TRISHA ASHLEY
A Christmas Cracker

Copyright

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2015

Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847562807

Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008133719

Version: 2018-02-08

Dedication

For Grace

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: Bottled

Chapter 2: Picture This

Chapter 3: Bang to Rights

Chapter 4: The Prisoner’s Friend

Chapter 5: Engagements

Chapter 6: The Quality of Mercy

Chapter 7: Life of Pye

Chapter 8: Clouded Mirrors

Chapter 9: Rumbled

Chapter 10: Crumbs!

Chapter 11: Cat Flight

Chapter 12: Christmas Lists

Chapter 13: Sleeping Beauty

Chapter 14: Cat-Flap

Chapter 15: Ghost Mice

Chapter 16: To the Point

Chapter 17: Reanimated

Chapter 18: Potent

Chapter 19: Brief Encounters

Chapter 20: Fishy

Chapter 21: Well Spiced

Chapter 22: Thin Air

Chapter 23: Fine-Tuned

Chapter 24: The House of Mirth

Chapter 25: Going Spiral

Chapter 26: Lukewarm

Chapter 27: Queen for the Day

Chapter 28: Winding Up

Chapter 29: Thrown

Chapter 30: Unfettered and Free

Chapter 31: Four-Legged Friends

Chapter 32: Out of the Box

Chapter 33: Give Peace a Chance

Chapter 34: On the Tiles

Chapter 35: False Start

Chapter 36: Charm Offensive

Chapter 37: An Absolute Cracker

Chapter 38: Give Me a Ring

Chapter 39: Sweet Liberty

Chapter 40: Missed Connections

Chapter 41: Spats

Chapter 42: Not Waving

Chapter 43: Christmas Every Day

Chapter 44: Snowed Under

Chapter 45: Guilt-Edged

Chapter 46: Picture Perfect

Chapter 47: True Lovers’ Knots

Chapter 48: Santa’s Little Helper

Chapter 49: On the Case

Chapter 50: Fireworks

Chapter 51: True Lies

Chapter 52: Daggers Drawn

Chapter 53: Advent

Chapter 54: Box of Delights

Chapter 55: Hasty Pudding

Chapter 56: The Big Picture

Chapter 57: Crowned

Recipes

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About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1: Bottled

‘You mean you’ve known for ages that your boss at Champers&Chocs was passing off bottles of cheap fizz as vintage champagne, and you haven’t done a single thing about it?’ Kate exclaimed incredulously, her pale blue eyes wide and a cup of herbal tea the exact colour of cat pee suspended halfway to her rose-tinted lips.

Kate was my opposite in looks, being small, fair and cute, though she wasn’t as cute as she thought she was, unless you were really fond of rabbits. And speaking of rabbits, she should long since have put her penchant for pale pink fluffy jumpers behind her, even if the angora had been ethically sourced, which I doubted.

I sighed and stirred my Americano, starting to wish I hadn’t said anything about it because, after all, she and her husband were Jeremy’s old friends, not mine, and she’d been less than welcoming when we’d first got engaged. But sometimes Kate and I would meet up for coffee and, that day being one of those occasions, my worries had spilled out of me the moment we’d sat down.

It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been able to tell my best friend, Emma, but since she’d remarried she’d increasingly been having problems of her own with her husband, Desmond, so I hadn’t wanted to burden her with mine.

Still, at least she wouldn’t have gazed at me in the sad, accusing way Kate was, when I looked up.

‘The idea that anything fraudulent was going on never crossed my mind until I found out by accident,’ I explained. ‘I mean, I don’t think I’d even seen a real bottle of champagne, other than on the TV, until I got engaged to Jeremy.’

‘No, I don’t suppose there are champagne bars on every corner of council estates,’ she said snidely. ‘Just cheap booze shops.’

For the last years of her life, Mum and I had shared a specially adapted council bungalow on a very nice estate, but Kate always talked as if I was dragged up in a slum and had made some giant social leap by getting engaged to a member of the teaching profession.

‘Oh, forget it,’ I snapped.

‘No, you can’t just leave it there without telling me how you found out and why you didn’t report it to the police,’ she insisted.

‘Because I thought it had stopped. It was before last Christmas, when I was packing special orders one evening and my boss and I were the only people there. There was a phone call and I walked into his office to tell him—’

‘I have wondered about those late nights, just the two of you …’ she said suggestively.

I stared at her in astonishment. ‘You don’t mean you thought I was having a fling with Harry Briggs? I mean, apart from his being twenty years older than me and not my type, I’m in love with Jeremy and wouldn’t dream of cheating on him.’

‘Well, you have to admit it looked a bit odd.’

‘I don’t see why. Harry said I had the nicest handwriting for the personal messages that went in the box with the champagne and chocolates, and I was the most careful packer for the expensive orders.’

It was a pity, I thought, that those had turned out to be the fraudulent ones.

‘Jeremy said you started doing casual evening packing work there while your mother was still alive,’ she said. ‘Harry paid you cash in hand.’

‘Yes, because luckily our lovely neighbour was always happy to sit with Mum in the evenings for a couple of hours and the money was useful. A carer’s allowance doesn’t go very far.’

‘I suppose not,’ she said disinterestedly. ‘But go on, you walked into Harry’s office and then …?’

‘He was sticking labels onto bottles, which seemed odd, but he explained that sometimes they got damaged and then he had to replace them.’

‘And you believed that?’ she asked pityingly. ‘You think it’s that easy to get hold of extra labels?’

‘Not when I’d thought about it a bit, especially since it was the most expensive champagne we stocked. Most of what we sell isn’t actually champagne, it’s Prosecco, but that’s made clear on the website.’

‘So, did you say anything to him at the time?’

I nodded. ‘When I was going home and he came out to lock up after me, I told him I’d realised he was fraudulently passing off cheap booze as expensive stuff. He said his supplier had forgotten to label one batch and he’d had to do it himself, but he was very sorry I’d seen it—’

‘I bet he was!’ she interrupted.

