Death Comes to Cornwall

Book 0: A Molly Higgins mystery

by Kate Johnson

Genres: Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

'Doc Martin meets Agatha Raisin in Death Comes to Cornwall' Bookish Jottings 'If you're a mystery lover then don't miss this one.' NetGalley reviewer The perfect holiday destination. The perfect place for murder... Molly Higgins never expected to be caught up in a murder investigation. All she'd hoped for this year was to work hard, save enough money to open her very own café on the Cornish coast and avoid her ex, Conor Blackstone, who has just arrived back in the village. But when she and Conor discover a body on the cliffside in Port Trevan they are thrown once more together. Molly is keen to leave the mystery to the police, but when she finds herself their top suspect, Molly has no choice but to catch the killer herself - before it is too late. Readers and reviewers on NetGalley love Death Comes to Cornwall 'Cosy crime with a hint of snark, reminded me a bit of M C Beaton' 'A deeee-lightful book' 'I really enjoyed this one. Atmospheric and exciting.'

Release date: January 27, 2020

Publisher: Orion Dash

Print pages: 315

Sample

‘Welcome to Port Trevan, the home of Doctor Wenn Investigates! I know you’re all great fans of the show and I am so looking forward to showing you some more of the town where I grew up.’

Murmurs of, ‘Ooh, lucky girl,’ came her way. Molly Higgins turned up the wattage on her smile with each one.

Port Trevan: a lovely place to visit for a day or even a week. Slightly less lovely to grow up in and really not much fun to be stuck in, especially when you were a Higgins. And Molly, as the town loved to remind her, was definitely a Higgins.

‘So lucky,’ she agreed brightly, and led the tourists down Fore Street past the café used for filming coffee and cake meetings between the good doctor and his wife. Molly had applied for a job there five summers in a row, and been turned down flat each time.

She pointed out the Old Schoolhouse Hotel, which doubled as the convent home of the saintly Sister Ursula, and where Molly occasionally cleaned rooms, which were always checked afterwards to make sure she hadn’t nicked anything.

Seagulls wheeled and shrieked overhead, and one darted low to frighten a woman taking a bite of a pasty.

‘You want to watch out for the gulls,’ Molly said. ‘They’ll eat anything. My grandfer used to say, if you ever wanted a body disposing of, just leave it out for the gulls.’

Of course, Grandfer had been a Higgins, so Molly didn’t want to think too closely about why he used to say that.

The town of Port Trevan clung mostly to the east side of the cove, narrow houses built of slate and painted stone jostling for slivers of sunlight. On a day like today, with the sun shining off the whitewash, making the sea sparkle aquamarine and the grass glow emerald, it was like being inside a picture postcard.

‘Out of date and everybody knows your business,’ Molly muttered to herself, and then turned to her tour group with a bright smile.

‘Now, across the cove you can see Doctor Wenn’s house – yes, that little one there with the red front door.’ Cameras clicked, smartphones held in the air. ‘It’s a private house, so we can’t go in—’

Mutters of disappointment greeted this, as if it was Molly’s own fault someone lived there.

‘—but from here you’ve got an excellent view, so why don’t we pause to take pictures for a moment.’

She turned away, letting the early September sun warm her face, as the group snapped fuzzy pictures of something they saw in HD on their TV screens every Sunday night.

Molly didn’t understand the tour groups, but they paid her, so she smiled and told them what they wanted to hear.

So what if a few of the anecdotes were a little bit embellished? So what if some of them were entirely made up? Everyone loved the story about Pete Attwater, the actor who played Doctor Wenn, being mistaken for a real doctor. It was based in truth, although she’d omitted the bit about the patient trying to sue him afterwards. A real doctor had come forward, everyone was fine, there was no point souring the whole story with unpleasant reality.

