Springtime at the Cider Kitchen

by Fay Keenan

  ‘Jonathan, get out of here before he hurts you,’ Caroline said. She froze as the sharp point of a steel blade nudged the small of her back. Stone pulled her closer and her terror of the man took on a whole new dimension. Suddenly, the cute little plan she and Jonathan had worked out seemed ridiculously trite and silly.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Jonathan stood his ground. ‘He’s going to let go of you, walk away, and get out of our lives.’

  ‘Really?’ Stone drawled. Up close, Caroline could see his eyes glittering, and she knew immediately he’d had a line or two of cocaine before coming to meet her. That made her even more afraid.

  ‘Jonathan, please,’ she said, her voice rising a notch. ‘I’ve changed my mind. You need to go. I can handle him.’ She winced as the blade of the knife pressed more deeply into her back. ‘I’ve got what he wants. Just get out of here.’

  ‘Forgive the language, darling, but you’ve got to be fucking joking. There’s no way I’m leaving you here with this maniac.’ Jonathan advanced towards Caroline and Stone, but a shriek from Caroline as Stone jabbed the point of the knife into her made him stop again.

  ‘The money’s in my handbag at the top of the gantry, Paul,’ Caroline said quickly. ‘Take it and go.’

  Stone paused, looked down at Caroline and gave a menacing smile. ‘You’d better not be winding me up.’

  ‘I’m not. I swear.’

  ‘Make yourself useful, pretty boy,’ Stone jerked his head towards top of the steel steps where Caroline’s bag lay. ‘Go and get her bag.’

  Jonathan stared evenly at the man. ‘Put her down and get it yourself.’

  Caroline flinched as the knife point bit into her flesh. ‘He’s got a knife at my back, Jonathan. Please, do as he says.’

  Jonathan’s face registered first fear, and then anger that Caroline, feisty, flighty, difficult Caroline, the woman he loved, was standing terrified with a knife at her back.

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said softly. ‘Just don’t do anything rash. I’m going to get it now.’

  ‘I get the money, you get the girl. Some might say that’s quite poetic,’ Stone said, voice laden with irony. ‘For what she’s worth. Personally, I think I’m getting the better deal.’

  Something inside Jonathan ignited. ‘I’m warning you,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve done enough. You need to leave.’ He walked up the steps to retrieve Caroline’s bag.

  ‘Come on,’ snarled Stone, tightening his grip on Caroline. ‘Be a good boy.’

  ‘Let Caroline go.’ Jonathan’s voice echoed off the enormous black cider vats. He started walking back down the steps. ‘I’m not moving until you let her go.’

  Stone pushed Caroline in front of him onto the first step of the gantry and, with the hand that wasn’t behind her back, he reached for the bag, but Jonathan, quick as a flash, threw it back up to the top of the gantry. ‘Go and get it.’

  ‘Or what?’ Stone said, not breaking his stride towards him, dragging Caroline along with him. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough time to play her heroic saviour?’ He advanced further up the steps to the gantry, never moving his gaze from Jonathan’s. Sure-footed despite the cocaine, eyes glittering with menace, to Caroline he’d never looked more threatening. ‘She’s going to get me what I came for,’ Stone continued ‘or I’ll take it out of her hide.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Jonathan stepped towards Stone, and, heedless of the knife, pushed in front of Caroline with his own body. In that instant there was a flash of steel in the orange light of the barn and Stone’s arm thrashed wildly. Jonathan, caught off guard, was jolted out of the way but as he moved, Stone’s blade sliced across his forearm, cutting his shirt and the skin beneath. Jonathan jerked back, momentarily unbalanced.

  Stone surged forward, slashing wildly at Jonathan. His eyes narrowed dangerously in the half light, suggesting his aggression was not just the result of seeing his quarry so close. ‘I meant what I said,’ he hissed, encroaching further. ‘She’s got to pay up, one way or the other.’

  ‘Get out of here, Caroline,’ Jonathan said, pushing her away now that he’d got between her and Stone. ‘Get out of here and call the police.’

  ‘She’s going nowhere,’ Stone was almost on top of Jonathan now, but even with the knife, the cocaine was making him reckless. He surged forward again.

  Swiftly, Jonathan stepped further back up the gantry, pushed him with one hand, and tried to grab the knife with the other. Blood dripped down his wrist and splashed onto Stone’s jacket as Stone wrenched his hand away. Pushing harder, Jonathan got a grip on Stone once more, putting his weight behind him and propelling him towards the gantry rail. Stone, still buoyed up by the drugs, pushed back.

