Be Careful What You Wish For
VIVIEN BROWN

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Vivien Brown 2020

Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Vivien Brown 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: 9780008374174

Ebook Edition © September 2020 ISBN: 9780008374167

Version: 2020-08-17

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Prue

Chapter 2: Madi

Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Prue

Chapter 5: Madi

Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Prue

Chapter 8: Madi

Chapter 9: Prue

Chapter 10

Chapter 11: Madi

Chapter 12: Prue

Chapter 13

Chapter 14: Madi

Chapter 15

Chapter 16: Prue

Chapter 17: Madi

Chapter 18: Prue

Chapter 19

Chapter 20: Madi

Chapter 21: Prue

Chapter 22: Madi

Chapter 23

Chapter 24: Prue

Chapter 25: Madi

Chapter 26: Prue

Chapter 27

Chapter 28: Madi

Chapter 29: Prue

Chapter 30: Madi

Chapter 31: Prue

Chapter 32

Chapter 33: Madi

Chapter 34

Chapter 35: Prue

Chapter 36: Madi

Chapter 37: Prue

Chapter 38: Madi

Chapter 39

Chapter 40: Prue

Chapter 41: Madi

Chapter 42

Chapter 43: Prue

Chapter 44: Madi

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Vivien Brown

About the Publisher

To my dad, Wilfred Alexander Smith

1920–1993

Loving father, loyal friend

Hard to believe, but you would have been 100 this year

Prologue

I close the door behind me and lean against it, taking deep breaths while I wait for my heart to slow down, my hands to stop shaking, and my head to tell me what to do next.

I wish it was all just some sick dream, revenge acting itself out as it has so often done before, satisfyingly, harmlessly, as I sleep. But I know this was no dream. This is real. Horribly, frighteningly real.

I didn’t mean to do it. I really didn’t. I only meant to unnerve her, unsettle her, to drip some small fluttering of fear into her life. It was a game. That’s all. A game where one player doesn’t even know the other exists. A game only one player can win. But I never intended things to go this far. I am not a violent person. It was just a reaction, a spur of the moment thing. I had no idea anybody was there.

But she was.

And she still is.

I left her there, in the dark, lying motionless on the floor. Alone.

There is water, and silence, and far too much blood.

Nobody knows I was there. And nobody knows she is there … except me.

I’m a good person. He used to tell me that, a long time ago. How good I was. How precious. That I was his angel, the light of his life. Until she took him away.

What would he think of me now, if he were still here? If he knew what I had become? A murderer?

A cold fear falls over me. He can’t help me now. Nobody can help me. I am alone, and I just want to hide away, to close my eyes and wait for it all to go away. But it’s not going away, is it? Oh my God, what have I done? And what am I supposed to do now?

Chapter 1
PRUE

Prue Harris plonked her bulging suitcase down beside her on the pavement, just missing a muddy puddle, moved her camera bag across to her other shoulder and stretched her aching back. She took the crumpled sheet of paper from her raincoat pocket and looked again at the address she had scribbled down. Belle Vue Court. Yes, this was definitely the place. She stared up at the ugly three-storeyed block in front of her. The big black front door, with its peeling paint, was flanked by rows of doorbells, one for each flat, with a little white card beside each one announcing the name of the occupant. Prue struggled up the three wide concrete steps, her battered old case thumping against her heels, wishing she had thought to buy herself one of those modern waterproof ones with wheels and a long handle, and searched for flat number 9.

Madalyn Cardew, it said, in fading ballpoint pen, on the card. Yes, that must be her, although in the few emails they had exchanged so far she had only ever called herself Madi. It was only now that Prue realised she had not even known her surname. How strange, for a woman to be handing over her flat, and everything in it, for a whole month without even having exchanged full names! In fact, she knew very little about Madi Cardew. What she looked like, how old she was, even if she had a husband or a family. Just that, like herself, Madi had wanted, or needed, a bit of time away from her normal day-to-day life, had been desperate for some time alone in a new environment far from home. Beyond that, no questions had been asked. Prue valued her privacy and Madi, no doubt, did too.

The keys had arrived by registered post the previous day. Prue had suggested that Madi leave them in the care of a neighbour, so she could pick them up when she got here, which was exactly what Prue herself had done with her own keys, handing them over to her friend Sian that morning, but Madi had quickly made it clear that she did not have those kind of neighbours. Most were out all day and, even when they were in, they tended to keep themselves to themselves. And hiding the keys under a plant pot somewhere was far too risky. This wasn’t a cosy Norfolk village. This was London, and it was just not that kind of place.

There were three keys on the ring and Prue tried them, one at a time, in the front door. At the turn of key number three it swung open and she walked into a large square hall. A dim light came on automatically, highlighting the dust as she took off her woolly hat and stood on a strip of dirty coir matting to stamp her feet and shake the rain from her shoulders.

She closed the heavy door behind her and absorbed the sudden silence. Well, she was here. Wet and weary, with her arms feeling like they were about to pop out of their sockets after lugging her case all the way from the station, but here. So now what? The hallway was deserted and she stood for a moment, taking in her new surroundings. The wallpaper was ancient, the stippled kind, with a dull cream-coloured paint daubed over the top and the scuffed skirting boards finished in a pale shade of green.

Despite a collection of numbered boxes set out in three tiers to hold the post for each individual flat, there was also a teetering pile of what must be unwanted junk mail strewn across the front of the long rectangular table, giving the impression that it was down to the residents to pick everything up off the mat and sort it, and that the leftover stuff with no obvious recipient had probably been there for a long time and might never be read at all. It was a strange and not very private system, very open to theft, and one that would have worried her a lot had she been expecting any post of her own. Still, she noted that the box marked 9 was empty, although policing its contents, or lack of, was really not down to her. A few curry house and pizza takeaway leaflets were pinned haphazardly to a corkboard up above, and a battered pink baby buggy lay pushed up against the wall.

Flats 1 to 3, each one identified by a large brass number on its door, led off the hall, one to each side and one at the back. Ahead of her was a steep narrow staircase with thin grey carpet fraying at the edges which she assumed must lead up to the others. With three floors and three flats on each, it didn’t take a lot of calculation to work out that flat 9 was likely to be on the top floor, and there was no sign of a lift.

Prue sighed. As she started up the stairs, bumping her case step by step behind her, she asked herself why she had brought quite so much stuff with her, and why she was here at all, whether her rather hasty retreat from Norfolk and the distance she was putting between herself and Joseph Barton would make any real difference to the way she felt. Or, perhaps even more importantly, to the way he felt.

It was the beginning of March, not the ideal time of year to take a holiday, but waiting for warmer weather was not an option. She had needed to escape now – right now – before anyone realised what she was doing and tried to stop her, and the house swap site she had stumbled across on the internet had provided what had seemed like the perfect solution. Besides, she was hopeful that London would have plenty of attractions on offer whatever the weather. Art galleries, department stores, museums, and she was determined to take a look at Buckingham Palace while she was here and watch the changing of the guard, just like Christopher Robin and Alice. Enough to do, surely, to distract her from the aching feeling, part bewilderment, part shame, that had overwhelmed her and that she knew was going to be so hard to shake off.

She arrived, a little breathlessly, on the top-floor landing. Perhaps being here, with time on her hands, with no work to go to for a whole month, and no car, she could try to work on her fitness. Walks in the beautiful London parks, or along the banks of the Thames, held a lot more appeal than tramping over the familiar muddy fields at home and she was so looking forward to the liberation of a wellie-free life for a while.

She looked around for flat 9. It was, she was pleased to see, the one at the back of the building, which she hoped would mean less traffic noise, and perhaps a more interesting view. The front offered nothing more than a busy street, more buildings just like the one she was standing in, and rows of bright streetlights which, for a girl used to the sparsely lit country lane outside her own home, would have almost certainly kept her awake at night, flooding the place with far too much unnatural light.

She quickly found the right key and opened the door to the flat – her flat – wondering briefly what the third key was for. She would take a stroll around later and get her bearings, but for now she found herself standing in a tiny lobby area with a few coat hooks on the wall, all of them occupied, and a couple of pairs of well-polished leather boots lined up neatly in the corner. She dropped her case on the carpet at her feet, kicked off her damp shoes and walked through into what turned out to be the living room.

She was not quite sure what she had expected, but this was definitely not it. The room was stylish yet warm and cosy, the sofa enormous and squidgy, in a deep shade of red, with a sprinkling of big multi-coloured floral cushions that matched the flowing floor-to-ceiling curtains. A stunning mix of bright white walls, red table lamps, purple rugs, and enormous theatre posters in frames completed the décor. There was some sort of golden statuette in the shape of a mask on the mantelpiece, with various knick-knacks to each side of it, and through an open archway she could see a white wood kitchen, complete with a small pine table and chairs and lots of shiny stainless steel accessories. It was posh, and pristine, and plush … not at all how she had imagined the interior of a London flat in such an ordinary block to look, but she breathed a sigh of relief. It was so different from the casual shabbiness she was used to, but exactly what she needed. A challenge, a change. She loved the flat already and felt instantly at home.

Prue walked over to the window and parted the curtains. The rain had stopped, and a dim late-afternoon light wafted in. She had been right about the traffic. From this side of the building she could hardly hear it. And, to her delight, she could see a little patch of faded grass down below, with a wooden bench set up beneath the one and only tree, and despite it looking a bit sparse and unkempt, it could be the perfect place to sit with a coffee and a book, if the sun ever came out, which it surely must at some time during her stay.

There were three more doors, all closed. Opening the first, Prue found a sumptuous, shiny-white bathroom. From the empty holder attached to the tiles above the sink it looked as if the only thing Madi had taken with her was her toothbrush. Everything else had been left behind, with several half-empty shampoo and bubble-bath bottles lined up along the side of the bath and a small cupboard on the wall revealing a selection of hairsprays, headache tablets, cough medicines and plasters. There was an unopened packet of ash blonde hair dye too, which provided the first clue to what Madi might look like or wanted to look like at least. Two fresh towels, in a pretty lemon colour with a scalloped edge, had been left for her on a chair next to the radiator, which, like the water when she tried the tap, was wonderfully hot.

The second door led her into a small double bedroom, simply furnished and clearly not in use, although there was an old teddy lying on the pillows and a handful of old Rupert annuals and a lamp shaped like a car on a shelf by the bed. The third door took her into what must be Madi’s room. For the first time since she had arrived, Prue felt like an intruder. This was no hotel room. This was Madi’s private space. The bed was a large king size, with a pretty rose-patterned duvet and heaps of small pink cushions, most of which Prue knew she would have to chuck onto the floor in order to get into bed. She half expected to lift a pillow and find Madi’s pyjamas hiding underneath. Posh satin ones, if the rest of the flat was anything to go by. A book sat on the bedside cabinet with a bookmark sticking out of it, as if its reader had just left the room and would be back at any minute. How could anyone do that? Know they were going away for a month and leave a book behind, unfinished? Prue certainly couldn’t, and had brought a good six or seven new novels with her, as well as the romance she had been so engrossed in on the train and couldn’t wait to get back to.

On the top of the chest of drawers, Madi’s perfumes and various items of jewellery, some laid out on a flower-painted china tray, some curled into trinket boxes with no lids, had been pushed aside, making room for a vase of purple tulips whose petals were already starting to droop, and providing space for Prue to put some of her own things. The perfume bottles were all expensive brands. She took the lid off one and sprayed some onto her wrist, lifting it to her nose and enjoying the fresh citrusy aroma that reminded her, just briefly, of her gran, standing in the kitchen years ago, leaning over a bubbling pan of lemon marmalade as a young Prue sat at the table, sticking labels onto the waiting jars. She still missed her gran every day and couldn’t imagine a time when that would ever stop.

Most of the necklaces looked like they were real gold and, picking up a ring and holding it towards the light, she felt sure the gorgeous green stone must be an emerald. Why hadn’t Madi taken them with her, or at least put them away safely somewhere? She felt ridiculously honoured that this stranger trusted her enough to leave such things lying about so casually, and more than a little guilty that she had carefully stowed all her own valuables away in a locked cupboard under the stairs before she’d left, and had brought the key with her. But then, everyone’s idea of what was most precious to them was different, wasn’t it? Prue’s biggest worry as she’d packed to leave the village had been for her gran’s old cat, Flo, definitely the hardest thing of all to leave behind, but Madi had assured her she would look after her as if she were her own. Jewels could be easily replaced, certainly if you were as rich as Madi appeared to be. Pets really couldn’t. Prue had inherited the cat along with the cottage, but she had to admit she had grown increasingly fond of her this past year and was missing her already.