‘And he’d only started the scam when the firm was going through a rocky patch,’ I finished.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Well, call me naïve, but when he swore he was going to stop that very night, I believed him,’ I said defensively. ‘He was very contrite so in the end I said I wouldn’t tell anyone if he really did mean it.’

‘That was so wrong of you,’ Kate said censoriously. ‘I would have got my coat and gone straight to the police the moment I realised what was happening. Not that I’d have been doing a packing job at a factory anyway,’ she added, unable to refrain from another dig.

‘There’s nothing to sneer at in doing any honest job,’ I said.

‘It didn’t exactly turn out to be an honest job, though, did it? And I assume he didn’t keep his word about stopping the fraud, either. You were very credulous to think he would.’

‘I wanted to believe him. In the last couple of years when Mum was so ill, he was really good to me, letting me work as and when I could, then offering me a permanent job on the afternoon shift after she died. It wasn’t like I was qualified for anything else.’

As Mum fell further and further into the grip of aggressive multiple sclerosis I’d missed a lot of school and though I’d started a graphic design degree course, I’d had to drop out of it after only a year. Of course, I didn’t begrudge a moment of the time I spent with Mum, but after she’d gone I was left with no money, qualifications or even a home, since the specially adapted council bungalow was urgently needed for someone else.

So I’d gratefully accepted Harry’s offer and found a tiny but cheap flat over the garage attached to Jeremy’s house, which was how we’d met.

At first he hadn’t been that keen on Pyewacket, my cat, but after a while he became very keen on me, so they learned to tolerate each other … just as I learned to accept Jeremy’s long-standing close friendship with Kate and her husband, Luke, who not only seemed joined at the hip, but all taught at the same huge, sprawling comprehensive school. Well, I say friendship, but it was more a trio of two adorers and Kate, who they think is wonderful, though I have no idea why …

‘When did you realise he hadn’t stopped the fraud?’ asked Kate, jerking me out of my reverie.

‘Only recently. He’d made sure I’d seen him carrying crates of what looked like the real thing into the storeroom, but one day when I was in a smart wine merchant’s shop with Jeremy they had a bottle of it – and it looked nothing at all like the ones I’d been packing. Last night I told Harry I knew.’

I shivered slightly because I’d seen a side to jovial, easy-going Harry that I hadn’t even suspected existed.

‘He threatened me and said if I went to the police he’d tell them it had all been my idea – and since I was the one who worked the extra shifts packing the special orders, I was implicated anyway.’

‘It certainly wouldn’t look good,’ Kate agreed helpfully.

‘But it’s his company and I’m just a warehouse packer, doing a bit of overtime. I told him they wouldn’t believe him but he said they would when he explained that we’d been having an affair and I’d reported the fraud out of spite because he’d ended it.’

‘Gosh, it’s like some low-life soap series! But it serves you right for not having gone to the police as soon as you found out,’ she said righteously. ‘That’s what I would have done.’

‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing,’ I said. ‘In the end I told him I wouldn’t shop him, but gave him a month’s notice and said I wasn’t doing any more overtime. He said he didn’t care, so long as I kept my mouth shut.’

‘Which you haven’t, because you’ve told me,’ she pointed out.

‘Only because I was so upset that I was desperate to talk it through with someone and, if you remember, you promised to keep what I was going to say secret.’

‘I hadn’t realised it would be something criminal, though,’ she objected.

‘But you will keep it secret, won’t you?’ I asked.

‘I suppose so, but more because it would hurt Jeremy immensely if all this came out,’ Kate agreed. ‘I know you haven’t told him anything, or he’d have confided in me and Luke.’

That was true, and it was what had stopped me confiding in Jeremy in the first place, but now I suddenly seemed to have blabbed it out to Kate, cutting out the middleman.

‘Now you’ll have to find another job,’ she said.

‘Well … maybe not. I know Jeremy doesn’t think my artwork is anything other than a hobby, but I’ve been regularly selling designs to greetings card companies, and now I’ve got my first one-woman exhibition in Liverpool I really think I might be able to earn a living out of it.’

In fact, I’d have left Champers&Chocs long before, had it not been for Jeremy’s insistence that I not only continue to pay rent on the flat, which I mostly used to store my things and as a studio, but also my share of the expensive meals out that he, Kate and Luke enjoyed so much.

‘But you know what Jeremy’s like – he thinks I should pay an equal share of everything, even though he’s earning a lot more than I am.’

‘Well, teachers aren’t that well paid, you know,’ Kate said defensively.

‘They get a lot more than my minimum wages, that’s for sure,’ I said. ‘And more holidays – plus the three of you are always going off abroad on school trips.’

‘Being responsible for a coach full of adolescents is not exactly a fun holiday,’ she said, tossing her smooth blond hair back in a Miss Piggy kind of way. She often streaked her hair with a bright pink when she was out of school, but I can’t say it really did anything for her.

‘You’d be better off training for a proper career,’ she added, ‘but I’ll be at the exhibition, rooting for you, anyway. Luke can’t come; he’s off on a training course that day and won’t be back till too late.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, surprised, because when I’d initially invited them, she’d said they couldn’t make it. ‘My friend Emma doesn’t think she can come either, so I could do with some support. I do hope it’s a success … and then just after that I’ll have worked out my notice at Champers&Chocs and it won’t be my fault if Harry gets found out.’

‘Turning a blind eye doesn’t exactly qualify you for sainthood, you know,’ she said. ‘Still, I suppose you can’t do anything else now. Have you told Jeremy you’ve handed in your notice?’

‘No, I thought I’d wait until after the Papercuts and Beyond exhibition, because if I sell lots of pictures, he’ll be able to see that I could make a living from it.’

The owners of the small gallery had been really enthusiastic about my pictures, which had been like a light at the end of a dark tunnel after Harry’s threats to implicate me. I’d been carrying a heavy burden for months, but soon I would be free and earning my living by doing work I loved …

‘Come on,’ said Kate, putting down her teacup decisively. ‘Let’s go and find you something to wear for this exhibition. You can’t go through life dressed in black jeans and tops.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ I said mutinously, following her out, but I did end up buying a jazzy silk tunic at her insistence, even if I did intend wearing it with narrow black trousers and flat pumps rather than the leggings and high heels she considered appropriate.

