Nearly Almost Somebody (4 page)

‘No.’

‘He’s got nowhere else.’

‘Jack’s allergic to cats.’

‘Gracey–’

‘Don’t Gracey me.’

‘His coat’s only just getting its shine back after Maggie died. Please?’

With an enormous groan, she took Hyssop from him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Spain. I’ve got to work at Sam’s for a while. Dad’s coming out of retirement.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with Sam?’

Patrick shook his head. ‘Nothing. It’s... well, it’s complicated.’

‘How long for?’

‘Two months. I’ll be back.’

‘You’d better. Your dad’s an old fuss-pot.’ She kissed Hyssop’s head. ‘Patrick, are you okay? You look... odd.’

No, Gracey, I’m fucked
. He rubbed Hyssop’s ears then tugged a wayward lock of Grace’s hair. ‘Look after him. Please.’

She nodded and he walked away. Thank God for Grace. She might be a gobby cow at times, but she was always there.

* * *

An hour later, as Patrick drove out of the village, Michael Wray received a text:
McBride is leaving
.

Wray swore. Without McBride’s weekly antics circulation figures would plummet. He’d have to find a new source of local scandal, and fast.

Libby hadn’t seen anything but dry stone walls, mountains and sheep since she left the M6. The walls were endless, mountains surrounded her in three directions and sheep lurked around every corner – twice she’d had to swerve to avoid running over the little buggers.

But then there it was. Gosthwaite.

She sat a little straighter as her battered Mini followed Zoë’s BMW into the village. They crawled past walkers in hiking boots and old ladies chatting outside the post office until finally they arrived at the green.

On Google Maps the Georgian townhouses looked elegant but bland. In reality they were painted pale olives, sky blues and the subtlest of dusky pinks, their facades creating a pastel rainbow around the emerald grass green. Even Great-aunt Maggie’s cottage looked passably cute with purple clematis covering half the pebble-dashing.

Was this it, the place she’d finally find a distraction that worked, something to make her forget she was ever a ballerina?

As Libby parked, Zoë hovered at the garden gate. A garden, they had a front garden. Okay, it only came out six feet from the house, but none of the townhouses had one.

‘Just so you’re aware,’ Libby said as they wandered between the fat lavender plants lining the path, ‘I’ve never wielded a lawnmower in my life.’

‘I’m hoping there’s some fit young gardener we can employ.’ Zoë’s hand hesitated as she turned the key in the lock. ‘God knows what it’s like in here. Maggie was a scatty cow, clutter everywhere.’

Libby held her breath. Someone died in this house. ‘There won’t be any, you know...
evidence
, will there?’

‘Lib, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck. She wasn’t bludgeoned to death.’

But Libby wasn’t fooled by her friend’s overly chipper smile. Sure enough, when the door opened into a long hallway, they stood on the threshold, staring at the foot of the stairs, neither of them admiring the black and white Victorian tiles.

‘So is that where…’ Libby wrapped her arms around herself.

The stairs were wooden, the floor ceramic. She winced imagining poor Great-aunt Maggie’s final moments. How long had the little old lady lain there, dying? Minutes, hours? Hopefully, less than a second.

Zoë looked up to where the staircase turned to the right, disappearing from view. ‘She had this big, fat old cat and he used to sleep at the top of the stairs. Mum said she probably tripped over him. The amount of times I’d nagged her about him. I nearly broke my neck last time I was here.’

‘What happened to the cat?’

Zoë shrugged. ‘A neighbour, Sheila, I think, came to feed him after they’d found Maggie, but he’d gone.’ With a little shake of her head, Zoë flashed a real smile. ‘Okay, maudlin over. Want a tour?’ Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door to their left. ‘Welcome to the Eighties.’

‘Wow.’ Libby stared at the flowery sofa, matching curtains and coordinating striped wallpaper, a riot of burgundy and cream. ‘I’ve never seen so much chintz in one place.’

Knick-knacks covered every occasional table, books were stacked against the walls, but Libby just discerned an upright piano from the CDs stacked around it. She squeaked in delight.

‘Please, please, please, can we keep the piano?’

‘If we must.’ Zoë peered at the label on a tassel-cornered scatter cushion. ‘Back in the day, Maggie liked quality. This is a Laura Ashley vomitorium.’

Libby cleared the CDs and lifted the lid to stroke the keys. Without hesitation, she pressed middle C. When had she last played? A pub in Cornwall?

‘It needs tuning,’ she said, closing her eyes, feeling the note as much as hearing it. She hit G-sharp, adoring the melodic ring.