She sailed on past McGilly’s faded beach shop, which would – despite what Mrs McGilly thought – make such a lovely café, maybe with Doctor Wenn prints on the walls and themed cupcakes. And I could run my own business and not be beholden to meagre tourist tips, and I’d be the first Higgins to make a success of something without breaking the law…

‘And that’s the alley where Doctor Wenn saved a choking woman in series two.’ Molly pointed to the narrow street where she’d had her first kiss. ‘Up there is the cottage where Doctor Wenn’s mother-in-law came to stay,’ and where Mrs Lamplugh’s mastiff had terrified her as a child.

‘And down here we have Johnny Wenn’s cottage,’ she went on, gesturing to the grey front door of the house where Doctor Wenn’s bad-boy brother could sometimes be seen fixing his motorbike. T-shirt sleeves rolled up, muscles gleaming, a sexy smudge of dirt on his cheek.

Molly had never been in there. She had no memories, good or bad, of this cottage. Johnny Wenn was a fictional character.

If only Conor Blackstone was.

She’d have to work on being breezy and nonchalant when she met him. Maybe pretend she couldn’t even remember him. No, that was probably a bad look. Just breeziness was perhaps the best look. Breezy as a Port Trevan summer. She’d moved on.

‘Moved on. I am moving on,’ she muttered to herself.

‘Sorry, dear?’

Molly turned on her smile and raised her voice. ‘Moving on—’

But no one wanted to continue down the street. They all wanted to stop and take pictures and peer in the windows and see if Conor was in residence.

Conor Blackstone, who played Johnny Wenn. Conor Blackstone, who was the main reason the show had any female fans under fifty. Conor Blackstone, with his dark blue eyes and pirate smile and extremely attractive biceps.

Conor Blackstone, who had told Molly he’d be leaving Doctor Wenn after the last series, so she’d gone ahead and talked herself into a job on the set this year, only to be told he was damn well coming back and now she’d have to face him, after all they’d said and done last summer—

‘Is he nice?’ asked a woman in a pink anorak. ‘Conor Blackstone?’

Molly pulled herself together. Conor was a lot of things – smart, talented, and very good in bed – but nice probably wasn’t one of them. He was far too sexy to be nice.

Nice boys don’t break girls’ hearts.

‘He’s great,’ she said, with a smile that made her face hurt. ‘Everyone on the cast is great. Now, let’s go and see the tearooms…’

After a five-hour drive with a bored lurcher, Port Trevan looked even more spectacular than Conor remembered it.

He parked outside Hill House, stretched out his muscles, and gazed over the cliffs to the harbour and the town beyond. No wonder Doctor Wenn Investigates was so popular. The location itself was more beautiful than any film star.

He glanced fondly at the cottage he usually rented, allowing himself to indulge, as always, in the fantasy that he actually lived there. That when the shoot was over he wouldn’t be going back to London, but staying here with Demelza, and maybe his sister would find a job nearby, and maybe Molly—

No. Not Molly. Molly had made it painfully clear he didn’t belong here, and he was relieved she’d gone back to Exeter last summer. Yes. Relieved.

Demelza ran up to the house, then back to him, then over to the wall bordering the cliff, peed on the road, and galloped back to stand thumping her tail hopefully against his legs.

‘Let me guess,’ Conor said, scratching between her hairy ears. ‘Walk?’

Her tail sped up, thwacking against his thigh. The shelter had assured him she was a lurcher, but she appeared to Conor to be a cross between a giraffe and Bigfoot.

Conor grabbed her lead and checked the time. As if you know what time the tide’ll be out, Conor Blackstone. There was a path nearby leading directly down over the cliffs to the cove, but only when the tide was out. When it was in, there was no beach to walk on.

‘Let’s have a walk down and see if there’s a tide table outside the Fishermen’s Collective,’ he said to Demelza. ‘And if there isn’t, we can have a beer and enjoy the view before it all gets filled up with cameras and lighting rigs.’

He breathed in the air as she tugged him eagerly down the hill to the harbour. Salt, and mown grass, and the faint unmistakeable tang of rotten seaweed.

