‘I remember now – you were with that horrible man from the Dodgy Dealings programme, who pretended he was a journalist,’ I said coldly.
‘Charlie’s not horrible, he’s just good at his job,’ he said, equally frigidly, and we eyed each other with mutual antipathy.
‘Trust Mercy to find a fraudster to help her with her business!’ he said at last. ‘She’s taken rescuing lame dogs too far this time, but if you thought you were going to wangle your way into her good graces and swindle her in some way, then you can think again, because you’ll have me to deal with.’
‘You’re completely mistaken. Mercy is an angel and I’d do anything to help her,’ I said hotly. ‘Even work with you, if I have to!’
His mouth, already inclined to be straight and firm-lipped, tightened into a thin line and he swung round on his heel and strode off without another word.
Trouble at t’mill, indeed.
I was still sitting on the bottom rung of the stepladder, recovering from this encounter, when Dorrie came in a few minutes later with a cup of tea, though really she was just an envoy sent by the others, who’d heard the raised voices and wanted to see if Randal had murdered me.
‘He’s always seemed a nice enough lad,’ she said, ‘but he likes his own way. And since he came back so poorly from a cruise last year, he seems to have got a really short fuse.’
‘That could turn out to be a bit dangerous in a cracker factory,’ I said and then we both giggled, the tension broken.
Chapter 20: Fishy
Q:What do you get if you cross a bell with a skunk?
A:Jingle smells!
Later, Arlene came to see how I was getting on and told me Mercy had rung down to make sure I was intending to get back for tea. ‘I think she wants you to back her up over her plans,’ she added. ‘Randal went past the office earlier looking like a thundercloud on legs, and Lillian said you’d had a bit of a set-to.’
‘Just a little,’ I agreed wryly.
‘He can be abrupt, but he was nice to me earlier, when he arrived – asked why I was still there in the afternoon and commiserated with me about my bank branch closing. Not that I don’t prefer working here, if there are enough hours,’ she added.
‘I don’t know why Mercy thinks he’ll listen to me, but I suppose I’d better get back to the house,’ I said reluctantly, because it was almost teatime and if I had to meet the horrible Randal again, then I was determined to shower off the filth first.
I managed to get into the house without bumping into the Young Master, by sneaking in the side kitchen door, where I found Pye watching with huge interest as Mercy cut smoked salmon sandwiches into neat triangles.
‘Oh, there you are, Tabby! I’m just about to take tea through, so do join us in the drawing room when you’ve tidied up.’
‘I think I need more than a tidy up – I’d better have a quick shower. I’ll only be half an hour,’ I promised. ‘I’ll make myself some coffee when I get down and bring it through.’
‘We’ll save you some sandwiches, scone and cake,’ she promised, and then I heard a heavy male tread approaching that was definitely not Job, who flitted about like a shade, so I fled.
I felt better once I was clean, though, with my hair loose and brushed, a bit of make-up and clean clothes. There was no sign of Pye in the kitchen when I made my mug of coffee, but I filled his food bowl for the moment when he realised no one wanted to share the smoked salmon with him.
The others had already eaten their fill, going by the crumb-littered tea plates and empty cups, and I was only just in time to glimpse the back of Silas’s stooped figure as he tottered back to his rooms. Randal was standing in front of the lit fake logs in much the same pose I’d envisaged for him earlier. He looked up at me sombrely from under his strongly marked brows, but said nothing.
Pye was sitting bolt upright, staring very hard at the remaining two smoked salmon sandwiches, as if he could magic them off the plate and into his mouth.
‘Ah, Tabby! Let me give you something to eat,’ Mercy offered, but I said I wasn’t very hungry.
‘I’ll save up for dinner,’ I said. ‘It was late when I ate the lovely lunch you sent down.’
‘Well, if you’re sure, then bring your coffee and we’ll go through into the library to look at the plans again,’ she suggested and, with looks of mutual antipathy, Randal and I fell in behind her.
