The Secret Hen House Theatre (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The Rescue Mission

“Get lost,” said Martha. “No way.”

She was sitting on her bed painting her toenails purple. Hannah and Lottie had coaxed her to open the door a few centimetres, but they were not allowed on pain of death to set foot over the threshold.

“Martha,” said Hannah, “you’ve got to do this. Do you want the farm to be demolished? Do you want to move to a tower block in Linford?”

Martha looked up from her left foot. “Yes. I do, actually. That’s exactly what I want. A nice warm flat in a big town with things going on, instead of this boring grotty old dump.
And
my shoes wouldn’t get covered in chicken dung every time I stepped out the door.”

Hannah pulled a face at Lottie. “OK, you hate the farm. But what about Dad? How do you think he would feel? And Jo, and Sam? What about poor little Sam?”

Martha shrugged. “Not my problem.” She started on the other foot.

Hannah sighed with frustration.

Lottie took a step forward. Martha shot her a
look. Lottie held her palms out in front of her and stepped outside the door again. “Fine,” she said. “If that’s your attitude, that’s fine. If you’re happy to share a bedroom with Hannah and Jo, don’t help us.”

Martha scowled as she dipped the brush in the bottle. “What are you talking about, loser?”

Lottie shrugged. “I’m just saying, that’s all. It’s only fair to warn you. Flats aren’t very big. You’d probably have to share a room with at least one of your sisters. Most likely both.”

Martha jammed the brush back into the pot and screwed the lid on as if she were wringing Lottie’s neck. She swung her legs off the bed and sprang upright.

“Fine,” she spat. “But you owe me. Big time. And if that poxy painting is worth nothing, like I bet it is, and we move to Linford, my stinking so-called sisters can sleep in the corridor for all I care. There’s no way on earth I’m ever going to share a room with either of them.”

Hannah and Lottie crouched behind an evergreen shrub at the side of Danny’s garden. Dusk was turning to dark and new stars were appearing in the sky every minute.

“They’re taking ages,” whispered Lottie.

“Well, it might be a long job,” said Hannah. “They’ve got to get Danny out of his room and then they’ve got to take his—”

Lottie grabbed her arm. “Look!”

Hannah jerked her head up. At Jade’s bedroom window a torch was flashing on and off very fast.

The all-clear.

They scrambled to their feet and crept along the path to the back door. Hannah pushed down on the handle. Her heart stopped as she waited for the creaks and rattles that would bring Danny’s parents running. But this door wasn’t like the farmhouse doors. The handle slid down smoothly and the door opened without a sound.

Feeling like a criminal, Hannah stepped inside Danny Carr’s house. Lottie was so close behind that Hannah could feel her breath on her neck.

They were in a little room that housed a freezer, a washing machine, a jumble of shoes and boots, and a row of hooks heaped up with coats and scarves. Hannah consulted the map they had drawn using Martha’s descriptions of the house.

They had to go through the door straight ahead of them into a kitchen.

And then along the hall and up the stairs, right in the centre of the house. Then on to the landing and into the second room on the right. Danny’s bedroom. Which, if Martha and Jade had done their job properly, would be empty.

Empty of Danny, anyway. But hopefully containing two silver-plated candlesticks and one great big oil painting.

The door from the kitchen into the hallway was open. The
EastEnders
theme blared out from what, according to Hannah’s map, must be the living room.

Was the programme starting or ending? She glanced at her watch.

Seven thirty. Just starting. So they should have a clear half-hour. That would be enough time, wouldn’t it?

They crept through the hallway.

Oh, no.

The living-room door was wide open. They were going to have to walk right past that gaping open door to get to the stairs.

Which way did the TV face?

Why hadn’t she checked that with Martha?

Please let it face the door, she prayed. Please, please let them have their backs to us.

Hannah crossed her fingers and took a step forward.

What on earth would she do if Danny’s mum or dad came out now?

Feeling sick, she leaned her head very slightly round the living-room door.

Danny’s mum was sitting on a sofa, facing the TV, with her back to the door.