The Fishermen’s Collective sat right on the Platt, the small apron of stone jutting out next to the slipway. And yes, there in a glass-fronted case was a tide table. He angled his phone to take a picture for reference, Demelza tugging at the lead looped over his arm.

‘You know, there’s an app for that,’ said a voice behind Conor, and dread walked its way down his spine.

No, it couldn’t be. She’d said she was only here for the summer last year.

When he’d considered the possibility that Molly might be back this year – briefly, please God – he’d imagined he’d play it cool and aloof and possibly pretend not to recognise her. He didn’t imagine that his dog would be so eager to see her that she’d nearly trip him up and almost cost him his smartphone.

Smooth, Blackstone, smooth.

Righting both phone and dog, he took a breath and looked up.

Red hair, long legs, freckles. Oh, hell.

‘Molly,’ he said, and she gave him a smile he could best describe as nonchalant.

‘Conor. What a crazy random happenstance,’ she said flatly.

Come on, Blackstone, you’re an actor. Act cool. He narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

She looked with exaggerated care around the street: the Fishermen’s Collective, the B&B overlooking the harbour, the sandy beach littered with seaweed and dead crabs.

‘I live here,’ she said, as if he was stupid.

‘No you don’t,’ he said, as if he was.

He wouldn’t have pushed his agent so hard to get him in the fourth series of Doctor Wenn if he’d known Molly was going to be here again.

Fear rose in him. Christ, don’t say she’d actually moved here. She’d only been here for a couple of weeks last summer. That was what she’d said. Just visiting her family. She lived in Exeter or somewhere. Couldn’t wait to escape back there.

Conor could never understand why Molly was so desperate to get away from this place. It seemed like paradise to him, but she’d always been hell-bent on leaving.

‘Well, not here,’ she agreed, spreading her hands. ‘But I do live in Port Trevan.’ She muttered something that sounded like, For my sins.

He swallowed. ‘You’re not just visiting?’ he tried, hopeful as Demelza.

‘Nope. Liked it so much I decided to stay,’ Molly said unconvincingly. ‘Hello, Demelza. Hello, my beauty,’ she added with a smile that was only for the dog.

A sucker for anyone who gave her attention, Demelza nuzzled at Molly like a long-lost friend.

As well she might. Demelza had curled at the bottom of his bed on more than one occasion when it had been occupied by Molly. Molly, with her freckles that didn’t stop at the neckline of her T-shirt, and her fiery hair, and her skin that smelled just right—

No, she can’t have moved back here, she can’t, this is a disaster…

‘But,’ Conor began, only to be interrupted by a shout from the beach.

‘I can’t see you, Molly!’

‘Good!’ she yelled back. To Conor, she added casually, ‘Georgia just needed to check some lines of sight. Aren’t you going to let this poor hound off the lead? She looks like she’s desperate for a run.’

Bloody Molly, always wrong-footing him. It had annoyed him last summer, how she always seemed to know everything about everyone and everything, totally at home in this perfect, idyllic place where the locals treated him as an Incomer, someone to be suspicious of.

And here she was, cool as anything, apparently utterly unfazed by meeting him a week before filming. She must have known he was going to be here. She must have expected him, especially if she was working for—

‘Wait, did you say Georgia? Georgia Willis?’ She’d been an assistant producer the last couple of years. ‘Are you working for her?’

Molly shrugged carelessly, and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘Yeah. She needed a local fixer, and I speak the language.’ That was evidently meant to be a joke. Conor didn’t laugh.

Great. Not just here, but working on the shoot. He was going to be totally unable to avoid her.

‘Come on, Melze,’ Molly said to the dog, who strained towards her. ‘Fancy a run on the beach? Yes you do! Oh yes you do.’

Tugged by Demelza, Conor helplessly followed Molly down to the beach, where indeed the Doctor Wenn assistant producer stood tapping at an iPad and trying to shove the hair out of her eyes at the same time.

‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ said Molly drily, and Georgia looked up, squinting over her glasses.

‘Conor! You’re early.’ She darted forward and hugged him, nearly clonking him with her iPad.

He shrugged, awkward now Molly was watching him. ‘Wanted to settle in. Make sure Demelza was…’ He waved a hand as he unclipped her lead and she shot off like a bullet from a gun.

For a moment the three of them watched the dog run, so fast her legs were simply a blur. She pinged from one rocky side of the natural harbour to the other, splashed into the sea, bounded up onto the causeway leading out to the harbour wall, and leapt into a large rock pool.

‘She’ll sleep tonight,’ observed Georgia.

‘Nothing tires that dog out enough to make her sleep through the night,’ said Molly, and her cheeks went red as she realised what she’d let slip. ‘I mean, I guess,’ she added quickly, and Conor hid a smile. Could it be that Molly wasn’t as cool about last year as she was pretending to be?

But Georgia was paying attention to her iPad, and didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Have you met Molly?’ Thank God: she was a great producer, but a terrible gossip.

Molly raised an eyebrow at him.

‘We…ah, I think you were here last year?’ Conor said, trying to mirror Molly’s earlier nonchalance.

‘I grew up here,’ she said, the little witch.

‘Right, but I thought you were just visiting or something.’

‘I was. Then I decided to stay. You said you wouldn’t be back. You said you’d got something better lined up.’ Conor shot her mental daggers.

He had. Well, last year he’d thought he had. He’d been trying to get the spin-off going for months. Lila – who would be the star – was on board. The writers were interested. But the production company thought it would draw too much attention from Doctor Wenn – and, Conor surmised, the good doctor himself didn’t want to lose his star vehicle.

But he’d let his guard down last year, and tried to impress Molly with his job prospects. And now look. The production company were fed up with him asking, and kept trying to cut his lines, and it was only because his agent was a pit bull he’d got any screen time at all this season.

And Molly had dumped him anyway.

‘Are you?’ said Georgia, eyes bright. Inquisitive little squirrel. ‘Leaving?’

‘No.’ He said it too quickly. ‘No, I – I mean there’s some… There was talk of a…’ He couldn’t tell her about Miss Lawrence Investigates. Not when it seemed to be going nowhere.

The last thing he needed was Molly Higgins thinking he was a failure. A man had pride, for God’s sake.

‘Uh, I might be off to America soon,’ he amended casually, because he had filmed an audition for some superhero thing a while back. He hadn’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting it, but it wasn’t a total lie. ‘Nothing carved in stone yet, just something I’m working on. But you didn’t hear anything about it,’ he warned, ‘so if anyone says anything…’

‘I shall be amazed and astonished,’ Molly promised, her eyes dancing. They were like Demelza’s coat, Molly’s eyes. A different shade every time he looked at them.

And speaking of Demelza…

The tide was evidently coming in, because the causeway she’d run along was starting to look distinctly damp. Another centimetre or two and it would be covered, and whilst Melze wouldn’t mind getting her paws wet he didn’t want her to have to swim against the tide if it came in any more.

He made his excuses to go and rescue his dog, and felt Molly’s eyes on him the whole way.

Miss Lawrence Investigates had been his idea, and he’d made the mistake of telling RMC Productions that if they made it, he’d be leaving Doctor Wenn. After three seasons, he kind of felt Doctor Wenn had settled into a rut, and whilst it was steady work, it was boring. The direction he and Lila had planned for Miss Lawrence Investigates – Jamaican secretary in 1960s Cornwall, fighting crimes and injustice alongside her possible love interest, bad-boy biker Johnny Wenn – was so much more exciting and relevant.

RMC Productions had gone into a panic about losing two of their stars, and reminded Conor that his contract was up for renewal, whilst Lila still had another year on hers. His agent, Julia, had fought tooth and nail to get him in this series, and he was haemorrhaging screen time every time he looked at the script.

