’ Winking at Kate, Will rubbed his hands together with boyish enthusiasm. ‘Can’t wait.’

Kate pointedly ignored the wink. What an utter prat.

* * *

Deliveries completed, Maddy was back in Ashcombe by one o’clock. Racing over to the Angel, she said, ‘Dexter, I know that deep down, beneath that horrid grumpy exterior, you’re actually a sweet and lovely man.’

‘No I’m not.’ Dexter carried on hanging up beer mugs by their handles.

‘You see? Modest too.’ Plunging on, Maddy said, ‘And now I need a favour. Can I borrow Nuala, just for ten minutes?’ It was Friday lunchtime and the pub was quiet; Dexter could easily handle the few existing customers himself. For good measure she added, ‘Please?’

‘It’ll have to come out of her wages.’

Naturally. Maddy flashed him a brilliant smile. ‘I’ll pay you the thirty pence myself.’

‘Blimey, you must be desperate.’ Aware of Maddy and Nuala’s intensive gossip sessions, Dexter raised an eyebrow. ‘Not pregnant, are you?’

‘I just need to talk to Nuala.’ She heaved an inward sigh. ‘And you’re her boss, which is why I’m being so nice to you.’

‘OK. What d’you want to drink?’

Hooray. ‘Two Cokes please.’

‘Go ahead then, take her outside.’ Dexter waved a dis missive arm in the direction of Nuala, emerging from the storeroom with a box of salt ‘n’ vinegar crisps. ‘Just for ten minutes. And she’ll have Diet Coke,’ he added. ‘There’s hardly room for both of us in one bed as it is.’

‘Back garden,’ Maddy told Nuala when she’d dumped the box of crisps and Dexter had served their drinks. As he dropped the change into Maddy’s hand he said, ‘Time starts ... now.’

‘ Actually,’ Nuala said brightly when they were seated outside, ‘I prefer Diet Coke. Once you get used to the taste, it’s—’

‘No you don’t,’ Maddy interrupted, ‘you’ve just brainwashed yourself into thinking you prefer it because Dexter won’t let you drink the normal kind.’ A lot of their conversations ran along these lines, with Nuala defending Dexter and Maddy vainly attempting to make her see sense.

‘But—’

‘Anyway, enough about you, we’re here to talk about me. If I don’t tell you my stuff, I may have to explode.’

‘And Dexter would make me clear up all the mess.’ Instantly diverted, Nuala leaned her elbows on the table and said eagerly, ‘Go on then, tell me. Is this to do with the bloke you met last week at the party?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew it! Is he completely gorgeous?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And you really really fancy him?’

‘ Yes—’

‘ And he really really fancies you? Oh wow, that’s so brilliant, when did all this happen and why didn’t you tell me bef— Ow!’

‘ Sorry,’ sighed Maddy, because the only way to stop Nuala when she got this carried away was to pinch her wrist hard. She hadn’t meant to grind the bones like that, though.

‘That hurt!’

‘I know, sorry sorry, but we don’t have time to play twenty questions, and the thing is, it isn’t brilliant because—’

‘God, he’s married, what a bas— oh no you don’t.’ Nuala snatched her wrist away just in time. ‘OK, sorry, I’ll shut up.’ Pause. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I? He’s married.’

‘ He isn’t.’ Shaking her head, Maddy explained the whole sorry McKinnon saga in four minutes flat.

This time Nuala listened intently and didn’t interrupt once.

‘Shit,’ she said flatly when Maddy had finished. ‘I know.’

‘This isn’t good.’

‘Tell me about it,’ agreed Maddy, draining her Coke and feeling pretty drained herself. At least, her brain felt drained, but underneath the wooden trellis table her hopelessly overexcited knees were jiggling away like mini Michael Flatleys. Taking an envelope from her jeans pocket and placing it in front of Nuala, she added, ‘And now this.’

Nuala whisked the enclosed sheet of paper from the battered envelope and read the brief handwritten note.

‘He wants to meet you tomorrow! God, this is so romantic! I mean, I’ve had phone calls and text messages in my time, but nobody’s ever written me a letter.’

‘It’s not romantic when he’s only doing it because a phone call would be too risky.’ Fraught, Maddy raked her fingers through her already drastically-raked hair. ‘He’s in London today. He left the envelope with his receptionist to hand over to me.’

‘But don’t you see? That’s even more romantic! "I need to see you, properly."‘ Nuala swooned as she read aloud. —Saturday night, seven o’clock, my flat. Let me know if you can’t make it.

Hope you can. Kerr." Ooh, nice flat,’ she added with approval, noting the address. ‘And lovely masterful handwriting. If you aren’t up for it, can I go instead?’

‘I want to go, more than anything.’ Maddy watched a ladybird inch its way along the edge of the table, then spread its wings and take off like a Harrier jump jet. ‘But how can I?’

‘What d’you mean, how can you? Are you mad?’ squeaked Nuala. ‘You have to go!’

‘Marcella would kill me.’

‘What Marcella doesn’t know won’t hurt her,’ Nuala blithely retorted. ‘How’s she ever going to find out? My mum’s next-door neighbours got divorced last summer, it turned out that the husband had been having an affair for the last fifteen years and his wife hadn’t had any idea!’

As if that made it all right, thought Maddy. ‘But—’

‘Anyway, you already know you’ll go.’

‘What?’ Maddy stared at her. ‘How can you say that?’

‘Oh, come on. Why else would you show me the letter? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

Looking pleased with herself, Nuala said, ‘Because you knew I’d say you had to meet him. Face it, you know me. I’m hardly likely to tell you never to see him again, am I? You want me to persuade you to go to his flat tomorrow night, so it’s my decision and not yours.’ Squishing an ant with her thumb, she beamed across at Maddy. ‘Plus, of course, it’ll be my fault if anything goes wrong.’

Maddy couldn’t speak.

‘See?’ Nuala said happily. ‘I’m not as daft as I look, am I?’

‘God, I didn’t even realise what I was doing.’ Maddy let out a wail, snatching the letter and shoving it back into her pocket. ‘I hate it when you’re right!’

‘So there you go, you have my permission to see him. And wear something sexy.’

‘We’re only going to talk.’

