The morning was a crisp one. Olive was glad she wasn’t planning on a dip today because she didn’t fancy getting chilled to the bone. All was silent, other than the comforting roar of the waves and the wind carrying the early calls of the seagulls. Westbrook Bay was blissful when she was the first to arrive in the morning. Not a soul about to distract her from her thoughts and just the sweet harmony of the sea chorusing in her direction.
The walk along to the beach hut was getting harder, although Olive didn’t like to admit to the fact. And it wasn’t because her fitness levels were rubbish. It was simply because she was getting older. Joints that once had a full range were now creaking in a way they never had. Aches that once never bothered her were beginning to take their toll. More than once, a mobility scooter had been mentioned to her now that the once ten-minute walk was taking her nearer to twenty. But there was something so defining about having one. She didn’t want to need one, even if she was at the point where she was making life more difficult by not having one. For now, she was going to battle on. Anyway, the view was such a pretty one, why would she want to let it rush by by being in such a hurry?
When she did eventually get to her beach hut, she enjoyed the view some more as she waited to get her breath back. She wanted to believe it was the wind taking her breath away and not the exertion. But she wasn’t daft. She was no spring chicken.
Admiring the view, Olive was surprised to see the beach café boarded up. When had that happened? She passed it often enough to have noticed. And she’d not heard anything about it closing. Maybe they were having some work done? Olive would have to tap into the beach-hut community knowledge to see if any of them knew anything about it.
It was while she was mourning the loss of readily available fish and chips and ice cream that she noticed. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Back when the Gin Shack had opened, Tony had brought a wooden sign for her beach hut that said: “The Original Gin Shack.” It was a small thank-you gift for coming up with the idea in the first place and allowing him to run with it becoming an actual business. But on her small wooden thank-you gift there were three brown streamers. No bottom. No change to the name. Just three short pieces of streamer identical to the ones used to deface the Gin Shack sign.
Olive went in for a closer inspection, peering at it as if she were some kind of detective wanting to know the exact way they were attached, as if knowing might serve her well in finding out who was responsible.
It was likely a practical joke. There was no finesse or effort, unlike the craft-fiti attack that had been attached to the Gin Shack. It lacked any skill. They were just torn pieces of tissue paper attached with sticky tape.
One of the Gin Shack crew who’d been at the meeting had probably pocketed a piece off the floor ready to relive the laughter of that day. But would they really add it to Olive’s sign thinking she would see the funny side of it? Surely they realised she’d not regarded it in the lighthearted way they all had. Olive liked to think none of her friends would do such a thing. But if they weren’t as concerned about the attack as she had been, they would mean this as a flippant gesture.
Olive got her mobile phone from her pocket. She was far savvier with one of these things now she’d had expert tutorials from Veronica. Those were the kinds of things Olive would like to see on the Oakley West activities programme: how to use Shazam, not advanced crochet. Anyway, she was lucky enough to have personal tuition from Veronica, so taking a picture of the offending item was pretty easy. As was going into Messenger and sending it to the group chat they had open for all things Gin Shack-related.
Any of you know anything about this?
Olive liked to think that, even if one of them was pranking her, they’d own up about it, and if it was one of the menfolk having a laugh, she was certain there would be poo-related jokes to give them away before long.
Leaving the streamers in place for now, Olive got back to the mission in hand. She wanted to set up about three or four kilner jars with different quantities of mincemeat and gin to see what worked best, if at all. For this first test, she reckoned twenty-four hours was a good length of time for the soaking process to occur. She would be able to check on the taste regularly if that wasn’t long enough.
Pushing the door to get in and make a start, there was a thud, with the door jarring and stopping Olive from being able to get in. Yanking it the other way, as this one was a two-way door, she found it jammed. It wasn’t shifting, however she wiggled it.
Just what she needed. One of the deckchairs must have slid down and was now pushing up against the door.
Fortunately the door was open wide enough for her to sneak her hand round and unlock the second door, which was secured by an internal bolt. That should swing open with ease.
But rather than swinging open, it didn’t want to move either.