Chapter 2: Picture This
Randal

‘You know, these are really good,’ I said, examining the nearest pictures on the wall of the small gallery. ‘The artist’s taken traditional papercutting and collage techniques to a whole new level.’

‘I’ll take your word for it – all this arty stuff isn’t my cup of tea or why I’m here,’ Charlie Clancy replied absently, scrolling through his phone to find a photograph of the woman whose work was being exhibited and whom he hoped to meet that evening. ‘I just need to get Tabitha Coombs to believe I’m interested in including Champers&Chocs in an article on successful local internet businesses, and I’ll be in there.’

‘But you might learn something useful, because her work is very revealing when you look beyond the flowery paper lace borders,’ I suggested. ‘The subjects can be quite dark – see this one?’ I pointed to the nearest. ‘At first glance, it’s a park scene by a duck pond, with people sitting on the bench, but if you look closer, they’re clearly homeless and one is drinking from a bottle.’

‘Never mind the artwork,’ Charlie said impatiently. His mischievous expression under his mop of dark curls was exactly the same one he’d worn when we were schoolboys and he was plotting some prank that would get us into deep trouble. Nowadays, as an investigator and presenter for the long-running TV programme Dodgy Dealings, it was other people he dropped into the soup. We were in a similar line of business, though generally it was the big holiday com-panies’ shortcomings I exposed.

‘There’s Tabitha Coombs over by the archway through to the other room, the tallish one who looks like Cher on a bad day,’ he added.

At a guess, the woman was somewhere in her mid-thirties, her waist-length cocoa-brown hair worn loose, with a fringe that framed her face and touched straight, black brows. She had high cheekbones, a narrow, aquiline nose, pale complexion and a generous mouth.

‘She’s quite striking, in a slightly witchy kind of way,’ I said.

I was certain that the gallery was too crowded and noisy for her to have heard me, but something made her glance our way at that moment, her gaze direct from eyes of a surprisingly light, almost lilac, grey.

‘Her friend Kate, my informant, is the cute blonde with pink streaks in her hair, standing next to her.’

‘Hardly a friend, now she’s blabbed to you?’ I suggested.

‘Tabitha Coombs thinks she is, that’s why she confided in her. But Kate says she and her husband were friends with Tabitha’s fiancé, Jeremy, for years before they got engaged and though they didn’t much like her they just had to put up with her.’

‘Generous of them,’ I commented drily.

‘She said Tabitha was probably cheating on her fiancé with the owner of Champers&Chocs, as well as being involved in the scam, so maybe she’s got some kind of axe to grind. But I don’t really care what’s driving her, so long as she’s willing to introduce us. Then the rest is up to me.’

Before Kate had contacted him, Charlie had already had a tip-off from a disgruntled Champers&Chocs customer about cheap fizzy wine being sold for vintage champagne, so she had given him an easy way into his investigation.

‘Never look a gift-snitch in the mouth,’ I said.

The two women parted company and Kate slowly drifted across in our direction in a casual sort of way, talking to one or two people en route.

When she reached us, Charlie introduced us.

‘This is my friend Randal Hesketh – his family home is nearby, so I invited him along just for the ride. Randal, this is Kate.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Kate said, all flirty smiles and big, pale blue eyes with fluttering eyelashes. I supposed she was pretty enough, but since she wasn’t in the least my type her flirting didn’t have any effect on me. This seemed to disconcert her.

‘Are you ready to introduce us to your friend?’ Charlie asked.

She made a moue that looked so cutesy she’d probably practised it in the mirror a million times. ‘As I’ve already said, she’s not a friend, it was just that Luke and I had to tolerate her after she and Jeremy got engaged. But I always felt there was something wrong about her – and my instincts are usually right.’

‘Then let’s get on and find out the truth,’ he said. ‘Do you remember your story, about how we got talking and you found out I was a journalist for Lively Lancashire magazine, though I’d walked into the gallery by chance?’

Kate nodded. ‘So I told you a bit about the artist and her day job as a packer in a warehouse, and then offered to introduce you. Got it,’ she said.

She gave me another of those flirty glances. ‘Are you coming, too, Randal?’

‘No, I’ll stay here; it’s none of my business,’ I said, feeling a distaste for the whole Judas situation. I may be in a similar line of work, going undercover to get film footage for the independent TV programme I work for, Hellish Holidays, but it’s more impersonal.

‘See you later,’ I added to Charlie.

I took a glass of water from a passing tray, since fizz wasn’t my thing, whatever it was labelled as, and surveyed the gallery. It was still crowded and buzzing, so the exhibition seemed to be a success. I noticed red ‘Sold’ stickers had been affixed to several picture frames too and, on impulse, bought one myself that had taken my fancy as we entered. It was of a helmeted woman in a chariot-like wheelchair, entombed in a Sleeping Beauty tangle of flowering briars. A figure was hacking his way in, but he looked more like the Grim Reaper than a handsome prince.

I’d just paid and arranged to have it delivered to my family home in the nearby hamlet of Godsend after the exhibition had ended, when Charlie came back looking pleased with himself.

‘Got what you wanted?’

He nodded. ‘She’s agreed to ask her boss if I can have a tour of Champers&Chocs and do a short interview, so I can include it in an article on local entrepreneurs. He won’t be able to resist the publicity, but I could see she wasn’t keen on the idea. Then the fiancé – that bloke she’s talking to now – showed up and monopolised the conversation, so I left it at that. Bit of a know-it-all tosser, I’d say, too fond of his own voice.’

The man was thin and not much taller than Tabitha, with an arty lock of marmalade-coloured hair falling over his eyes in a very doomed-poet kind of way. He seemed to be lecturing her about something.

‘If that’s the fiancé, then your Kate was all over him like treacle when he arrived a few minutes ago,’ I said. ‘I assumed he was her husband. So, maybe he’s the axe she’s grinding?’

Charlie grinned. ‘You could be right. She told me her husband couldn’t make it tonight, but that didn’t stop her flirting with you earlier, too, I noticed.’