‘ Good grief, are you mad? If he’s as gorgeous as you say he is, and meeting him is this risky, what on earth’s the point of just talking?’ Nuala raised her eyebrows in disbelief. ‘I mean, if Marcella’s going to go ballistic anyway — not that she will find out, of course, but if she did — you may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.’ Pausing, she frowned.

‘You know, I don’t actually understand what that means. I mean, why would anyone want to hang a sheep or a—’

‘ Time’s up,’ bellowed Dexter like a sergeant major from the back door of the pub.

‘Honestly, he’s such a bossy-boots,’ Nuala grumbled, but she was already on her feet, gathering up their empty glasses.

Maddy, wondering why on earth she was asking advice from someone whose idea of a perfect partner was Dexter Nevin, said, Will you two end up getting married, d’you think?’

‘Good grief, no.’ Vigorously, Nuala shook her head. ‘Not a chance.’

Oh well, that was something to be grateful for.

‘I’ve already asked him,’ Nuala went on, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. ‘He turned me down flat.’

‘What are you, a three-toed sloth?’ bawled Dexter. ‘Get a bloody move on, woman, there’s customers dying of thirst in here!’

Wishing she’d thought to bring Sophie’s potato gun along with her, Maddy shook her head and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nicer to have a boyfriend who isn’t horrible to you the whole time?’

‘Dexter isn’t horrible,’ Nuala said fondly. ‘That’s just his way. It’s only a bit of fun.’

Chapter 12

‘Lunch? We stop serving lunch at two.’ Dexter jerked a finger in the direction of the clock on the wall. ‘It’s five past.’ Bolshy pub landlords didn’t faze Oliver Taylor-Trent. ‘Tell me about it,’ he said jovially. ‘My wife burned ours to a cinder. We’re starving. My invited guest here is starving. I’ve told him all about your miraculous bouillabaisse – he’s a documentary maker, by the way. Will, meet Dexter Nevin. Dexter, this is Will Gifford.’

‘Blimey, you must be really hungry.’ Dexter’s dark eyes glinted with sardonic humour.

‘More than you can imagine. Cooking’s never been my wife’s strong point. We’ll have a bottle of Laurent Perrier, by the way. Oh, and would you have any objections to Will doing a spot of filming here in the pub?’

‘For TV? What, now?’ Dexter looked taken aback.

‘Not now.’ Will spread his arms reassuringly. ‘See? No camera. But within the next few days.

The thing is, I’m making a film about Oliver,’ he explained. ‘And Ashcombe’s such a great place. I wouldn’t want to leave the pub out of it. Could be good publicity for you,’ he added with a winning smile, ‘but don’t worry, feel free to say no if you’d rather not.’

‘Two bouillabaisses?’ said Dexter, who wasn’t stupid.

‘I think we’ll take a look at the menu,’ Oliver replied with satisfaction. ‘And there are three of us.

My daughter’s waiting outside.’

See and be seen was Oliver’s motto. Despite the fact that the Fallen Angel had a perfectly good restaurant area and a ravishingly pretty rear garden, he had insisted they eat at one of the tables at the front of the pub. Kate, waiting self-consciously for her father and Will Gifford to re-emerge, watched as one of the locals ambled past and turned to stare at her. Oliver had persuaded her, against her far better judgement, to join them for lunch while Estelle set about the task of fumigating the kitchen and scraping cremated salmon fillets off the baking tin she had put into the oven and promptly forgotten all about until the smoke alarm had gone off. Oh well, she couldn’t hide away for ever.

Safety in numbers and all that.

‘Quite a character, that landlord,’ announced Will, sitting down next to her and handing her a menu.

Glancing at it, Kate prayed no one passing by would assume they were a couple. More specifically, she hoped Jake Harvey in his workshop across the road wouldn’t think it.

‘I’ll have the steak in port. And a glass of red.’

‘Your dad’s on his way out with another bottle of champagne. What it must be like to be wealthy,’

Will marvelled. ‘You wouldn’t believe the lengths I normally have to go to to get a glass of champagne — blagging my way into celebrity parties, getting turfed out on my ear when they realise I haven’t been invited, the humiliation of realising I’m actually a pint of bitter man through and through — excuse me, but is that dog all right?’

Norris was snorting and grunting at her feet. Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He always breathes like that.’

‘He might be thirsty. I’ll ask for a bowl of water while we’re ordering the food.’ Unfolding his long legs, Will said, ‘Backin a sec. By the way, you don’t happen to know the name of the pretty barmaid, do you? Curvy redhead, cute dimples?’

Honestly, what was it with men? One-track minds or what?

‘I only moved back here this week. I don’t have a clue.’ This was perfectly true; she and the barmaid hadn’t got as far as exchanging names, only insults.

‘Fine, fine.’ Will raised his hands in mock terror, as if dodging a poison dart. ‘No problem anyway, I’ve just had a brilliant idea.’

Kate wondered if he was capable of a brilliant idea. Bored, she said, ‘What?’

‘I’m going to call on my expertise in the field of investigative journalism.’ Will’s brown eyes sparkled. ‘And ask her.’

The champagne helped, which was something to be grateful for. Before long, Kate’s knees were feeling nicely relaxed. When Will realised that the bowl of water hadn’t arrived for Norris, her father said brusquely, ‘Kate, go and sort it out,’ and she found herself rising automatically to her feet.

The abrupt transition from bright sunlight to dim smoky gloom was disorientating, not helped by the fact that she was still wearing her dark glasses. Removing them and blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust, Kate saw the door from the kitchen swing open and heard a voice saying, ‘Back in a moment, there’s something I forgot to — ooh.’

The curvy redhead with the dimples, carrying something in both hands, had caught sight of Kate in the pub and frozen for a millisecond. Sadly, a millisecond was all it took for the swing doors to swing shut again, before she had a chance to escape them. Realising too late what was about to happen, the girl lunged forward, getting caught anyway. She let out a squeak of alarm as the bowl ricocheted out of her hands, sending up a beautifully choreographed fountain of water before hitting the flagstones with a loud craaacckk. Kate gasped. The girl gazed in dismay at the shattered remains of the bowl, now strewn across the floor, and at the sopping wet front of her white shirt and navy skirt.

A roar of fury made them both jump. Erupting out of the kitchen like a maddened bear, the landlord bawled, ‘You bloody idiot, can’t you do anything right? Is a bowl of water too difficult for you?’