It appeared that Randal, however reluctantly, had already given in to Mercy’s amendments, but with the proviso that if the cracker factory hadn’t gone into profit by Christmas, they’d think again about closing it.
‘I’m sure it will, providing we can start to produce some of the new lines of crackers quickly enough,’ Mercy told him. ‘And Tabby says that the cracker factory and the museum will be the focal point that will draw the visitors in.’
‘Does she, indeed?’ he said in that water-running-over-gravel voice.
‘It’s a unique attraction and the history of the development of cracker making and the Quaker connection will fascinate the visitors,’ I said defensively. I hoped I was right.
‘So clever of dear Tabby to think of it! Silas agrees with me and has promised to help with the museum. In fact, he’s already well advanced in planning out the information display boards.’
‘Silas is not a businessman,’ Randal said disagreeably.
‘He doesn’t need to be. Instead, like Tabby, he has his own useful talents.’
‘Yeah, right,’ he said with another darkling look at me.
‘We’re all born with talents,’ I said. ‘Yours seems to lie in prejudging people.’
‘I think we know where yours lie,’ he replied.
Luckily Mercy was studying the plans again and this exchange had gone over her head.
‘So, Randal, we’re agreed in principle, aren’t we? And I’m sure we’ll get planning permission, so I’ll make a start on some of the changes to the mill interior as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘The development of the café, and the workshops and gallery in the outbuildings will be your particular concern, though one studio will be earmarked for Tabby. I want her to have her pick. Did I say she was a very talented artist?’
‘I already knew it. In fact, I went to her first exhibition in a gallery in Liverpool last year.’
‘What a coincidence!’ Mercy said, beaming.
‘Not really: it was so his friend could sneakily meet me to wangle his way into the firm where I worked and expose the champagne scam.’
‘I was there with Charlie Clancy,’ Randal explained to his aunt. ‘But you know Charlie – he goes after the truth like a fox after a rabbit and, after all, you can only expose fraud and deception where it exists.’
Mercy looked in a troubled way from one to the other of us. ‘Oh dear – perhaps that was not the best start to what I hope will be a good working relationship. But you know very well, Randal, that everyone who works at Marwoods makes a fresh start and is judged on what they do, not what they once did.’
‘Or didn’t do,’ I amended.
Randal didn’t say anything to this, but gloomily shook my hand when Mercy insisted on it. If you’ve ever put your hand in a mangle, you’ll have some idea what that felt like, but I was only glad she hadn’t suggested we kiss and make up.
‘There, all friends together,’ she said happily. ‘Now, Randal, we’ll have to arrange a meeting with the accountants when you have more time. Since you’ll be investing your own money in the company, you must have shares and a say in things. It will be a joint venture – and how happy your uncle would be to know you were joining the family business.’
‘Or what’s left of it,’ he said.
‘I know it wandered off course when I took my hand off the tiller,’ Mercy said ruefully, ‘but now I’m back, all that will change.’
She turned to me. ‘Randal has had quite enough of gallivanting about the world for his work and is ready to settle down here at Mote Farm.’ She patted his arm affectionately. ‘He’s
got so thin since he was ill that I’ll be glad to have him under my roof where I can feed him up again with good home cooking.’
‘That shouldn’t take long: I’m sure I’ve put on pounds already,’ I said.
‘He has to fulfil his obligations by completing this current series—’
‘Two, really, but I’m investigating some of them back to back on the same trips,’ he said. ‘As well as the usual Hellish Holidays episodes, I’m gathering material for a one-off Gap Year Hells special. I’m off to South America next.’
‘As soon as those are finished, Randal, I hope you’ll resign and move down here permanently. We’ll certainly need your input, if we’re to have everything finished and open before Christmas.’
‘I’ll have to keep my flat on for a while after I’ve resigned to give me a London base, because – well, I’m engaged, and my fiancée lives in London,’ he said, abruptly breaking the welcome news to her.
Mercy clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, how wonderful! When you said you had something to tell me, I did hope it might be that. Who is she?’