‘Do you think she’s telling the truth about Tabitha’s involvement?’

‘No idea. The scam’s certainly going on, because we’ve had champagne samples analysed, but I’ve taken what she said with a pinch of salt,’ he said. ‘Innocent until proven guilty. Tabby – everyone calls her that, apparently – was certainly uneasy as soon as Champers&Chocs was mentioned and suspiciously unenthusiastic about the company being featured in a magazine.’

‘That’s all right: it’s not going to be,’ I said drily. ‘Though of course she may be even less keen on it appearing all over a TV programme exposing what’s been going on.’

I looked over my shoulder at Tabitha Coombs as we left. The crowd had begun to thin a little and she was staring after Charlie with those startlingly light grey eyes under brows drawn together into a formidable Frida Kahlo frown. Then the fiancé said something and put a proprietorial arm around her and she looked up at him with such a loving smile that her face was quite transformed.

I felt a sudden pang: she looked like a woman in love and I found it hard to believe that she was having an affair with another man.

But, whether she was or not, if she was involved in the label-swapping scam, then she was risking her happiness for some easy money and her house of cards was about to come tumbling down.

Chapter 3: Bang to Rights

‘So Harry, my boss at Champers&Chocs, told me to show the reporter the packing room and give him some information about the business, because it would be good publicity,’ I told Emma, my best and, as it turned out, only friend. It was only my second phone call out since I’d been sent to prison and it was good to unburden myself of the whole sorry story.

I’d have rung her and told her everything the moment I was first arrested, had her husband, Des, not been back from his latest foreign contract. He’d turned into such a possessive control freak he even resented sharing Emma with her female friends.

‘And I suppose the reporter snooped?’ she said.

‘Yes, when I had to leave him for a few minutes to go to the office to answer an urgent phone call. The line was dead when I got there and I was so naïve, it never occurred to me that this Charlie Clancy had set up the call to distract me. As soon as I was out of sight, he somehow got into the back room, even though it was usually locked when Harry wasn’t there, and photographed the crates of fake champagne.’

‘I do wish you’d told me about the fraud when you first found out about it, Tabby.’

‘You had enough on your plate as it was,’ I said. ‘And I’d handed in my notice when I realised Harry hadn’t stopped the fraud, so another couple of weeks and I’d have been out of there.’

‘It was a huge shock when I saw his secret film exposing the scam on that Dodgy Dealings programme, and there you were! And what was worse, Des was with me and he saw it, too.’

I shuddered. ‘I looked so shifty when the reporter asked me what went on in the back room and I replied that it was just an office … It was clear I knew what was happening.’

‘Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you were implicated in it. I feel guilty for letting Des persuade me to go on a family break with him and Marco to St Lucia before the end of the trial, even though I was sure you would be found not guilty.’

‘I thought so too, at first: I was just an employee, after all. But Harry tried to lay the blame for thinking up the scam on me and said we’d been having an affair, then Kate stood up in court and backed his story up.’

‘What a cow!’ Emma said.

I could still hear Kate’s voice as she stood there in the witness stand, all big, innocent baby-blue eyes, saying sadly, ‘Oh, yes, Tabitha told me in confidence that she’d thought up a way for Champers&Chocs to make some easy money, replacing the bottles of vintage champagne with cheap fakes. I told her it was illegal, but she just laughed and said no one would ever find out.’

‘But none of that was true,’ Emma said stoutly.

‘No, but I could see the jury didn’t believe me – and I suppose it did look bad that I hadn’t told the police, or handed in my notice as soon as I found out. Only, Harry had been kind to me in the past, letting me work hours that fitted in with caring for Mum and then offering me a per-manent job later.’

‘I know,’ she said sympathetically. ‘And things suddenly seemed to be going right for you, what with getting engaged to Jeremy and then your first solo exhibition.’

‘Jeremy didn’t believe I was innocent, even before Kate stood up there and lied through her teeth – we’d already had a big argument and I’d moved back into the flat,’ I said. ‘I was found guilty of involvement in the fraud and the judge said he was going to make an example of me and send me to prison, and though my solicitor had warned me the day before to pack a small bag just in case, it was still a huge shock when I got an eight-month custodial sentence.’

‘I couldn’t believe it when I got back from the holiday and found out you were in a prison in Cheshire! I wanted to visit you, but Des was still home and … well, he’s worse than ever. Wants to know what I’m doing every minute of every day. But at least I managed to write to you and tell you when he’d gone off again. Was the prison horrendous?’

‘It passed in a bit of a blur, to be honest. I was totally stunned when I heard the sentence, though someone said to me, “You’ll be out by the spring,” as I was led down to the cells below the court, which I think was meant to cheer me up. Prison – especially over Christmas – was like a strange nightmare I kept thinking I’d wake up from. I was so scared that I retreated right into myself, but then in the New Year I got moved here, to the open prison.’

‘Is it much better?’

‘Yes, it’s in a lovely old building in the countryside, and though of course we’re still prisoners, with strict rules and regulations to obey, it’s more relaxed. I’ve got a library job and help clear after dinner, too, so I keep myself occupied.’

‘Perhaps you’ll be able to do your papercuts and collages again?’ she suggested.

‘I haven’t got any art materials with me and I’m not sure even open prisons would be that keen on my having sharp craft knives,’ I said. ‘I’m only hoping the greetings card firms I’ve sold designs to in the past didn’t see that TV programme and realise it was me, so I can carry on working with them when I get out.’

‘Probably not,’ Emma said optimistically. ‘And even if they saw it, people aren’t that quick at putting two and two together.’

‘That’s true,’ I said, feeling a slight flicker of hope.

‘I’m afraid it’s too far away for me to come and visit,’ she said apologetically, though I hadn’t expected her to, since her little boy, Marco, was only six and in addition to being a mum she was doing some supply teaching in the reception class at his infants’ school.

‘It’s lovely just to talk to someone,’ I said. ‘The only other person I’ve rung is Jeremy, because I was desperate to know how Pye is. Even though the engagement was off, I’d begged him to look after Pye if I got sent to prison and he said he would, though I’m sure he didn’t believe that would happen any more than I did.’

