Chapter One
Stella
I didn’t realise just how much my future mother-in-law hated me until the day she tried to kill me. It was something of a shocker, I can tell you. Ma Hazard is the last person you would associate with criminal behaviour.
In her Pringle jumpers, pressed polo shirt collars framing their ladylike little V-necks, and those tartan, three quarter trousers that always make the song Rupert, Rupert the Bear pop into my head, she is the very picture of respectability. Add the jolly hockey sticks voice and you’ve got a sporty, sixty-something cross between Joyce Grenfell and Margaret Thatcher. No. She definitely does not look like a murderer.
Nobody else could see it. Jonathon, my fiancé, never believed me when I repeated any of the double-edged comments that she’d make to me when no one else was within earshot.
‘You’re imagining it, Stella,’ he would say. ‘You must have misheard her,’ or, ‘she must have been distracted or in a hurry and just picked up the wrong size,’ when she bought me a pair of size twenty Spanx for my last birthday.
Well, I didn’t imagine the look on her face when, after the Sunday roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, she accidentally gave me a slice of the wrong homemade carrot cake – the one with the ground walnuts in it. I didn’t imagine seeing her rummaging about in my handbag looking for paracetamol, just moments earlier, even though she has half a pharmacy in the cupboard over the microwave. And I certainly didn’t imagine the untimely disappearance from the little zipped pocket of my handbag of my life-saving Epipen. If Jonathon hadn’t sprinted to the car, grabbed the spare from the glove compartment and jabbed it into my thigh, I could have been having tea with St Peter right now. At least I hope that’s the direction I would have taken.
I don’t know what I ever did to make her dislike me so much – well, apart from not being Cordelia. The silken, honey-haired goddess that is Cordelia Page is the girl next door. A talented horsewoman, with her own stud and riding stables, she is slender and smart, can parallel park, and always says the right thing. I, on the other hand, am a mousey-haired, size-sixteen bookworm, who knocks things over, trips on the stairs (cleverly I can do it going both up or down), have scraped more cars than I care to remember, and always, always manage to say the wrong thing. Cordelia and Jonathon used to play in the sand pit together while they were growing up. She could, if she wanted to, eat nuts morning noon and night without her head swelling up and making her look like something out of a science fiction film. And she’s the girl Jonathon’s mother has always wanted him to marry.
Ma, or Joyce as I have to call her to her face, just can’t, for the life of her, fathom why Jonathon picked me. And frankly, after each fresh glimpse of Cordelia’s perfect little jodhpur-clad bottom, I can sort of see where she’s coming from. And it’s really annoying.
‘Poor Mum, she’ll be mortified,’ Jonathon said, as he drove me home from the hospital. ‘You know how careful she is around you, with anything with nuts in it.’
‘Hm,’ I mumbled, unable to hurt his feelings by saying what I really thought. What is it about fully grown men and their mothers?
There was a message on my answer phone from her when we got back to my place.
‘Stella! It’s Joyce here. I do hope you’re alright, my dear. What a silly thing to have happened. I hope you’re feeling better.’ Yeah, I’ll bet you do.
You’d think the fact that Jonathon and I are happy together would count for something, wouldn’t you? Well, I would, but apparently I’d be wrong, if murder by anaphylactic shock seemed like a good idea to her. What would she try next? I certainly wouldn’t be eating anything with mushrooms in it at her house, just in case she thought the old switcheroo trick with a toadstool might be worth a try.
Jonathon stayed the night, as he never liked to leave me alone after an allergic episode. It was comforting having him there. It would have been more comforting if he was snuggling up to me, rather than snoring for England, but you can’t have everything. I tossed and turned, wondering how I was so awful that Joyce would go to such lengths to get rid of me.
Sure, Cordelia is successful and ambitious. I’d be willing to bet she’s quick and resourceful in an emergency. I can just imagine her, sliding her slender, capable arm up a distressed mummy horse’s rear end and gently easing out a slippery foal, before dashing off for a quick shower, effortlessly zipping up a size eight party frock and wafting fragrantly to the local hunt ball.
But Jonathon and I share the same daft sense of humour, and we both care about the same things. That was how we met in the first place, doing a charity fun run, him looking all toned and trained in his running shorts and t shirt, and me, along with the other girls from the book shop I had been working in at the time, dressed up as a character from a children’s story. In my case, The Cat in the stupid Hat – for my sins – which must have been big, if karma had anything to do with the discomfort of the straining – and in one embarrassing area, split – seams on the ridiculously mis-sized costume.
