A Rural Affair (41 page)

‘She’d have had them snapped off if Phil had had anything to do with it. Knuckle by knuckle, probably.’ Or would she? I wondered
how blind love would have been. Not as blind as that, I felt. Phil had been scrupulously honest where money was concerned.

‘She’s been taken to London for questioning by the Serious Fraud Squad; they’ve seized her files, her computer – the lot.
They were in your old man’s office at seven o’clock this morning, going through her old desk – a mate of mine works next door.
These guys are so thorough they’d X-ray your grandmother. Trust me, Poppy, her life will be trawled through like you wouldn’t
believe. It’ll keep her thieving hands away from your inheritance at any rate.’

‘Well, quite, although actually she’d already dropped her claim.’

‘Oh, had she? I didn’t know that.’

Archie stirred behind me, eyelids flickering ominously.

‘Listen, I’d better go, Luke,’ I whispered. ‘I need to get another half-hour out of Archie or he’ll go grumpy on me.’

‘OK, my love,’ he said chirpily. ‘See you this evening. Can’t wait.’

‘Me neither,’ I agreed as I clicked the phone off.

But I was pensive again as I replaced my hand on the wheel and narrowed my eyes to the hills that rose up beyond, framing
my village. If it were possible, even more pensive than the last half-hour in Mark’s cottage had rendered me. Because … had
I told Luke about Phil’s will? Or about Emma Harding’s claim on it? Indeed had I so much as mentioned my inheritance? I was
almost certain I hadn’t. In which case … what on earth did he know about all that?

When I got home, having collected Clemmie from nursery, Jennie was at her sitting-room window, arms folded, scanning the road,
waiting for me.

‘So that’s wot I’ve decided,’ Clemmie was telling me firmly as I helped her out of the car.

‘But Miss Hawkins isn’t very happy about it, darling.’

‘I don’t care. It’s my life.’

Blimey. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Wot?’

‘ “It’s my life”?’

‘Peggy says it when she lights a cigarette.’

‘Oh. Right.’

Jennie, meanwhile, had exited her house and bustled down the path in her long white apron to hover by my side. Horrors on
her plate, her stepdaughter pregnant, news flashes coming in by the moment, she needed to share, but even in her highly fraught
state she knew too that I had two tired and fractious children who needed to be bundled out of the car, got inside and fed.
She lifted Archie out of his car seat for me and we headed on in.

‘So that is wot I’M DOING!’ Clemmie shouted, stamping her feet for emphasis in her pink wellies as she ran to the front door
and turned, glaring at me.

Jennie raised enquiring eyebrows.

‘Clemmie’s teacher’s just told me Clemmie only works a three-day week,’ I muttered as we went up the path.

‘Oh, how killing. Which ones?’

‘Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. She has Monday and Friday off. Lays down her crayons and sometimes even takes a nap in the
Wendy House. Likes a long weekend, apparently.’

‘Good for her.’

‘Well, I’m not sure Miss Hawkins sees it like that. She’s keen to instil something of a work ethic.’

Jennie made a face. ‘She’s only four, Poppy. The work ethic can wait.’ She ruffled Clemmie’s curls, and as I opened the door
Clemmie ran off down to the kitchen, Archie toddling in her wake. I turned to my friend. Her eyes were shining, I noticed.

‘Well? Any news?’ I asked, aware I had quite a bit myself.

‘Well, I texted her like you said,’ she told me breathlessly, following me down the hall, ‘and she said she’d meet me at break
time so long as I didn’t bring Dan.’

‘Oh! So you’ve seen her?’

‘Yes, we went to Starbucks opposite the school.’

‘And?’

I was hastening round the kitchen now, taking sausages from the fridge, putting them under the grill, grabbing a tin of sweet
corn. Jennie positioned herself against the sink.

‘And … I’m convinced she’s not pregnant.’

I turned, tin opener poised. ‘Oh, thank God! She told you that?’

‘No, she barely told me anything. Just sat there stirring her hot chocolate, glaring at me. But she was so angry, Poppy. And
something told me her anger stemmed from being wrongly accused; it was a sort of self-righteous rage which could only come
from a position of power. She said things like –’ Jennie adopted a sneering expression – ‘So, you find a positive pregnancy
test and instantly assume it’s mine, eh Jennie? Is that how your mind works? Wouldn’t that be neat?
Confirm all your worst fears about me? Something to tell your friends?’

‘Oh! How hurtful.’