‘I’m sorry, the doors swung shut on me.’ Flushing, the girl knelt and began frantically scooping up the scattered shards, wincing as a splinter of china dug into her knee.

‘Possibly because they’re swing doors,’ jeered the landlord. ‘But then you’ve only been here for two years, haven’t you, so how could you possibly be expected to have known that? Oh, for crying out loud, stop faffing about and clear it up. Get a dustpan and brush, if you know what they are, and try not to get blood all over the flagstones ... Yes, can I help you?’ As the girl scurried off, the landlord turned his attention to Kate for the first time. ‘My apologies for the scene of carnage — you can’t get the staff these days.’

‘It was an accident,’ said Kate.

He gave a snort of derision. ‘She’s the accident.’

‘No wonder you can’t get the staff,’ Kate bristled, ‘if this is the way you treat them. Why do you have to be so rude?’

The landlord smiled, but not in a friendly way.

‘Because it’s fun. I enjoy it. Why, what’s your excuse?’ Eyeing him with contempt, Kate retorted,

‘At least I’m not a bully.’

‘No? Hardly Julie Andrews though, are you?’ He was openly smirking at her now. ‘I mean, forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one who was in here the othernight hurling insults at Nuala?

Calling her a fat cow and reducing her to tears?’

‘I didn’t call her a fat cow.’ Kate was seriously regretting coming here now, but she was damned if she’d back down. ‘No?’

‘No. Just ... fat.’ Thank goodness the barmaid — Nuala — was still off somewhere hunting down the dustpan and brush.

‘You made her cry.’

Oh God, she hadn’t, had she?

At that moment the kitchen doors swung back open. Surveying the scene — Kate and the landlord facing each other across the wooden bar — Nuala said, ‘That’s not true.’ Turning to Kate she added, ‘Don’t take any notice of him, he’ll say anything to win an argument.’

‘Been listening at the door, have we? Very classy,’ drawled the landlord as Nuala bent down and began sweeping up the bits of broken bowl.

Not to mention embarrassing, thought Kate. Addressing Nuala, she said in disbelief, ‘Why do you let him speak to you like this? I mean, what are you doing here, working for someone who treats you like dirt?’

Nuala, hurriedly brushing the last splinters of china into the dustpan, mumbled something unintelligible.

‘Ah, but she doesn’t just work for me,’ the landlord declared with satisfaction. ‘She’s my girlfriend. We live together. Didn’t you know?’ He raised his dark eyebrows in mock surprise.

‘We’re love’s young dream.’

‘You’ve been ages. We were about to send in a search party.’ Will Gifford patted the space on the bench beside him. ‘What was all the crashing and shouting about in there? Is that your way of getting reacquainted with the locals?’

Kate wondered if his scruffy, bumbling Hugh Grant act was meant to be endearing. ‘I’m fine. The landlord’s a dickhead, that’s all.’

With a shout of laughter, Will said, ‘Oh good grief, you mean it was you?’

Emptying the lukewarm dregs of her champagne into an oak barrel overflowing with geraniums, Kate held out her glass for a refill from the bottle in the ice bucket.

‘Your daughter doesn’t suffer fools gladly,’ Will told Oliver, and Kate shot him a meaningful, take-note look.

‘That’s Kate for you.’ Oliver nodded with pride. ‘She’s always known her own mind.’

Nuala appeared, carrying a fresh bowl of water for Norris. As she placed it on the ground next to their table she glanced awkwardly across at Kate.

‘Look, thanks for sticking up for me in there. I heard what you said to Dexter.’ Despite feeling she needed to express gratitude, she clearly wasn’t comfortable saying it.

Kate shrugged. ‘I meant what I said. He’s a bully.’

‘He isn’t really. A lot of it’s just for show,’ Nuala insisted.

Duh?

‘Fine.’ Kate picked up her drink. ‘If that’s what you think, good luck to you. You’ll need it.’

‘Honestly,’ complained Will, ‘this is so unfair, I miss all the fun.’ His eyes bright, he looked at Nuala. ‘So what happens now? Is she banned from the pub?’

‘ Banned?’ It was Dexter, emerging with their lunches. ‘You must be bloody joking. Had the guts to stand up to me, didn’t she? I’ve always respected a girl with a bit of spirit.’ Deftly, he laid down the plates, straightened the cutlery and refilled their glasses with the remainder of the Laurent Perrier. ‘Besides,’ he went on, acknowledging Oliver with a nod, ‘what landlord in his right mind would ban the daughter of a man who spends two hundred quid on a pub lunch?’

‘Anyway,’ Nuala murmured when Dexter had whisked open their napkins with a flourish and disappeared back inside the pub, ‘I just wanted to ... um, apologise for the other night, although I didn’t say what you thought I said.’

‘Fine,’ Kate replied stiffly, aware of Will bristling with curiosity beside her. ‘Let’s just forget it, shall we? In future, you don’t make fun of my face and I won’t make fun of your fat.’

‘There you go.’ Will Gifford gave her a comforting nudge when Nuala had left them. ‘Sounds to me like you’re settling back in a treat.’

Chapter 13

‘Right,’ Oliver announced with a flourish of platinum Amex, ‘how about that guided tour now?’

Norris, nudged awake by Kate’s foot, spotted a small, sandy-haired terrier some distance away and lumbered to his feet, snuffling with interest.

‘No,’ Kate warned, but Norris ignored her. Like a new graduate from an assertiveness training course, he raced across the dusty road dragging her along in his wake. The terrier, eyeing him in return, let out a volley of high-pitched barks and rushed up to greet him like a besotted groupie.

This had to be the famous Bean, Kate realised as Jake Harvey emerged from his workshop and whistled to attract the little dog’s attention. Bean glanced back, then promptly ignored him, far more interested in discovering what a hulking great bulldog looked like close up.

And smelled like close up, Kate discovered, as the two animals investigated each other thoroughly, indulging in that dreadful bottom-sniffing thing dogs loved to do in order to embarrass their owners.

Mortified, she tugged at Norris’s lead and prayed they wouldn’t attempt anything more gymnastic.

Laughing, Jake sauntered over. ‘Bean, you’re under age. Plus, he’d squash you flat. How was lunch?’ He grinned broadly at Kate.

‘Pretty good." Actually, it had been excellent. ‘But I don’t think much of the landlord.’