‘So, how is Pye? You were so inseparable, you must be missing each other terribly.’

‘I am, and I’m so worried about him, Emma!’ I told her. ‘The minute Jeremy heard my voice he put the phone down, and when I wrote he didn’t answer, so I don’t know what’s happening.’

‘Look, don’t worry, I’ll drive over there tomorrow after school with Marco and see how Pye is,’ she promised. ‘I can’t take him home with me, because Des would have a hissy fit when he gets back, but I’ll make sure he’s OK.’

‘If you would,’ I said gratefully. Emma had only met Jeremy a couple of times, but she was less than twenty minutes’ drive away. Thank God Des was working abroad again and she was, for the moment, a relatively free agent.

‘Do you need anything?’ she asked. ‘I could send it in a parcel if so?’

‘That would be wonderful, because I seem to have packed all the wrong things. I need more clothes and maybe my sketchbooks …’

I told her what I needed and where they would be found.

‘What about money?’ she asked.

‘I’m actually all right for cash, because when the solicitor warned me the night before the verdict that I might get a custodial sentence, I drew out a month’s rent for the flat to give to Jeremy and then forgot and wrote him a cheque, so I’ve got quite a bit of credit for my phone calls and anything I need. On release, they deduct it from the money you brought in with you.’

‘He was so mean, making you carry on paying rent for the flat after you got engaged!’

‘He is a bit tight, but I spent quite a lot of time there working on my pictures. I was going to keep it on as my studio when we finally got married …’

If we’d ever got married, because Jeremy had proved really reluctant to name a year, let alone a date!

I was on tenterhooks, wondering how Pye was and hoping for good news, but Emma sounded troubled when we spoke again.

‘Jeremy wasn’t pleased to see me at all, and didn’t even invite me and Marco into the house. And I’m afraid Pye wasn’t there, Tabby – Jeremy said that he couldn’t cope with the constant yowling after you’d gone, so he’d found him a good home, but he wouldn’t tell me where, or who with.’

Cold dread seized my heart, for not only did I adore Pye, but he was the last living link to my mother, who had also loved him.

‘You don’t think he’s just saying that and he’s had him put to sleep?’

‘No, I’m sure he hasn’t,’ she reassured me. ‘When I told him he shouldn’t have rehomed Pye without your permission, he said you’d abandoned him by committing a crime, so it was your own fault, but I was to assure you the cat was perfectly all right.’

‘I hope so … and thank you for trying to find where he was,’ I said, but inwardly I was thinking of Pye – my awkward, demanding, adorable Pye – out there somewhere living with strangers … Was he happy and safe? A slow tear slid coldly down my face.

‘The other thing is, Tabby, that your belongings weren’t in the flat any more, but in boxes piled at the back of the garage. Jeremy said since obviously you and he didn’t have any kind of future together and your rent had run out, he was going to let the flat again. I can’t believe how mean and horrible he’s turned out to be!’

I didn’t feel that surprised after our final argument … and anyway, it paled into insignificance compared with his arbitrary rehoming of Pye.

‘He let me go and rummage through the boxes and I found most of the things you wanted. He says he’d be grateful if you’d have them removed at the first opportunity,’ she added.

‘He’ll have to wait then, because I can’t do anything till I get out – and even then I’ll have nowhere to live, no job and a criminal record.’

‘Jeremy’s such a pompous, self-satisfied prig, though I couldn’t say so when you were in love with him. And I should know, because I married one myself,’ she said wearily.

‘Is Des being just as difficult?’ I asked sympathetically.

‘He gets worse every time he gets back from a contract and wants every second of my time accounted for. And the least thing that isn’t quite the way he likes it, or the way his mother used to do it, and he flies right off the handle. Even when Marco was a toddler, he didn’t have tantrums like that!’

‘He isn’t violent, is he?’

‘No, it’s all verbal bullying. I’d be straight out of there if he tried anything else. And I know I should stand up to him more, but I don’t want Marco to hear us arguing all the time. I could do with your sharp tongue to cut him down to size occasionally.’

‘My sarcastic tongue frequently gets me into trouble,’ I said ruefully. ‘I don’t think one or two of my smart answers to stupid questions went down well in court.’

Emma was still following her own thoughts. ‘Sometimes he’s really sweet, just like he was when we were first going out. It’s since he started working away on longer contracts that he’s really changed.’ She sighed. ‘It seems to me we’re both in prison, in a way.’

‘I’ll get out in a couple of months, if I don’t blot my copybook.’

‘And Des is going to be back for only a couple of days and then he’s off for six weeks to Dubai,’ Emma said, then added, to my puzzlement, ‘And thank you for not saying it.’

‘What?’

‘“I told you so.” Remember when Des and I decided to get married only a couple of months after we met and you suggested I didn’t rush into it? I told you he was wonderful and I knew it was the right thing for me and Marco. But you were quite right.’

I’d worried that it was too soon after she’d been widowed, even though I could understand her longing to be loved again and to give Marco a father. I hadn’t been sure that Desmond was the right man for her, either.

‘I’m a fine one to talk about making mistakes – I didn’t exactly choose wisely with Jeremy, did I?’ I pointed out.

‘We’re both poor pickers,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll catch up with you whenever I can and when I can’t phone you, I’ll write.’

‘That would be wonderful. I can’t tell you how nice it is to get good, old-fashioned letters!’

I wished Jeremy felt the same way about letters but, not unexpectedly, I had no answer to the one I wrote to him, telling him I would pay him back for storing my belongings when I was released and asking him to give me the name and address of Pye’s new owners, so I could write to them, too, and make sure he was all right. Not getting a reply made me want to escape and go to find him – but I knew if I did that I’d be sent back to a stricter prison again and it would be even longer before we could be reunited. I had to bide my time and count the days until my release. But at least I now had a link to the outside world in Emma.

Until the happy day that I met Cedric Lathom, I think she was the only person in the whole wide world who was prepared to believe I was innocent.