‘I know, horrid. But oh, Poppy, I was so pleased. I love her so much and I just don’t want her to be pregnant. I don’t care
how much she lashes out at me. I went to tell her that it was absolutely her decision if she wanted to keep it and all that
bollocks, like we said – but ended up not saying any of it, didn’t even embark on the little speech I’d rehearsed. I just
kept staring at her furious little white face and thinking:
wasn’t
it yours, Frankie? The test? Was it really not yours?’

‘Did you say that to her?’

‘Of course I did, but she didn’t answer. There’s a certain satisfaction, I’d imagine, in my not knowing, from her point of
view. She just gave me that withering look of hers and said surely it was time I marched down to the biology lab, grabbed
Mr Hennessy by the lapels and slugged it out over the Bunsen burners?’

‘Oh God, that’s all my fault.’ I put a hand to my mouth. ‘I told you that.’

‘Of course you did; you had to tell me what you knew. And I told Dan, who blabbed last night. But you know, she was
so
scathing that I thought – no. Not Hennessy. And then she suggested I lined up all the boys in her class and questioned them
one by one, and I thought – no again. She’s only sixteen, she thinks she’s being so clever, but I’m pretty sure I saw through
her. I got the impression she was paying me back big time for thinking the worst of her – please God, that’s the case.’ She
pressed her hands together and shut her eyes fervently, face lifted to the heavens.

‘But then … who could it be? Who on earth could have used that test? Not Mrs Briggs, that’s for sure.’

‘Not unless she’s been at the radiance pills.’ Mrs Briggs helped Jennie with the ironing and was a good sixty-five. Jennie
plucked a bit of sweet corn between forefinger and thumb from the pan and popped it in her mouth, much brighter now.

‘So who’s been in your house recently, then? Apart from family?’

‘No one very much. Don’t you think I’ve already wracked my brains? That bin only gets emptied once a week, slut that I am,
and I’ve been through everyone I can possibly think of who might have been upstairs. You’re obviously in and out –’

I snorted. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

‘Well, quite, and Angie and Peggy –’

I turned. Raised quizzical eyebrows.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Poppy. Peggy’s far too old.’

‘No, but you’ve got to ask them, consider them,’ I told her. ‘I know it’s far-fetched but if they’ve been in the house they’re
in the frame, so to speak, and you’ve got to eliminate them from your enquiries. Even if it wasn’t them they might know something
about it. Oh, and speaking of eliminating from enquiries, I must just quickly tell you –’ And so I did. About Emma Harding.
Sketchily, because I knew she had other things on her mind, but Jennie’s load had been considerably lightened in the last
half-hour. Her internal swing-o-meter had lurched in a positive direction and, rightly or wrongly, the conviction that her
stepdaughter was not indeed pregnant had firmly taken root; she was much more receptive to the outside world and, as such,
suitably enthralled. When I got to the end, she whistled.

‘Well. She certainly got her comeuppance, didn’t she? Got her thieving little fingers rapped. Shall we do a spot of prison
visiting? Take her a photo of Phil?’

‘I’d rather not,’ I said hastily.

‘She could, though, couldn’t she?’

‘Go to prison? I’ve no idea.’

‘She bloody should,’ Jennie said with feeling. ‘Or at least community service. God, I’d love to see her sweeping the streets
in a fluorescent yellow jacket. She probably thought she was invincible. People do, you know, when they’ve got away with something
for ages, whether it’s nicking people’s husbands or nicking money – probably thought she’d never get caught.’ Her face fell
suddenly. ‘Oh. Poor Simon.’

‘I know.’

She picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the yellow corn, reflective. ‘Funny. A couple of months ago he was all I could think
about. Every waking moment. I used to drive past his house at night, take Leila to his bit of the common for a walk, Google
him constantly – I could practically recite his website. I had the most almighty crush, Poppy. But now, especially with all
this Frankie business, I look back in wonder. Think: who was that woman checking her phone for texts every five minutes, going
dog-walking in full slap in case she should bump into him, who was she? I don’t recognize her at all. And after what you’ve
told me I certainly don’t think: oh, good, he might be free again.’

‘Don’t you?’ I was intrigued. ‘Not even a bit?’

She regarded me, astonished. ‘Not even a tiny bit. Not for one fraction of a second. Honest to God, Poppy, I’m embarrassed
by her. Constantly licking lipstick off her teeth, buying new bras and pretending it was time to ditch the old M&S ones –
I was in danger of making a fool of myself. And I’m genuinely sad for Simon. Wish his life wasn’t like it is right now. But
in the long run, he’s better off without her. Perhaps it’s as well it happened now?’

