Molly's Millions (6 page)

‘Wake up, Flora!’ Tom whispered. She looked so peaceful that it seemed almost a crime to disturb her but they had to make a start. It was eight o’clock and Tom was keen to get to the farm and start hunting down his story.

Her grey eyes opened. ‘I’m sleepy.’

‘You can sleep in the car. But we’ve got to get moving. Go and have a wash and get dressed.’

‘OK,’ Flora said, yawning like a lion.

Tom finished packing his overnight bag and sat down on the bed, picking up Isaak and strumming. He would never dream of leaving his beloved guitars in the car unattended. Flora had teased him the night before by asking if the second bed in the room was for her or the guitars.

He played a few bars of ‘Yellow Bird’ and had just stopped when a head popped round from the bathroom door.

‘Don’t stop!’ Flora said. ‘That was lovely.’

Tom smiled. It was nice to be appreciated. Anise used to
tell him to pack it in and grow up; said he was an outdated hippie and that he should get a proper pastime like DIY. She’d rather have had him plumbing than strumming.

Once Flora had washed, dressed and packed, they went downstairs to eat and then left the bed and breakfast and headed for the Eden Valley. It was a warm morning and they wound the windows down, luxuriating in the velvet-soft air. The countryside itself was a paradise of rivers, sandstone bridges and rolling fields. Tom wondered why he’d never heard of it before, but he guessed that the close proximity of the Lake District probably accounted for it.

He reached in the glove compartment for the address Pike had given him. They couldn’t be far away now.

Sure enough, a few more bends in the road and Gilt View Farm revealed itself. Tom slowed down to take the unmade road and was soon greeted by a huddle of outbuildings. He parked under the shade of an enormous sycamore tree.

‘Are you coming, Flo?’

Flora nodded. ‘You don’t want me to keep an eye on the guitars.’

‘They should be all right. We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Tom smiled.

They got out of the car and Tom rolled his sleeves up above his elbows. He hadn’t caught the sun so far this summer, not with the endless East Anglian rain, and his skin was disappointingly pale, but a few days like this and he’d be sporting a golden glow in no time.

He walked towards the farmyard followed by Flora. He was on time, but there was no sign of Wilfred Barton. Tom eyed the outbuildings, and wondered if it was worth making his way to the farmhouse. He didn’t know much about
farming but guessed that most farmers didn’t spend that much time indoors, so decided to hang around the farmyard and hope somebody would show up.

No sooner had they both made themselves comfortable against an old gate than they saw someone appear from one of the outbuildings.

‘Hello?’ Tom shouted across the yard. ‘Mr Barton?’

The man in a green cap with a white moustache nodded.

‘I’m Tom Mackenzie. Friend of Pike’s. And this is my daughter, Flo.’

‘Aye. I was told you’d be comin’.’

‘Thanks for making time to see me.’ Tom tried hard not to stare at the farmer’s moustache but it was so astonishingly white that he couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was as if a little pile of snow had settled along the top of the farmer’s mouth.

‘So, what is it you want to know?’ Mr Barton asked, joining them at the gate.

‘I’m rather interested in finding out who left you the money in your honesty box.’

‘Yes,’ Mr Barton chuckled. ‘So am I!’

‘You mean, you have no idea?’

‘No,’ he said, scratching his chin and shaking his head slowly.

‘You’ve no way of finding out?’

‘How could I find out?’

Tom shrugged. ‘No security cameras?’

‘No money for that sort of equipment.
Good God
!
’

‘And nobody saw anything?’

‘Round here? Nope.’

Tom nodded. He supposed that the houses were far too well detached for anything like neighbourhood watch to be
successful.

‘So how do you know the money was a gift – that it was meant for you?’

‘Well,’ Barton scratched his chin again. ‘I don’t, do I?’

‘And there was nothing to give away the person who left it?’

‘No,’ Barton said. ‘’Cept if you count a flower. There was a yellow flower in with the money.’

Tom’s eyes widened with promise. ‘Can I see it?’

Barton shrugged. ‘Wife wanted to press it. She’s sentimental like.’

‘What kind of flower is it?’

Barton scratched his chin again. ‘I don’t rightly know – some sort of daisy, maybe. But not a wild flower. I’d say it were definitely a bought one.’

He led the way, in a strange half-shuffle, across the courtyard to the farmhouse. It was little more than a shack really, and didn’t even look as substantial as some of the outbuildings.