‘Dexter? Oh, he’s in a league of his own. Actually, we’re fairly sure he’s the secret love child of Simon Cowell and Rosa Klebb. Saw you talking to Nuala,’ he went on innocently.

‘That girl shouldn’t let him speak to her like that. What is she, some kind of doormat?’

‘Nuala? Her motto is better the devil you know than no devil at all. Anyway, how about you?’

He nodded over at Will Gifford, currently shrugging his way back into his shabby jacket. ‘Who’s the mystery man? Boyfriend of yours?’

Oh God, was this the conclusion everyone was going to jump to? Now that she was ugly, would they automatically assume that someone like Will was the best she could hope for?

‘Please,’ Kate shuddered, ‘I’m not that desperate.’ In fact, if anyone physically resembled a battered old doormat, it was scruffy, tufty-haired Will; should you need to wipe your feet on something, he’d be perfect.

‘You’re looking a bit happier today,’ said Jake.

Was she? Really? Well, maybe she wasn’t feeling quite so suicidal. Then again, this could be due to picturing herself trampling all over Will Gifford in spike-heeled boots.

‘Either your heart’s beating very fast indeed,’ Kate observed, ‘or someone wants to speak to you.’

The pocket of Jake’s white cotton shirt was vibrating like a humming-bird.

‘I was enjoying the buzz.’ With a wink, he took out his mobile and answered it. Much to Kate’s relief, Norris and Bean had stopped investigating each other’s bottoms, evidently having decided to keep their relationship platonic. Norris was now lying on his side on the dusty ground while Bean, rather sweetly, attempted to clamber all over him.

‘Hello, you,’ Jake murmured smiling into the phone and raking tanned fingers through his blond hair. ‘I know, me too.’ He paused to listen, then laughed. ‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse. No, definitely free tonight.’ Another pause, then he broke into a grin. ‘You’re a bad, bad girl. OK, eight o’clock, I’d better go now. See you there.’

Kate had never been more glad of her dark glasses. Was every conversation with Jake Harvey destined to lift her spirits, then bring her crashing back to earth with a bump?

‘Sorry about that. Sophie’s headmistress,’ said Jake.

‘ Really? Oh.’ Too late, she realised he was joking.

Entertained, he said, ‘You haven’t seen Sophie’s headmistress. Anne Robinson on a broomstick.’

‘Well, I’d better be going too.’ Kate gave Norris’s lead another tug, before Jake could start telling her all about the stunning girl he’d arranged to meet tonight. Across the road she saw that Oliver had finished settling up; if he and Will made their way over now, Will would be bound to say something excruciating.

‘So who is he?’ Clearly curious, Jake nodded over at Will. ‘He makes documentaries. He’s doing one on my dad. He’ll be filming around here too,’ said Kate.

‘Filming?’ Jake let out a low whistle. ‘Anyone with something to hide had better watch out then.’

‘Does that include you?’ Kate couldn’t resist the dig. ‘Not me.’ He flashed her a wicked grin.

‘Luckily, I’m not the secretive type.’

‘Who’s he?’ said Will.

Honestly, and women were supposed to be the nosy ones. ‘Local coffin-maker. Thinks he’s it. I’m taking Norris home,’ said Kate, because Norris was casting lovelorn looks over his burly shoulder at Bean and she didn’t trust him not to drag her back across the road.

‘We won’t be long,’ said Oliver. ‘Just a quick tour of the town then we’ll be back.’

Sophie and Tiff were playing with a cardboard box on the pavement outside the Peach Tree.

‘Takes me back a bit,’ Oliver said jovially as he and Will approached the delicatessen.

‘Playing with cardboard boxes because we couldn’t afford proper toys.’ He liked to exaggerate the circumstances of his childhood, play up the poverty aspect. ‘Hello there, you two, having fun? This is Sophie, by the way, our housekeeper’s granddaughter. And Tiff is the son of Juliet, who owns the deli.’

‘Hi,’ said Will, eyeing the box with its letterbox-sized slit in the top. ‘Playing postmen?’

Sophie shot him a pitying look. ‘It’s a toll booth.’

‘It costs fifty pence to get into the shop,’ said Tiff.

‘No it doesn’t,’ an exasperated female voice called out from inside the delicatessen. ‘Tiff, let them in.’

Tiff and Sophie gazed up at Oliver.

‘Outrageous opportunism,’ Oliver tut-tutted, pulling a handful of coins from his trouser pocket and slipping them into the box. Sophie and Tiff exchanged smug glances — Oliver Taylor-Trent was always a soft touch. Then their eyes swivelled in unison to fix upon his younger, scruffier companion.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Will protested. ‘I’m like the Queen, I never carry cash.’

‘Appalling children,’ sighed Juliet, appearing in the doorway and ushering in her potential customers. ‘You shouldn’t give them any money.’

‘Nonsense,’ Oliver said briskly. ‘Couple of young entrepreneurs in the making. Reminds me of myself when I was young.’

‘More like a couple of highway robbers.’ Juliet smiled apologetically at Will. ‘What must you think of us?’

It didn’t take a mind-reader to guess what Will was thinking. Juliet was wearing a white, peasant-style Indian cotton blouse and a swirling calf-length skirt strewn with poppies. Her dark hair was tied back in a loose glossy plait. Her eyes, darker still, were alight with gentle humour. Oliver, watching Will’s reaction to Juliet, wondered whether it was those eyes or her glorious hourglass figure that appealed to him most.

‘How’s business?’ Oliver said easily.

‘Oh, pretty good. We get by.’ Dimples appeared in Juliet’s cheeks. ‘I’m sure trade will pick up now that you’re back.’

‘Funny you should mention it. Estelle forgot to buy Parma ham this morning.’

‘Customers with expensive tastes and more money than sense,’ Juliet told Will cheerfully as she crossed to the chill cabinet, ‘are my favourite kind. Three packets or four?’

Oliver thought about it. ‘Better make it six.’

‘Gravlax?’

‘Go on then.’

‘How about those olives you like?’

‘You’ve twisted my arm.’

‘And we’ve got the most amazing Sevruga caviar.’

‘Now you’re pushing your luck,’ said Oliver.

‘Oh well, worth a try.’ Juliet laughed as she rang up his purchases on the till and expertly packed them into a Peach Tree brown paper carrier with string handles. ‘Thanks very much, I’ll put it on your account. And we look forward to seeing you again soon.’