Chapter 4: The Prisoner’s Friend

Ceddie, as he asked me to call him during his first visit, described himself as a Prisoner’s Friend but he was also, as it turned out, a Quaker Friend, too.

When it had been suggested to me that since I had no visitors of my own, I might like him to visit me, I’d thought, well, why not?

This proved to be one of the best decisions I’d ever made, because not only did it give me access to the visitors’ rooms in a small separate building, where I could indulge in coffee, hot chocolate, fruit juice and even biscuits, but Ceddie was the most wonderful person.

He was a tiny, elderly man with a pointed face, a mop of silvery curls and large, innocent grey-blue eyes – though perhaps the word ‘innocent’ implies a trusting simplicity, which he didn’t have. It was more an unshakeable belief that there was inner good in everyone.

Over several visits I found myself pouring out my life story to him. I’d never had a significant male figure in my life, father or grandfather, but if I had I’d have wanted him to be just like Ceddie.

‘Looking back, my life seems to have been a bit sad, only it didn’t feel like that at the time,’ I said ruefully one day towards the end of my sentence, while I was drinking the cup of hot chocolate he’d bought me as usual.

‘Your mother sounds such an interesting and loving person that giving up everything to care for her was clearly something you did from love, not duty,’ he agreed.

‘When she was first diagnosed with MS we hoped that it might be the slow kind, but she deteriorated very quickly … But she was never a burden and I had the support of my best friend, Emma, and my childhood sweetheart, Robbie, so I didn’t feel totally alone.’

‘Ah, yes, I remember you mentioning Robbie before,’ he said, smiling at me benignly.

‘He went straight into the army from school and we were too young to get engaged really, especially since I’d never have left Mum, but he understood that. He was a really nice boy.’

‘You said he was badly wounded and married one of the nurses who’d looked after him?’

‘Yes, they just fell in love. I hadn’t been able to get down to see him much, because of leaving Mum, so I didn’t blame him in the least. In fact, I wished them both well.’

‘That shows a warm and generous heart, my dear,’ he said.

‘I think our engagement lasted only as long as it did because mostly we were able just to write to each other,’ I confessed. ‘But by the time he got married I was fully occupied anyway, what with my casual packing job at Champers&Chocs, when my neighbour could pop in and sit with Mum, and my art work, especially when I started to sell designs to greetings card companies.’

‘I’m very impressed with your papercuts, Tabby,’ he said. ‘I think you have great talent.’

I’d recently given him one depicting the prison as seen through the rose arch, the thorns like a circlet of barbed wire and inmates standing in every window, looking out.

‘Thank you – I get my arty side from Mum. She was a costume assistant and dresser at a Liverpool theatre until she got too ill to work. My father was an actor who was part of a touring production, but when Mum discovered she was expecting me, she found out he was married with a young family, so she never told him.’

‘I think she should at least have given him the opportunity to provide for you,’ he said, ‘but I can see that she wouldn’t want to upset his wife and family with such a disclosure.’

I looked at him fondly, quite used by now to the somewhat Victorian flourishes of his conversation.

‘I checked him on the internet out of curiosity once, and I don’t think he’d have been much of an asset as a father. Anyway, we moved in with Granny and then later, after she died and Mum’s condition had deteriorated, the council gave us a specially adapted bungalow, so we were all right.’

‘When one door shuts, another opens,’ he said.

‘One thing does seem to lead to another,’ I agreed, ‘just not always fortunately. Once Mum passed away I had to give up the bungalow and started working regular shifts at Champers&Chocs, so I could pay the rent on Jeremy’s flat … which led to us getting engaged.’

‘Which should have made a happy ending, at last.’

‘I did feel as if I was on the brink of it, just before I was arrested. I’d had a successful small solo exhibition at a gallery in Liverpool and I was hoping to make a living from my artwork. I’d handed in my notice once I realised Harry, my boss, was still defrauding the customers, but the only thing I was guilty of was not reporting what I found out immediately.’

I smiled and added, ‘Practically everyone I’ve met in prison has protested their innocence of the crime they were charged with, but I really didn’t do it!’

‘I am certain in my heart that you are innocent of any crime,’ Ceddie assured me.

‘Thank you – and I wasn’t even guilty of having an affair with Harry Briggs. I was engaged to Jeremy and, other than Robbie, my childhood sweetheart, I’d never even been out with anyone else.’

‘God always knows the truth,’ Ceddie told me, but I wished the judge had, too.

‘I will be away visiting relatives next week, but a friend of mine would like to come here in my stead, if you approve of the idea,’ said Cedric Lathom, on his next visit.

My heart sank and I realised just how much I had come to depend on seeing him.

‘A friend as in Quaker Friend?’ I asked. I’d been reading up about the Quakers since Ceddie’s first visit had piqued my curiosity.

He nodded, silvery curls bobbing. ‘She’s called Mercy Marwood. Her benevolence, like that of all the Marwoods, has always taken a practical turn. For many years she’s been sourcing and renovating old sewing machines to take out to Malawi, where she has also taught needlework. She’s just returned from her final trip there, for she feels that now she has turned eighty, it’s time to attend to affairs closer to home.’

I’d grown used to Ceddie rambling on as if he’d escaped from between the covers of a Charles Dickens novel, but I thought that if Mercy Marwood had been teaching in Malawi into her eighties, she must be a tough old bird!

‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve told her a little about you,’ he added, slightly anxiously.

‘No, not at all,’ I replied. ‘I imagine you can read the whole story of my life online, by clicking on the newspaper reports of the trial.’

‘I doubt the affair made the national headlines and, in any case, they would reveal little about the real Tabitha Coombs, who is a very fine person,’ he said, with one of his warm smiles.

‘Thank you. Somehow, after your visits I always feel better … and when they release me, I’ll miss you.’

‘I will always remain your friend,’ Ceddie said. ‘Had you any thought about where you might go and what you might do after your release?’