He found Demelza splashing around in the shallow rock pools between the manmade causeway and the high cliffs that held up the east side of town. He clicked his tongue at her, and she reluctantly splashed over to him, slow enough that he could clip her lead back onto her collar.

On the other side of the rock pool was a tiny beach, leading off into a crack in the cliffside. Conor stood for a bit, peering into the darkness, wondering how far back the cave went. Bet Molly knows. Molly knew everything about this place.

‘Is that it?’ said Georgia behind him, and Conor narrowly avoided swearing at her.

‘That’s what they say,’ said Molly, and he turned to see the two women there, gazing past him into the darkness. Georgia had on expensive designer wellies clearly bought specially for this shoot. Molly’s looked like they came from Primark.

‘Is that what?’ Conor said, because apparently he was incapable of speaking normally around Molly any more.

‘The pirate’s cave!’ said Georgia.

‘Smugglers,’ Molly corrected. ‘They’d bring the goods up here in the dead of night, so the Revenue couldn’t see them—’

‘Miraculously avoiding all the rocks at the harbour entrance,’ Conor murmured.

‘They had harbour lights,’ Molly said, as if he was simple.

‘Which the Revenue couldn’t see?’

‘Conor,’ admonished Georgia.

‘As I was saying, they’d bring the goods up here, and store them in the cave. And then there was a trapdoor cut into the roof of the cave, and a passage leading up to the pub cellar—’ she pointed, and they all looked at the Blue Dolphin, higher up the cliff ‘—so they could take things up there without anyone seeing.’

‘And the Revenue never checked the cellar?’

‘Well, yeah, but the stuff was already there.’

‘They didn’t see it coming in,’ Georgia added, as if this made all the difference.

Conor rolled his eyes, and started back for the beach. ‘There are so many holes in that story,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t make it any less true.’ Molly nudged him as she walked alongside, her elbow in its sleeve and his ribs in his jacket and far too much electricity arcing through both. ‘Come on, Conor. Would it hurt you to have a little faith in me?’

Conor looked away from her, his gaze coming to rest on his cottage overlooking the cove. ‘It did last time,’ he said.

‘So,’ said Georgia, at about the point Molly was sure she’d got away with it, ‘what was that all about?’

The terrible thing about being a redhead was how easily a blush showed. Molly willed her cheeks not to go red as she said, ‘What was what about?’

Georgia gave her a sly look. ‘You and Conor.’

Molly stared blindly at Carson’s Tearooms – a key location for chats between Doctor Wenn and his wife and one she always pointed out on her tours – and willed an answer to come into her head. Usually she was good at making stuff up. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I just saw him there on the road.’

‘Right,’ said Georgia, drawing the word out sarcastically. ‘There’s something going on there, Molly Higgins.’

Molly ran a few potential excuses through her head at lightning speed. This was an upside of being a Higgins: excuses came quickly. The blood of her smuggler ancestors came to her aid. ‘You know what,’ she said, ‘I just saw that historical thing he did on TV a few years ago, the one where he kept getting his kit off, and when I actually saw him in the flesh it was like, super awkward, you know?’

This wasn’t a total lie. Conor had sexed up more than one period drama over the years. But Molly didn’t need to watch TV to know what he looked like naked. The living memory of it was seared into her permanent collection.

‘Come on, Molly. You can tell me.’ Georgia linked her arm through Molly’s in a chummy kind of way. ‘You’re not the reason Conor was in such a weird mood last year, are you?’

Molly liked Georgia. She was smart and hard-working, and she’d given Molly a chance on the crew, but she loved to gossip. Her curly-haired head was full of everyone else’s secrets.

‘I was barely here last year,’ Molly said, and like the best lies, this one was also true. ‘I lived in Exeter. Just came back to see my family.’

‘Oh.’ Georgia looked disappointed. ‘Don’t suppose the local grapevine knows, does it? He was definitely seeing someone. He was all cheerful for a few weeks, and then bam, super-sulky. I’ve thought over half the cast, but I can’t work out who it was.’

