Farm Fatale (10 page)

    Mark's mobile shrilled into life as he searched under the planter. The previous viewers, it emerged, had offered £20,000 more than the asking price for the ramshackle dwelling in front of which they now stood. "You could always up their offer," Nigel suggested helpfully.

    "Yes, if I win the sodding lottery in the meantime," snapped Mark.

    As they walked slowly back to the car to make the return journey to London, Rosie was so disappointed that she could hardly speak. Not finding anywhere at all had been the least expected of all outcomes. Hoping against hope to spot a suitable For Sale sign that had somehow been overlooked, she cast her eyes desperately about the villages as they passed through them.

    "Eight Mile Bottom," snorted Mark as they drove into the next one. "What sort of a name is that?"

    Eight Mile Bottom was a village Rosie now recognized to be typical of the area, a huddle of gray stone cottages arranged around a central green. The cottages were small and square with thicklinteled windows and solid little doors. Although tiny, plain, and functional, they had a strongly individual appearance; not more than two together, Rosie noticed, seemed the same age or design as the others. Some were set back from the road, some built on it, some boasted pansied window boxes or had pots arranged along the front. Not Bella-style pristine Islington topiary and terracotta these; rather, stained with brilliant green lichen and showing a few skinny, early daffodils. They looked ridiculously cozy, Rosie thought with a pang, especially the ones with gray plumes of smoke rising cheerfully out of the chimneys. None of them, however, was for sale.

    The only building that was, was the mullioned manor on the main street, half hidden by sheltering trees. With a twinge of envy, Rosie recognized the same perfection of pearl-gray stone she had gazed at so longingly on the estate agents' display board. The nameplate on the lichened Jacobean gatepost confirmed that this was indeed The Bottoms, the house so far out of their price range it might as well have been Longleat.

"It's beautiful," breathed Rosie. "And the village is so peaceful."

    Despite giveaway signs of life such as a village store–cum–post office, a small, school-like village hall, and even a tiny, net-curtained teashop called Penny Farthing, the only local in sight was a fat and lounging cat that plainly considered the entire winding main street its own. Above the roofs, on a brow overlooking the village, a church with a sharp steeple set amid towering ancient birch trees caught the evening sunshine full on its pink stone tower.

    "Not bad, is it?" Mark muttered as they drove slowly past the pub. "Let's stop for a drink."

    Although the last time she had heard those words they had presaged an evening of Gothic gloom, a headless woman, and a large pig, this time Rosie had no such fears. The Barley Mow's whitepainted, sunlit front terrace was crowded with cheerful locals tipping back the last dregs of the day along with the beer.

    Inside, lamps burned cheerfully but not too brightly in the deep-silled mullioned windows. Brass glowed against the stone of the fireplace and shining tankards dangled from thick ceiling beams. Completing the friendly picture was a vigorous-looking landlord presiding over a polished brass bar and wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a chicken and the legend HENVIRONMENTALIST. This evidence of a landlord with a sense of humor, however questionable, finally banished the dread possibility that all country pubs were like the Silent Lady. Far from gesturing sullenly at a pile of pork pies, this landlord seemed intensely involved in helping his customers—a pair of weatherbeaten old men with extremely skeptical expressions—make their selection from the menu chalked on the blackboard above the bar.

    "Scampi and chips or shepherd's pie?" spat one, who had clearly neglected to put his teeth in.

    "Both highly recommended." The landlord smiled.

    The toothless man fixed him with a suspicious stare. "Aye, Alan, but which one d'you get t'most of?"

    "Why can't they make their sodding minds up?" Mark muttered. "I'm gagging for a drink."

    A host of printed notices were pinned down on either side of the bar. Rosie drank them in delightedly. "'Eight Mile Bottom Horticultural Show,'" she read out to Mark. "'The Percy Ollerenshaw Trophy for onions goes to Mr. F. Womersley for a specimen weighing three pounds and four ounces.' Three pounds and four ounces," Rosie repeated incredulously. "It must have been the size of a football. How can anyone grow an onion that big?"