  ‘Caroline, get out of here!’ Jonathan repeated, seeing that she was still on the gantry. ‘Phone the police.’

  Scrambling away down the steps, Caroline tripped and ended up sprawled on the hard steel of the stairs. Dazed, she picked herself up, just in time to see Stone taking another swipe at Jonathan with the knife.

  ‘Paul, no!’ she screamed as the stars cleared from her vision. ‘Leave him alone. I’ll give you what you want, and more, if you stop this.’

  Stone shook his head. ‘Too late for that.’

  The momentary shift of attention from Jonathan to Caroline cost him. Jonathan grabbed him, propelling him towards the cider vat at the end of the gantry. Jonathan hadn’t grown up on a cider farm and not picked up a thing or two about how the technology worked. Quick as a flash he pulled open the large hatch in the top of the vat. Stone’s legs buckled as his centre of gravity shifted, and he fell backwards, head and torso submerging into the liquid in the huge oak cask. As the rest of his body swiftly followed, Jonathan grabbed hold of the oak hatch, preparing to slam it shut.

  ‘No, don’t!’ Caroline bounded back up the steps and grabbed Jonathan’s arm. ‘He’ll drown.’

  Jonathan turned back to her, eyes twinkling despite the exertions of the past minutes. ‘What, you think I should let him out?’

  Stone resurfaced but struggled to get a handhold on the side of the vat, his eyes streaming from the strength of the alcohol in the cider.

  Jonathan held the hatch open, but then lowered it slightly. ‘Are you quite sure you want me to let this bastard out?’

  Rummaging in her pocket, Caroline finally located her phone. ‘Let the police deal with him.’ She punched in the emergency number.

  Stone kept coughing and spluttering. ‘Let me out of here, you fucker.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Jonathan said. ‘That’s no way to speak to someone who’s holding your life in their hands.’ He bent down so that his face was closer to Stone’s. ‘It would be so easy to shut this lid and leave you in here to marinate after everything you’ve done. Blackmail’s a pretty serious crime, you know. Not to mention a fair bit of stalking.’

  ‘You don’t have the balls,’ Stone said, treading water in the thirty foot deep vat.

  ‘Try me,’ Jonathan said, and flipped the hatch shut.

  ‘Jonathan, no!’ Caroline shouted. ‘For God’s sake, you can’t just leave him in there.’

  ‘Relax,’ Jonathan replied as he headed down the gantry towards Caroline, who’d finished the call to the police. ‘There’s a ladder on the inside of the vat. Let’s hope he finds it.’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘You’re such an idiot.’ She glanced down at his wrist, which was now drenched in blood from the cut Stone had inflicted on Jonathan’s forearm. ‘You need to get that seen to.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Jonathan replied. ‘I’ll bind it up when we get home.’

  ‘We?’ Caroline took a step back.

  ‘Yes. We. You’re coming back to the cottage with me. Understood?’ Jonathan’s eyes glinted in the orange light of the barn, and although his lips were smiling, Caroline could see the resolve, the hardness, that hadn’t been there six months ago. Every single word of protest died on her lips as Jonathan captured her mouth in a kiss that drove all thoughts of fle
eing from her mind. It was only when the dull banging from inside the cider vat suddenly stopped that they broke apart.

  ‘I suppose I’d better open the hatch on that bastard,’ Jonathan said grudgingly. ‘I don’t really want to be up on a murder charge.’ Jogging up the steps, he pulled open the rectangular door again and grabbed Stone by the scruff of his sodden leather jacket.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ he said as he hauled the soaking wet drug dealer out of the vat. ‘I suggest you come quietly, or I’ll put you back in again.’ Dragging him down the steps, as he reached the bottom, the door to the barn crashed open and two police officers were silhouetted in the light from outside. In less than a second, their torch beams lit up the three figures. Jonathan handed Stone over to them and quickly explained the situation, carefully editing out any references to Caroline’s less than savoury past.

  ‘I see.’ The elder officer spoke briefly into his radio, listened carefully and got the confirmation he needed. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

  ‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ Jonathan said. ‘He’s a slippery bugger.’

  Glancing at Stone, who was dripping wet and shivering beside him, the younger officer gave a brief smile. ‘I can see that, sir.’ Nodding to Jonathan and Caroline, ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  Exhaling a breath, she didn’t know she was holding, Caroline smiled. ‘Now we can go home.’