Peering inside the chest, she found that the top two drawers had been emptied for her, although the lower ones still held brightly coloured headscarves and neatly folded piles of nightwear and T-shirts. Similarly, a section of the wardrobe stood empty except for a few padded hangers, while the rest contained a range of boldly patterned dresses, smart jackets and trousers, two loose kaftan-type garments in Chinese designs that probably served as summer dressing gowns, and some very nice handbags and high-heeled shoes. Prue touched the soft lacy collar of one of the dresses and peered at the label. A good make. Size fourteen. Too big for her to borrow, not that she ever would, but already she felt she was beginning to know just a little more about Madalyn Cardew.

There was a photo next to the bed, a black and white shot in an ornate silver frame. A man, good-looking, probably about thirty years old, smiled up at her. Husband? Boyfriend? Brother? She couldn’t help noticing that the photo was a bit fuzzy, the exposure not quite right. And why, she wondered, if the picture was important enough to stand by her bed, had Madi not taken it with her, just as Prue herself had brought a few favourite family photos along with her, tucked into the little pocket inside her purse? She was being too inquisitive, of course. She had no business asking such questions, or snooping into Madi’s life. It was enough that she had free run of the place, that she had found somewhere private and comfortable to hide away and lick her wounds.

A combination of adrenalin, excitement, and curiosity had taken her over for a while but now she just felt tired. She needed normality. To eat, make a cup of tea, unpack and watch some TV before climbing into Madi’s bed. No, it was her bed now, for the next month anyway.

Perhaps, for the first time in days, she might manage to sleep well. Nobody knew where she was, not her parents, not her boss, not even Sian, so nobody was going to turn up unexpectedly at the door. She didn’t have to switch on her phone or her laptop, or open her emails, or even step outside, if she chose not to. She had left everything that mattered behind in Norfolk, for a whole month. Her home, her job. And Joe, of course. Oh, how her cheeks burned with embarrassment just thinking about Joe. She would never forget the look on his face the last time she’d seen him. That mixture of stunned shock and unmistakeable pity. That face still came to her in her dreams. Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d left the dreams behind in Norfolk too. One way or another, she’d find that out tonight, but she wasn’t hopeful. Sleeping alone, in an unfamiliar bed, without Flo’s fluffy little body pressed against her and her gentle purring close to her ear, would probably be difficult enough as it was.

Her memories and her humiliation, of course, had come with her to London, like unwanted extra baggage she had dragged behind her alongside her battered old suitcase, and couldn’t quite manage to let go of. From some things, it seemed, it was never possible to escape.

Chapter 2
MADI

Madalyn Cardew pulled into the side of the road and peered out through the grimy windscreen. If she had realised how muddy the roads around here were going to be she wouldn’t have put her car through the carwash before leaving London. She’d have brought some sturdy boots too, instead of leaving them behind in the flat. Still, there must surely be some decent shops around here where she could buy replacements, she thought, not at all convinced that there were.

The small white sign, almost hidden among the bushes and bearing the words ‘Shelling. Please drive carefully’ as she entered the village, had reassured her that this was the right place. Her satnav had brought her straight here, without even one wrong turn, even though it was so far off the beaten track, with the hedges scratching at the doors as she’d made her way, gingerly, down that last narrow lane, that being reminded to drive carefully seemed laughable.

She had expected the village to be small and quiet, and it was. It looked like exactly what she needed, a quiet out-of-the-way bolthole, somewhere she wasn’t known and would not be recognised, yet this place was so Sunday-afternoon sleepy it looked practically comatose. There was not a soul about as she stepped out of the car and locked it, carefully avoiding the muddiest bits of road, and made her way round to the rather ragged pavement outside the tiny stone cottage which she assumed must be Prue Harris’s. She looked up and down the road for a parking meter, but there wasn’t one. No yellow lines either, so she hoped it was all right to park where she had, but there was a little black Mini already occupying the narrow driveway, mud-spattered as all the vehicles around here seemed to be, and she had no option but to leave her car parked outside the gate.

The gate was low, partially rotten, and creaked on its hinges as she walked through and tried to snap the catch shut behind her, finally managing it on the third attempt. The winding cobbled path led through a small square patch of garden to a pillar-box-red front door, with a tiny net-curtained window in its centre. Terracotta pots containing a few fading daffodils stood, not quite as straight as they might, to each side. Snowdrop Cottage. The name was carved into an oval wooden sign above the knocker. Yes, this was it. Not that there was even a single snowdrop to be seen, but it was March already and, if they had been there at all, then they were probably long gone by now. Madi would be the first to admit that, having no proper garden to call her own, she was far from an expert when it came to flowers. Still, she’d bought a bunch of tulips by way of a welcome, and left them at home in the bedroom. She knew virtually nothing about Prue or her tastes but hoped she would like them.

Madi felt in her coat pocket. The keys! Of course, she still didn’t have them. ‘Turn left out of the gate,’ Prue’s email had instructed, ‘and take the lane up to the left when you see the church. You’ll find the new vets’ surgery up ahead of you. Just ask for Sian.’

She retraced her steps down the path and turned left, as instructed, taking in the large stone-built house next door with its frilly net curtains and sturdy oak door, and the smaller, more modern pair of semi-detached houses beyond it. Every building different. As luck would have it, the little church was built at the top of an incline and the lane beside it seemed to have stayed relatively dry, all the rain and hence the mud having run straight down and accumulated in a giant squelchy mess at the bottom. Presumably the church services were over for the day as there was nobody about, but it sounded as if someone was still inside, practising their bell ringing, as a mix of disconnected chimes rang out haphazardly from the tower, not quite making anything resembling a tune. Madi picked her way around the mud, staying close to the hedge at the side, and slowly made her way to the surgery.

An old dog gazed up at her as she entered, its front paw bandaged, its elderly owner sitting with his knees wide apart, hunched forward and flicking through a magazine with a photo of a tractor on its cover. There were no other animals, or people, waiting, but it was a Sunday, so it was quite surprising to find the place open at all.

‘Hello. Can I help you?’ The girl behind the reception desk looked up from her computer screen, put down the biscuit she had been nibbling and wiped her fingers on the front of her green tabard.

‘Yes, I’m looking for Sian.’

‘That’s me.’ The girl’s face cracked into a smile. ‘Oh, you must be Prue’s visitor!’

‘Yes. Madalyn Cardew.’

‘I’m sorry, I’d expected you to be …’ The girl didn’t finish her sentence, just looked away for a moment, leaving Madi wondering just what it was about her that was so obviously not as expected. ‘You’ll be after the keys, right? Hang on a minute and I’ll walk down with you, show you around the place. How to work the fire and stuff like that. Prue’s left you a few bits – milk and bread –but you’ll probably be wanting to visit the shop for supplies in the morning, so I can show you where that is too.’

‘There’s no need. Honestly.’ Madi tried to be polite but she really didn’t need some stranger accompanying her everywhere. ‘I’ll find my own way around. And I have food. So, if I could just have the keys …’

‘Right-o. If you’re sure.’ The girl stood up, went to a back room and came back with a wax jacket, then rummaged about in the depths of its enormous pockets before finding the key ring and brandishing it aloft. ‘Got them! This big long one is for the front door, and the smaller round one for the back. Not sure about the little tiny one. I’m sure you’ll figure that out though if it’s anything important. Just shout if you need anything else, and welcome to Shelling! I think Prue’s left you a note on the table and my number’s on there, along with some others you might need. Oh, and the dustman comes on Tuesdays. Just pop your rubbish in the bin round the side. Recycling goes in a separate green one, but you’ll see that. I can sort you out a newspaper delivery while you’re here, if you’d like. My parents own the shop. Oh, and Mum does hair too, if you’re interested …’

‘Thank you. Very kind of you, but no thanks.’ Madi stepped over the dog’s outstretched paws and made a hasty escape back down the lane. All she really wanted was to collect her bags from the boot of the car, get inside the cottage and close the door on the world. No shop. No papers. And definitely not someone to do her hair.

The cottage felt chilly. She kept her coat on as she wandered from room to room which, as it was only a simple two-up two-down, didn’t take very long. The living-room furniture was old and shabby but looked comfy enough: a cream sofa covered with an oversized throw, one armchair facing a bit-too-large TV, and a coffee table piled with books and magazines. A few cat hairs floated up into the air and made her sneeze as she lifted and plumped a big flat cushion and replaced it on a squashy pouffe in front of the fireplace. Flo’s domain, obviously.

The kitchen, she saw once she’d switched on the light, was of the oak cupboards, range cooker, scrubbed wooden table in the middle kind, with a plain roller blind pulled right down over the back window. There was a small plastic cat flap low down in the door, with the dried marks from muddy paws on the doormat at its base. A separate pantry housed baking essentials, packets and tins on deep shelves, and there was a small fridge and a freezer tucked in, side by side, underneath. Despite its old-fashioned, traditional appearance, Madi was pleased to see a microwave and a washing machine, and an internet hub in the corner of the worktop so she wouldn’t have to rely on a mobile phone signal if she did decide to communicate with the outside world. A bathroom, small but adequate, led off the kitchen, housed in what looked to be a more modern extension. A bowl of blue hyacinths, just coming into bloom, sat on the windowsill above the bath, their heady scent drifting through the kitchen and right out as far as the living room.

Upstairs there was a tiny single bedroom without a bed, just a desk with a computer, trays of papers, a printer and a small wooden chair. Across the way was a more spacious double, the bed swathed in a thick duvet that felt like duck down, with a crocheted bedspread folded across the foot end, and two big fluffy pillows. She was already tired from the journey, and the bed certainly looked inviting. It was the longest she had been behind the wheel of a car for months and the effects of her treatment were still leaving her feeling constantly washed out and listless. No bath or shower up here though, or even a toilet, so she made a mental note not to drink too much before bedtime if she was to avoid nocturnal trips down the steep stairs every time she needed the loo. Still, the cottage had a certain rustic charm about it. It served her purpose. It would do.

She gripped the banister tightly as she tottered back downstairs. Perhaps her usual heels were a little out of place here, so it was a good job she’d brought flats. It was not as if anyone of importance was going to see her. She could relax and let her appearance take a back seat for once. She was glad she’d thought to bring trainers, baggy jumpers and blouses and a couple of pairs of jeans, even though she was still annoyed with herself for coming into the depths of the countryside and not thinking to bring boots.

The note Sian had mentioned was lying on the kitchen table, held down by a smoothly polished pebble. Madi skimmed through the typed list of phone numbers, the instructions for rubbish removal repeating what Sian had already told her, almost word for word, and the details of the wi-fi code. There was a note about the immersion heater and how best to time it for hot water without having to leave it on all day, and a long section detailing how and when to feed the cat – a cat that Madi realised was, so far, noticeably absent. Scribbled at the bottom, as if as an afterthought, was a single sentence in what must be Prue’s handwriting. ‘Sorry, no central heating,’ Madi read. ‘But once the fire is lit, the place soon warms up. Thick walls!’

Oh, yes, the fire. Sian had offered to come and help her light it. Staring at the fireplace with its rather intimidating black and glass stove and huge wicker basket piled with old newspapers and chopped-up logs, she thought perhaps she should have accepted after all. To a townie like her, working out how to light it was as alien a concept as rubbing two sticks together and hoping to make a flame. Why couldn’t it just have a button to press? Something that said Off and On, with a dial to set the temperature? She felt the cold far more than she’d used to when she was younger, especially in recent months, when she’d lost so much weight. Damned illness. Other than the occasional cold, and that highly inconvenient sore throat that had kept her off stage for three days right in the middle of a touring run of Hamlet in 1988, she’d never had a day’s illness in her life before this, and she didn’t like it one bit. She’d rather be fat, healthy and working than skinny and scared, and stuck here recovering with nothing useful to do, any day of the week.