Inside seemed incredibly dark after the intense light of the summer day but, as soon as Tom’s eyes had adjusted, he was able to take in his surroundings. There wasn’t much to see really. A few old wooden chairs stood around a large kitchen table, a cat sat quietly licking itself in a corner, and an old clock chimed sonorously. Flora went to make a fuss of the cat and Barton moved over to a large dresser stacked with mugs and papers.

‘It’s ’ere somewhere,’ he said, his thick hands paddling through the unopened bills and booklets covered in muddy footprints. Tom grinned.

‘’Ere!’ Barton said at last, sending a cascade of envelopes
onto the flagged floor.

Tom reached out and took what looked like a diary from his hands. ‘May I?’ he asked. Barton nodded, and Tom opened it. Page after page of tiny writing in black ink greeted his eyes. Someone kept themselves busy, he thought, but he wasn’t here to read the secret journal of a farmer’s wife.

‘It’s at back,’ Barton said.

Tom turned to the back, and there, as bright as summer sunshine, was the flower.

‘You can take it out if yer like,’ Barton nodded.

Tom picked it up. It still looked fresh, despite having its life force pressed out of it prematurely. It was the most beautiful yellow he’d ever seen: warm and glowing, happy and hopeful.

‘It’s lovely,’ he said, replacing it in the diary. ‘Thank you for letting me see it.’

‘Does it help?’

Tom frowned. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘Wish I knew who it was. You’ve no idea what a godsend that money was.’

‘What will you be using it for?’

Barton chuckled. ‘Have you seen the state of this place?’

Tom smiled.

Barton shook his head slowly and looked down at his boots. ‘It’s bin a strange old time. We’ve never bin out of the papers recently, what with foot and mouth and other disasters.’

‘You mean you’re a bit of a local celebrity?’

He chuckled again. ‘Don’t know about that!’

‘But enough for someone to hear about you and want to help you?’

Barton stared at him as if the thought had never occurred to him. ‘Maybe,’ he said at length.

After having his hand crunched in Barton’s enormous one, Tom and Flora left the farm. They drove back down the farm track and, because it was such a glorious day, decided to stop by the river and have a bit of open-air brunch.

‘Did you get your story, Daddy?’ Flora asked once they’d found a grassy bank and opened an economy packet of crisps and a bottle of Coke.

Tom sucked in a great lungful of sweet air and then sighed it out. ‘I’m not sure yet. I’m going to write this up and sell it to
Vive!
. I’ve had a word with one of my old contacts and he’s told me they can use it.’

Flora wrinkled her nose.

‘What?’ Tom asked.

‘Mummy says
Vive!
’s only good for wrapping fish and chips.’

Tom tutted.
Vive!
had only been in business for a year but had already gained a reputation for being a little under par when it came to scruples.

‘Flora,’ he explained, ‘this is just the kind of story
Vive!
go for. I can’t be too choosy, you know, or I’ll miss out altogether and not get paid.’

‘So
Vive!
will pay you?’

‘Oh yes. It’s not going to be much, but it might well lead to other things.’

‘And do you know who we’re after now?’

Tom shook his head. ‘No. But I think the field’s narrowed down somewhat.’

‘How?’

‘What kind of a person would leave a yellow flower behind, do you think?’

Flora screwed her eyes up in thought. ‘A kind lady.’

‘Exactly!’

She stared at her father. ‘But how does that help?’

‘Because we’ve narrowed the field down by fifty per cent – we’re looking for a woman.’

‘Oh.’ Flora didn’t sound overly excited by the prospect.

‘Either that or a gay man.’

Flora’s eyes widened but, for once, she didn’t ask any questions. ‘So what do we do now?’

Tom looked down into the river. It would be tempting to just follow the river and spend a few lazy days doing nothing but living, but then he remembered the bills on his floor at home and the fact that they didn’t have much to live
on
.

‘I guess we keep on travelling until something else turns up.’

As much as Molly adored her travelling companion, there was just no conversation to be had with a mongrel. She’d left Northumberland via Weardale and Teesdale, and had sneaked into North Yorkshire via Swaledale. Her whole route had provided no conversation whatsoever. She’d stopped several times: to refill the car, to walk Fizz and to buy a bag of toffees, but nobody had wanted to talk to her.

Molly, who was a natural chatterbox, was beginning to believe that she’d lost the power of speech. She seriously thought that her vocal chords must have seized up by now, and that her tongue was in grave danger of going rusty. She
had
to speak to somebody.