  ‘So, you’re coming back to the cottage, then?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘For tonight,’ Caroline said cautiously. ‘And we’ll think about the rest afterwards.’

  50

  ‘Come on,’ Jonathan whispered. ‘Stop fighting it. Stop fighting me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jonathan,’ Caroline breathed. ‘I don’t know anything anymore.’ She looked down and saw the bandage that had been applied to Jonathan’s arm in Accident and Emergency less than an hour ago. The medics had stitched the wound and given him some painkillers, but reluctantly agreed he didn’t have to stay overnight if he promised to have someone with him for the duration.

  To Jonathan, the choice was obvious; Caroline hadn’t been so sure. She’d tried to insist that he stayed at Cowslip Barn with Matthew and Anna, but as Matthew had been called in to assist the police with their investigation, given that the incident occurred on his site, and Jonathan didn’t want Anna to have an extra burden on top of the children, he’d decided to go back to Orchard Cottage. He hadn’t asked Caroline to stay with him, but since she was showing a great reluctance to leave, he thought he’d chance it.

  ‘You are supposed to have someone with you until the morning,’ she said. ‘So I’ll grab the spare bed and keep the door open, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Jonathan’s voice was low, loaded with promise, although he couldn’t be sure that some of that wasn’t to do with the painkillers he’d been prescribed. ‘You can do better than that.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Stay with me.’ Slowly he took one of her hands and rested it on his chest, at the junction where his bare throat met the fabric of his once white shirt. ‘Stay.’ He repeated, pressing her hand to his flesh. ‘With.’ He raised her hand, bringing it to his lips. ‘Me.’ He kissed her fingertips.

  What little remained of Caroline’s resolve was lost. Sliding her hand back down Jonathan’s throat, she brought her other one upwards to assist in undoing his shirt buttons. ‘You can’t be expected to do these by yourself in your condition,’ she murmured as, with admirably steady hands, she began to loosen the buttons. Slowly pushing back the shirt, she revealed his chest which had a fine coating of fair hair. ‘After all, you have got a rather nasty injury there.’ Her eyes sparkled in the evening light.

  Jonathan was surprised, as he always was, by Caroline’s abrupt change of mood. He couldn’t suppress a surge of excitement as her hands slid across the now bare skin of his chest, tracing a wavy pattern that seemed to brand his flesh. Her hands were warm, steady, and assured, and Jonathan leaned into her touch.

  Caroline continued to explore, sliding her hands around Jonathan’s waist and up his back. ‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Jonathan said suddenly into the darkness. ‘Caroline, please don’t ever go anywhere again.’ He heard, and was embarrassed by, the desperation in his voice, but the time had come for honesty between them; there couldn’t be anything else.

  Caroline’s hands stopped and instinctively her arms tightened around Jonathan. She could feel his heart beating wildly against her cheek as she clung to him and for a long, long moment she couldn’t speak. Feeling suddenly light headed, she leaned against Jonathan, mind awhirl.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ she said softly. ‘Not after everything.’

  Jonathan’s arms tightened around Caroline, seemingly oblivious of the wound on his arm. ‘I do. You’ve no idea how much I mean it. I never, ever want to be without you again.’

  ‘I’m nothing but trouble,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘Every time we’re together something terrible happens. I’ve basically been on the run from a drug dealer since I’ve been here and you’re going to have a scar on your arm that’ll probably never fade. Why would you possibly want to spend any more time with me?’

  ‘For one, apart from Paul Stone’s interference, you’ve done a bloody good job getting The Cider Kitchen up and running,’ Jonathan replied. ‘For two, I don’t want to spend any more time with you; I want to spend all my time with you. For the rest of my life. For always.’ He gently prised her away from him so that he could look into her eyes. ‘Isn’t it about time you realised that and stopped running?’

  Caroline dropped her gaze, unable to bear the naked honesty in Jonathan’s eyes. ‘I don’t think you should go making any promises right now,’ she said softly. ‘You’re probably high on painkillers and you’ve certainly lost a fair amount of blood. Let’s talk about this in the morning, shall we?’ Taking his hand, she led him to the bed. ‘I’ll stay with you, but you keep those hands where I can see them.’

  ‘You really are stubborn, aren’t you?’ Jonathan grumbled, but knowing he had no choice for the moment, he acquiesced. Within moments he was out cold on the bed. Caroline, who was still wound up from the night’s events, spent a long time just looking at him. Finally, as her eyelids grew heavy and the adrenaline wore off, she curled towards him. ‘I love you,’ she murmured, feeling safe for the first time in months.