Not wanting to admit defeat, Olive pulled with a bit more force. Hopefully the deckchair would give up the fight before she did. If this didn’t work, she’d have to find a stick or similar to try and push whatever had got caught up out of the way.
When pulling with all her might (and she’d have to concede to its being less than that of the average person) didn’t work, she went in search of a stick and found a generous one, possibly used by Button – the chocolate Labrador owned by Mark and Lily that they all considered theirs.
‘Aaaaaaaaiiitttttccccccccchhhhhhhhhhooooooooooo.’
The sound of someone sneezing was so distinct, Olive froze to the spot. It wasn’t a chair she was about to poke with a stick, it was a person.
A nasty dose of adrenaline had entered Olive’s bloodstream and all of a sudden she was alert to everything, with no idea what to do. Should she run? Chance would be a fine thing. They clearly knew she was out here. Surely if they were planning to attack her they would have done it already, and if they were lying in wait, stopping someone from opening the door was a pretty poor way to pounce. It just left one question… who was in there?
‘Hello?’ Olive should probably call the police or get Richard to come down and check it out with her, but there seemed to be no threat of danger. ‘Are you going to open the doors and let me in my beach hut?’
‘One moment, please,’ a croaky voice said from inside.
Well, at least the intruder sounded like they might be polite at the very least.
Although, for all Olive knew, they might be loading up a machine gun on the other side of the door. Perhaps she should take cover by the industrial bins up by the café until the person had emerged. At least that way she could grab some glass bottles and lob them as some kind of deterrent.
Just as she was beginning to discover movement in her legs, her phone buzzed. In her panic she’d missed several notifications about the additional poo streamers she’d found attached to her sign. She’d practically forgotten about that now, what with their being a beach-hut interloper.
We’re coming down to take a look
The message was from Veronica and Olive knew the “we” meant she was bringing Randy with her. Bloomin’ heck, she’d never been so glad to know the cavalry was coming, even if they didn’t know what they were walking into. She didn’t even know to be fair.
Hearing grumbling from inside the beach hut, Olive backed further away towards the slope where she hoped Randy and Veronica would appear. Sure enough, they were sauntering down, arm in arm, their current concerns about Olive’s beach hut only stretching to offensive pieces of brown paper. Little did they know what Olive had in store for them.
‘There’s someone in there,’ Olive hissed as she rushed to meet them.
‘You mean you’ve caught the bugger?’ Randy said, his thick, bushy eyebrows twitching in delight.
‘I don’t think I’ve caught anyone. I just couldn’t open the doors and it turns out it’s because someone’s in there.’ Olive peered back towards the hut to see if there were any signs of them coming out. If they wanted to make a run for it, now would be the time to do so. ‘So far I’ve said hello
and they asked me to wait a moment, please.’
‘Have you called the police?’ Veronica asked, glancing in the same direction as Olive, as if something quite spectacular might happen when the person emerged.
‘Well, no, they seemed rather too polite to worry about calling the police.’ Olive might think differently if they were to get in there and find that whoever it was had been raiding her gin stash. No one was allowed to touch that without permission.
‘How do you know there’s just one person in there? We might be outnumbered already.’ Randy was pushing up his sleeves like they were about to take on a gang of yobs about to launch into some pillaging attack, as if having his sleeves up would somehow make a difference. If that really was the case, this trio of octogenarians weren’t going to be able to throw better punches as a result. Olive had used all her arm energy up on giving Tony CPR. That might have been the only dose she had left.
‘Why don’t we just go and knock? If they were talking to Olive, they should be reasonable about getting out and buzzing off.’ Veronica, always the cool head among them, started heading to the beach hut without a stick or raised knuckles for protection.
‘But they said wait a moment. That must have been ten minutes ago.’ Olive wasn’t really sure how long it had been. All she knew was it felt like an unreasonable amount of time to be prevented from entering the beach hut she rented. She hired it for her pleasure, not for others to come and nick. She’d had enough of people wanting to take over during the summer. She wasn’t going to let that happen again.