    On the other side of the bar, Alan raised an eyebrow. "Aye, well, they say it's a trade secret. But the real secret is that all these folks have obviously found a shop trading in massive onions somewhere and they're not telling any of the rest of us where it is."

    "Are you saying," Rosie said, smiling, "that some of these vegetable growers are less than honest about their achievements?" She dug Mark hard in the ribs; this, surely, was perfect "Green-er Pastures" material. The sort of thing one couldn't make up.

    Alan sucked his teeth and pulled a face. "Far be it from me to cast nasturtiums on whether folks grow their own stuff or not. But put it this way, the tomato stocks in the nearest Somerfield go down noticeably when there's a show on. Noticeably. And some o' them supposedly homegrown bunches o' dahlias are definitely making guest appearances from the Canary Islands. As for them huge carrots—size of submachine guns, some of 'em are—if you subjected 'em to them Olympic tests for growth 'ormones or whatever, there's not one of 'em would pass. Them carrots are on steroids, no doubt about it."

    Another notice had caught Rosie's eye. "What on earth is hen racing?" She giggled.

    "You've never been to a hen race?" Alan looked at her in cheery mock amazement. "Have them here every year, we do, in the pub car park."

    "You race hens in the car park?" It was on the tip of Rosie's tongue to ask if that was cruel, but she swallowed it back determinedly. In any case, it certainly gave a whole new meaning to "free range."

    "That's right. Big village tradition, it is. Everyone who's got hens enters them. Mine's called Josephine and she's heavily fancied this year."

    "What makes them run though?" asked Rosie.

    "A trail of corn. Unfortunately, though, Josephine didn't run fast enough last year. A rogue hen from Milton Keynes won. It was rumored," Alan added darkly, "that it'd had its corn soaked in Southern Comfort."

    "Two pints of Knickersplitter, please," Mark interrupted testily.

    "Is that cheating?" asked Rosie.

    The landlord put the streaming pint glasses on the bar and shrugged. "Not strictly speaking. And if I were honest, there were mitigating circumstances. Josephine is a three-minute hen and not a four-minute hen, and she only runs in fine weather. It was pissing down last year. The Milton Keynes entrant," Alan concluded impressively, "had clearly had wet-weather training."

    Rosie turned in delight to Mark. But Mark wasn't listening. He was concentrating on his pint and smacking his lips. "Orange peel, aniseed, honey, nutmeg, touch of, um, yes,
cardamom
even," he rhapsodized, taking large drafts and frothing the liquid about his mouth like a wine taster. Suddenly, he whipped out a pen and began making copious notes on one of the house details.

    "Oh, 'eck," said Alan, winking at Rosie. "I'd best have a word with the kitchen. The curry's obviously getting into the beer pipes."

    Rosie flushed, her downcast eyes dwelling on the house details. They were of the one where the dog had been shot. "You don't know of anything for sale round here, do you?" she asked suddenly, ridiculously hopeful.

    Alan shook his head. "Houses, you mean? There's lists of folks miles long at the estate agents wanting places in villages like this, so I'm told. Property market's gone mad."

    "Tell us about it," said Mark heavily, draining his pint.

***

"Amazing about the hen races," Rosie ventured as they drove back toward the Ml.

    Mark shot her an incredulous look from the driving seat. "Didn't believe that, did you? For Christ's sake, Rosie, you can't race hens."

    Rosie lapsed into silence. Mark's snappy mood, she knew, had its root in panic. For him, there was a direct and increasingly urgent link between getting a cottage and getting a column. Which wasn't to say that she didn't want one desperately as well. It had, after all, been her idea in the first place. As they shot at inadvisable speed down the motorway, she dwelt on the bright pictures in her mind. Fields edged with drystone walls spread like green sheets beneath a pale blue sky. A church steeple standing sentinel over the green. Peaceful rows of cottages, huddled behind pots of daffodils. Window boxes rioting with pansies. As, finally, they turned into Craster Road, Rosie's heart felt as if it were dragging along behind the car like cans after newlyweds.

***

Just like Guy to steal her thunder by dropping dead, had been Samantha's first thought as her husband slid, blue-lipped, to the floor in front of her.