Being a village librarian might not be a high flying career – it won’t be a career at all if the library closes, but Jonathon’s the biggest supporter of my campaign against that happening. He even marched to the town hall with me and my army of ladies, waving soggy placards in the drizzle, when they tried to computerise the local libraries, replacing us librarians with barcode reading scanners. Joyce’s face was a picture when she saw us in the local paper. I thought her head might actually explode.
Anyway, she would just have to get used to the idea of being stuck with me – unless, of course, she was thinking of dragging me out onto the golf course and bashing my head in with her nine iron when no one was looking. But I was sure she wouldn’t go that far. Or would she...?
At work the next morning, I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of camomile tea and well-thumbed books. What a blissful way to start the day. Five minutes until opening time – I savoured the silence. Not that the library is ever noisy. Well, apart from on Friday afternoons, when the shrieks and giggles from the children’s section as I attempt all the different voices for Story & Rhyme Time can probably be heard from the other side of the village. It’s just a different kind of quiet when I’m there alone.
The peace was disturbed by a loud rap at the big double door, under the clock that now said three minutes to go. Who on earth was trying to get into the library before it was even open? Had some desperate drinker mistaken it for The Badger’s Inn across the village green? Unlikely, but you never know.
‘Hello?’ I called out, sliding the heavy bolt at the bottom of the door.
‘Hello? Stella?’ Oh no! What was she doing here? Hadn’t trying to poison me yesterday been enough? Now here she was at my place of work, first thing Monday morning. I forced a smile on my face before opening the door.
‘Joyce. Hello. This is a surprise.’
‘Hello, my dear.’ Joyce was looking around her – was she searching for a heavy encyclopaedia to bash me over the head with? That would explain her presence here – although I couldn’t really imagine her doing anything quite that messy.
Joyce hasn’t ever been a regular at the library, which was really annoying me lately. With the now constant threat of closure, those in the village who used the library were coming in as much as possible to keep the numbers up. Especially the elderly ladies, whose pensions didn’t run to buying large print copies of their favourite books, and who would probably struggle to download them as e-books. One lady whose son had bought her a kindle for Christmas had, in January, wound around it all the wool from a favourite old cardigan she had unravelled and, all these months later it was still there. Unused and unread. They were borrowing extra books they would never even read to keep me in my job. But not Ma Hazard. Apparently she doesn’t like the thought of handling books other people have had their dirty hands on. Sheer snobbery if you ask me, as I have never noticed any other germaphobic tendencies. She belongs to one of those book-buying clubs. They all sit, unopened, on the Harrods bookcase in the hall, with their posh logo on show to anyone who comes round.
‘Good morning, Joyce, I don’t usually see you here.’ I wondered if I could get away without the usual, obligatory kiss on the powdery cheek. With Jonathon not here, I decided I could give it a miss. ‘Is there a particular new release that you’re in a hurry to get your hands on?’
‘No, my dear, you know how I like my books,’ Joyce said, completely missing my attempt at humour. ‘I just wanted to see how you were, you know, after yesterday’s little mishap.’
Would that be the mishap where she tried to kill me and didn’t quite manage it? I was itching to ask. Had she come to finish the job off?
Joyce reached into her enormous handbag – the sort of accessory that could floor a mugger with just one swing. What on earth had she got in there? Was I about to get bumped on the back of the head with a frozen leg of lamb, before she took it home and cooked it to get rid of the evidence? I’ve read Tales of the Unexpected. She would never get away with that now – It’s 2015, and forensic science has advanced light years since that story was written.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I said, keeping a very firm eye on the arm delving into the bag. If she thought I would be turning my back on her while she pulled out her weapon and finished me off, she could think again.
‘Oh, that’s such a relief,’ Joyce said, pulling out a wedge shaped, tin foil wrapped parcel. I brought you this, as you didn’t get to eat any of it yesterday. I know how much you enjoy my homemade carrot cake. Don’t worry, dear, it is the right one, I have made sure.’ She thrust it into my hands.
‘That is very kind of you, Joyce. Thank you.’ Was it my imagination, or could I hear ticking?