Thank you, thank you, said Hannah to herself.

She crossed the open doorway in one light stride. Lottie followed.

Now for the stairs. They were carpeted and they didn’t make a sound under the girls’ feet. In a nanosecond they were on the upstairs landing.

There were four doors leading off the landing. They were all painted shiny white and they were all shut. Music and raised voices came from the first
room on their right – Jade’s, it said on the map.

Let’s hope they’ve hidden his laptop really well in there, thought Hannah.

The next room was Danny’s. With a glance at Lottie, Hannah opened the door. They nipped inside and Lottie closed the door behind them.

Danny’s room was laid out exactly as Martha had described it. The only thing that surprised Hannah was how tidy it was. For some reason, she had expected it to be a tip.

From their questioning of Martha, they had worked out that the painting could only be in one of two places.

Unless he had already got rid of it.

Or destroyed it.

No. She couldn’t let herself think like that.

The wardrobe was in the far corner. Lottie pulled open the doors.

Hannah recoiled at the sight of the clothes piled up on the shelves. She had no desire to get this close to Danny Carr.

On the landing a door opened and slammed back against the wall.

“Touch my stuff again and you die, you little weirdos!”

It was Danny’s voice.

Hannah stopped breathing. There was no time to think. They dived into the wardrobe. The screws from the handles stuck through a bit at the back. They grabbed on to them and pulled the doors shut, plunging themselves into darkness.

Danny’s bedroom door crashed open and springs creaked as someone flung themselves on to the bed. There was the sound of a laptop being switched on.

Oh, no.

Martha and Jade had clearly hidden Danny’s laptop somewhere pathetically easy to find. And now he would spend the entire evening in his room playing computer games, and they would slowly suffocate in his wardrobe.

What a way to die.

Hannah’s leg was all twisted up underneath her. Lottie’s foot was digging into her hip. She couldn’t stay in this position much longer.

CRACK!

Hannah jumped so hard that one elbow bashed into the side of the wardrobe and the other hit Lottie in the jaw. The wardrobe doors swung open.

GUNFIRE?

In the
house
?

What? Who?

Danny was already out of the room and storming into Jade’s, swear words pouring out of his mouth. His mum was running up the stairs, screaming, “Danny! I’ve told you not to fire that rifle in the evenings!”

“It wasn’t me!” yelled Danny. “It was Jade’s nutter friend!”

So
that
was who.

Hannah grinned. Great work, Martha.

“Quick,” hissed Lottie. With admirable presence of mind, she had already sprung across the room
and shut the door.

Hannah refocused. She dropped on to her stomach beside the bed. There wasn’t much space underneath it. She stretched her arm out and swept it around.

Her fingers brushed against something hard and bumpy. Whatever it was ran for over half the length of the bed and then turned at a right angle.

The picture frame!

“It’s here! Get the other end.”

Lottie lay down and stretched out her arm. “Got it. OK, pull.”

They eased the frame out. Hannah closed her eyes. What might he have done to it?

She felt Lottie’s hand on her arm. “Look, Hannah. It’s all fine.”

Hannah opened her eyes and saw the beautiful bay hunter and the springer spaniel. She wanted to kiss them. She had never been so glad to see anything in her entire life.

Lottie swept her arm under the bed. “Aha.” She pulled out a candlestick and went back in for the other. She pulled a carrier bag out of her coat pocket and put them in it. Then she took hold of one side of the picture frame.

“Come on.”

Hannah took the other side. “What do you reckon, just race down the stairs?”

“Go for it.”

They scrabbled to their feet and on to the landing. There was an almighty row going on in Jade’s room. “She’s nuts!” Danny was shouting. “She should be
locked up.”

“Well, what do you expect,” screamed his mother, “if you leave a loaded air rifle lying around the house? I have just about had it up to here with you, Daniel Carr. You’re grounded for a month.”

She stormed out of the room and started down the stairs. Lottie, nearly at the bottom, sped up, but Hannah, three steps above her, caught Mrs Carr’s eye and froze. Lottie tugged at the picture. “Come on,” she hissed.