‘You mean, rather than further down the line with children.’ Like me, I thought.

‘Exactly.’ She sighed and we were silent a moment, Jennie watching opaquely as I shared out the sausages between two plates,
spooned the veg. Suddenly she came to. ‘Anyway, I’ve got other things to worry about without wondering if Simon will be waiting
at the prison gates for her. Here, darling.’ She seized the ketchup bottle and shook some out for Clemmie, who, hungry and
fit to combust, was climbing into her chair. ‘Yes, I’ve got other fish to fry,’ Jennie said with a sudden grin. ‘I’m off to
enquire of my hardly-spring-chicken friends, whether, when they popped in for coffee the other day, either of them also popped
upstairs to use a pregnancy test that was sitting in the bathroom cabinet.’ She snorted with derision. ‘As if.’

I shrugged. ‘I agree, it’s a long shot.’ I frowned as I helped Archie into his highchair and sat beside him. ‘Sitting in your
cabinet?’

‘What?’

‘The test?’

‘Oh. Yes, it was mine. You get two in a pack these days and I’d used the other one ages ago when I’d had a nasty shock and
was late. Why?’

‘I dunno. I just didn’t know that.’

She made to leave and it occurred to me, as I blew on the bit of sausage I’d speared for Archie, that I hadn’t told her about
Sam. Being married to Hope. Well, there’d been so much else to divulge. But I could have slipped it in, couldn’t I? She’d
have been intrigued. Why hadn’t I? I wondered if I was being protective. After all, Sam hadn’t broadcast it around the village
– nor had Hope for that matter, although perhaps for more obvious reasons – so neither would I. But
neither had I told her something else that was bothering me. About Luke.

Archie gave an impatient squawk, mouth wide, and I hurriedly shovelled in the sausage.

Coincidentally I ran into both of my friends later on. First Peggy, as the children and I sat on the bench by the pond feeding
the ducks, and she passed on her way to the shop. She was looking pleased as punch and rather exotic too, a purple beaded
velvet coat over her jeans and pixie boots, dangly silver earrings swinging.

‘I say, guess what, darling,’ she drawled, perching beside me on the bench and lighting a cigarette. She crossed her skinny
legs. ‘Jennie came to ask me if I was preggers. Do admit.’ She flashed amused, sparkling eyes and puffed hard. ‘Wish I’d said
yes. Wish I’d said: yes, and the father of my unborn child is Charles Dance and we’re going to keep it. Charles and I are
thrilled. We just popped into your house to do the test – he kept KV downstairs – and when I shrieked down the good news,
he ran up two at a time and we couldn’t resist nipping into your bedroom for another frenzied bout of love-making to celebrate.
Had the most spine-shattering sex in your bed, hope you don’t mind?’

I giggled as she rolled her eyes expressively.

‘What planet is she on?’ she said incredulously.

‘She’s just being thorough, Peggy. It was my idea, anyway, to ask whoever had been in the house. She thought it was Frankie’s.’

‘Course it’s not Frankie’s; what teenage girl would do a preggy test and drop it in her mother’s waste-paper basket? Even
if it is wrapped in loo paper? Do me a favour.’

‘I suppose not,’ I said feeling rather stupid. And guilty too. I’d been quick to point the finger. Poor Frankie.

‘Anyway, I’m thrilled to bits she thought it was me. That’s really put a spring in my step. Thank goodness the book club’s
up and running again. You missed the last one of course; it was quite a laugh. Although I have to say, Angus abandoning ship
in a vest and braces did precisely nothing for me.’ She shuddered. ‘Perhaps we’ll drop the theme element,’ she mused. ‘Why
is it the thought of these men is always so much nicer than the reality?’ She narrowed her eyes into the distance and inhaled
pensively on her Marlboro Light. Clemmie was staring up at her, intrigued.

‘How many do you smoke a day, Peggy?’ she asked.

‘As many as possible, darling,’ Peggy replied, smiling down. She took a bit of bread from Clemmie’s bag and tossed it to a
duck.

‘I say, what about adding a bit of new blood?’ she said abruptly. ‘To the book club? There’s a rather attractive widower just
moved into the rectory in the next village and I saw him browsing in Waterstones the other day. D’you think he might be up
for a bit of Jodi Picault of a Tuesday?’