‘That’s fine, my dear, I was on my way into town anyway,’ she said. ‘Raffle prizes to sort out for the golf club dinner dance. I don’t know what the matter is with people now – they all keep coming up with excuses for not doing it any more. I don’t understand them – it is wonderful publicity for their companies, after all.’
I bit my tongue. Had she really forgotten that there’d been a recession going on? Did she not realise that even if things had picked up again for some businesses, others were still struggling? I imagined her bustling past the food bank in Wintertown with no idea what its existence meant to those who needed it.
‘Well, good luck with that,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound sarcastic. Not that she would notice. She never really listened to me anyway. Luckily, I was saved from more awkward conversation by two of the library’s regular elderly ladies turning up.
‘Good morning, Stella,’ they chorused, bustling in with their matching wicker baskets and their hand knitted cardigans.
‘Good morning, ladies.’ I hoped my relief at the interruption wasn’t too obvious. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’
‘Ooh, yes!’ Mrs Jenkins, who always had a couple of murder mysteries on the go, clapped her hands. ‘We went to London to see Warhorse. It was lovely. The puppetry was out of this world, Stella. You must take your Jonathon to see it. You forget that it isn’t a real horse on stage!’
‘Oh yes, you do,’ Mrs Poole, who favoured books on knitting and needlecraft, and was responsible for most of the cardigans in the village, agreed. ‘It was lovely, Stella. You must go.’
‘Well, I’d better be toddling off now.’ Joyce gave the ladies a polite smile and me a creepy one that put me in mind of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. How did she do that?
I watched her get into her car, before closing the door and holding the cake to my ear – well you can’t be too careful, can you.
‘How was your weekend, Stella?’ Mrs Jenkins enquired, placing this week’s top choices, and two Ruth Rendell’s I knew for a fact she had already read, on the counter.
‘Oh, fine thanks,’ I hedged. She would never believe me if I told her.
Not quite knowing what to do with the wedge of cake, I shoved it in the direction of the shelf where I kept my handbag. Then I turned back to stamp Mrs J’s books.
I didn’t pay much attention to the sound of the door opening as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cake move. The narrow end had made it onto the flat shelf, but where the heavy end hadn’t quite made the edge, its weight was pulling it floor-wards.
Time seemed to stand still as the parcel slipped down, hitting the side of the waste paper basket. It teetered, undecided for a split second, before opting for freedom, tipping the fortunately empty basket over with it.
‘Stella, I forgot ...’ I heard Joyce’s voice as I lunged to retrieve the cake, hoping she hadn’t seen it. Carefully replacing it on the shelf, I turned back round. She’d gone.
Chapter Two
Jonathon
Yawning, I pulled into my parking space behind the office. It had been an eventful weekend.
My heart still raced at the thought of what might happen if there was ever a time Stella needed her Epipen and couldn’t get hold of it. We kept spares just about everywhere we could think of, just to be on the safe side. And thank God! Though how she had managed to lose the one from her handbag, we hadn’t been able to work out. Of course, she didn’t really believe what she had been saying on the way to the hospital, about Mum giving her the cake with the nuts in it on purpose – that had been the shock and adrenalin talking. She was much calmer on the way home.
Grabbing my briefcase from the passenger seat, I got out of the car. When Dad had decided to ease himself into the world of retirement, he had started taking Saturdays off. Then, a year later, Fridays too. Now, delegating Saturdays when possible, I was in charge at Hazard Estate Agents on Mondays and Fridays while he played golf and pottered about in the garden. I suspected it would be another year before his three day weeks turned into two day ones.
‘Good morning, Jonathon.’ Linda, our secretary and office manager greeted me with her usual warm smile before I was halfway through the door. ‘I hope you had a good weekend. You have a nine thirty meeting with Mr and Mrs Sitwell.’ Her raised eyebrow agreed with what I was already thinking.
The Sitwells. My jaws clenched as I carried on into the office, feeling like a coward for wishing the nightmare couple were coming tomorrow when Dad would be at the helm. It had become their habit, however, to come down to Hampshire most Friday mornings and make a long weekend of it. They would probably only head back to London once they had ruined my Monday. And anyone else’s they came into contact with. I had no idea what either of them did for a living, but whatever it was, unless their entire business was conducted by smart phone, they only spent three days a week doing it. And they were way too young to be easing themselves into retirement.