‘Bye, Mr Taylor-Trent,’ chorused Tiff and Sophie as they left the shop.

‘Bye,’ said Oliver. ‘Don’t spend it all at once.’

‘It wasn’t that much money,’ Sophie told him. ‘Only three pounds twenty pee.’

‘Wow,’ breathed Will, when they were out of eavesdropping range of the children. ‘I mean ...

wow.’

‘ She has that effect on men,’ Oliver agreed. ‘I tell you, if I were twenty years younger, I’d be tempted myself.’

‘It’s not just her. This whole ... place.’ As Will Gifford spread his arms to encompass Ashcombe, a button went ping and parted with his shirt. ‘I mean, are any of the people who live here normal?’

‘ Funny you should say that.’ Oliver steered him up the road towards the mini supermarket. ‘Brace yourself, you’re about to meet Theresa Birch.’

You knew your subconscious was up to something when you went into Bath to buy a new pair of trainers and a bottle of contact lens cleaning solution, and scuttled home three hours later with a lime-green silk and velvet bra and knicker set instead.

What a trollop.

Worse still was hearing the front door open and guiltily stuffing the carrier bag containing your new bra and knickers under the sofa.

‘Hi, darling.’ Marcella came bursting into the living room. ‘Buy something nice?’

Maddy pulled a face. ‘Couldn’t find any trainers I liked.’

‘Oh, what a shame. So you didn’t get anything at all?’

‘No, just looked around the shops.’ Not just a trollop, but a wicked lying trollop. Wondering if this was how people felt when they smuggled hard drugs through customs, Maddy hurried through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She imagined the hidden underwear pulsating and glowing like kryptonite, signalling its presence to Marcella. ‘Chocolate biscuits?’

‘No thanks, but I’d love a raw carrot.’ Marcella grinned. ‘What a ridiculous question. Of course I want chocolate biscuits – ooh, here come the rabble.’ She jumped to one side as the door crashed open again. Jake, Sophie and Bean came clattering down the hallway and erupted into the kitchen. Sophie, covered in grass stains and dust, was clutching a football and looking triumphant.

‘She’s lethal,’ complained Jake. ‘Almost broke my leg. She’s Vinnie Jones in a skirt.’

‘He lost,’ Sophie said matter-of-factly. ‘And I don’t wear skirts. Anyway I’ve never heard of Vinnie Jones. Who’s she?’

‘That reminds me,’ said Marcella. ‘Vince and I are having a barbecue tonight, if you fancy coming along.’

‘Great,’ said Jake.

‘I can’t.’ Maddy used the excuse she’d had the foresight to prepare earlier. ‘I’m meeting up with Jen and Susie in Bath.’ She looked suitably regretful. ‘We’re having a girly night out.’

‘Oh well, never mind. Give them my love,’ said Marcella warmly, which only made Maddy feel worse. ‘And if you’re home before midnight, come on over, we’ll still be going strong – oh, darling, what have you got there? Is that a present for me?’ Bending down, she reached for the glossy black carrier Bean was dragging into the kitchen, and Maddy felt herself break into a light sweat. For a panicky moment she wondered if she could get away with pretending it was a present for Marcella, but it wasn’t her birthday and the bra was the wrong size and her mother wasn’t stupid. So basically she wasn’t going to be able to get away with it at all.

‘I say, these are a bit special.’ Lifting out the tiny velvet-trimmed bra and knickers, Marcella’s dark eyes danced with mischief. ‘Been out buying for a lady friend, darling?’

‘Nothing to do with me.’ Jake raised his hands, absolving himself.

‘Maddy? I thought you said you didn’t find anything you liked.’

‘I ... I changed my mind.’ Maddy stammered, uncomfortably aware of Jake’s gaze upon her. ‘I mean, I did like them, so I bought them, but I’m going to take them back to the shop. Too ... um, expensive,’ she added hurriedly as Marcella glanced at the price tag and let out a low whistle. ‘It was a moment of madness, I don’t know why I did it. I mean, you know me, it’s usually Marks and Spencer’s multipacks.’

Maddy knew she was gabbling, but this part of the lie was actually true. She could get worryingly excited about tearing open a pristine M & S multipack.

‘You don’t know why you did it? Spent sixty pounds on these? Well, I think I can probably hazard a guess. So,’ Marcella gave her a less than subtle, tell-us-everything nudge, ‘who is he?’

Now Maddy really couldn’t meet Jake’s eye. She didn’t know where to look.

‘No one. Really. I just saw them and liked the colour.’

‘See that?’ Marcella pointed out of the kitchen window. ‘Flying pig. Sweetheart, you must have your eye on someone – hey, I know, why don’t you invite him to the barbecue? Bring Jen and Susie along too, then it won’t be so obvious, just tell him it’s a casual get-together for a few friends. Wouldn’t that be a fabulous idea? Then we can all meet him and see what we think!’

What Marcella would think truly didn’t bear thinking about. Shovelling the bra and briefs back into their black carrier, Maddy said, ‘Mum, I promise you, there isn’t anyone. This stuff’s going back to the shop, I’m meeting Jen and Susie in Brown’s at seven and if it’s OK with everyone, I’d quite like a bath before I go.’

‘She thinks I was born yesterday,’ Marcella said cheerfully as Maddy squeezed out of the crowded kitchen, ‘but she’s forgotten two important things.’

Ever inquisitive, Sophie said beadily, ‘What important things?’

‘I’m her mother,’ Marcella told Sophie, raising her voice so that Maddy could still hear as she escaped up the stairs. ‘And I’m always right.’

Chapter 14

The glorious bra and knicker set, now destined never to be worn, was back at the cottage. Wearing a bronze lace top and tight black trousers – because she was, after all, supposed to be out clubbing with Susie and Jen – Maddy parked in Armitage Close, an anonymous cul-de-sac around the corner from Kerr’s house. Feeling like a fugitive, she checked all around before sliding out of the car, then made her way hurriedly to his address.

He answered the door so quickly that Maddy knew he’d been looking out for her. Now that she was actually here, she could barely make out what he was saying, so loud was the adrenalin-fuelled pumping of blood in her ears.

She took a deep breath. This was it; she was here.

‘ I’m sorry, I’ll calm down in a minute. I just feel so bad about deceiving Mum ... Marcella ...’