    To her surprise, however, he was not dead, but had merely suffered a massive heart attack. "Well, at least I suppose it shows he has one," Samantha drawled to the paramedic.

    From the local emergency medical treatment center, she had transferred Guy to a hospital in London as soon as possible, more for her convenience than his. It had been the work of seconds for Samantha to realize that she—in Guy's unavoidable absence—must now handle negotiations for the sale of the urban sanctum. What was more, she could now take charge of finding them somewhere new to live. By the time he recovered, it would all be over. Against all the odds, destiny had found a way, Samantha thought with glee. Things couldn't have worked out more spectacularly if dear Ridley Scott had done the storyboards.

    Yet, in the oyster that was her world, there remained some grit; the utter boringness of not being allowed to reveal to anyone the identity of the American megastar who had bought Roland Gardens. The only compensation was being summoned from intensive care to The Afterlife, the megastar's international media and production company, to sign the confidentiality clause. A sequence of vast rooms vibrating to long, atonal chords of sound, The Afterlife offices immediately struck Samantha as familiar. The unmistakable whiff of sage smoke, for instance. The wire-wool goat, too, rang a bell, and wasn't that a Maserati connecting rod like her own over there? Amazing how these ancient tribal artifacts got everywhere, although Guy had laughed uproariously and said "Knightsbridge" when Samantha had once wondered aloud in what part of the bush the Maserati people lived.

    "And of course I'm used to
these
," Samantha purred to the froglike Afterlife lawyer as she put pen to dotted line on the papiermache desk in his office.

    "Really?" snapped the frog, looking at her with bulging, suspicious eyes.

    "Being an
actress
, you see," Samantha added hurriedly. "We sign a lot of these in my profession. Agreeing not to look Tom Cruise in the eye and all that sort of thing, ha ha…um, where exactly do you want me to sign?"

    Roxy, the megastar's long-haired, hamster-faced PA, was slightly more forthcoming. Over what was, again, a strangely familiar white china cup of Japanese green tea, she re-created for a rapt Samantha the precise moment when the megastar, flicking through
Insider
on board her Gulfstream, happened upon Basia's handiwork. "She just, like,
saw
it and she just, like, totally,
had
to have it," Roxy confided in toothy wonderment. "It was just, like,
instant
. Like
totally
."

    "Yes, well, I think that's the way Basia Briggs affects most people," stammered Samantha, who had by now practically lost control of her bowels with excitement. "You either love it or you…" she paused, "
ahem
, love it
even more
."

    Samantha was, in truth, almost fond of Basia's work herself now. Particularly given that She Whose Name Could Not Be Revealed had, via the froglike lawyer, practically asked Samantha to name her price. Once she had recovered from the shock and dealt with the tedious incidentals of getting Guy into the hospital, Samantha had driven the most hard and audacious of bargains, although never in a million years had she expected the megastar to agree to the price she was asking.

    That the froglike lawyer hadn't either was evident in his tone when he called back to report that they had a deal. Samantha was jubilant, despite wondering whether she could have asked for even more. But what the hell. In one fell swoop, she'd gotten rid of Roland Gardens and piled up enough to become lady of whatever manor she fancied. She'd gotten her heart's desire and, gratifyingly, with every appearance of helping Guy recover from his heart attack. He could hardly object now.

    Guy's doctor had not only been quick to agree that he needed a period of absolute rest but also that the countryside would be the perfect place to recuperate in. The surgeon had been touched, moved even, by the fact that Samantha was willing to give up what she assured him was a glittering London-based career to move to the back of beyond for the sake of her husband. "I believe in standing by my man, Dr. Carmichael." Samantha had smiled dazzlingly at the doctor, serene in the knowledge that the papers clinching the sale were sitting waiting for her signature in her Fendi Baguette.

    Samantha had tackled Guy's bank next, making sure that Bud Hufflestein, Guy's boss and the bank's president, understood that a move from the capital for health reasons would not in any way affect Guy's ability to keep in touch with the office, modern telecommunications being what they were.