She rubbed her hands together and cupped them around her nose and chin, blowing into them to warm them. It was a good job she’d spotted that thick duvet on the bed and a hot water bottle on the table beside it. She might be needing both of those downstairs during the evenings, and her dressing gown to snuggle into, if her fire lighting skills failed her. And as for the range cooker, all she could say was that the microwave would probably be getting a lot more use than it was accustomed to. Hopefully the village pub she had spotted on her drive in might do meals, or there might be some sort of café or coffee shop somewhere, if she could just build up enough enthusiasm to go out and face people. Cooking had never really been her thing.

It didn’t take long to settle in. Carefully she carried her bags upstairs, one at a time, and squeezed her few clothes into the wardrobe alongside Prue’s, pleased to see that the full-length mirror was attached to the inside of the door and not the outside, so she wouldn’t have to keep seeing herself walk past, or even use it at all if she didn’t want to. She put her sponge bag of basic toiletries aside, and the dreaded box of pills, ready to take downstairs with her, and stowed her empty bags under the bed.

She took a look out of the bedroom window, catching her first glimpse of the back garden, which was neat and surprisingly green, its rounded lawn dotted with crocuses, deep flowerbeds packed with shrubs, and a pair of matching leafless trees, all encased within a low stone wall. Down at the end stood some kind of outhouse, like a tool shed, but with its windows all blacked out, and next to it a round garden table with a couple of all-weather chairs. There was a washing line too, reminiscent of one her mother used to have, stretching the length of the garden and propped up in the middle with a long wooden pole, a few plastic pegs clipped closely together at the end nearest the house. It had been many years since Madi had pegged anything out to dry, happy enough to let her tumble dryer do the work, but if there wasn’t one here, well, she was prepared to give it a go, assuming the weather picked up. Right now, it was cold. Madi walked round closing all the curtains in an attempt to trap whatever little warmth there was, and to isolate herself from the silent, rapidly darkening evening outside.

There were lots of photographs hanging on the uneven white walls. More than she had ever seen in one place, barring a gallery. They were in the living room, in both bedrooms, even in the kitchen and on the stairs. Many were what she assumed to be local scenes, showing farmers at work in misty fields, reeds poking their heads out from shimmering water, sunset over a deserted beach, and a group of three, hanging close together, of a small tabby cat with huge green eyes that she assumed must be the elusive Flo.

Above the fireplace was a large portrait of an old lady, her skin gently wrinkled, her hair tightly permed, her eyes twinkling as if lit from within. Madi liked it. The photo, and the woman herself, had real character, the sort of character that came with being old but still mentally alert and cheekily lively, and that she would have loved to capture onstage, and still might one day, if all went well. As a kindly yet knowing Miss Marple perhaps, with some clever make-up, and layers of padding bundled up inside her dress. She wondered who the woman was. Possibly Prue’s mother or grandmother, but she decided it was none of her business and went in search of something to drink and, if she was to have any hope of getting the fire going, a box of matches.

There was no sign of any alcohol, not that she should be drinking much anyway while she was taking her medication, but she’d always believed a little of what you fancy did you good. Oh, God, the pills! Even after leaving them right next to her on the bed as she’d unpacked, she’d still managed to leave them upstairs. She’d become so forgetful lately, so easily distracted. Putting things down somewhere and then finding them somewhere else. Losing things altogether. She’d lose her head if it wasn’t screwed on. Bloody cancer had a lot to answer for. But what if it was something else? Thinking back, it might even have started before her cancer was diagnosed. There had been that night when she had left the tap dripping in the bathroom, with the plug still in the sink. If she hadn’t got up to use the loo and found it just in time, she would have flooded the place, and quite possibly the flat beneath hers as well. It might have been nothing, the sort of thing that happened to anyone when they were tired, but you heard such stories, about people getting forgetful as they got older. Putting the kettle in the fridge or getting on the wrong bus … How on earth would she ever cope with work, having to learn lines again, if that was what was happening to her?

She shook the thoughts away and looked at her watch. Four thirty. A small sherry or a glass of chilled wine would go down beautifully right now, and sod the pills, but she’d just have to make do with something a little less exciting. She boiled the kettle, standing close to it and breathing in the heat. She found a jar of instant coffee in the pantry and a bottle of locally produced full fat milk in the fridge. She would have preferred her usual skimmed but at least the label told her it had been pasteurised and she hadn’t been confronted with a jug of something still steaming, straight from the cow.

The coffee warmed her as she slumped down on the sofa with the matches in her hand ready to have a go at the fire. Was it a mistake coming here? Back in London, she had started to feel that the walls of her flat were closing in on her, she had spent so much time cooped up in there lately, but all she was doing now was swapping one lonely existence for another, miles away, and bringing all her fears and her sadness along with her. She missed her old way of life, and her old body. Feeling fit, working, keeping busy. She missed the bustle of the theatre and the excitement it brought into her life. But most of all she missed her son.

Still, getting better had to take priority now, and that meant taking it easy, letting her body, and her mind, recover for a while, so she could bounce back and have all of those things again. Time, that was all she needed. And they did say a change was as good as a rest, didn’t they? She pulled off her wig, closed her eyes and tried to decide what to do with herself for the next month.

Chapter 3

I hadn’t expected her to be there.

I was sure I’d heard the door slam earlier, her feet on the stairs, the bumping of bags, her car driving away. Usually that meant a few days, a few nights, at least, when the place would be empty. She’s a creature of habit. And tidy. I’ll give her that. No dirty mugs left in the sink, no stuff scattered around the floor. Just the lingering smells of furniture polish, good coffee and posh perfume.

I suppose I’m a creature of habit too, in my way. I never go in during the day. I prefer the evenings, or the dead of night. Never when I might be seen. Or heard. No noisy shoes on the creaky stairs. No dirty marks left behind on her immaculate carpets. And I never put the light on. No need to. I can feel my way around that flat as if it’s my own.

It’s been different lately though. There had been talk of her not being well, a hospital stay, an operation, but she keeps herself to herself, that one, so nobody really seemed to know for sure. I had wondered if it might be serious, if she was going to die like he did, at the back of some stage somewhere, and how I might feel if she did.

But she survived it, whatever it was. Came back, holed up, stayed at home a lot more. Which curtailed things for me, for a while, until she started venturing out again. No visitors though. Or none that I’d noticed. No flowers either, which you’d expect, wouldn’t you? If someone’s sick? Except the tulips. I found them this morning, in the dark, touched the petals, felt a couple of them fall.

But then I heard her, shuffling about in the bed. The rustle of the pillows. I had no idea she was there until then, and it unnerved me a bit, I can tell you. I was sure the place was empty.

There was a raincoat on the back of a chair. Damp, its belt trailing on the carpet. I brushed against it on my way out. Could have tripped over it. Not like her, that. She’s usually so tidy. So I hung it up for her, on a hook. I like to do little things like that when I’m here. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to help her out or anything like that. I just like to make her wonder. How this has happened, or that. It makes me smile, to think of her wondering. Just a little game I play. Seeing how far I can go, to worry her, maybe even scare her a bit. Like that time I put the plug in and left the tap on, just dripping, that was all, but what fun if it had flooded the place, knowing she would rack her brains, struggle to remember how it could have happened. How she had made that sort of stupid mistake. Well, who else could it possibly have been? She lives alone, and she knows, just as I do, that there’s nobody to blame but herself.

Still, this morning, I should have just left. Stopping to move the coat was a stupid idea, when she was showing signs of waking up, nearly catching me. It was bad enough the door clicking the way it always does, no matter how gently I pull it closed behind me, but there’s not much I can do about that. But I know I’ll have to be more careful. The coat could have stayed where it was. There will be other occasions. Other chances. It’s not worth taking risks.

She has no idea about me. Utterly oblivious. And I’d like to keep it that way.

Chapter 4
PRUE

Monday mornings in London were nothing like those at home. A strange clicking sound had woken Prue while it was still dark, her eyes flying open in semi-panic. She had half expected to see someone leaning over the bed, it had been so real. She lay still and listened, hardly daring to move, waiting for her heart rate to slow back down, but there was nobody there. Of course not. Just the creaks and clatters of the walls and floors and plumbing system of what was still an unfamiliar building talking to her in its own peculiar way, no doubt. Coming from an old cottage like hers, she was only too aware of any number of those, although they had all faded into their own kind of regular routine in time, so she no longer heard them.

Once she was awake though, she couldn’t get back to sleep. The growing rumble of passing traffic throbbed through her head, even though she was sleeping at the back of the building and had pulled her pillow over her ears. And then various clunks and slams as the other residents got up, ran showers, turned on radios and TVs, banged doors and clomped noisily down the stairs on their way to work. Prue was more used to the chug-chug sound of occasional tractors trundling by, the chink of milk bottles being left on the step, and the old cockerel’s crowing call from a nearby farmyard so much a part of her life that she hardly noticed it any more, all in all a much quieter, more solitary start to her day.

But then, since losing her beloved gran, that’s how her life had seemed lately – more and more solitary. If it wasn’t for work, having to drive to the local newspaper office every day and then head out to see the people making the news, even if only briefly, and mostly through a lens, she knew she could quite easily hide away indoors and not speak to another living soul for days. As long as she had one of her cameras for company, and a book to read, and her cat, she didn’t really need anyone else. Oh, she had thought she did, had started to imagine how her future might be as half of a proper couple … but that was not an option any more. If it ever had been, of course, apart from in her own head.

Her parents were nearby, of course, although constantly busy. And she had friends – good friends she’d had since school – but most had moved away from the village now, for exciting new jobs and adventures and marriages, and only kept in touch occasionally, largely by email. There was still her best friend Sian, and Joe and his older brother Ralph, all of whom she had known for ever, all still living in the village, the four of them thick as thieves, as Gran used to say, since their early days at primary school. She remembered them all doing their homework together, Ralph reluctantly helping the others because he was three years older, having fun at various birthday parties, playing games of Twister or Monopoly on snowy stay-indoors days, watching kids’ TV or listening to music in each other’s bedrooms.

She allowed herself a nostalgic moment, picturing them all together as kids, curling up and rolling side by side down a grassy slope, turning faster and faster, racing their way to the bottom, and then crashing into each other, all squealing loudly and her giggling so helplessly that she’d wet her knickers. It was a flash of memory that made her smile, before reality crept back in. Joe. Oh, God. Joe. No, she really didn’t want to think too much about Joe right now, or that night in The Brown Cow just a week ago when she had got things so horribly wrong.

It was going to be hard staying friends with Joe – the comfortable, easy-going kind of friendship they had had before. Since he’d rented the small ground-floor-extension flat in her parents’ old house, they lived within yards of each other and she ran the constant risk of bumping into him, unexpectedly and often. How would she cope with that? She couldn’t bear the thought of him avoiding her, pitying her, perhaps even laughing at her. But she had stepped over a line, and stepping back behind it again, as if nothing had happened, would be pretty much impossible, for both of them. She had not only lost him as a boyfriend, and quite probably as a friend too, but embarrassed herself, publicly and spectacularly, in front of just about everyone she knew. Short of either staying indoors for ever or packing up and moving away permanently, she had no idea how to deal with that. Still, this month away would help, even if it really was just a temporary solution. She was running away. She knew that. And she also knew that, once the dust had settled, and with all her remaining annual leave used up at work, she would have no alternative but to go back.

She stretched out her arms and legs, yawning. Thankfully, there had been no dreams, just a long lovely slip into oblivion that she had needed even more than she had realised. Sticking a foot out from under the covers she was surprised at how warm the bedroom was. Perhaps she should think about modernising the cottage, putting in some central heating with instant hot water any time she needed it, and one of those hot towel rails in the bathroom. Having lived here for just a few hours, she could already see what a difference they made.

The tulips on the chest of drawers had lost a few more of their petals overnight but they would probably last another day. She might buy herself some more when she went out. She did love fresh flowers. And fresh air, fresh bread, the fresh fruity tang of homemade jam. All the joys of a village existence she had known all her life and had never walked away from before. She hadn’t even gone to university, so sure had she been that the life, and the job, she wanted could be found right on her own doorstep. But, of course, she would be able to find real fresh bread if she wanted it. This was London, not Timbuctoo.