‘No idea,’ said Molly breezily, and added with bitter truth, ‘I hardly know him.’

She walked with Georgia up Fore Street, and left her with the TV people discussing camera angles. It was faster to make her way up to the Top Road by herself – Molly was used to the ridiculously steep Port Trevan streets, and could make pretty good time if she wasn’t keeping pace with someone who had to stop every few minutes to admire the view whilst catching their breath.

She popped into Port Trevan Holiday Cottages and filled in her timesheet, deflecting questions from the office manager about “that handsome Conor Blackstone” who was back in town, and managing to keep her opinions to herself, just like she had since she first set eyes on him last year. She’d clean his cottage when he was out at work, and she’d ignore him if their paths crossed when she was working for Georgia, and…and that was it. No more. He was someone doing a job, and so was she.

His deep sexy voice and tousled sexy hair and flashing sexy eyes were of no interest to her whatsoever.

She heard the hiss of air brakes outside and glanced at her watch in relief. ‘That’ll be Grace. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She left the office, crossing the small parking area to the Top Road where the school bus was letting off passengers.

She was lucky they’d got Grace onto the school bus scheme. Sure, it took an hour for her to get home, because everywhere in North Cornwall took twice as long as it ought to, but Molly had sold the car and the public bus system in the area wasn’t even worth considering.

She waved as the school bus pulled away and her little sister was revealed on the opposite pavement. Hair escaping its plait, glasses smudged, skirt wonky. Standing a little apart from the other kids.

Crossing, Molly arrived just in time to hear a whispered, ‘And you know what they say,’ and pasted on a bright smile to distract Grace.

‘Gracie! Had a good day?’

From her sister’s strained smile it was clear she was lying when she said, ‘Yeah, fine. Are you done with work?’

‘For now,’ said Molly. She checked her watch. She’d been unable to get any shifts at the pub out of Sam until the weekend, but she was up early tomorrow to help Georgia persuade old Derek Temple to lend them his Mark I Land Rover for the shoot. The Temples had fished the Port Trevan area for generations. Molly had been to school with several of them, and she had high hopes that some shared history might override her Higginsness. That, and a low-cut T-shirt.

She yawned reflexively. Late nights and early mornings. Her body clock didn’t know what it was doing.

They started back towards the house at Grace’s slow pace. Molly heard some kids sniggering and whipped her head around to glare at them, but every face she saw was blank.

Don’t engage with them, her mum used to say when people whispered about Molly being one of Those Higginses. Ignore them. Rise above it. Because all they wanted was for you to react, to lash out, and then they could say you started the fight and your reputation would be the one that suffered.

Molly had spent her life rising above it, and her dreams beating the ever-loving daylights out of the kids who just damn well got away with it. She was filled with equal parts rage and heartbreak that Grace had to go through the same thing.

‘So, what’s it like being in Year Six?’ she asked now. ‘Is it fun ruling the school?’

Grace gave her a scornful look. ‘I am so ready to leave that place,’ she said, far too adult for a ten-year-old.

‘Yeah, well, less than a year and you’ll be out,’ Molly promised her. ‘Whole fresh new start.’

‘With all the same kids,’ Grace reminded her glumly.

‘And a whole load of new ones! They’ll sort you into new classes. You won’t have to put up with most of those losers.’

Grace just shrugged, and Molly’s heart broke a bit. Who were these kids making her little sister’s life a misery? How dare they? How could they look at Grace and see anything other than a gorgeous, kind, funny, smart girl?

They’re just jealous. It was what she’d said to Tansy all those years ago, when her older sister had come home in a rage because some cowbag in the Lower Sixth had made fun of her hair. And Tansy had flown off the handle and screamed at her—

Well, that was just what Tansy did. Molly wondered who she was screaming at now.

They turned the corner into Bluebell Terrace. Home, with its rows of featureless rectangular blocks half a world away from the charming higgledy cottages five minutes down the hill.