‘Don’t get started on your Lady Gaga repertoire,’ Zoë replied. ‘We’ve got to unpack.’

Through the door on the opposite side of the hallway they found the dining room. It featured no less chintz but at least its blue and white theme was a little less jarring on the eye.

Zoë ducked down, inspecting the underside of the ornate table. ‘I reckon that’s real mahogany and so going on eBay tonight.’

The kitchen sat at the back of the house. Its magnolia walls were oddly muted compared to the other rooms, though the mustard yellow splash-back tiles featuring the occasional vegetable display made up for it. A gift bag sat on the side, with a card addressed to Maggie.

‘
Don’t drink it all at once
,’ Zoë read before peering inside the bag.

‘Wine?’

‘Homemade crap.’ Zoë plonked a swing-top bottle of elderflower wine on the worktop and took out a pair of tall, beeswax candles. ‘Well, they’ve got
Regift Me
written all over them.’

Libby peered through the window in the kitchen door. At the end of the long garden, edged with tall privet hedges, she could see nothing but fields stretching into the distance.

‘Ace, there’s a proper herb garden,’ Libby said. The multitude of planters dotted around the crazy-paved patio put the window box she’d nurtured back in Manchester to shame. ‘I spy… thyme, parsley, mint, rosemary and marjoram, but god knows what the rest are.’

Zoë pointed to the tall, bushy plants growing in a sun-trapped corner. ‘It’s not all for eating.’

‘You’re joking. Your great-aunt grew weed?’

‘To help with her arthritis, she used to say.’ Zoë mouthed,
whatever
.

Giggling, they went back into the hallway and ran up the stairs. The first door led to a peach-coloured bathroom, the second to a striped mint-green guest room and the final door to Maggie’s bedroom. Libby hung back in the doorway as Zoë wandered in. The bed was made, no clothes lay strewn around.

‘Could you imagine if we died, the state of our bedrooms?’ Libby tried to sound light-hearted but Maggie’s dressing gown still hung on the back of the door and the room was filled with her photos, trinkets, books, all just as she’d left them. ‘People would probably think we’d been burgled.’

Zoë poked through the silver jewellery box, examining a ring as the sunlight dimmed and the room fell into a sudden gloom. Goosebumps covered Libby’s arms.

A rain cloud. It’s just a rain cloud.

She reached out to the ancient Bakelite switch and with one finger, flicked it down. The light bulb flashed and a loud crack made her squeal. Zoë jumped, knocking the jewellery box to the floor as she span around.

‘Ohmigod. I swear I felt that.’ Libby’s hand shook as she tentatively flicked the switch back up and gave a nervous laugh. ‘She’s not haunting us, is she?’

Zoë didn’t smile as she bent to scoop up the beads and bracelets scattered on the floor. ‘Be a BFF and check the fuse box? It’s under the stairs.’

‘What did your last slave die of?’

‘Being eaten by the spiders under the stairs.’ Zoë grinned and pushed Libby forwards. ‘Please?’

‘Like you’re
that
afraid of spiders.’

‘City spiders, no. You haven’t met the rural arachnids yet.’

Three hours later, Libby left Zoë to deal with gas meter readings and a Tesco delivery while she wandered to the Langton Hall livery yard to meet her new boss, Kim Langton-Browne. On paper, it was hardly a career choice. Four days a week, minimum wage, no career prospects and she wouldn’t get to ride the horses, but at least it was a job. At the equestrian centre where Libby had sailed through her BHS Stage Three exams, the head instructor had said one equestrian job would spawn another. Fifteen minutes after arriving at the livery yard, Libby prayed the spawning would occur sooner rather than later.

‘No music,’ Kim barked, marching past a row of inquisitive ponies. ‘I can’t abide the bloody radio. This is the countryside. I want to hear bird song, not Radio bloody One in the morning.’

The swallows would have to be in fine voice to be heard over Kim’s nasal whine, and was a smile actually out of the question? A perma-scowl added ten years to her thirty-five – a
resting bitch face
Zoë would say. Libby tried not to giggle, but focussing on Kim’s panty line, perfectly visible under the straining tartan seat of her jodhpurs didn’t help. Not that Kim was fat, but those skimpy briefs underneath had to be two sizes too small.

At least Kim hadn’t frowned at the purple streaks in Libby’s hair. But then Kim’s own hair was the colour of a London bus. In fact, in her pristine cream jodhpurs and neatly ironed black t-shirt, Libby felt ludicrously respectable.