Managing a shaky smile, Maddy said, ‘And then I thought about not coming here tonight and that made me feel worse.’

Kerr led her through the panelled hallway, into a high-ceilinged sitting room. Primrose-yellow walls and a cream carpet didn’t go at all with the heavy, reddish-brown mahogany furniture or the dark blue rugs sprawled across the floor.

‘I know.’ Kerr intercepted her gaze. ‘It’s horrible, a complete nightmare. I rented it furnished.

The kitchen has to be seen to be believed. Anyway, that’s not important.’ He shook his head. ‘Being appalled by my kitchen tiles isn’t why you’re here. Bloody hell, life would be a damn sight easier if it was.’

Maddy nodded, acknowledging this with feeling. If only she were Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, life would be a doddle. Apart from having to wear the clothes, obviously.

‘I still can’t believe this is happening,’ Kerr went on. ‘It’s only been a week, for heaven’s sake. This time last Saturday I hadn’t even met you.’ He paused. ‘And then at the party, barn. Since that night I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’

He was wearing a dark blue cotton shirt and faded jeans, the body beneath them — frankly — to die for. Her stomach knotted with lust, Maddy whispered, ‘I know. Me too.’ There was no point in trying to deny it; the attraction was fairly obviously mutual. She cleared her throat. ‘But what if we’re feeling like this because we know it can’t happen? Like being on a diet and knowing you can’t have chocolate mousse?’

‘OK, I thought about that too. That’s why I invited you here tonight.’ Moving towards her, Kerr smiled slightly and reached for her hands. ‘Come here, mousse.’

Pulling her towards him, he kissed her on the corner of her mouth, then on the other corner, then properly, and Maddy thought, At last. It was like going to heaven, feeling Kerr’s warm body pressed against her own and his fingers (thank goodness she hadn’t used hair gel) sliding unimpeded through her hair. All too soon he pulled away, surveying her with an expression in his dark eyes that almost made her want to cry.

‘OK, you have to bear with me now because I’m not used to saying this kind of stuff. I’m not sure, but I think I love you.’

‘Oh God, don’t say that ...’ Maddy covered her mouth, not meaning it for a moment; this was what she wanted to hear him say more than anything. But it was just so scary, so impossible. How could anything but misery result from a situation so dire?

‘It’s the only way. We both know how we feel, it’s too late to back down and pretend it hasn’t happened. Not seeing you again would only make me want you more.’ Kerr waited. ‘Right, so this is the plan. We are going to see each other. We’ll be incredibly discreet, no one else will know, and with a bit of luck we’ll discover we don’t like each other as much as we think we do.’

Maddy stared at him in disbelief. ‘With a bit of luck?’

‘I know, I know.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘But what other choice do we have? And it could happen, you know. In fact, the odds are that it will. How many boyfriends have you had?’

Taken aback by the bluntness of the question, Maddy said cautiously, ‘Well ... quite a few, I suppose. All in all.’

‘OK, same here. Maybe a bit more than quite a few.’ A flicker of a smile crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry. If only I’d known, I’d have saved myself. But the point is, we went out with other people because we liked them. And each time, sooner or later, and for whatever reason, we stopped going out with them. Fingers crossed, that’s exactly what’ll happen to us.’

It didn’t help that while he was saying this, he was running his fingers magically down the side of her face, touching her neck, looking very much as though he wanted to kiss her again.

‘But you said ...’ Maddy’s throat constricted with emotion . . you said that you thought you might, um ...’

‘Love you. I know. But it could still happen, couldn’t it?

Give it a couple of weeks and I might realise I can’t stand the sight of you. Or you may decide you never want to see me again.’

Right now, that seemed about as likely as deciding that your favourite sandwich was cat food and mustard. ‘And if we don’t?’

‘If we don’t, it’s officially a disaster. We’ll just have to run away together.’ Kerr drew her towards him once more, his dark eyes fixed on hers. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere where Marcella can’t track us down. Join up with the VSO or something, and devote the rest of our lives to helping homeless smelly old tramps in Siberia. It’ll be vile, but at least we’ll be together. God,’ he pulled a face, ‘I really hope it doesn’t come to that. Talk about an incentive to get you out of my system.’

‘Maybe we should write down a list of our had points, to get the ball rolling,’ Maddy said helpfully.

‘You know, I could go off you really quickly if you told me lots of completely hideous things about you.’

‘You think? Like what?’

‘Oh, like if you watch Sky Sports all the time. And get really worked up about football. And you hate dogs. And you’re really irritatingly tidy. Or if you only change your socks once a fortnight. And you tell bad jokes all the time and expect me to laugh at them over and over again.’

Actually, this was easy, all she had to do was remember all the things that had annoyed her about previous boyfriends. ‘Or you’re proud of the fact that you’ve never done the washing-up in your life, or you play with model train’s, or you think it’s funny to mock people with speech impediments, or like to pretend you’ve got a huge spider in your hand when you know perfectly well someone’s terrified of spiders—’

‘Stop, stop.’ Kerr held up his hands in protest. ‘Jesus, what kind of men have you been associating with? That’s the most appalling list I’ve ever heard. Do you seriously think I’d do any of those things?’

‘Well, no.’ Maddy was embarrassed.

‘Apart from the spider trick, of course.’ He nodded matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve done that.’

‘Really?’

‘When I was about sixteen. But if you think it would help, I could do it again.’

‘No thanks. How about you?’

‘What puts me off girls, you mean? God, loads of things.’ Sliding his arms around her, Kerr said,

‘Girls on diets, girls asking if their dress makes them look fat, girls reading out your horoscope even though they know you aren’t interested, girls who think spending a fortune on clothes and manicures makes up for not having a personality, girls who eat crisps with their mouths open, girls who pee in other people’s gardens then expect to be rescued when they can’t climb back over the wall – OK, not true,’ he said as Maddy shot him a warning look, ‘I love it when girls do that.’

‘Where can we go?’ said Maddy.

‘I told you, anywhere in the world. Actually, Siberia’s bloody freezing. How would you feel about Barbados?’

‘I mean here, while we’re secretly seeing each other and doing our best to hate each other. Every time we go out I’ll be terrified Marcella might see us, or friends of Marcella might see us and tell her.’

She gestured in desperation. ‘Or friends of friends, and God knows there must be thousands of them around. Don’t you see, we can never go anywhere.’