  51

  ‘A murder mystery evening on the site? Why didn’t you think of this years ago?’ Chris McIvor, head of FastStream’s distribution, said. ‘The board are loving it, as am I.’

  ‘Well, my divine sister-in-law, Anna, can take the credit for the theme,’ Jonathan said. ‘As soon as she found out about Tom Sykes’ body in the vat, she couldn’t resist putting something together.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Chris replied. ‘I guess every heritage business needs its own ghost, and Carter’s is no exception.’ He took a sip from the glass of sparkling dry cider he’d been cradling for a while. ‘Tell me, was the mystery ever solved?’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘In all probability, Sykes just got carried away testing the product and toppled in. It’s the kind of thing that, back before health and safety laws, wouldn’t have been a total surprise. But there are some accounts that suggest a row between Sykes and my great grandfather’s right hand man, Ernest Shallcross, shortly before the accident.’ Jonathan took a swig from his own glass. ‘Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you this, really. You’ll find it all out soon enough when the entertainment starts.’ Although, Jonathan pondered, in years to come, perhaps the Cider Farm Blackmailer would be added to the list of myths and legends surrounding his family’s business. The police had phoned Caroline this morning to arrange a formal interview with her in a day or two, and Stone had been charged with possession of class A drugs, blackmail and assault with intent to wound. He was out on bail, which worried Caroline, but he’d been told to stay far away from Little
Somerby, or he’d be put in custody.

  On cue, two actors dressed in Edwardian style clothes came noisily across the courtyard where the assembled clients and partygoers were enjoying a pre-dinner drink.

  ‘You’re costing this firm money, Sykes!’ The older, more smartly dressed of the two expostulated, gesturing wildly towards the barn door. ‘We can’t afford another one of your mistakes. The last one cost us a third of the crop.’

  ‘You won’t get far without me,’ the other man said. ‘You know it and Samuel Carter knows it. You can bellyache all you want, Mr Shallcross, but that’s the truth of it. And we all know about your little secret, too, don’t we?’

  ‘Don’t threaten me, Sykes,’ the first man replied ominously. ‘The firm does not live and die with you.’ He strolled off, leaving the actor playing Sykes to lurch in his wake.

  There was an anticipatory silence amongst the group in the courtyard, which Jonathan allowed to linger for a moment or two. Then he stepped forward. Cradling a champagne flute of sparkling cider, dressed in a smart, midnight blue suit with a white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, Jonathan looked as though he’d just stepped off the pages of some high end fashion magazine. However, under the jacket and the crisp white shirt was a freshly dressed wound that still throbbed slightly. But, ever the operator and with a showman’s instinctive love of a crowd, Jonathan didn’t betray any vulnerability as he waited for the crowd to settle.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he glanced around at the fifty or so party guests. ‘It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here to Carter’s Cider tonight. This evening is a thank you for all of your support over the past twelve months, and should serve as a reminder as to why you’re doing business with us in the first place.’ He smiled and the guests laughed politely. ‘Over the course of the evening, a story will unfold; a tragic tale of double crossings, excess booze and what happens when you don’t know your way around as well as you think you do!’ His eyes roved the crowd of guests for a moment until they came to rest on Caroline, who was standing with Anna and Matthew. ‘Sometimes you need to take chances,’ he said softly, ‘and sometimes you need to take risks to find out the truth.’ He seemed to struggle to find the right words as he regarded his immediate family, especially when his gaze moved to the pencil drawing in the frame on the raffle prize table nearby. ‘It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to someone else tonight; my father, Jack Carter. As you all know, he died very recently, but it is partly his vision, and partly that of my brother Matthew, that has brought us to this point. He was a man who knew everything there was to know about apples, and the business of cider making, but he was also so much more than that. And he would have loved being here tonight among you all. That’s why the portrait sitting on that table was commissioned; in time, we hope to get a proper painting done to hang in the main building as a reminder of just what a man we lost this year. But, this is also a time for celebration.’ His thoughtful expression changed and his mouth turned upwards into a breath taking grin. ‘This evening would not have been possible without the tireless work of two very important women. My brother’s lovely wife, Anna, whose hard work in researching the family history revealed a great deal of the story of the Carter family’s ghost, and Caroline Hemingway, whose restaurant has provided some truly excellent food for this evening. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open, and you might be able to solve a mystery that has haunted this site for nearly one hundred years, and have a wonderful night’s food and drink at the same time.’