‘And absolutely no smoking on the yard.’ Kim flashed a disapproving frown as Libby paused to stroke the nose of a pretty grey mare. ‘Careful, that’s a nasty little bugger. Bit me twice last week.’ Kim bent down to pet her little Sheltie. ‘Not like my little Bublé. You’d never bite mummy, would you? And no feeding the nags Polos. It makes them forget their manners.’

Libby kissed the grey, who blew on her hand.

‘The phone in the tack room is for office use.’ Kim marched on. ‘Yard duties start at eight, not five past. Tea breaks are at ten thirty and three. Lunch, twelve ’til one, not five past. You’ll finish at six, not five to.’

Ten minutes later, after berating clients for not stacking buckets neatly and for generally wanting to keep their horses on her yard, Kim thrust out her hand for Libby to shake.

‘Nice to meet you, Libby. Now, I have to find my bloody useless excuse for a husband. The stupid man said he’d be grass-cutting by now. Michael’s on his way.’

‘Does Michael work here too?’ Libby delivered her question with utter innocence, but she’d already clocked the flush to Kim’s unfortunate high-colouring when she mentioned this Michael. Was she having an affair?

Kim laughed, a silly giggle, as she dragged a hand through her hair, pulling it off her face. ‘Good lord, no. He’s the feed merchant. I’ll see you in the morning. Eight sharp.’

As Kim dashed into the ancient, sprawling farmhouse, Libby saluted. The long days didn’t faze her, but the thought of listening to Kim bad mouth the world for ten hours a day made her long for her old job running around after the North-West’s most caustic wedding planner.

A month. If she could stick it out for a month, that wouldn’t feel like giving up. One month. Or four weeks. Four weeks was practically a month.

‘Ow, watch it, Tals,’ squealed a voice behind her.

From the little grey’s stable, two girls emerged, one nearly as tall as Libby with her dark hair pulled back in a scruffy bun, the other a head shorter and wearing more make-up than Libby.

‘I thought she’d never bloody go,’ the dark-haired girl said, leaning back against the stable door. She was impeccably well spoken and her huge brown eyes had no need for make-up. ‘Are you one of the new girls from the Green? I’m Tallulah. This is Chloe. We’re actually the same age but she’s a short-arse.’

Chloe gave Tallulah the finger.

‘I’m Libby.’

‘Are you really a lesbian?’ Tallulah asked, tipping her head to the side, studying Libby.

Chloe tutted. ‘Lesbians don’t wear make-up or have cool hair. They have skin-heads.’

Libby opened her mouth, but hadn’t a clue what to say.

‘But... so are you a lesbian?’ Tallulah asked again. ‘Only I heard Miss Knightmare say she and my aunt Daisy were when they moved to Gosthwaite and that you and your friend are, like, living together so you probably are too.’

‘Or not. Zoë and I are most definitely not lesbians.’ Libby couldn’t help but like Tallulah. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be asking about these things?’

Chloe pouted. ‘We’re not little kids. We’re practically twelve.’

Libby focussed on her boots to hide her smile. ‘I have to go. Still need to unpack.’

‘What’s it like,’ Tallulah piped up before Libby had chance to leave, ‘living in the old witch’s house?’

‘It’s fine.’ Libby crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘But she’s dead so you shouldn’t call her names.’

‘I’m not,’ Tallulah said, as she unbolted one of the stable doors.

‘She was a witch,’ Chloe said. ‘A proper one. Not with a black cloak and broomstick, but one of them white ones.’

‘A Wiccan,’ Tallulah added, leading out a bay gelding. ‘But isn’t it weird?’

‘Okay, it’s a bit weird,’ Libby admitted. A Wiccan? That was more than a bit weird. What if Maggie were into Satanic rituals? ‘I’ve never lived in a house where someone died. Well, not knowingly.’

‘What about living in a house where someone was–’

‘Tal!’

‘What?’ Tallulah pushed her riding hat low over her eyebrows. ‘It’s true.’

‘What’s true?’ Libby stroked the gelding, rubbing the brilliant white star peeking from under his perfectly pulled forelock.

‘Maggie...’ Tallulah’s eyes flashed, clearly loving that she had Libby’s attention. ‘...was murdered.’

Libby shook her head. ‘She fell down the stairs.’

‘Whatever,’ Tallulah replied. ‘Chloe’s sister Lauren said that Becky from next door but one to Maggie, heard her scream. And then Becky saw someone walking down the lane. This is Shakespeare, by the way.’ She ran her hand along the gelding’s neck.

Chloe’s face flushed. ‘Well, I’m not sure–’