‘ Fine.’ Kerr shrugged, unperturbed. ‘We’ll just have to stay here and make our own entertainment.’

‘But it’ll be like being stuck in a prison cell,’ wailed Maddy. ‘It’ll be boring!’

‘I’ve been called a lot of things in my time. But never boring. Anyway, why does it have to be?

We can play card games. Watch documentaries on the TV. Make Airfix kits, do giant jigsaw puzzles ...’

He was teasing her. Maddy squirmed with pleasure as his hands settled around her waist, his thumbs idly stroking her back. She was getting the distinct impression that the jigsaw puzzles he had in mind comprised two pieces.

‘This isn’t going to work.’ She held her breath as his warm mouth brushed her collarbone.

‘OK, you’re right, let’s forget it.’ Abruptly spinning her round, Kerr marched her back to the hall, yanked open the front door and

‘Noooo!’ shrieked Maddy.

He closed the front door.

‘Think it might work after all?’

She exhaled slowly. Kerr, having successfully called her bluff, regarded her with amusement.

‘Maybe.’ Trembling again, Maddy leaned back against the wall.

‘Sorry. Not good enough.’

‘OK. We’ll do it.’ What choice did they have, after all? The alternative – not seeing him again –

was unthinkable.

‘Wise decision.’ Smiling, he kissed her again. Feeling as though her whole body was on fire, Maddy wrapped her arms round his neck and kissed him back. Twannggg, went her bra strap and for a split second she thought Kerr had unfastened it.

‘That definitely wasn’t me.’ Raising his hands, he protested his innocence. ‘I didn’t do that.’

Bugger, he was right. With impeccable timing, Maddy realised, her left shoulder strap had chosen this moment to snap.

‘Sorry, it’s an old bra.’ Wryly, she added, ‘The excitement must have been too much for it.’

‘You see? That’s one of the things I like about you. What colour is it?’

‘Um ... sort of coffee coloured.’ Mocha, actually, but Kerr was only a man. He wouldn’t understand.

‘And what colour are your knickers?’

Oh, the shame. But since modesty clearly wasn’t an option, Maddy said, ‘Black.’

Anyway, with a bit of luck he’d find this out for himself before too long.

‘Do you know how much I love it that you’re wearing a brown bra and black knickers?’ Kerr said happily.

Brown? The horror. Unable to help herself, Maddy blurted out, ‘Mocha.’

There was a difference.

‘Whatever. I just ... all my life, whenever I’ve been out with girls and undressed them for the first time, they’ve always been wearing brand new super-lacy matching bra and knickers. It’s so contrived, it makes me feel as if I’ve been set up. The situation just doesn’t feel spontaneous any more.’

‘If you feel that strongly about it, you could always try not undressing them,’ Maddy pointed out.

‘It doesn’t put me off that much. Anyway, I’m just saying it makes a refreshing change, and I really like it that you aren’t the kind of girl who meets a new man and rushes out to buy a sexy new bra and knicker set.’

‘This isn’t going to work,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m supposed to be putting you off me.’

‘Sorry, but you haven’t.’ Kerr’s eyes glittered. In fact you’ve failed, with flying colours.’

‘But I did buy a sexy bra and knicker set! This morning! It’s at home, I was going to wear them tonight, but Bean found them under the sofa,’ Maddy babbled, ‘and then Marcella saw them and started teasing me about having a new man, so—’

‘Nice try.’ Kerr tilted her face up to meet his and slid the broken bra strap down over her shoulder.

‘In fact, excellent try. But you can’t fool me.’

Chapter 15

‘OK, I need you to know something. I’m not normally the type of girl who jumps into bed with someone on the first date,’ said Maddy an hour later.

‘No?’ Grinning down at her, Kerr said, ‘You did it very well.’

‘I just don’t want you to think I’m a complete slapper, because I’m not.’ She ran her hands through her drastically rumpled hair. ‘But this is different, because putting it off would only have made us want each other more. So by sleeping together as soon as possible we’ve got all that breathless anticipation stuff out of the way, which made it the right thing to do, don’t you agree?’

‘God, yes, absolutely. I’m starting to get bored with you already. Any minute now I’ll roll over, fall asleep and start snoring like an elephant seal,’ said Kerr. ‘That’ll be your cue to prod me awake and say in a whiny voice, "Why can’t you give me a cuddle? Why can’t we just lie here and talk about us?" Then I’ll chuck you my phone and tell you to call yourself a taxi. Ten minutes later you’ll wake me up slamming the front door as you let yourself out of the flat, and when I get up the next morning there’ll be rude words scribbled in lipstick on my bathroom mirror.’

‘Wow, you really are a pig,’ Maddy marvelled, deeply impressed. ‘Who pays for my taxi?’

‘What am I, a walking cash machine?’

The trouble was, nothing he said was managing to put her off. In desperation she asked, ‘Do you snore?’

‘Like a tractor. Stick around and you’ll find out.’

‘I’m not staying. I can’t.’ Maddy knew she couldn’t bring herself to go to Marcella’s barbecue, to just turn up as if nothing had happened, but she couldn’t stay here tonight either. Jake, who didn’t miss a trick, was suspicious already. When he’d seen the new bra and knickers earlier, the look he’d given her had made her flush with guilt.

It was so unfair. When it came to the opposite sex, Jake was no saint; if she had a pair of shoes for every girl he’d slept with, she’d be Imelda Marcos and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson rolled into one. But now, just when it was her turn to have some fun, he was threatening to come over all disapproving simply because of who Kerr was related to.

‘Sure I can’t change your mind?’ Kerr’s hand disappeared beneath the rumpled duvet, sliding down her hip.

Maddy shook her head. Why did everything have to be so difficult?

‘I have to get back.’

‘But not just yet.’

Oh God, this wasn’t just difficult, it was completely impossible. But he was right; it was still only nine thirty. Giving herself up to a fresh surge of lust, Maddy smiled and insinuated one leg between his own.

Not just yet.

Marcella and Vince’s garden bore all the morning-after signs of a truly successful party. Discarded cans and bottles were strewn across the lawn and in the flowerbeds, plastic glasses glinted in the sunlight, leftover burger remnants were being helpfully wolfed up by Bean and the tables on the patio were piled high with overflowing ashtrays, discarded CDs and empty bowls that had once contained mayonnaise, pickles and Cajun dips.