In one of those weird moments that life often flings at
people, Molly spotted a telephone box. Not having bought herself a mobile phone yet, she parked the car alongside a village green and dug around in her pockets for some change. Silence hit her as she got out of the car. It was a silence she wanted to fill with noise but, resisting the urge to shout and scream and startle the locals, she walked over to the phone box and picked up the receiver. She knew who she was going to call. It was her best friend. The dearest friend she had ever known. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to say, after all, she’d told no one of her recent good fortune, but she just wanted to wrap herself in the warmth of conversation again.

‘Carolyn?’ Molly yelled the name down the phone, delighted that she still had the power of speech after all.

‘Molly?’

Molly frowned. Her sister-in-law sounded so far away. She also sounded seriously depressed. ‘Caro? Are you OK?’

There was a pause at the other end of the phone. ‘Molly,’ a little voice said at last. ‘I think I’m going to leave Marty.’

Molly felt a cold shiver travel the length of her spine. What was happening?
Leaving
. Who was leaving? She turned to look at Marty at the foot of the stairs. His face was white. She’d never seen him look so pale. He was a little ghost in a pair of blue-checked pyjamas.

Her father looked up to where she stood: a little higher up the stairs than Marty; in that no-man’s land that is neither upstairs nor downstairs.

‘Did you hear that, Molly?’

Molly felt her mouth open but no words offered to come out. They’d all disappeared, so she shook her head.

‘Your mother’s left.’

There was a space of silence that felt like a fourth person in the hallway.

Marty was the one to break it. ‘When will she be back?’

Their father looked at them, his face strange – it was more like an effigy than a real face. ‘She won’t be coming back,’
he said and, folding his arms neatly behind his back, he disappeared into the living room, leaving Molly and Marty on the stairs.

‘Molly?’

Molly opened her eyes at Carolyn’s voice.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ Molly said, shaking her head and freeing herself up to the present. ‘Sorry, I just—’

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Carolyn asked in a shy voice.

Molly felt as if she had one ear in the past and one in the present. ‘Yes,’ she said, digging around in her pocket for some more change and feeding the hungry mouth of the telephone. ‘But why? When did all this happen? I’ve only been away a few days.’

‘Away? Where are you?’

Molly peered out of the phone box. ‘I’m not exactly sure. Swaledale.’

‘
Swaledale
?’

‘Yorkshire – North Yorkshire.’

‘What are you doing there?’

Molly gritted her teeth. ‘I’m having a holiday.’

‘Oh,’ Carolyn said. ‘That’s nice.’

‘But never mind about
me
. What’s happening with
you
?’ Molly could almost see Carolyn at the other end of the phone. She’d be twisting a strand of blonde hair around her fingers and her pale eyebrows would have arrowed prettily over her nose.

‘I don’t know, Moll. I wish you were here.’

‘Where’s Marty?’

‘Out. He went out. I don’t know where.’

‘Did you fight? What happened?’ Molly asked, knowing Carolyn had slipped away into herself and that she’d take some prodding before she revealed anything.

‘Oh, it’s the usual things,’ she said in a voice which sounded strangely muted.

‘Money?’ Molly suggested. ‘Or the time he spends with you?’

Molly felt her brain filling with images like an overactive kaleidoscope. It was happening again, wasn’t it? The past had found a route into the present and was in grave danger of repeating itself.

‘I can’t let this happen,’ Molly said, the words fleeing the safety of her mouth with little intervention from her brain.

‘What?’

‘Caro! You’ve got to try and sort this out. Marty isn’t a bad man.’

‘I know. I
know
!’

‘He can just be a bit of an idiot sometimes but he’s not beyond redemption, is he? You don’t seriously believe that he can’t be saved – that you’ve given up on him?’ Molly’s voice was beginning to sound anxious, overdramatic even, but she and Carolyn had had this conversation a hundred times before. At first, it had all been a big joke.

‘Marty’s turning into his father,’ Molly would tease.

‘He’s a real Scrooge!’ Carolyn would laugh.

‘He wouldn’t be able to spend money recklessly if you paid him.’

And on it would go but, as the years went on, Marty’s character had intensified until he’d slowly turned into the man Molly and Carolyn had dreaded and it was no laughing matter anymore.

‘You haven’t really given up on him, have you?’ Molly tried again after an ominous silence.

‘I really don’t know what to do. He just doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t even try to understand what I want.’

Molly sighed. It was tough to hear such words said against your own brother. ‘Caro, listen. Don’t do anything drastic. You haven’t, have you?’

‘Well, we argued but that’s normal. And now he’s gone out in a huff.’

‘OK,’ Molly said, trying to sound in control. ‘That will give you both time to cool down a bit.’