She had only brought a few basics with her, food-wise. Biscuits to eat on the way, a sandwich she’d eaten last night before bed, a couple of bananas already turning black, some chocolate, and the last two mini boxes of cereal from a variety pack that had been hanging about for months in the pantry. Any more would have been too much to carry on the train and she knew London would be choc-a-bloc with shops, many of them probably open late into the evenings. Madi had told her to help herself from the kitchen cupboards and, as promised, had left her some milk and a few other bits and pieces in the fridge, including a bottle of white wine, which she probably wouldn’t drink, but it was a generous gesture and one she wished she had thought to reciprocate.

After a long hot shower, a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea, she went looking for her raincoat. It was odd, but she could have sworn she had left it drying on the back of a dining chair but now it was hanging on the coat hooks by the door. How could that have happened? She shook away a shiver of unease. She’d never had a problem with her memory before. It must just be the new surroundings, so much to take in, or she’d been more tired last night than she’d realised. The coat was still slightly damp but she pulled it on, locked the door behind her and headed down the stairs to get some air and start exploring the neighbourhood.

It was a lot easier going down the two steep flights than it had been going up, and Prue quickly found herself back in the dusty communal hall. The postman had already been and someone must have sifted through the letters as there were now three in the box marked 9 that hadn’t been there before. Should she forward them on to Madi at Snowdrop Cottage, or just leave them alone? She and Madi hadn’t discussed things in that much detail but, thinking about it, she would probably quite like to have her own mail sent here. A month was a long time to risk ignoring anything that might be important. What if there was a bill she’d forgotten to pay, or a photography commission she’d kick herself for missing out on? She’d have to email Madi later and make some arrangements. It would give Prue the excuse to ask after little Flo as well. The poor thing might be feeling a bit uneasy, finding a stranger tucked up in her mistress’s bed, especially if Madi threw her off onto the floor or shut her out on the landing. Not everybody liked the idea of an animal, and its shedding fur, sharing their bed.

It was a bright morning. Prue had done her homework before leaving Norfolk and had printed off a street map covering the immediate area. London was a huge place, pretty daunting for a girl like her, and the last thing she wanted was to get lost. She’d looked up the local bus routes too, to find out what landmarks might be within easy reach. But first she fancied a stroll along the main road outside and a peek down a few of the side turnings, to get her bearings and track down the nearest shops and cafés.

She closed the front door and hovered for a moment on the steps. Should she try to the right first, or to the left? A bus was coming into view. A real, red London double decker, so different from the little green local bus that came through the village just twice a day, and went into town and back again on Saturday nights. She gazed at it in awe, whipping her small digital camera out of her pocket and taking several photos in quick succession and from different angles as it came closer. Although the bus was red she could already imagine how it might look in black and white, an iconic, unchanging image of a city she had only ever seen in pictures. Oh, wow! There was going to be so much here in the capital that she would love to capture, as a reminder, a record. Who knew when, or if, she would ever spend time here again? Next time she came out she would bring her bag with her proper camera, and some of her lenses, although just the thought of it made her shoulder ache after yesterday’s struggle with the suitcase.

She watched the bus sail by, the occupants mostly staring ahead or busy reading papers, just one small face pressed against the glass and sticking its tongue out at her as it passed. She laughed and stuck her own tongue out in reply, then stepped down onto the pavement and set off in the same direction.

There was a row of shops on the first corner she came to. An off licence, currently closed, but it was only half past nine. A newsagent’s cum post office and card shop, with a pillar box outside. A small Co-Op, with a lottery advert on the door. An old-fashioned hairdresser’s with a price list stuck to the window, offering cheap cuts for pensioners and half-price perms on Tuesdays. And, across the road, a kebab place with faded pictures of its meal choices, showing that they did chips and burgers too. She didn’t stop, but it was good to know that anything she was likely to need in a hurry was within yards of her door.

Five minutes later she came to the first of several coffee shops, dotted among lots of larger shops and offices. She went into the third one, which looked cleaner and brighter than the rest, and bought herself a cup to take away, baffled by the enormous range of what, when it came down to it, was just coffee by different names, in varying strengths and degrees of milkiness, and shocked at the prices. She chose a bun with icing on top to go with it, the filling effect of her meagre portion of cereal having already worn off. A black iron gate to her left led through to a small square park, hidden away behind the buildings, mostly laid to grass with some cut-back rose bushes in neatly weeded beds and a series of wooden benches placed at regular intervals along the circular path. She sat down on one at the far end and shared some crumbs from her bun with a hungry pigeon and a couple of sparrows brave enough to venture right up to her feet.

She had always loved animals. From the old spaniel, Molly, who had been such an important part of her childhood, but now long gone, to her parents’ latest dog, a little white poodle called Noodle. And there was Flo, of course, the twelve-year-old sweetheart of a cat she had taken on after her gran died. In between, there had been a pair of green budgies, Chirp and Cheep, that they’d kept in a cage in the kitchen, and a goldfish who came home in a plastic bag from the funfair and never did get itself a name. It had only lived for a few weeks but had been given a proper shoebox funeral in the garden, just the same. And, of course, all the village pets that had come through the doors at her dad’s old vets’ surgery tacked on at the back of their house, and the farm animals in need of visits, when she had spent her school holidays helping her dad out around the place or, to be honest, mostly just getting in the way.

Prue was no scientist. She loved English and art. From the day she had been given her first camera, she had known she wanted to become a photographer and that’s exactly what she’d done, even if so far it was only working for the local paper, with the occasional wedding job at the weekends. Much to her dad’s disappointment, she had never wanted to study chemistry or biology and follow in his footsteps to become a vet but, slowly and surely, as her friends spent more and more time hanging about at the surgery with her after school and in the holidays, it became clear that her school friend Ralph Barton did. Her dad had taken Ralph under his wing, given him work experience and paid him to help out during his holidays from uni, sat with him for hours at a time, helping with revision and essays and practical tasks, then taken him on as his assistant. By the time Ralph was qualified, her dad had been more than willing to accept him into the business as a junior partner, getting him ready to take over one day when the joys of retirement started to beckon, which couldn’t be that far off now he was in his sixties.

It had caused a lot of jealousy between the brothers when their father had invested so heavily in Ralph’s future, mortgaging the family home to help Ralph raise the money to bring the practice into the modern world with a website and brand new premises. Prue could see that Joe had felt side-lined, as if his own accountancy career, and perhaps even he himself, was regarded as less important when measured against his big brother. Perhaps if their mother had still been alive it might have been different, but she had died when the boys were still at school. Their dad just didn’t seem to have the same natural intuition when it came to his sons’ feelings, finding it easier to concentrate on the practical side of things, as if chucking his money around, buying bigger and better Christmas presents and bikes and computer games, and then ploughing so much cash into the vets’, could somehow compensate for the loss of a mother’s love.

Prue had seen Joe’s initial hurt turn to anger and resentment as he moved out of his dad’s home and took on the tenancy of the small self-contained flat that had once been the surgery behind her mum and dad’s house. Her heart had gone out to him. As an only child, and an only grandchild, she had never had to vie for attention, never had to share, certainly never seen herself as second best, and she found it hard to imagine how it must feel. Poor Joe.

He’d lived away from the village long enough, he’d said, what with uni and then that job up north that he’d left only a year ago. Why had he come back home? Certainly not to spend more time with his brother and his dad. Had something gone wrong with his job? His life? Prue wondered why he had never explained, or even tried to. Still, he was back in Norfolk now, where he insisted he belonged, and he wasn’t going to let his family problems drive him away, even if it meant living alone. She’d foolishly allowed herself to believe that she might be the reason he had come back home, that his heart was telling him he belonged with her, but of course that wasn’t true. She knew that now.

Why was it that her thoughts always came back to Joe? Because she loved him, she supposed. Or had thought she did. She had felt safe with him, and comfortable, but that wasn’t love, was it? It was friendship and familiarity, and gratitude. An acceptance of what she had and a fear of letting that all go if she were ever to take that scarily dangerous step and reach out for something more.

They had been friends for as long as she could remember. Her and Joe, Ralph and Sian, their own little gang of four, until, somewhere along the way, as they all got older, things had started to change. Sian and Ralph had fallen for each other. In an innocent, teenage way at first, but it was clear sometimes that they just wanted to be by themselves, just the two of them, leaving Prue and Joe behind, forced to find a way to rub along together, more and more often, without their partners in crime.

In time, with teenage hormones doing their thing, Prue had begun to look forward to being alone with Joe. She’d started to notice his eyes, his hands, what he was wearing, the smell of him, the feel of him. There had been a gradual, gentle move towards the holding of hands, tentative experimental kisses on the way back from school, out of sight, on the corner, before she turned into the lane that led her home. How much of it had happened simply because the others were doing it, she could never be sure, but they’d gone to the cinema together too, her and Joe, sharing tubs of popcorn, her head resting sleepily on his shoulder on the way home on the bus, and sometimes, once they were old enough, he would ring and ask if she fancied a drink and they’d meet in The Brown Cow, have a game of darts, a bag of crisps, a laugh. Looking back now, she couldn’t help wondering if that was all it had ever been to him. A laugh? A casual thing. Not the romance she had imagined it to be. Needed it to be. Not the real thing at all.

The bun was gone now, every crumb pecked up greedily from the path, and the birds flew off, their eyes fixed on an old man who had just arrived on the next bench, providing another likely source of food. Prue screwed up the paper bag and dropped it inside her empty cup, popped the lid back on and took it to an overflowing rubbish bin. It was no good dwelling on what was gone. She was twenty-four, and she had let too many years slip by. There was no her and Joe. Not any more. Not in the way she had wanted anyway. She had watched him go off to uni, been proud of him, and excused his long absences and his long silences as necessary if he was to do well, work hard, study hard. Had he played hard too? She would never know. She had believed only what she’d wanted to believe, seen only what she’d wanted to see, and heard … well, what? She had certainly never heard him say he loved her. Because he didn’t love her, and he probably never had. That was so blindingly obvious now.

She went back out through the gate to the street and spotted another bus approaching. Without any time to work out where it might take her, she ran to the stop and jumped on board. What was the point of being in London and telling herself she was going to change her life if she couldn’t act on impulse and just hop on a passing bus and see where she ended up?

‘Sorry, love.’ The driver sniffed at the fiver she held out towards him. ‘We don’t take cash these days. Oyster?’

Prue shook her head. She hadn’t had time to think about getting herself a travel card, but no cash? Really? How could a bus not take cash?

‘Or a contactless card’ll do. Got one of those?’

She rummaged about in her purse, feeling her face redden, wishing her research into bus routes had expanded into working out how to pay, but thankful at least that there was no queue behind her waiting impatiently to board. She found her bank card and touched it on the round yellow pad the driver was pointing at. The beep noise seemed to satisfy him. He nodded, and she walked down the bus and found herself a seat as he drove back out into the traffic, narrowly missing a cyclist who stuck two fingers up in the air as he clung to the handlebars one-handedly and wobbled out into the centre of the road.

The man sitting in front of her was tall, his head bent over a newspaper, his dark brown hair skimming his collar at the back. She caught her breath. He looked so much like Joe she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him. But as he turned his head to look out of the window she saw that he really didn’t look like Joe at all. He was about ten years older for a start, and dark skinned, and he was wearing glasses. Prue shook her thoughts away. Silly, silly, silly … Joe was miles away, and she couldn’t conjure him up at will, much as she might like to.

She turned her attention away from random passengers and towards what was going on outside the window, lifting a finger and wiping a little patch of the glass clean. Was that Trafalgar Square looming up at her? Yes, it was. The big stone lions, the fountain, and all those people! This was where she would start her first London adventure. Checking that her compact camera was still safely tucked in her pocket, she jumped up so excitedly that she almost tripped over her own feet, and rang the bell.

Chapter 5
MADI

When Madi woke up, to the sound of a far-off cockerel announcing the morning, it was still dark. She turned over onto her back, her scar sore where she had rolled onto her side in her sleep, and lay for a while, listening to the unfamiliar creaks of the old cottage.