Vince, busy cleaning the well-used barbecue, waved when he saw Maddy and called out,

‘You’re too late, you’ve missed it!’

‘Morning, darling!’ Marcella, wearing a scarlet satin dressing gown and dark glasses, was busy filling a black bin liner with empty lager cans. The party might have gone on until 5 a.m. but Marcella and Vince would still be up at eight to make a start on the clearing up. Pointing to the honeysuckle-covered gazebo she said, ‘I need to get up there. You couldn’t be an angel, could you, and fetch the stepladder from the garage?’

Maddy carted out the stepladder, then watched as Marcella climbed to the top step, reached into the depths of the honeysuckle and shook out three mismatched shoes, a string of uncooked sausages and a pink sequinned T-shirt.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Marcella.

‘So it was a good party.’ Maddy held the ladder steady as her mother jumped down.

‘The very best. You don’t know what you missed.’ Turning, Marcella enveloped her in a hug. ‘And how did your night go? Did you have a lovely time?’

A lovely time? It had possibly been the best night of Maddy’s life. Adding to her litany of shameless lies, she said, ‘Great. Jen’s got her eye on one of the new barmen at Brown’s. Susie’s convinced he’s gay. We ended up at the Crash Club.’ Even as the words were tumbling out, she realised she was going to have to warn Jen and Susie, explain to them that they were her alibis and that if Marcella should bump into them, they had to back her up. Preferably without knowing the real reason why she needed alibis, since it went without saying that the fewer people who knew about this, the better.

God, getting complicated already.

‘Oof, my poor head.’ Marcella groaned as she bent down to pick up an empty Côtes du Rhône bottle.

‘Hangover?’

Looking rueful, Marcella said, ‘Ozzy Osbourne impression. We had a bit of a karaoke thing going.

Should have stuck with Diana Ross – far less headbanging involved.’

‘Here, let me do it.’ Taking the black binbag away from her, Maddy said, ‘I’ll clear this lot up.

You go and put the kettle on.’

‘You should have come along,’ said Marcella. ‘We missed you. Nuala and Dexter came up after the pub shut – you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Dexter doing his Rod Stewart impression.’

You haven’t lived until you’ve been to bed with Kerr McKinnon, thought Maddy, not daring to look at Marcella and busying herself with the black bag.

‘So do you think he’s gay?’

Good grief, no! Startled, Maddy said, ‘What? Who?’

‘ The new barman at Brown’s.’ Marcella laughed. ‘Dear me, you’re away with the fairies this morning.’

‘Sorry. Too busy picturing Dexter singing, "Do ya think I’m sexy."‘ Bending down, Maddy picked up a charred baked potato. ‘And yes, I think the barman was gay – it’s always a bit of a giveaway when they wear a Barbra Streisand T-shirt. But that’s the kind of luck Jen has with men.’

‘She’ll find the right one sooner or Iater. There’s plenty of lovely men out there if you know where to look. Jen’ll end up with her Mr Perfect one day.’ Marcella glanced fondly across at Vince as she spoke.

‘And so will you.’

Guilt swept through Maddy like a bushfire.

Raising a teasing eyebrow, Marcella went on, ‘That is, unless you’ve already found him.’

‘Honestly, I do the decent thing, turn up early to help you with the clearing up, and you start having a go at me.’

‘I’m not having a go. I’m on your side,’ Marcella protested. ‘Look at how happy your dad and I were. And now I’ve got Vince and he’s every bit as wonderful. Sweetheart, I just want you to be happy too.’

Last night’s bedroom antics had left Maddy with aching trembly limbs. Dumping the black bag on the grass she said, ‘And when I do find him, I’ll tell you. Come on, we’ll finish the rest of this later. Let’s have a cup of tea.’

No one ever escaped with just a cup of tea at Marcella’s house; she was physically incapable of not cooking for anyone who happened to drop in. Vince carried on clearing up outside. Maddy, who adored the cosy, comfortably cluttered kitchen, sat in one of the sunny window seats with Bean on her lap while Marcella got busy with the frying pan. Within minutes, two vast plates of crispy smoked bacon, eggs, potato and mushroom hash, grilled tomatoes and doorsteps of buttered toast were on the table. Fifteen thousand calories each, no problem, Maddy decided. Then again, she’d probably used up that many during last night’s shenanigans, five thousand calories per Oh God, stop it, don’t even think about that now.

‘I invited the Taylor-Trents last night,’ said Marcella. ‘What, all of them?’ Maddy paused between mouthfuls of perfect bacon. ‘Not Kate, surely.’

‘Come on, give the girl a break. I popped up to borrow Estelle’s lovely big serving dishes for the potato salad. How could I not invite Kate?’

‘She’d kill any party stone dead.’ Maddy envisaged Kate Taylor-Trent throwing herself into a bout of no-holds-barred karaoke. Surely not.

‘Well, they couldn’t make it anyway.’ Marcella shrugged comfortably. ‘They already had dinner booked at the Hinton Grange. And they have a guest staying with them for a few days.’

‘Lucky guest.’ Maddy pulled a face.

‘I met him, he seems charming. His name’s Will and he’s going to be making a TV documentary about Oliver. And for your information, they were all in the pub on Friday afternoon and Kate gave Dexter Nevin a bit of a tongue-lashing. He’d been yelling at Nuala so Kate laid into him big-time. She and Nuala have buried their differences, by the sound of it.’ Meaningfully, Marcella went on, ‘You could do worse than follow their example.’

Bloody Nuala, what a traitor.

‘She called Nuala fat. Once.’ Maddy gestured irritably with her fork. ‘It’s hardly the same as spending years making someone’s life a complete misery.’

‘Just a thought, darling.’

‘And you’ve got streamers in your hair.’ Reaching across the table, Maddy gently removed a tangle of rainbow coloured paper ribbons.

‘We couldn’t get hold of any fireworks, so it was party poppers at midnight. Oh, we had such a good time.’ Marcella beamed. ‘You really should have come along.’

‘I was shattered.’ At least this wasn’t a lie. ‘Drove home, fell into bed at one o’clock, didn’t even hear Jake and Sophie come in.’ Also true, but at least when they had arrived home, Jake would have seen her car outside and known she was back. In her current guilt-ridden state, this had seemed particularly important.