‘I have to wear a tag for two months and be under a sort of night-time house arrest – assuming I have a house to live in, of course,’ I said. ‘With no relatives, little money and a criminal record added to my lack of qualifications, I don’t see much chance of getting a job and renting somewhere, and anyway, they need an address before they’ll even release me. But I’m told they can find me a temporary place in a hostel somewhere, till I get back on my feet,’ I added, trying to sound more positive than I felt.

‘Well, my dear, Mercy has a proposition to put before you that may change that.’

‘A proposition?’ I echoed. ‘Do you mean … a job?’

‘The possibility of a fresh start, with somewhere to live, at least,’ he said. ‘But I’ll let her tell you all about it herself.’

‘But surely she won’t want to employ an ex-con?’

‘I have every reason to believe that she will and I think you’ll suit each other very well,’ he reassured me.

He wouldn’t say any more about it and I wondered if his friend was returning because she was now so decrepit she needed a carer. After all, I had been my mum’s sole carer for years, so I was certainly experienced at looking after an invalid.

It would mean my life had gone round in a circle again … but then, beggars and people with criminal records can’t be choosers.

Chapter 5: Engagements
Randal

Charlie Clancy and I were having a catch-up session over a few beers at my flat between assignments. Being more or less in the same line of business, we were seldom in London at the same time.

‘I haven’t seen you since we bumped into each other in the street after you got back from that cruise. You looked like crap – and you don’t look much better now,’ Charlie said, with the frankness of an old friend. ‘How much weight have you lost?’

‘Too much: I wouldn’t recommend a toxic tummy bug to anyone as a diet aid,’ I said. ‘You don’t expect amazing luxury from a cut-price cruise company, but Kharisma sucked. So many passengers and even crew went down with it that if there hadn’t been a mutiny off Mexico it would have been like the Mary Celeste and running on autopilot round and round the Caribbean.’

‘That bad, was it?’ Charlie said sympathetically.

‘You’ll see the horrible details when the programme comes out,’ I said. ‘It was even worse than we’d been told, mainly due to a lack of deep cleaning between cruises and poor food preparation practice. I bribed my way into the kitchens for a look and, believe me, I pretty much lived on bottled water and biscuits after that. And when half the toilets weren’t functioning … well, you can imagine. It spread like wildfire. The stewards were paid so little, it’s not surprising they weren’t keen to tackle sick passengers’ cabins.’

‘But you caught it anyway, despite all the precautions.’

‘I was careful, but I suppose it was inevitable, and at least we’d all been taken off the ship at Cancún by that point. It was a week before the medical authorities would let me fly home and I’m still sticking to eating bland stuff for the time being. This is the first alcohol I’ve tasted in weeks.’

‘I have to say, you still look gaunt. I can’t believe they sent you to Greece on another assignment so soon after you got back.’

I shrugged. ‘That’s how it goes. I’m off to investigate gap-year black spots worldwide next for a special programme, with some back-to-back filming for the ordinary series thrown in. South America first.’

‘Back to Mexico?’

I shuddered. ‘Luckily no, because I’m always going to associate the place with feeling like death. I’m off to Peru first.’

‘I’ve always wanted to go to Machu Picchu,’ Charlie said enviously.

‘So have I, but not on the cheapest and dodgiest tour and staying in the worst backpackers’ hostels. I only hope my digestion is up to a series of new challenges by the time I get there.’

‘At least you visit exotic locations, while I just endlessly circle the dodgy dealers and rip-off merchants of the UK,’ he pointed out.

I looked around the living room of the tiny flat that was my London base and thought how happy I’d be just to stay there. ‘The sense of excitement I used to get at the start of each new assignment has long since worn off,’ I said. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this game. What have you been up to?’

‘Got back yesterday after following a lead about horse-race fixing, but it was a bust.’ He took another swig from his beer. ‘But do you remember going with me to that small art gallery in Liverpool early last year, when I was following a lead about fake champagne?’

I nodded, a brief vision of a woman with long, dark brown hair and unusual light lilac-grey eyes sliding into my mind. ‘The artist did brilliant papercuts, but also worked for that firm you wanted to investigate … what was it called?’

‘Champers&Chocs. I’d already had a tip-off from a disgruntled customer that they were selling cheap fizz relabelled as expensive bubbly, when by sheer good luck, I got a lead on Tabitha Coombs.’

‘It’s all coming back to me – her “friend” dropped her right in it, didn’t she? So, was she involved in the racket?’

‘Up to the eyes, as well as having an affair with the owner. It all came out at the trial before Christmas.’

‘Really?’ I felt vaguely surprised. ‘Her papercuts and collage pictures were really clever, so I wouldn’t have thought she’d need to work somewhere like that, let alone be involved in a fraud.’

And now I came to think of it, I’d actually bought one of her pictures and arranged for it to be sent to my family home, Mote Farm, so presumably it had long since arrived and been stored away somewhere. I’d have to look next time I was up there.

‘Her boss, Harry Briggs, said the scam had been her idea in the first place and they always packed the special orders up after the others had gone home in the evening, then had a bit of how’s-your-father,’ Charlie told me.

‘I’m not sure I entirely believe that last bit – wasn’t she engaged to someone? I seem to remember a fiancé.’

‘Well, an affair isn’t illegal anyway, but Kate, her “friend”, got up and gave the court the same story, so it told against her. I don’t think the judge was convinced she was the instigator of the fraud, though, because Briggs got a five-year stretch, but he still sent her to prison.’

‘Really? If she hadn’t committed any crime before, I’d have expected a suspended sentence, or community service, or something,’ I exclaimed.

‘So would I, but the judge said he was going to make an example of her. She’s the reserved, sarcastic type, and I don’t think he took to her.’

‘Well, being reserved or sarky isn’t a hanging offence,’ I said mildly.

‘She looked guilty – but not half as shifty and guilty as she did on that secret film I shot inside Champers&Chocs, when she was showing me the packing room! I had someone pretend to phone her with an urgent message and then sneaked into the backroom – it was locked, but any baby could have opened it with a bit of bent plastic – and found a stash of fake champagne.’

‘How long a sentence did she get?’