When she was sure she was not going to be able to get back to sleep, she made her way slowly down the stairs, pulling her dressing gown tightly around her against the chill, and went into the kitchen, hoping to find that the cat had returned. The bowl of food she’d left on the floor was empty, so at least the little truant was around somewhere, not run off in disgust at the new living arrangements or trapped in someone’s shed. Well, you heard such stories about animals going missing when an owner moved house or went on holiday, and she’d hate to be the one to have to explain to Prue that she’d let her down and lost the poor little mite.

The water that emerged from the hot tap was, if anything, even colder than the water coming from the cold one and she remembered, too late, about the immersion heater. Oh, well, no bath or shower for her this morning. At least there was a kettle, so she could enjoy her first coffee of the day and make herself some porridge.

Madi ran her hand over her head. With nobody here to see her, and the curtains still closed, she had not bothered wrapping one of her many coloured scarves around it this morning or resorted to hiding beneath that nasty, itchy wig. Her fingers played with the short stubbly covering of new hair that was starting to emerge and she couldn’t help wondering what colour it would turn out to be. It had been a very long time since she had last seen her natural chestnut colour, having veered between various reds and browns and even the occasional blonde over the years, depending on changing fashions or her mood or what role she was playing at the time. At sixty-two, the chances were that it would end up grey, of course. Or, at best, a sophisticated shade of silver. Still, having hair back at all was a relief, and there was always the dye bottle to fall back on again if what nature decided to provide needed a helping hand.

As she sat at the kitchen table, a clack of plastic at floor level alerted her to the return of the missing cat.

‘Ah, so you must be Flo,’ she said, lowering her hand and feeling pleasantly surprised when the little tabby walked towards her, tipped her head and started rubbing it round and round against her fingers, her tail pointing straight upwards as she arched her back and purred loudly. ‘Well, I can see we’re going to get along just fine, aren’t we, sweetie?’ She tried to remember which cupboard held the clean cat bowls and found them on the third attempt. Her memory, quite worryingly, wasn’t as good recently as it had once been. ‘Now, let’s find you some breakfast, shall we?’

The first day in any new place always felt a bit unsettling. Not knowing where things were, or how things worked. She’d moved around a lot as various theatrical productions she’d been involved with had toured the country. It was a life she had chosen long ago and had grown used to. Two or three nights in one town, then maybe a week or two in another and, if she was lucky, a few days back at home in between. Different dressing rooms, different guesthouses and hotels, different rules. A changing circle of colleagues and crew members and friends, some of whom she would come across often and some she would never meet again. Her face and her name on the posters outside greeted her at every theatre they went to, sometimes in a leading role, sometimes (and more frequently as she grew older) just as one of the supporting cast, but she always made a point of keeping a programme to add to her vast collection. She had even been in a TV soap once, although only for a dozen or so episodes, and still had the Radio Times to prove it.

This, she told herself, peering through the curtains at the lane outside, was going to be just the same. A new place to explore, a new bed to sleep in, new people to meet, and then home again to touch base and await whatever opportunities might follow. Was there any call for a damaged ageing actress without a full head of hair? She hoped so, but it had become all too easy lately to look at life more pessimistically. Just four months ago she had been utterly oblivious to what was going on inside her own body, those horrid little rogue cells gathering together and ganging up on her, determined to do their worst. But she was rid of them now and, despite the surgery and the chemo, she was still here. She had survived and, apart from occasional visits from Betty next door to check she was doing okay or to get her heavier bits of shopping in, she’d done it alone. And from now on it was all about recovery, regaining her strength and her positivity, making time for herself for a change. She fought back the tears that so often threatened to overwhelm her. What good would it do to cry? It would change nothing and, besides, the worst was surely over now. Life could only get better.

She had told nobody of the seriousness of her illness, just blamed a bad bout of flu, withdrew from the play she had been rehearsing in favour of an understudy, and slipped out of the loop for a while. The last thing she needed was pity. Best that nobody knew. Not even George. Especially George.

While she was here, just as if she was acting a part, she did not have to reveal anything of her real life or her true self if she chose not to. In Norfolk she could be anyone she wanted to be. In this little corner of the world, she could be whole again. No cancer, no scars, everything still in its place. That, more than anything, was what she needed right now. That anonymity, that normality, the chance to re-adjust to her new self, before going back to face whatever life decided to throw at her next.

One thing she could not do, try as she might, was lie to herself. As soon as she took off her dressing gown and opened the wardrobe to select an outfit for the day, the full-length mirror reminded her of that. It still came as a shock, seeing her newly altered body, so unfamiliar, so lopsided, her scars still raw and so difficult to look at. The easiest thing, the safest thing, was simply not to look at all, to select something to wear, something loose and all-concealing, cover herself up and shut the door on the mirror as quickly as possible, but she couldn’t do it. Every mirror she approached seemed to compel her to look into it, as if it was forcing her to confront the truth.

The cat was rubbing around her legs now, almost tripping her as she stepped into her trousers. She bent down and picked her up, holding the thin little body close and listening to her purr. ‘It doesn’t bother you, does it, sweetie? What I look like, whether I have one breast or two, as long as I give you cuddles and fill your bowl.’

People were a different matter though. In a business like hers, appearance was everything. It was a world of costumes and camouflage, make-up and make-believe, where its players came on stage for a while, fooled the audience into believing just about anything and then left again through different doors, a world where nobody was entirely who they seemed. Perhaps that was the best way to live, given a choice. Just pretending all the time. Avoiding real life altogether, because real life, as George would no doubt say, sucked.

She wondered, briefly, where George might be at this moment, what he was doing and who he was with. It had been almost five months since she had last seen him, at the small party she had held for her birthday, backstage in her dressing room straight after coming off stage. She hadn’t known about her cancer then. The lump lurking in her left breast had not yet made itself known, and life was still busy, hectic, normal. George had wanted to take her out for dinner, said there was something he wanted to talk to her about, but she had already made the arrangements. Assorted bottles of booze and a cocktail shaker were lined up beneath her mirror, the lights positioned around it sparkling off the glass, and the cast were elated after a successful opening night. George had hovered in the corner, out of place, and had left early. As far as he was concerned, he told her afterwards, it was yet another snub, proof that she preferred the company of her fellow actors and had never put him first. Oh, how wrong he was. If only she had taken the time to notice his distress and give him the love and attention he needed, but she had been caught up in the buzz all around her and it had never occurred to her that there might not be a chance the next day to put things right.

When she had called him in the morning, he had told her that Jessica had left him. That everyone he had ever loved always left him. The sting in his voice left no doubt that he was talking about her. His hurt ran down the phone line like treacle she had no idea how to wade through. Her heart went out to him but she couldn’t find the words she needed to say how sorry she was. She knew only too well the pain of being abandoned, but that didn’t mean she had the answers, or that she had ever had the right to abandon him too. But she had had her career to think about …

Remembering their argument still hurt but reaching out across the void between them just seemed to get harder and harder as time went by. He had ignored her calls over the following weeks, and she knew that if she had tried to get in touch later, while she was ill, she would just have looked needy, come across as a sick woman desperate for sympathy and for her son to come back and look after her, and the irony of that, after all the years when she should have been there to look after him, was far from lost on her. No, it wouldn’t have been fair. She’d had to deal with this on her own, even spending Christmas by herself, lying low, doing very little, as she recovered from her mastectomy. He had sent a card but no invitation to meet, and there had been no festive phone call. Clearly, he found it hard to forgive, but not telling him about her cancer felt like the right thing to do and being alone to face it was quite possibly exactly what she had deserved. But now she was on the mend, maybe …

She carefully positioned her wig on her head and pulled a chiffon scarf over the top, tying it securely under her chin, still not comfortable or confident enough wearing the damned thing to trust it to stay in place. She dreaded to think what she must look like, but going out without it would feel a whole lot worse. She picked up a deep canvas shopping bag she found hanging on a hook in the kitchen and popped her purse and keys inside it, deliberately leaving her handbag with its mobile phone and diary and everything else that marked her out as Madalyn Cardew, escapee, behind. On the dresser, she told herself, trying to imprint exactly where she had left them onto her memory, desperate to retrain it before she mislaid anything else. It had happened too often in the last six months or so. It must be a sign that she was getting old, that perhaps a little part of her mind was starting to slip away and might never come back. She shivered at the thought and peered into the bag again, just to make sure she really had picked up the keys.

The morning was looking bright and clear as she opened the front door and stood, breathing in lungsful of country air, on the step. It was time to walk around the village and see what it had to offer, and to locate the shop the girl at the vets’ had mentioned yesterday so she could stock up on food, perhaps buy a newspaper or a magazine, and a bottle of wine or something a tad stronger to ward off the cold until she figured out how to light that damned fire.

‘Good morning.’ The voice, coming from behind her, took her by surprise.

‘Oh, hello.’ Madi turned to see a short and dumpy woman, her tightly permed hair framing a round suntanned face, standing and looking at her from the pavement. ‘It’s looking like we’re in for a nice day.’

‘Nothing like a bit of spring sunshine after a long cold winter. I’m Faith Harris, by the way. Prue’s mum.’ The woman lifted the gate and pushed it open, a lot more expertly than Madi herself had done the day before and, without waiting for an invitation, ambled up the path towards her. ‘Prue did say someone would be staying here for a while, but she left in such a hurry, I’m afraid I didn’t get the chance to find out anything more. Not even your name …?’

‘It’s Madalyn, but call me Madi. Everyone does.’

Faith held out a hand and Madi took it. ‘Nice to meet you, Madi.’ She stood silently for a moment, her arms folded over her bosom. ‘This was my mother’s cottage, you know. I grew up here, lived here all my life until I got married. Then Mum left it to Prue in her will. Well, I didn’t need it, and I think she wanted to give Prue her first step on the ladder, a taste of independence, you know? Always close, those two.’

‘Ah. The elderly lady on the wall in the lounge? I thought as much.’

‘You’ve been looking at the photos then? All our Prue’s doing. She’s quite a talented photographer, isn’t she? But, yes, that’s her gran over the fireplace. Verity Bligh. One of a kind. She passed on last year. Eighty-three. Not a bad age, I suppose, but I would have liked to have her around for longer. I still miss her.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know what she would have made of all this business …’

‘Business?’

‘Well, Prue running off like that, I mean. Hardly a word to any of us. No forwarding address, and she’s not answering her phone. Taken time off from her job, and everything. It’s really not like her at all. I’m quite worried about her, to tell you the truth, and so is Joe, of course. I don’t suppose you know where she is?’

Joe? Madi had no idea who Joe might be and didn’t think it her place to ask. She bit her tongue. If this Prue didn’t want to be found, it wasn’t for her to give the game away. ‘Sorry. No.’

‘Right. Well, if you do hear from her, would you let me know?’

Madi gave a non-committal nod.

‘Anyway, I mustn’t keep you. Nice to meet you, Madi, and if you fancy a chat or a coffee, I’m just down the lane there. Orchard House. Not that we’ve got an actual orchard, or even one apple tree these days, but these old names stick, don’t they? Like the snowdrops here.’ She pointed at the name on the cottage door. ‘You’ve probably seen that there aren’t any. Still, any morning will suit me, if you want to pop down. I’m working up at the new vets’ surgery in the afternoons. Well, not every afternoon, but still helping out when needed. My husband’s the vet, you see. The senior partner.’

‘Yes, I know the place. I went there for the keys when I arrived. I met … Sian, was it?’

‘Ah, yes, Sian. Lovely girl. Prue’s best friend, ever since they were at school together, and even she doesn’t know where she’s gone. Or, if she does, she’s not telling. Kids, eh?’ She let out something that sounded halfway between a huff and a snort, and retreated back through the gate, waving over her shoulder but not looking back.

Madi waited until she had walked off to the right, gone around the corner and out of sight before following her as far as the gate and then turning the other way. Best to keep her distance for now and avoid another grilling about something that really was none of her business.

She walked slowly, enjoying the peace and quiet. So, Prue was young then? A kid, her mother had called her, although judging by the best friend she had met yesterday, she guessed they were probably both in their early to mid-twenties. A lot younger than she had imagined Prue to be, from the outdated look of the cottage, but the fact it had until recently belonged to her elderly grandmother explained a lot.