‘I’ll go and leave you both together,’ I suggested tactfully, turning for the door.
But Mercy said quickly, ‘Oh, no, do stay, Tabby, because you’re quite one of the family now.’
Randal looked as if he was about to put her right about this notion, then thought better of it.
‘Do tell us who she is.’
‘She’s called Lacey Bucknall. Her family have a chain of shops selling … fancy goods,’ he added, and I wondered at the slight pause. ‘Fancy goods’ could be almost anything.
‘Bucknall?’ she mused. ‘I don’t think I know the family.’
‘Lacey runs her own mail-order business … party supplies.’
Again that almost imperceptible pause. I was starting to feel curious.
‘How enterprising of her! Will she carry on with it, once you’re married?’
‘We haven’t worked that one out yet,’ Randal said, looking a bit tight-lipped again, though this time presumably with the absent fiancée, rather than me.
‘I’m sure we could find her enough space in one of the outbuildings, if she wanted to relocate it up here?’ Mercy suggested.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said. ‘But there’s time enough to talk about that when she’s seen her future home and met my family.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Mercy told him. ‘Do tell her how much I’m looking forward to meeting her.’
‘I’ll bring her as soon as I get back from my next trip,’ he promised.
When we went back into the drawing room, the last two sandwiches had magically disappeared, and so had Pye.
Dinner was not the liveliest of meals, though Mercy, as always, chattered away enough for all of us. Since I seemed to rub Randal up the wrong way, I tried to keep quiet and efface myself as much as possible but I think Silas’s rheumatism must have been playing him up again, because he was very morose.
Afterwards, Randal had arranged to meet his friend Jude Martland up at the Auld Christmas and Silas took himself off, so Mercy and I had a quiet evening watching Pye chase ghosts around the room.
It was the first night there that I hadn’t gone out like a light once my head hit the pillow, for Randal had not only stirred up memories I was attempting to forget, but his evident belief in my dishonesty was patent.
I woke from a nightmare later in which he and his friend were trying to bodily force me into a kind of large birdcage, and if Pye hadn’t been comfortingly curled up next to me I might not have slept again that night.
I’d hoped to escape to the mill before Randal came down next morning, but I found him eating breakfast with Mercy, since he wanted to set off early for London.
It quite put me off my bacon and eggs, which I had to eat because Mercy cooked them specially. I think she’d already begun trying to fatten up Randal, as well as me.
Pye ignored me – he was staring fixedly at Randal, which seemed to disconcert him.
‘Mercy, I thought your last cat was weird, but it’s got nothing on this one,’ he said uneasily. ‘Why is he staring at me like that?’
‘He’s not mine, dear, he’s Tabby’s.’
‘That explains it,’ he said. ‘It’s the witch’s cat.’
‘He wants your bacon rind,’ I said.
‘Mrrow,’ agreed Pye.
Randal managed to get me alone for a moment before he left, in order to warn me not to try anything in his absence.
Then, before I had a chance to angrily rebut this idea, he added, ‘Jude told me you and his brother had met up and had such a good time you nearly missed your seven o’clock curfew. Maybe you should concentrate on your work and paying Mercy back for her kindness, rather than getting yourself rearrested and upsetting her.’
‘I was not out with Guy Martland—’ I began furiously, but he ignored me.
‘On second thoughts, get rearrested. At least then you’ll be out of our hair for good.’
He turned on his heel and left, leaving me fuming and wishing I’d had the chance to say exactly what I thought of him.
I thought I’d found Paradise in Godsend, and instead a very wormy apple had just fallen on me.
Chapter 21: Well Spiced
Randal
I rang Charlie’s mobile when I got back to London, though when he answered there was so much background noise that I thought he might be in a zoo. Maybe the gorillas were passing off fake bananas as the real thing?
‘Charlie, can you hear me? What’s all that racket? Where are you?’
‘I’m in The Spice of Life restaurant in Bradford. I was in the area following a lead and I couldn’t resist the chance of having a really good curry. It’s packed out in here. I was lucky to get a table.’