Molly’s grandparents had been to relieved to sell their dark, damp cottage down on Endellion Street back in the sixties. Of course, Grandfer was a Higgins, always out for a fast buck. He thought it was a brilliant wheeze, swapping that ’orrible little hole for a brand-new shiny house with double glazing and electricity in every room.

Molly didn’t need to look in the estate agent’s window to know the house Grandfer had been so pleased with was now worth less than a third of the one they’d sold.

Sometimes, she detoured along Endellion Street, just to see the rows of expensive Hunter wellies and bodyboards propped up outside Grandfer’s old cottage, the discreet sticker in the window with a five-star tourist rating, the satellite dish tucked away around the side. The people who stayed there had pedigree Labradors and pedigree children and pedigree trust funds.

Somebody was making a mint out of that old cottage now, and it wasn’t a Higgins.

She walked up the cracked concrete path to number 6, Bluebell Terrace, eyed the pebbledash disparagingly, and let herself and Grace in the side door.

There was no sign of her mother, but there was a pair of knickers on the kitchen floor. Swearing under her breath, Molly picked them up. They weren’t hers, or her mother’s, or Grace’s. They were stout and sensible, and they were, thank God, clean.

‘Piran, you thieving little tuss,’ she muttered. Of course she’d ended up with a Higgins of a cat.

‘Molly, that’s a bad word,’ chided Grace.

‘It’s just a word,’ said Molly.

‘My teacher said it meant a boy’s private bits,’ Grace giggled.

‘It means lots of things,’ Molly said, hoping like hell her sister wasn’t going to take up that word and start using it all the time. Sighing, she went to put the knickers in the lost and found box on the front wall. Then she chopped veg for dinner because she had time to, for once, and nagged at Grace to do her homework instead of watching Flog It! on telly.

Mum made an appearance halfway through Pointless. ‘Oh, hello, loves, didn’t hear you come in.’

She had pillow creases on her face. Molly had already been around to all the usual hiding places and emptied out half a glass of warm white wine down the sink. Tomorrow, she’d take a load of empties down the bottle bank in the New Car Park, where nobody would know her, so the recycling crate outside the front door wouldn’t be too full of whatever the Co-Op had on special offer this week.

Sometimes, she wondered who the hell she was fooling.

‘I heard that gorgeous Conrad Thingummy is back in town for the filming.’ Mum made exaggerated faces of excitement at Molly, who feigned ignorance even as her pulse leapt.

‘Who?’

‘You know! Him with the face.’

Molly decapitated a carrot. ‘Most people have faces, Mum.’

‘Mol-ly. You know what I mean. The one from the TV show. The brother. With the sexy voice.’

Molly knew exactly who she meant. And she was pretty sure her mum knew Conor’s name, too. Or she might do, if she wasn’t pickling herself.

She affected nonchalance, because her mother didn’t know Molly had spent half last summer in Conor’s bed. ‘D’you mean Conor? Conor Blackstone?’

‘That’s the one!’

The one with the sexy voice. Dammit, yes, that was Conor. A rich, deep baritone, like the darkest of chocolate, that had got him quite a lot of narration gigs and quite a lot of fans.

And me. It got me.

‘I don’t get the fuss,’ said Grace. ‘Mia Bonney and Keara Grey think he’s well fit, but he’s all, like, so sulky.’

Molly hid a smile. Mia Bonney and Keara Grey were little madams who had iPhones and wore lip gloss to school, and Molly hoped to God her sister didn’t give up on her own childhood so easily.

She looked over at Grace, curly hair falling in her eyes, round face a riot of freckles, glasses eternally smudged, and a wash of love swept over her. Oh, Gracie, please don’t grow up too fast.

‘Any movement on the Christmas special?’ Conor asked, more in hope than expectation.

‘Not so far, darling. I don’t want to push when they’re in such a funk.’

He threw the tennis ball for Demelza, who raced off