This time, she didn’t take the turning by the church that led up to the surgery, but carried on past it, back in the direction from which she had driven into the village the previous afternoon. She remembered passing a small row of shops, although they had looked closed, it being a Sunday, and a sleepy-looking pub, The Brown Cow, caught in the lull between lunchtime and evening drinking hours, with only a couple of cars in its gravelled car park. Today things were different. There was a delivery in progress at the pub, with all the banging and crashing of barrels and trap doors, and someone cursing as they dropped a box of crisps. Alongside it was a small antique shop that Madi made a mental note to investigate later and, strangely, for such a small village, an estate agency. She stopped to look at the photos and read the cards in the window, amazed at just how cheap property was around here, when compared to the exorbitant prices she was used to back at home.

At the end of the row, the village shop was definitely open, with piles of goods lined up on the narrow pavement outside. From buckets and mops to bags of potatoes and with an ice-cream advertising plaque, a lottery sign and a rack of newspapers attached to the wall, it was clearly one of those places that sold anything and everything. Madi peered in through the window and was amused to see a pair of eyes looking right back at her. She was about to walk past, leaving any shopping until her return journey, but a head appeared at the open doorway and a hand beckoned her in.

‘Ah, you must be Prue’s friend. My daughter, Sian, said she’d met you. Come on in and rest your legs a while.’

Madi smiled. The jungle drums had clearly not been slow to beat out news of her arrival and, having only walked a hundred yards or so from her front door, her legs were not yet in need of a rest, but she went inside anyway.

‘Now, my dear, let me introduce myself. Patty Martin, that’s me. Shopkeeper, postmistress, dog walker, mobile hairdresser. You name it and I’m probably it. I run the local branch of the W.I. as well, if you’re interested. We’re always happy to welcome guests.’

‘Well, you certainly keep busy!’

‘I try. Not one of those who can sit about doing nothing. Idle hands and all that! I help out in our little lending library too, when I can. Not that it’s the sort of library you’re probably used to, but we do our best. Donated books mainly, stored in a corner of the village hall, but it can be a lifeline to the older folk, and those that live on their own. We open twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays, just for an hour or so in the afternoons, if you fancy borrowing something to read while you’re here.’

‘Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind. Maybe just a newspaper for now?’ Madi went back to the still open door and pulled one down from the rack. ‘And I was going to wait until I came back past later to pick up a few other bits …’

‘Of course, but if you want to do your shopping now I’m happy to hang on to it for a while until you collect it.’

Madi nodded. ‘Okay.’ It would have seemed rude somehow to say no.

‘Just grab a wire basket from over there. Shout if you can’t find what you want. It can be a bit of an Aladdin’s cave in here until you get used to the layout. Not enough space, but I pride myself on offering a wide choice.’ The woman slid back behind her counter and picked up what looked like a piece of half-finished crochet. There were no other customers in sight.

Madi wondered how a place like this could possibly make any money but she was grateful it was here, nonetheless, saving her a drive to the nearest town.

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ the woman said five minutes later as she totted up Madi’s purchases on an old-fashioned till and piled them up at the end of the counter. ‘Or if our Sian told me, I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten it!’

‘It’s Madi.’

‘Nice to meet you, Madi dear, although I’m sure I’ve seen your face somewhere.’ She tilted her head as if trying to remember something. ‘You’ve not been to Shelling before, have you?’

‘No, never.’ Madi smiled to herself. It was good to know she wasn’t the only one who struggled to remember things sometimes.

‘Oh, well. Never mind. It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Now, I’ll keep this little lot safe until you walk back, don’t you worry. And you know where I am now, so don’t be a stranger. Always nice to have someone new to chat to.’ She smiled, switching to a ridiculous American accent and adding, ‘Have a nice day,’ as Madi went back out into the street, the empty shopping bag still swinging on her arm.

Chapter 6

It’s not her feet I hear on the stairs. Too fast, no high heels, too light a tread. No, there’s definitely someone else there. Coming. Going. Living.

It’s not like her to have someone stay the night, so something’s changed. Has she taken in a lodger? A carer? Perhaps I was wrong about her getting over her illness. Perhaps she’s sicker than I thought. Or maybe it’s a man! I try to imagine her having a love life. A sex life. Finding someone new, at her age, and after all this time. It’s not something I want to think about too deeply. It conjures up images I’d rather not explore.

But if she has … what then? Will she marry? Move away? Leave the flat empty? I have imagined many things, but never that. There is nothing I would like more than for her to leave, but something tells me she’s here for the duration. Or would like to be. The memories tie her down, just as mine do. We are where he wanted us to be. Kept close. Linked. Like a prized stamp collection, or a tea set, all the pieces having to stay together or they will be incomplete, lose their worth, their usefulness, their reason for being.

There’s only really one way out, of course. And only one way to win. And that’s to drive her away, to be the last man standing. Or the last woman, should I say? One down, two to go. It’s either her or me now. I’m not sure if she realises that. If she even knows who I am. But one thing’s for sure. I know who she is, and I’m going nowhere.

Chapter 7
PRUE

There was another letter for Madi in the tray in the hallway and it looked important. Not that you could always tell, but this one had the NHS logo plastered right across the top, and they had used first class post. Prue picked it up and shoved it into her coat pocket for safety.

She walked quickly to the nearby shops to buy a bottle of milk and a box of Coco Pops, and then went straight back up to the flat. Whatever sightseeing plans she had for the day were pretty vague and there was nothing to stop her putting off her trip for an hour or so while she sat down and sent an email to find out what she should do about the letters, and any more that might turn up. Leaving them in a public hallway where anyone could take them or tamper with them just felt wrong somehow. It would be a nice gesture to check that Madi was settling in okay anyway, and emailing would give her a chance to ask about Flo, whom she missed really badly every time she thought about her.

She dropped the letter on the coffee table with the others, dug out her old laptop and tried to switch it on, but the battery was dead. She pulled out the cable from its case and plugged it into the mains, then, while the system was firing up, which took ages these days, she went on a hunt for the wi-fi code that Madi had been unable to remember but had assured her, in her last hastily written email before she left, must still be there, written on the original installation sticker on the back of the router. Prue found it on a high shelf in a corner of the kitchen, the blue light at the front reassuring her that everything was in working order, and hurriedly grabbed a pen and scribbled the code down on a sheet of paper from a narrow pad headed ‘Shopping List’ which she spotted stuck to the side of the fridge.

There were eleven unopened emails waiting on the screen, none of which she had any intention of dealing with. Work, junk, work, Sian, Mum, more work … They could all wait. What was the point in hiding away and wanting some time alone if she then went straight back to communicating with the very people she was hiding from? She scrolled down the list until she came to one of Madi’s brief messages, and clicked the Reply button.

Dear Madi,

I hope you have arrived and settled in and that everything in the cottage is OK. My main reason for getting in touch is to ask what you would like me to do with any post? There are already a few letters waiting for you. Should I send them on? Similarly, I assume you might receive some for me, so we could perhaps exchange them every now and then? Just in case anything might be urgent. Can you let me know that Flo is all right too? Give her a big cuddle from me. Your flat is beautiful, by the way, and I am loving London. We must swap more often!

Very best wishes

Prue

Of course, it was unlikely that she would receive a reply straight away. In fact, Madi might well be avoiding emails in just the same way she was. It had been made clear that she was looking for a place to escape to, although she had never mentioned what she was escaping from, and keeping in touch with a stranger was probably way down her to-do list. Prue switched the laptop off again, afraid she might be tempted to start reading her own mail and get dragged back into real life before she was ready. She wound the cable up and opened the laptop case to stow it away. Inside was a smaller cable for charging her phone. Should she? She had deliberately kept it switched off since she’d left Shelling but she really should at least glance at it in case of any missed calls or messages. What if there was some emergency? Her dad taken ill? Her boss telling her she was being made redundant? Joe ringing to say he had made a terrible mistake and that he did want to marry her after all?

She pulled the phone out of her bag, flicked it on and stared at it. No need for a charger. It had not been touched for days, so it still had plenty of life in it. And three missed calls. All from her mum. Nothing from Joe at all. She closed her eyes and sighed. This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid. Thinking about Joe, waiting for him to call, hoping he would apologise, worrying that he might be waiting for her to apologise. They were supposed to be friends, and friends should be able to deal with anything. Anything but that, obviously. They should be able to laugh it off, kiss and make up. Well, maybe not kiss. Not any more. She didn’t often swear but oh bugger! She had come here to get herself away from all that misplaced expectation and the sickening feeling of disappointment, and it was time she pulled herself together and got on with her life the way it was destined to be from now on. Without him in it.

She clicked on her messages. One voicemail. Mum again. She knew exactly what it would say. Where are you? Why did you run away? Are you eating properly? When are you coming home? Maybe she should just hear her out, get it over with. But no. She had come here to free herself of that life for a whole month, to get away from all their sympathy and their questions, no matter how well-meaning, and that was what she was going to do.

She wrote a two-word text. I’m fine. Then she added a row of crosses as kisses, pressed send, quickly turned the phone off again and made a promise to herself. She would try to look at it just once a day, and her emails too, last thing before she went to bed, to reassure herself that nothing dramatic, nothing life or death, had happened and that she could sleep easy, but that was all. Minimal contact, and definitely no letting slip where she was so they could come after her and try to take her back. A month away from it all meant just that and, apart from being separated from Flo, she was really looking forward to it.

Considering that it was still early March, the weather was surprisingly good. After a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal, Prue headed back out, taking the street map she had printed off before she had left home, a rolled-up mac in case of rain and her favourite camera in her big professional camera bag. It would be heavy to lug about all day, but she fancied taking some proper photos today. Not just snaps, but good photos of a London she had yet to explore, maybe taken from some unusual viewpoints and angles. Real hang-on-the-wall photos, if only she had any wall space left where she could put them. And where better to start than at the palace? She had promised herself the full Christopher Robin changing the guard experience and, if she was lucky, there might be horses. She had always enjoyed photographing horses. And the royal family, although the chances of spotting one of the princes chugging up the drive, or the Queen pottering in her garden, were admittedly remote.

As she pulled the front door closed behind her, a young man, probably no older than eighteen or nineteen, came hurrying up the steps from the street, one arm stretching out towards the door as if he was trying to catch it before it banged shut. His head was bent down over his phone, a thumb prodding at the keypad, his music so loud she could still hear it despite the headphone buds stuffed into his ears.

‘Oh, just too late,’ he said, looking up at her accusingly as the door closed and switching the music off. ‘I’ll have to find my keys now.’ He started digging around with one hand in the depths of his jacket pocket, still clutching his phone in the other, pulling out a paperback book and an open packet of extra strong mints.

‘Sorry,’ Prue said. ‘Didn’t see you in time. But …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I don’t know who you are, do I? I can’t hold the door open for just anybody and let them in, can I?’

‘I suppose not. Not that I know who you are either.’ His glare seemed to have toned down now into something more resembling a look of curious annoyance. ‘You don’t live here, I do know that much.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because I do. For the next month anyway. I’m Prue. Flat nine.’

‘Ah, so you’re staying with the actress, are you? I’m Aaron. I live with my mum, in flat six, right underneath yours.’ He located his keys at last and inserted one in the lock, stuffing the book back into his pocket and a mint into his mouth. ‘I heard a rumour she’d been in hospital, that another of the neighbours had been looking in on her, but I’ve not seen her about lately. Not heard her telly so much either, which you do sometimes, with floors and ceilings as thin as ours. Your turn now, is it? To be nursemaid? How is she anyway? All right?’

‘I don’t know actually. And I’m not staying with her exactly, or here to look after her. She’s gone away for a while – a sort of holiday – and I’m here until she gets back. I’m Prue Harris, by the way.’

‘Hi, Prue. Flat-sitting, eh? Makes sense, I guess, not to leave the place empty. Friends, are you? Or family?’

Prue hesitated. This stranger was rather nosey, and it wasn’t always a good idea to divulge too much. ‘Something like that,’ she muttered. ‘But I must get on. See you again maybe?’