I felt envious. I loved spicy food and I was fed up with eating bland meals since my illness. Maybe it was time to slowly reintroduce a bit of variety?
‘Did you want me for anything in particular?’ he asked, crunching what sounded like a poppadom in my ear. ‘I thought you were in Godsend.’
‘I was, I got back earlier. And you’ll never guess who Mercy’s new PA is – and who persuaded her to change all my plans for the mill.’
‘No, I won’t,’ he agreed. ‘Just tell me.’
‘Tabitha Coombs. Quite a coincidence, when we were only talking about her the other day.’
He whistled. ‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books. Does Mercy know she was in prison?’
‘She not only knows, she visited her there, in order to offer her the job,’ I said bitterly. ‘Now the woman’s living in the house like one of the family and she and Mercy are thick as thieves.’
‘Now I come to think of it, all Mercy’s employees are ex-cons, aren’t they?’ he said reasonably. ‘So I don’t know why you’re getting het up about this one.’
‘But they’re all elderly and they’ve been around for years. They’re not living in the house, either, getting their feet under the table.’
‘Anyone can get their feet under Mercy’s table,’ he pointed out fairly. ‘All you have to do is turn up at her door looking hungry. But she’s no fool, Randal, so I wouldn’t worry about her.’
‘I’m not, now I’ve warned Tabitha Coombs that I’ve got my eye on her! If she puts a foot out of line, she’ll be back behind bars.’
‘Why do I get the feeling you didn’t take to her very much?’ he said, sounding amused. ‘And maybe she just wants a fresh start and will turn out to be as much of a success as Mercy’s other old lags.’
‘I don’t think so. In fact, I think she’s just using her. But you can be sure that as soon as I move in, Tabitha Coombs will be packing her bags and leaving. And she can take her familiar with her,’ I added, remembering the cat’s unexpected assault.
‘Familiar what?’ Charlie asked. ‘Oh – never mind, here comes my lamb rogan josh, so I’ll catch up with you later.’
He rang off, but I swear I could smell that curry all the way from Br
adford.
Chapter 22: Thin Air
Q:What athlete is warmest in winter?
A:A long jumper!
As soon as Randal had taken his odious self off, I went down to the mill and threw myself back into my cleaning and clearing with renewed vigour, determined that by the time he returned, the museum would at least be taking shape. Pye came with me, a certain swagger in his step, as if he’d slain a giant. He might have done, too – a giant ego.
And speaking of giant egos, when I finally remembered to walk down to the road and check for messages on my mobile, there were several from Guy Martland!
After he’d brought me home from Snowehill Guy had refused to go away until I gave him my number, but I hadn’t thought he’d actually ring it …
He still wanted to see more of me and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew which bits.
That evening, Mercy rang her dear boy at his London flat to make sure he’d got home safely, though presumably someone would have informed her by now if he hadn’t, and to wish him bon voyage for his South American trip.
She’d left the library door wide open, so I heard her end of the conversation. I was obviously still preying on Randal’s mind, because I heard her say firmly, ‘Don’t be silly, Randal! You’ve quite misjudged Tabitha, who’s the sweetest girl and so helpful. Besides, what on earth do you think she could get up to here, even if she wasn’t? Pass off cheap crackers as luxury ones, perhaps?’
The quality of Mercy is never strained.
‘I’d love to see South America, especially Peru – the Andes and Machu Picchu in particular,’ she told me wistfully when she came back. ‘I think I’ve left it a little too late in life to go to extreme altitudes, though, so Randal will just have to tell me all about it, instead. Unfortunately, he has to use an unreliable and unsatisfactory tour guide company, because of that Gap Year Hells programme he’s researching, but I expect he’ll enjoy the experience anyway.’
‘I don’t know that exposing student gap year dangers on TV is such a great idea,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I mean, they’re going to choose all the dodgy cut-price options and put themselves in danger anyway, aren’t they? So the programme will just terrify their poor parents even more.’
A Christmas Cracker Page 14