‘And then what?’ Carolyn asked as if genuinely expecting Molly to hold the answer.

Wait for a miracle, Molly wanted to suggest.

‘Just—’ Molly wasn’t sure what she was going to say but she suddenly heard pips. ‘Caro! Just a minute.’ She plunged her hand into her pocket but there was nothing in it but a tatty fiver. ‘I’ve run out of change, Caro. Listen – I’ll ring you soon.’

‘Moll?’

The phone went dead. Molly stood looking at it for a moment, wondering if Carolyn would press 1471 and call her back. She hadn’t had time to suggest that. It was ridiculous. She had over four million pounds in the bank but she didn’t have any change, and that meant she’d left Carolyn in one of her peculiar moods. She’d seen them before. Carolyn might look as serene as the Venus de Milo but Molly knew that it was all a front.

With a frown you could plant potatoes in, Molly left the phone box determining two things: that she couldn’t let Marty and Carolyn’s marriage go the same way as her
parents’, and that she really should get a mobile phone.

Down by the River Eden, Tom decided that he should find a florist’s before he did anything else. Like the farmer, he wasn’t terribly good when it came to flowers and thought it would probably be best to try and identify the sunshine daisy before he forgot what it looked like.

Packing up their picnic, Tom and Flora took the road back towards Penrith. They hadn’t gone far when Flora spotted a florist’s.

‘Excellent,’ Tom said, pulling up and getting out of the car.

The shop was sandwiched between two old stone cottages. Trays of colourful bedding plants littered the paving and Tom had to walk in sideways to avoid knocking over a variety of gaudy displays.

A quick scan round the shop and it didn’t look very promising. He couldn’t see anything that looked like the sunshine daisy.

‘Can I help?’ asked a middle-aged lady wearing a jumper with a field of sheep on it, despite the intensity of the sun outside.

‘Yes,’ Tom began, giving her his best smile. ‘I’m looking for a particular flower. It’s kind of like a big daisy.’

‘Any particular colour?’

‘Yellow – like a summer sun.’

The lady came out from behind the counter and bent over some buckets at the back of the shop whereupon Tom noticed a hungry-looking sheepdog climbing up her spine.

‘How about these?’ she said, standing up with a bunch of the sunshine daisies in her hand.

‘That’s them!’ Tom said, a smile filling his face at how easy
his first task had been. ‘What exactly are they?’

‘Gerbera,’ the lady said.

‘Gerbera? Could you write that down for me, please?’

The lady pulled out a business card and wrote the name down.

‘Are they quite common?’

‘Oh yes!’ the lady enthused. ‘Different colours too if you want. Pink, red, orange—’

‘No, no – yellow’s what I want.’

‘How many bunches?’

‘Just one.’

‘One bunch?’

‘Er – no, just one, please.’

‘One flower?’

‘Yes please,’ Tom flexed his charmer smile again, ‘if that’s all right.’

The lady blushed and handed Tom a single flower and the business card. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said as he paid. ‘So these are quite popular at the moment?’

The lady nodded.

‘And have you had many orders for the yellow ones? I mean, from one person?’

She eyed him, as if realising that he wasn’t just interested in the flowers. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Has anyone been ordering these yellow gerbera?’

There was a pause as the lady thought. ‘Oh!’ she suddenly said, ‘have you got a secret admirer, then?’

Tom laughed but, before staunchly denying it, thought he could use it to his benefit. ‘As a matter of fact, yes.’

‘I see!’ the lady smiled, blushing again. ‘And you want me to disclose who the young lady is?’

Tom widened his eyes most appealingly. ‘That would be extremely kind of you.’

‘Well,’ the lady said, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders as if suddenly feeling important, ‘I can tell you that I’ve had no such requests. I’ve sold a couple of bunches but they were to men.’

‘Oh,’ Tom said, the smile slipping from his face, and his eyes narrowing down to their normal size. ‘Nobody else?’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. Perhaps you could try The Bloom Room – in Kirkby Milthwaite.’

Tom nodded. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said and then, just for the hell of it, beamed her a smile again, just to see her blush.

‘Any news?’ Flora asked as Tom got back into the car.

‘Well, I’ve found out that this is called a gerbera,’ he said, handing her the flower.

Flora screwed up her nose. ‘What a horrible name.’

‘Yes,’ Tom said, ‘a horrible name for such a beautiful flower. I’m just going to call it a sunshine daisy.’

‘That’s much nicer,’ Flora agreed.