‘Eight months’ custodial, so she’ll probably be released before too long. I don’t suppose the fiancé stood by her; he didn’t look the type to forgive and forget. But she was attractive in a witchy kind of way, wasn’t she?’

I considered. ‘She was striking, I suppose – it’s not a face you’d forget easily.’

‘Maybe she’s your type?’ he suggested. ‘You could offer her a shoulder to cry on when she’s released.’

‘You’re way out, because I’ve just got engaged to Lacey Bucknall.’

‘What, the daughter of the All Thrills sex shops Bucknalls?’ Charlie exclaimed. ‘I didn’t even know you were going out with her!’

‘It was a bit of a whirlwind romance.’

‘Lucky you. I’ve seen her about in nightclubs,’ he said. ‘Stunning redhead, legs up to her armpits, slim as a model but with curves in all the right places …’

‘Yes, that’s Lacey, but she’s no airhead. In fact, she’s a businesswoman to the core.’

‘Still, you’ll be all right there. She’s probably got her own set of fluffy handcuffs and maybe a naughty nurse costume?’ he teased.

I sighed. ‘You know, I’m getting tired of that sort of comment, and Lacey’s fed up with men who assume she’s up for anything, just because her parents own a chain of sex shops. She’s not like that at all.’

In fact, she’d shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm for that aspect of our relationship, so I suspected the whole subject bored her rigid, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, given her background … I hoped to change her mind about that. And anyway, we shared a desire to settle down and start a family, and there was only one way to do that.

‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m sure she’s really nice.’

‘She sees the family business as like any other, just filling a gap in the market and making money. She’s recently set up her own mail-order company and it’s starting to take off.’

‘Selling what?’ he asked. ‘Tell me it’s not the same line as her parents!’

‘Not far off,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘Instant Orgy. It’s party supplies, basically … for adult parties.’

‘Right …’ Charlie said slowly, though a glint of devilment appeared in his dark eyes. ‘That’s going to go down a storm with your aunt Mercy, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ I agreed, because my elderly aunt by marriage, Mercy Marwood, came from a long line of Quakers, as had my late uncle. My mother had married out and lapsed, but I was aware enough of the Quaker outlook to know that Mercy might take a dim view of my fiancée’s business interests. ‘I’m hoping she gets to know Lacey first, before she finds out.’

‘How is Mercy?’ Charlie asked. We’d often spent part of our school holidays at Mote Farm and he was fond of her. And I was, too, even though by rights the family estate should have come directly to me after my uncle died, rather than have been left to my aunt to pass on. ‘Is she still out in Malawi, teaching needlework and stuff?’

‘She was, but she’ll be flying back soon and says this time it’s for good, though she’ll still be sourcing and sending out sewing machines. I’ll have to visit her after my next trip.’

I took a swig of my beer. ‘I had some plans drawn up to redevelop the factory complex at Godsend and sent them out to her a while back, so I think we’ll have a lot to discuss.’

‘What, the old Friendship Mill site?’

‘That’s it: Mote Farm will be mine one day, after all, and Aunt Mercy’s always encouraged me to see it as my home, so she should be happy I’m taking an interest and want to settle down there when I’m married.’

‘But your uncle left everything to her, didn’t he? He told her that he wanted you to inherit after she’d gone, but it wasn’t in writing.’

‘He did, but he trusted her to do what he wanted and she will,’ I said confidently. ‘She’s got money of her own, after all, though now she’s guardian to the daughter of an old Malawian friend, I expect she’ll want to provide for her from that. I don’t think you’ve met Liz yet, have you? She’s a nice girl – Mercy sent her to that Quaker boarding school near Pontefract, but she’s often at the farm in the holidays.’

‘No, but it’s typical of Mercy to take in waifs and strays. Look at all those so-called employees she has living in the cottages!’

‘True, and they’re all well past retirement age. The cracker factory in Friendship Mill should have closed long ago, because it’s losing money hand over fist and at this rate there’s going to be nothing left by the time I inherit.’

‘So, what were the plans?’

‘I propose to immediately retire the workforce, close the cracker factory down and then redevelop the mill complex as a tourist venue, with a café, craft workshops and a farm shop, that kind of thing. I’d invest some of the money I inherited from my parents into it and manage the place, so I’d expect to be a shareholder and director.’

Charlie whistled. ‘How did that go down with Mercy?’

‘I think it was a bit of a shock, really. She emailed saying she’d looked at my interesting proposals, but since she hadn’t realised things weren’t doing well at the cracker factory she’d consider what I had to say more fully when she was home and had had chance to look into everything. And that’s where it stands at the moment.’

‘Maybe your plans were the tipping point that made her come home for good, then?’ Charlie suggested.

‘Perhaps. I think she put too much trust in her brother to keep any eye on things while she was away, because apart from paying out the wages, Uncle Silas barely goes down there. I know he’s got health problems, but he’s hardly a total invalid.’

‘Silas is a funny old codger, practically a recluse,’ Charlie said. ‘But Mercy seems fond of him.’

‘Mercy’s fond of everyone,’ I said, which was only a slight exaggeration. ‘I’m sure she’ll see sense about the mill, when she’s had time to think about it. After all, I’m not proposing we throw the workforce out of the cottages after they’re retired, or anything like that … though as soon as the cottages do become free, they could be renovated and let as holiday rentals.’

‘I see you’ve given it a lot of thought.’

‘I had a lot of time to think in Mexico, before I was fit to fly home,’ I said ruefully.

‘Are you going to tell her about Lacey when you go up there after your next assignment, or take her with you?’

‘I’ll tell Mercy I’ve got engaged, but take Lacey to meet the family later, after I’ve talked her round about the mill,’ I said confidently.

And when I did take Lacey there, I’d have to try to persuade her to keep quiet on the subject of what she and her parents sold for a living, until Mercy had grown to know and love her, which I was sure she soon would. And anyway, once Lacey had visited the place, I might even be able to persuade her to give up her own business entirely and help me instead …

Charlie popped another can and raised it in salute: ‘Here’s to success in all you do!’ he said, twinkling. ‘But I feel you might be in for a rocky ride!’

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