‘Maybe.’ He yawned, showing a row of not quite even teeth. And then he was through the door and gone. It closed behind him with a slam.

So, Madi had been ill. Maybe she still was. That might go some way towards explaining her need to get away. She could be convalescing. Clean fresh country air, and a quiet peaceful life. There was nowhere quite like Shelling to provide all of that. And he’d said she was an actress. What with the theatre posters on the walls and the colourful, flamboyant clothes, that came as less of a surprise. She had spotted some sort of a trophy thing on the shelf over the fire too, although the date on it told her it had been awarded many years ago. Slowly, Prue was finding out a little more about Madi, and getting the impression that Madi was probably a good deal older than she was. The only real mystery now was the photo by the bed, and who the man in it might be. She smiled to herself. She was turning into a right little Miss Marple. All she needed was a magnifying glass and a little notebook to complete the transformation. And she’d thought that Aaron was being nosey!

By the time she arrived home soon after five, the strap of her camera bag having dug what felt like an inch-wide ridge in the flesh at her shoulder and her feet aching, all she really wanted was a strong coffee, a few chapters of her book and a long hot bath in which to lie back and enjoy both. Thank God for Madi’s super-efficient heating system, with hot water more or less in constant supply.

She threw everything down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and kicked off her shoes, before turning on the taps in the bath and walking back to the small kitchen to flick on the kettle, its blue light shining through the see-through window at the side as the water began to bubble. She had eaten a good lunch, a tuna sandwich and a salad, on a bench in St James’s Park, again sharing her crumbs with the birds, and had brought a jumbo sausage roll home in a paper bag, a simple meal which would be quick and easy to warm up later in the microwave. No need to go out again tonight, which suited her just fine. Being alone on the streets of a big, strange, impersonal city after dark was a step she did not yet feel quite ready for.

While she waited for her bath to fill, she couldn’t resist a quick look at the photos she had taken, flicking between them on the viewer, her trained eye instantly knowing which were worth doing something with and which could be deleted and, most importantly, recognising the two or three she could feel really proud of. There was one of the front of the palace, taken through the black railings of the gate, the camera tilted upwards, capturing the moment a pigeon, wings still outspread, had landed on the famous balcony. Another was of a guardsman yawning, clearly caught completely off guard, words she knew would make a fantastic caption and which she couldn’t help laughing about. And the horse. Oh, how she loved her photo of the horse. Not that it was doing anything especially unusual or earth-shattering. It was just the expression on its face, the ears upright and alert, the eyes somehow worldly and wise. She would try cropping that one and zooming in, to see if she could pick out the different shades of light falling on the fine lines of its hair.

Before she realised it, the water had almost reached the top of the bath, the surface smothered in big airy soapy bubbles from one of Madi’s potion bottles, and the whole lot was in danger of flowing over onto the floor. She could just imagine what Aaron and his mother in the flat beneath would say had she let that happen, with rivers of steaming bathwater flooding through those terribly thin floors he had talked about.

She turned off the taps, ran her hands through the water to check the temperature, pulled out the plug to let a few inches of water escape, then added a drop more cold. The kettle had boiled and she made her coffee, put the mug and her book down on the little flat area in the corner of the bath, then stripped off and lowered herself into the deliciously warm and soothing water. Ah, bliss!

Prue picked up her book and turned to the place where her fluffy pink bookmark protruded between the pages. She hadn’t read since she’d been on the train and it took her a page or two to get back into the story. It was one of those Regency romances, where ladies in long slim dresses chatted to friends in elegant drawing rooms and swooned over handsome heroes. Not everyone’s cup of tea, she knew, but it was easy reading, providing a little escapism, taking her back to a time when young ladies knew very little of the realities of life or love and rarely spent any time alone in male company, when chaperones were the norm and convention was everything. A long way from the sort of novel young Aaron was reading, which she had noticed was one of the later Harry Potters, or the rather serious-looking biography of an aging actor she had never heard of that was still lying next to Madi’s bed. A long way from real twenty-first-century life too.

She reached the end of Chapter Ten. The hero had just spoken to the master of the house and had been permitted to ask for his daughter’s hand, which he was now doing on bended breeches-covered knee.

Prue lay back, letting the warm water slosh up over the back of her neck and into her hair, laid the book down again and closed her eyes. Proposals. Not her favourite subject at the moment. And, oh boy, how very different these things were nowadays. She remembered the way Ralph Barton had proposed to her friend Sian, hiding the ring in a little pouch under his dog’s collar as they walked across the fields, and producing it at just the right moment, mid-picnic, the sun streaming down, grass stains on his knees, and a bottle of champagne tucked away in the hamper, surrounded by ice packs, to mark the moment she said yes. Even the dog had been given a sip of bubbly as they celebrated.

She would never know if that was what had put the idea into her own head. Was it Sian and Ralph planning their wedding, or the newspapers sending her out to photograph an elderly couple, both widowed, who had found each other again and had just got engaged more than sixty years after they had first met as teenagers? Or was it simply the date on the calendar? Of course, that had been the clincher. The 29th of February and its age-old tradition presented a unique opportunity, a reason to be brave that only came around every four years. Waiting for Joe to do it himself, or having to wait another four years for her next chance? Both options had seemed too uncertain, too fraught with potential error, so why wait?

Joe was not a planner. He was a ditherer, the sort who drifted through life without long-term plans, but that didn’t mean he would be averse to someone else doing the planning for him, did it? He would be surprised, maybe a bit shocked, but she had hoped he would be secretly pleased too. Pleased to know how much she wanted to be with him, for them to make a future together. They might even be able to arrange a double wedding with Sian and Ralph, the four of them back doing everything together again, just as they always had when they were kids. It might help to mend the rift between the brothers that had kept them at arm’s length ever since their dad had ploughed so much money into the vets’. A vision of herself as peacemaker, of the two brides swathed in white lace, and the foolish romantic notion of happy-ever-afters had driven her on.

How stupid she had been. How naïve. You couldn’t make someone love you just because you wanted it so badly. You couldn’t get down on one knee in the middle of the village pub, accidentally flashing your knickers because your new bought-specially-for-the-occasion dress is too short, and ask a question like that in front of all your friends and neighbours and embarrass someone into saying yes. The look on his face had said it all. He was more than shocked. He was appalled. And the only person left feeling embarrassed was her.

Joe had not come after her when she ran outside. Only Sian had done that, wrapping her arms around her in the car park, muttering words that Prue had not really taken in. Words about fish in the sea, and his loss, and heartless bastard, all merged together in the fog of hurt that had settled over her, and had still not fully lifted.

Prue sighed and slowly lowered herself deeper into the water, bending her knees and dipping her head back so her whole face went under. She breathed out, a steady stream of tiny air bubbles breaking the surface, until her lungs were empty and she had no choice but to bob back up again. Wash him away, Prue, she told herself. What did they sing in that old film? Wash that man right out of your hair. She slicked her wet curls back over her scalp and sat up, reached for her now almost cold coffee and drank it in one big gulp.

‘Don’t do it, Adeline,’ she said, staring at the cover of her book. ‘Don’t say yes. Men aren’t worth the hassle. You’ll be better off on your own.’

Chapter 8
MADI

Madi had been living in Shelling for four days when she finally forced herself to check her emails and social media pages. Much as she was relishing being alone, she did have to keep her future in mind, and her future revolved, just as her past and present always had, around her work. There could be news from her agent, offers of a part in a play, maybe even some messages from fans. Those were few and far between these days, but they never failed to lift her spirits.

There were none of those waiting for her when she logged on that Thursday afternoon. A couple of junk ads offering her the sort of products only a mastectomy patient might need leapt out at her. How did they know these things? Sometimes it felt as if Big Brother really was watching her, or more likely watching everybody, these days. Even at home sometimes she got the shuddery feeling that someone else was there. A fleeting shadow on the wall, an unexpected creak of the floorboards, a tiny flutter of a curtain when the windows were all closed. Of course, it was just her imagination. There was nobody there. Nothing to be scared of. Her home was her castle, her sanctuary, and always had been. Jeremy had made sure of that. She was just feeling jumpy lately. It was what came of living by herself, and getting older, she supposed, her memory playing its silly cruel little tricks, the cancer forcing her to face the biggest fear she had ever had to face, and the restless nights and crippling tiredness that resulted from all that. And with her son nowhere in sight, it all made her suddenly aware of her own vulnerability and how alone she was in the world.

But the world itself went on without her. There was news of Sally Wendover, her biggest rival and one-time nemesis, landing the role of the nurse in a new production of Romeo and Juliet, which had Madi grinding her teeth together in a mixture of frustration and barely suppressed jealousy. That could have been her, if the bloody cancer hadn’t intervened. Sally had beaten her to the lead role of Juliet too, more than forty years ago when Madi had been too distracted elsewhere to fight for it, and she had never quite forgotten or forgiven her for that.

The email from Prue was short and to the point. Did she want to have her post sent on? It wasn’t something she had thought about, but you never knew. It was still possible, even in this digitally prominent day and age that a career opportunity might turn up in an old-fashioned letter. And, of course, it would be Mother’s Day soon, while she was still here in Norfolk, so there might – just might – be a card.

She sent a quick reply, promising a post exchange once a week at least, and added a word or two of reassurance about Flo, who had jumped up onto her lap as she typed and had fallen asleep there, preventing Madi from doing anything much for the next hour at least. She switched everything back off and leant forward, carefully, to pick up one of Prue’s many magazines. It was one of those lifestyle ones, with celebrities she had never heard of plastered across the cover. Not a real actress amongst them, just unknown faces from this so-called reality TV that the young ones seemed to enjoy. It was a page or two before the end, in the odds and sods section, otherwise known as minor showbiz news, that she spotted a tiny picture of Sally Wendover, clutching a bouquet in one hand and a man’s arm in the other. The bloody woman got everywhere.

She threw the magazine down without reading any more of it. She ran her hand over her head. Was her hair growing yet? Did it feel any longer, any thicker, any softer than it had the day before, or the day before that? She liked to think so. At this rate, by the time she went back to London, she might be on the way to looking half decent again and could start thinking about abandoning the wig, in favour of a fashionably short pixie cut. Then she would give that Sally a run for her money, and no mistake.

The knock at the door made her jump and sent Flo skittering off her lap and towards her cat flap, which she shot through as if the devil himself was after her. Madi stood up and reached for her wig, positioning it squarely on her head and checking in the small wall mirror before opening the door to reveal the imposing figure of Prue’s mother smiling back at her.

‘Mrs Harris …’

‘Oh, it’s Faith, please. I’m sorry to disturb you, Madi, but I’ve been worrying about you stuck here all by yourself. You haven’t popped down for that cup of tea, and I thought you might just be a bit … well, shy, I suppose. It’s my day off from work and I’m at a bit of a loose end. Are you busy now?’

She wasn’t, of course, but admitting to that would mean she had no excuse to refuse. ‘Well, I was about to take a walk. Get some air in my lungs while the sun’s still shining.’

‘I could come with you!’

Madi took one look at the little woman’s eager expression and gave in. She nodded. ‘Okay. Why not? Just let me get my coat and scarf.’

Faith Harris waited patiently on the step. At least she wasn’t one of those people who barged their way in, whether invited or not. Madi pulled on her coat and wrapped a thin headscarf around her head as usual, then grabbed her door keys.

Faith nodded towards Prue’s car, standing idle on the drive. ‘Battery’ll go flat,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘She should have left me the key, so I could start it up or move it. Sorry it’s stopping you from parking.’

‘No problem. Mine seems fine where it is, in the road.’

‘True enough. It’s not as if we get much traffic going by.’

Madi closed the door and, without discussing any sort of route, they both seemed to turn naturally to the left, walking side by side in the direction of the church and the pub. The bells were ringing again, not especially tunefully, as they had been on the afternoon she’d arrived.

‘That’ll be young Donny,’ Faith said, raising her eyebrows. ‘He’s not very good, is he? That’s why he practises so often I assume, in the hope of getting better.’ She laughed. ‘It could take a while.’

Madi laughed too. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere, I suppose, no matter what it is they’re trying to master. How old is he? This Donny?’