After finding Kirkby Milthwaite in the road atlas, Tom pulled out and, once again, navigated round the labyrinthine lanes that laced across the Eden Valley. Flora sat twirling the sunshine daisy like a beautiful wand and Tom wondered what he was going to do with the flower. It wouldn’t last very long in the heat of the car. Should he press it like Barton’s wife had done? He could always buy another – the lady in the florist’s had said that they were popular enough, but that meant watching this one dry out and die. Ah well, he thought, it was all in the name of research.

‘Look!’ Flora suddenly shouted, ‘there’s a florist’s. Can I
come in with you this time?’

‘Well,’ Tom said, pulling up alongside the kerb, ‘you could if it wasn’t closed.’ Tom sighed. Just as he’d been thinking things were going his way for a change. ‘Bugger.’

‘Daddy!’

Tom bit his tongue. That was mild coming from him. He was going to have to rein in his language this summer, that was for sure.

He was just about to pull out again when a young woman stopped outside the florist’s and fished a key out of her pocket.

Tom leant out of his car window. ‘Excuse me. Are you opening?’

The young woman turned round. ‘Oh! No,’ she said. ‘I’m looking after it for a friend. Why?’

‘I was wondering if you could help me. I’ve got a query about some gerbera.’

The woman smiled. ‘That’s the best opening line I’ve heard for a while.’

Tom grinned and got out of the car, nodding to Flora to stay put.

‘Come on in,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to help. This isn’t my shop but I am a florist.’

Tom frowned a little as he followed her into the shop. How many florists were there in the Eden Valley?

It was a small shop with wooden floorboards and an army of silver buckets that looked sadly empty, like gaping mouths begging to be fed. On the wall, there were a number of watercolours of local scenes.

‘So how come you’re looking after this place?’ Tom asked, trying to sound casual.

‘Molly’s on holiday.’

‘Molly?’

‘Molly Bailey. She’s the owner.’

‘How long is she away for?’

The woman looked at him. ‘You’re not a burglar or anything, are you?’

Tom laughed and shook his head. ‘God! Why did you ask that? I don’t look like one, do I?’

The woman smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’ve never seen anyone look less like a burglar. Far too handsome. What are you, then?’

Tom looked back at the watercolours, stalling for time, wondering if he should answer. ‘I’m a reporter.’

‘Oh!’ the woman almost screamed, as if that were far worse than being a burglar.

Tom knew that his job description often had that effect on people. Sometimes, they’d just clam up completely.

‘You’re not after Molly, are you? She’s not in some sort of trouble, is she?’

‘No, no! Nothing like that. I don’t even know if it’s her I want.’

The woman looked puzzled. ‘Then what is it?’

Again, Tom wasn’t sure if he should answer the question. He had no proof that this Molly person could help him with his story. ‘I’m not sure, but I may need to be able to contact her.’

‘I see,’ the lady said, looking pensive.

‘Does she have a mobile?’

‘Molly? You must be joking. It’s all she can do to keep her landline operational! Just a minute,’ she suddenly said. ‘There is a number here somewhere. Her brother’s. He lives nearby.’
She opened a drawer and produced a card. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I’ll write it down for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Tom said.

‘Now, what was it about gerbera?’ the woman asked, a giggle colouring her voice.

‘I don’t suppose you’d know of anyone who’s been ordering yellow gerbera recently, would you?’

The woman looked thoughtful. ‘I’ve sold a few,’ she said, ‘but there’s nothing unusual about that.’

‘Anyone out of the ordinary?’

She shook her head. ‘Usual customers.’

‘So no long-term orders on them?’

‘No,’ she said, placing the post she’d picked up by the door onto a small filing cabinet behind the counter.

‘And nothing’s been ordered from here?’

‘Molly went away last week.’

‘I see. How long’s she away for?’ Tom asked. ‘If it’s all right me asking.’

‘It’s funny you should mention that, because she said she didn’t know. A fortnight to begin with,’ the woman said, ‘but she had a dangerous sparkle in her eyes, and when Molly gets the sparkles, well, there’s no telling really. I may be collecting her post for months.’

Tom grinned. ‘Well, thanks for your help.’

‘Is that all?’ the woman asked, looking slightly disappointed.

Tom nodded, noticing for the first time how pretty she was. ‘Got to go,’ he said, returning her smile. ‘Things to do, people to see.’

‘Good luck!’ the woman said.

‘Thanks.’

He was just about to leave the shop when something, other than the pretty woman behind the counter, caught his eye. In the gloom of the unlit space hung a painting. But it wasn’t a watercolour landscape like those in the rest of the shop. It was a painting of a single sunny gerbera.