Mrs Carr gaped. One pink-slippered foot dangled above the top step. She stood there, gawping at Hannah, Lottie and the large gilt-framed oil painting.

Danny, an air rifle tucked under his arm, appeared at the top of the stairs. He saw the girls and the painting, and the colour drained from his face.

Hannah felt the same surge of power that she’d had when she had squared up to Jack on the school path.

“Oh, here’s Danny,” she said. “He’ll explain everything. Bye, Mrs Carr.”

As she and Lottie carried the painting out into the night, they heard Danny’s mum say, “Will someone just tell me what the heck is going on in my house tonight?”

Chapter Forty

A Visitor

Monday afternoon. Rain pelted down from leaden skies. Raindrops bounced off the farm track and soaked Hannah’s trousers. She had walked home from school as fast as she could, and not just to get out of the rain. She must phone the man from Sotheby’s straightaway to arrange a time for him to come and look at the painting.

As she crossed the yard, Dad stepped out of the pig shed with a bucket in each hand. “Oh, Joanne, er, Martha, er, Hannah. Good. There’s a lamb in the Aga needs feeding. Triplet. She couldn’t feed all three. I gave it a bottle a couple of hours ago but it can’t take much at a time. There’s some colostrum in the scullery.”

Hannah skipped off to the house. The rain was pouring off the roof, splashing on to the ground from the leaking gutters. Never mind. The first bottle-fed lamb of the year, and it was going to be hers.

The bottom door of the Aga was ajar. Inside it was a cardboard box. Hannah eased it out of the oven and scooped up the tiny lamb that lay in it on a handful of straw. She could feel his ribs and his
quick shallow heartbeat under his nubbly wool.

The lamb looked at Hannah and gave a little bleat. She stroked the top of his head and his big soft ears.

The back door rattled and the others tumbled into the scullery. Their school bags thudded on to the freezer.

Hannah kissed the top of the lamb’s head. “You’re mine,” she murmured, as the others clattered up the back stairs without looking into the kitchen.

Hannah measured two scoops of colostrum formula into a baby’s bottle, screwed the teat on and settled down on a stool with the lamb on her lap. His body was warm and comforting, like a hot-water bottle. But he was too weak to suck very hard, and when the doorbell rang ten minutes later she was still trying to coax him to take a little more milk.

Hannah stood the bottle on the table, cradled the lamb in the crook of her left arm and pulled the scullery door open.

On the doorstep, in the pouring rain, under a large black umbrella, stood the smartest man she had ever seen. He had short brown hair, which might have been wavy if it wasn’t so neatly cut. He wore a navy-blue pinstriped suit with a perfectly knotted red tie. A lovely expensive smell wafted from him. He carried a black leather briefcase and his highly polished brogues bore no signs of mud. Had he blown in on the east wind, like Mary Poppins?

He smiled at her. “Good afternoon.” He transferred his briefcase to the same hand as his umbrella and held out his other hand. Hannah held out hers.
Nobody had ever offered to shake her hand before.

“I’m Sebastian Milsom, from Sotheby’s auctioneers.” He transferred the briefcase back to his right hand. “I have an appointment with Mrs Roberts. I’m afraid I’m a little late. I couldn’t find the entrance to the farm.”

“Hannah,” called Jo from the landing. “Have you got the scissors?”

Hannah stared at the man in complete confusion. He must have read her expression, because he said, “I’m sorry. Perhaps it was your sister I spoke to on the telephone?”

Jo galloped down the staircase. “Ah, what a cute lamb,” she said, and then stopped short as she registered the immaculate stranger.

“Jo, this is Mr Milsom,” said Hannah. “From Sotheby’s.”

Jo clapped a hand to her mouth. “Whoops. I did mean to tell you.”

Hannah gave her a look. Jo grabbed the scissors from a pot on the shelves and ran back up the stairs.