‘Thirteen, I think. Or fourteen. He comes out of school and his mum’s not back from work yet, and there’s time to kill before his tea. Same for a lot of the kids around here. It’s not as if we have much to entertain them. No cinema or bowling alley or anything like that. They get bored, and probably not overly keen to get stuck into their homework!’

‘No youth club?’

‘There used to be, until the man who ran it moved away. It died a death after that. There’s football practice once a week though, for those who are interested, and the school has a chess club on a Tuesday, but the other days young Donny’s up there in the tower, regular as clockwork. After the service on a Sunday too sometimes. He does try hard, poor lad.’

‘And his mum?’

‘Gloria. Works at the estate agency along the way there. Well, she owns it actually. Her and her husband Jim. He does all the viewings and the legal stuff and she takes care of the admin, making appointments, typing up the details of the properties. My Prue usually takes the photos for them. She knows how to bring out the best in a place, especially with the interiors, getting the light right and all that. To be honest, I’m not sure how they’ve stayed in business in a little place like this. It’s not like people move in or out of the village that often, and there’s a lot of competition from the bigger agencies in town, and then there’s the internet …’

Madi let her talk. It was certainly something she seemed good at. Village gossip was not high on Madi’s list of interests, but it did help to know a little about the place and the people in it, now that she was living here. Who to make friends with, who to avoid. She felt almost sorry for Donny, with nothing to do except ring the bells, and pretty badly at that. And for his parents, struggling to keep a business afloat in the back of beyond. It couldn’t be easy trying to keep yourself entertained or to make any sort of living in a quiet little place like Shelling. She hadn’t seen the whole village yet, except on a map, but she was fairly sure she’d be able to walk the entire outskirts in no more than ten minutes. She doubted there were more than fifty houses, fifty families, at most. Stay long enough and she would probably know them all by name, just as they all no doubt did. It wasn’t surprising they knew each other’s personal business too. It must be hard to keep secrets when you lived so closely with your neighbours. But then, she lived just as closely with her own neighbours back at Belle Vue Court and could honestly say she knew very little about any of them. Nor did she particularly want to. She smiled to herself at the irony. How different London was to this tiny country community where even a strange car passing through would probably be noticed and commented upon. She wondered what they made of her, what the rumour mill was saying about her and her reasons for turning up out of the blue like that.

‘So, Madi,’ Faith said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘What is it that you do?’

‘Do?’

‘For a job, I mean. Unless you’re retired, of course, but you don’t look old enough.’

God, the woman was blunt. ‘Thank you. I’m sixty-two so I am pretty much old enough, I suppose, technically, but I’m not in the sort of industry that has a retirement age as such. We tend to go on until we drop.’

‘Oh? Which industry is that then? Because you look like a teacher to me. Maybe a headmistress. Am I close?’

Madi laughed. ‘What is this? Twenty questions? Animal, vegetable or mineral?’

Faith looked confused for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, am I being overly inquisitive?’

‘Not at all,’ Madi lied. ‘But, no, I’m not a teacher, head or otherwise. I’m an actress.’

‘Oh.’ Faith’s arms began to flap wildly, and her voice shot up an octave. ‘Oh! How exciting. Have you been in anything? Well, of course you have. Silly me. What I mean is … well, have you been in anything I might have seen? Heard of? You know, anything famous?’

‘Is Shakespeare famous enough for you?’

Faith giggled. ‘Well, I might not know a lot about the theatre but even I’ve heard of him! Do tell me everything …’

‘Everything?’ The two women reached the turning that led up to the church and the vets’ but walked on past it and headed towards the shops. Madi did her best to suppress a grin. ‘About Shakespeare?’

‘Oh, you know what I mean. About you. Your career. Stage or TV? Who have you met, and who have you acted with? Are you terribly well known? But then you probably use a stage name, don’t you? Not Madi at all.’ She grabbed Madi’s arm as if some sort of magic stardust was going to rub off. ‘Oh, we’ve never had an actress in Shelling before. The most famous resident we’ve ever had was a novelist – or so she said – who lived just a couple of doors along from me for a few months, but nobody had ever actually heard of her. Her books weren’t even in the library. The proper library in town, I mean, of course, not our little cupboard affair in the hall! Oh, Madi, do tell all …’

Madi had only just begun to present a very potted history of her career so far when they reached the village shop and Patty Martin came bustling out onto the pavement, almost as if she had been waiting for them to appear.

‘Oh, how lovely to see you both,’ she said, beckoning them in. ‘Business is quiet today and I was just about to put the kettle on. Do come and join me. I could do with the company.’

‘We’ll have to carry on our little chat later, Madi,’ Faith muttered under her breath, as they followed Patty into the shop. ‘Patty can be terribly nosey.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing, Patty dear. A cup of tea will be just the job. Do you have any bikkies?’

Patty turned and gave her friend a look of sheer disdain. ‘Faith Harris, this is a grocery shop. We have biscuits galore, in any flavour you care to mention. But we’ll let Madi choose, shall we?’

‘Oh, you two have met then, have you?’ Faith said, looking a little peeved.

‘We have. Now, come through to the back and I’ll pop the Closed sign up for half an hour. The customers can always rap on the glass if it’s important.’

The back room was small but cosy, with two shabby armchairs, which Patty insisted her visitors sit on while she took the wooden chair at a desk piled high with papers. She reached up and took three cups and a large brown teapot down from a cupboard above the sink in the corner and put the kettle on to boil.

‘So, how are you enjoying life in our little village?’ she said, turning her attention to Madi.

‘It’s lovely. So peaceful. Charming, in fact.’

‘Well, that’s nice to hear. Charming … I like that. Are you planning on staying long?’

Madi heard Faith sigh beside her. ‘Just a few weeks. I shall be off back to London when Prue returns.’

‘Ah, yes, Prue … Poor soul. How that Joe could humiliate her like that, and in public too, I just don’t know. Idiot man doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.’

‘Patty!’ Faith leant forward in her chair and put a restraining hand on Patty’s arm. ‘Madi doesn’t need to know about all that. And it’s my Prue’s business, not ours.’

‘It’s hardly something you can expect to keep a secret, dear. Not when half the village witnessed it. It’s leap year, you see, Madi, and there are, of course, certain age-old traditions attached. Come the 29th of Feb, in the middle of a busy Saturday night in the local pub, young Prue got it into her head to propose, with absolutely no guarantee, or even the teeniest hint, that the young man in question would say yes. Took a bit of a leap of faith, or more like a leap in the dark, if you’ll excuse the terrible puns, seeing as we’re talking leap year here, but unfortunately landed flat on her face.’

‘Ah, I see.’ Madi could feel the tension stretching out between her two companions, and thought it might be time to steer the talk in another direction. ‘It’s a shame it didn’t go well, but as Faith says, it’s not really anyone’s business but theirs, is it? Now, what was it you said about biscuits, Patty? I must admit I have a fondness for a nice custard cream.’

Patty got to her feet. ‘I’ll go and see if we have any. Won’t be a tick.’

As soon as she had disappeared behind the beaded curtain that separated them from the shop, Faith shook her head and whispered, ‘It would never have worked out anyway. I’m glad he turned her down. She can do so much better. I’m sorry it seems to have upset her so much, though she’ll get over it soon enough. Hurt pride, I think, more than anything. Do you know where it is she’s gone? I know you said you didn’t but …’

‘No. I’m sorry. Why don’t you just phone her? I’m sure if she wants to speak to you, she will.’

Faith sat back in her chair, frowning. ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ she said, just as Patty arrived back, brandishing an extra-large pack of custard creams, and poured the tea.

‘Do you remember,’ Patty said, beaming at Madi and clearly unaware of what she had walked back into, ‘when we last met I told you I thought I knew you from somewhere?’

‘Aha!’ said Faith, eager to take over the conversation again. ‘There we are, Madi. Patty recognises you. You have a fan!’

‘A fan?’ Patty looked bemused. ‘I only meant that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Madi in the big supermarket in town. Do you work there, dear? On the tills, or one of the counters?’

Faith laughed. ‘I hardly think so, Patty. Madi doesn’t spend her days slicing bacon in Tesco’s. She’s an actress. She’s done Shakespeare, you know.’

‘Oh, really? I’ve never seen any Shakespeare. But now you come to mention it, you could be right, Faith. That could well be where I’ve seen her. In something.’

Madi took a sip from her tea and watched them discussing her as if they’d forgotten she was even in the room.

‘I know!’ Patty squealed, almost sloshing her tea into her lap. ‘It was that soap opera on the telly a few years ago. Now, what was it called? The one set in a coffee shop by the sea. It was only on a few weeks and they stopped showing it. You were a bit chubbier then, weren’t you, dear? And your hair was a different colour, but I’m sure it was you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Patty,’ Faith butted in. ‘Madi does plays. Proper plays, on the stage. She wasn’t in any soap.’

‘Actually, I was.’

Four eyes swivelled her way.

‘Oh, how thrilling. A real TV star in our midst.’ Patty piled the biscuits onto a flowery plate and held it out towards Madi, her hand shaking with excitement. ‘Please, take two. Oh, isn’t that what they say when they’re filming? With one of those little clapperboard things. Lights, camera, action. Take two!’

They all laughed.

‘Oh, do let me do your hair while you’re here, Madi. I can put a sign above the door then. Hairdresser to the stars. Like having a royal warrant! I could do you a nice perm or add a few highlights. It’s looking a bit dull, if you don’t mind me saying. In fact, let me take a look at it now.’

Before Madi could stop her, Patty stood up and whipped the scarf from her head. ‘Oh,’ she said, the dismay obvious in her voice, as she knocked the wig a little too vigorously and it tilted off centre. ‘It’s not your own.’

There was a stunned silence as Madi adjusted her headwear and tried not to cry.

‘Oh, Patty, we all know that actresses wear wigs, don’t we?’ Faith said, coming quickly to her rescue. ‘Stage names, make-up, costumes. Why not wigs? All part of the mystery, eh? I bet these superstars hardly ever go out as themselves. Helps protect them from being recognised and pestered.’ She chuckled. ‘Autographs another time, eh? Now, come on, Madi, let’s be on our way before it gets dark.’

‘Thank you,’ Madi said, as the two of them made their escape and turned back towards home, their planned walk forgotten.

‘No problem. Is it cancer?’

Madi nodded. ‘Breast.’

‘My father had it. Cancer, that is. His was in the lungs. Smoked all his life, so not surprising really. This was nearly ten years ago, and treatments probably weren’t as good as they are nowadays. He went quickly though. Didn’t suffer too long. Yours?’

‘I had surgery, lost a breast, then chemo. The cancer’s all gone though, or they hope so anyway.’

‘That’s good. Losing a breast must be hard, but at our age you have to wonder why we still need them.’ She shrugged, then put a hand on Madi’s arm and patted it. ‘At least you’re still alive, and that’s what counts, eh? To me … well, I often think losing your hair must be the most upsetting part. Not a problem for my old dad as he was bald as a badger anyway, but it’s different for us girls, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘In your line of work, too. It will grow back though, good as ever. Don’t let it get you down, not now you’re over the worst of it all. Still, I feel for you. It must have been tough … and I won’t be gossiping about you, rest assured.’

‘Thank you.’

They had reached Madi’s gate.

‘See you again soon, I hope. The offer’s still open, for tea at mine. I can’t promise custard creams, but I do make a mean Victoria sponge.’ Faith took a pen from her handbag and scribbled something on a tiny scrap of paper, which she tore off the corner of a used envelope. ‘My number,’ she said, hovering long enough to make it obvious she expected to receive Madi’s number in return. As soon as Madi had, reluctantly, supplied it and Faith had written it down, Faith gave a little wave over her shoulder and wandered away, leaving Madi alone on the path. ‘Just let me know when you’re coming, and I’ll have that sponge rustled up and in the oven toot sweet!’

Madi slid the scrap of paper into her pocket, the edge of her scarf slipping out as she withdrew her hand. It hadn’t seemed worth the charade of tying it on again, now that the cat was out of the bag. She didn’t believe for a minute that her health, or her dubious celebrity status as an ex-soap actress, would remain secret for long. But did it really matter? She was who she was, wig and all, and if people couldn’t deal with that they probably weren’t worth knowing.

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