The problem with the Sitwells was that they knew exactly what they wanted. Until they were shown it. Then they wanted something else. Until they were shown that. And so it went on. What fanciful demands would they come up with today?
‘I thought you could do with a nice cup of coffee before you get started.’ Linda put Dad’s china cup and saucer down on the desk and left, quietly shutting the door behind her. It usually tickled me that she made my coffee in Dad’s china on Mondays and Fridays – it felt a bit like being allowed to wear his shoes for the day – but nine thirty was fast approaching and I could already feel my shoulders tensing up.
Picking up the cup, I stared out of the window at the village green, but my last meeting with the Sitwells ran, like badly edited footage, through my head. It was like a cross between a Hammer House of Horror and a Carry On film. He was a cocky character, a bit like the used car salesman in Only Fools and Horses – he just needed a fat cigar to complete the picture. She looked like that dreadful model – what was her name? The one who was supposed to write books, except someone else wrote them for her – all inflated boobs, tarantula eyelashes and orange skin. Her vicious pink trout-pout made her look like a pantomime dame who had got made up in the dark, and as for her clothes ... If Widow Twanky had shared her unlit dressing room with a lap dancer and put the wrong costume on, she wouldn’t have looked out of place next to Alana Sitwell, the trophy wife half of the couple.
Last week they had grumbled on and on about the lack of houses with swimming pools in the area. Then they’d given me a hard time because the house they had seen and fallen in love with whilst out for a Sunday drive wasn’t even for sale. They just couldn’t seem to understand that the owners of a property which had been in their family for a couple of centuries were not going to move out just because they clicked their over-manicured fingers. They obviously thought if they came down to bumpkin-land and started bandying Mickey Mouse figures about, then the carrot crunchers should fall over themselves to give them what they wanted. As far as they were concerned, everything was my fault and I wasn’t doing my job properly. They probably described me to their London friends as the village idiot.
It was my job to sell homes, but whenever I thought about the Sitwells buying a second home in our quiet triangle of the New Forest, I felt my hackles rise. And I’d never even known I had hackles until that fateful week when firstly, the Sitwells first came into our lives, and secondly, Stella was notified that the library was scheduled for closure.
I realised I was still holding my coffee and took a gulp. What was happening in the Netley villages? This was our home. This was where I grew up. That tree on the other side of the green was the first one I ever climbed – the first one I fell out of, too. Stella and I wanted to settle down and raise our own family here, and suddenly huge spanners were being hurled into the works. Spanners like the Sitwells who, given the chance, would buy something charming and characterful, then rip the heart out of it and turn it into something ghastly. Then they would arrive on Fridays with their Harvey Nicks hampers, and have Ocado vans turning up to deliver their more mundane groceries from Winchester or Southampton. They wouldn’t care about supporting local businesses, or fitting in. They would turn whatever they bought into an extension of their London life, speeding round the country lanes in their flash four by fours, terrorising the ponies and deer.
Lush lawns would be dug up to give way for enormous hot tubs full of half-naked orange people getting drunk and raucous. I must have put my cup down more forcefully than I meant to. The loud chink brought Linda to the door.
‘Is everything alright, Jonathon?’
‘Sorry.’ I forced a smile. ‘Just ruminating on second homers buying up the area.’
‘I know what you mean,’ she nodded. Before she had a chance to say any more, the old fashioned bell on the front door jangled. The vultures had landed.
‘You’d better go and see to them,’ I fought to unclench my jaw, ‘before they make themselves welcome and wander through anyway.’
I could feel myself choking on heavy, musky perfume and too much aftershave before they even entered the office. It was like being whacked round the head with two expensive, clashing air fresheners. Getting up, I quickly opened the window and took a deep breath. I wondered what Stella was up to right now – my lovely Stella who always smelled of orange blossom, and looked sexy without looking like she should be wrapped around a long pole. Whatever she was doing, I hoped she was having a much better morning than I was.
Chapter Three
Stella
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Greetings from Mum and Dad!
Monday ...
Hello Stella darling,
You’ll never guess what happened to your father today – he was on the beach helping Thaksin (you remember him – my friend Tasanee’s husband) put some new slats in a couple of the sun loungers and a coconut fell on his head! It bounced right of. . .
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