Hannah turned back to the man and gasped in horror. Jasper, who must have rammed his way through the half-open gate, was standing behind Mr Milsom, nibbling the edges of his briefcase.

“Jasper! Shoo! Shoo!” she said, pushing with all her strength on his woolly shoulders.

But Mr Milsom just laughed. “What an enormous sheep. Are they all as tame as that?”

“No,” said Hannah, desperately trying to shove Jasper’s great bulk away. “He was an orphan lamb.
My sister reared him. Get off, Jasper.”

Mr Milsom looked from Jasper to the skinny little lamb in Hannah’s arms, and back again. “Golly. What on earth did she feed him?”

Hannah gave up trying to move Jasper. It would be easier to move Mr Milsom. She smiled brightly. “Come in. Mrs Roberts isn’t here at the moment, but I can show you the painting.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much.”

Hannah led him through the kitchen, acutely aware of the mountain of paper on the window sill, the greasy tools dumped next to the overflowing laundry basket, the black dust coating her mother’s wedding china on the dresser. But as they passed through the big tiled hall Mr Milsom said, “What a lovely old house you have,” and Hannah wanted to hug him.

Sam’s and Jo’s faces appeared at the top of the stairs. They each held a pencil and a notebook that had “Bean Spy Club” written on the cover. When they saw Hannah and Mr Milsom they nudged each other and giggled. Hannah glared at them. “Go away,” she mouthed.

They didn’t go away. They sat down on the top step and started to scribble in their notebooks. Hannah led Mr Milsom into the sitting room and shut the door.

“Here it is,” she said, her heart thumping.

His eyes opened wide. Was that a good sign?

He moved very close to the painting, making appreciative little murmurs. Hannah wasn’t sure
whether she should stay.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

He gave her a warm smile. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

When she returned with the tea, having put the lamb back in his box, Jo, Sam and Martha were huddled outside the sitting-room door, trying to look through the keyhole.

“Go away!” hissed Hannah, flapping her arms at them. “Shoo!”

“Don’t shoo me,” said Martha. “I’m not a hen.”

“I’m hungry,” said Sam. “What’s for tea?”

“I’ll get it in a minute. Now,
please
go away.”

She walked into the sitting room. Mr Milsom was writing in a smart black notebook. She put the tea down on a side table. He looked up and smiled at her.

Her heart thumped, but she had to ask. “So … is it real? Is it really by Ben Gunn?”

He looked at her kindly, but he said, “I really need to speak to your mother or father.”

Hannah hadn’t planned for this. She had to distract him. “When is your next auction?”

He put down his notebook and picked up the mug. “Our next sporting sale – that’s where we would sell a Gunn – is in four weeks. But it’s too late to get your painting into that sale, unfortunately. The catalogue’s about to go to print.”

“So when’s the one after that?”

“November.”

“But that’s too late!” cried Hannah.

He frowned. “Too late for what?”

“For …” What could she say? If she answered that question, she would have to tell him everything.

“What is it?” he asked.

And he sounded so concerned.

So she told him everything.

The whole story.

Well, nearly.

And he sat on the torn Victorian sofa and sipped his tea and listened.

“The next rent is due on Midsummer’s Day,” she finished. “And if Dad can’t pay it on time they’re going to throw us off the farm. So November’s too late.”

The back door rattled open. Hannah went rigid.

“Hannah!” called Dad.

Mr Milsom stood up. “Ah, good, is this your father?”

“No!” hissed Hannah. “He doesn’t know.”

Mr Milsom’s eyes widened into circles.

“You can’t let him know,” whispered Hannah. “He won’t let me sell it.”

Mr Milsom took a deep breath and put his hand on the desk to steady himself. He looked hard at Hannah.

“Miss Roberts, you cannot sell this painting without your father’s permission. That, I am afraid, is against the law. If we are going to sell it, then I shall have to speak to him.”

“But he’ll kill me!”

Mr Milsom put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Miss Roberts, if your father is one-tenth as impressed as I am by the story you’ve just told me, I would imagine that killing you will be the last thing on his mind.”