At the thought of the occupiers becoming a problem, Olive found her brave face and went in pursuit of Veronica. She was sure that, between them, they would be scary enough to evict the person, but as they drew closer she wasn’t so sure.
‘Come on out,’ Veronica said with far more force than Olive had managed. In fact, she’d never even thought to tell them to do the obvious.
‘Yeah, shift your butt,’ Olive shouted. The time for politeness had ended. And Olive felt a bit braver with other people there.
The thought of butts reminded her of those brown streamers. They’d have to work out who had left them after they’d turfed out the trespassers. Although there was every possibility the two perpetrators might be the same person.
Not for the first time, Olive wondered whether calling the police might be the thing to do.
‘You should leave butts out of it,’ Randy said, catching up. ‘They’ve caused us enough trouble of late.’
‘What do we do next?’ Olive wasn’t sure, because, despite using her most threatening voice, it didn’t sound like there was anyone moving in the hut.
‘Let’s try the door again. If they won’t let you in we should probably get help.’
It was Veronica in front and when she pushed the door it opened with ease. ‘Who’s there?’
Olive pulled the other door that opened out onto the little balcony and it also swung open without a problem. ‘What the…?’
It was so different to what had happened only minutes before, Olive wondered whether she’d been trying to get into the wrong hut. The Salter boys’ hut was full of equipment and was often wedged to the rafters. Perhaps she’d been attempting the doors to their hut. It was the same duck-egg blue as hers, after all. But was she really destined to go as daft as a bat that quickly?
There was an entire hut to pass in a different colour before reaching the Salter boys’ place. There was no way she could have. And what about the voice? Someone had very politely replied and asked her to wait a minute, please.
But here they were… staring into Olive’s hut without a deckchair out of place. There was nothing in the way that could have butted against the door and made it unopenable.
Ignoring that fact, Olive went into the hut, exploring each corner like a dotty old soul who would never find the thing she had lost. It reminded her of the time they’d lost Randy, and she knew because of that it was sensible to leave no stone unturned. But unlike being unable to locate someone in a large residential quarters, losing someone from a wooden hut with no other exits seemed very Jonathan Creek and she didn’t know what to make of it.
‘Are you sure there was someone in here?’ Veronica asked cautiously, afraid, a bit like Olive, that the thing she was searching for was her marbles.
‘There definitely was.’ There was. She definitely had not been to the Salter boys’ hut by accident. She was certain.
‘Maybe just a prank then? Something to do with those poo streamers?’ Randy peered at them suspiciously as he flicked one.
Olive supposed it was possible. They could have blocked the door with ice and now it had all melted. There must be some logical explanation as to why she’d not been able to get in and heard a voice, when now there wasn’t a trace of any of these things.
‘One second.’ Olive wasn’t even sure why the thought had struck her, but there was one other thing that had happened which had led to the same sense of confusion. The towels.
Yanking open the drawer, this time there was no question. The towels were folded, and not particularly neatly. After her conversation with Tony, she’d made sure to put the towels back as she always did – rolled. And now, once again, they’d been interfered with.
‘Someone has definitely been in here. The only question is who?’
There was also the question of why, and what were they doing with her towels? But Olive had said “only question” so she wasn’t going to add to the drama by introducing additional ones. Also, it would make her seem a bit potty. And she needed to prove to herself as much as anyone else that she wasn’t losing the plot entirely.
Because she wasn’t.
Right?
Chapter Nine
The problem with talking to oneself, Olive found, was that there was no one to answer. It was very hard to reason, with only one brain around to provide an opinion. And as it was Olive’s brain in question, that made it harder still.
‘But where could they possibly have gone?’ Olive was busy dishing out tablespoons of mincemeat and measures of gin, making notes on each kilner jar so she knew what potion was in each. It was very easy to get distracted from the task, though, when she kept checking corners for hidden escape routes, and whenever she heard a creak she was inclined to jump. It was an unsettling feeling, like she’d been burgled, and she felt the violation of her own space in her every move.
To make matters worse, nobody knew who was responsible for the addition of the brown streamers. It wasn’t a prank by one of Olive’s friends as she’d almost been hoping. Because if it wasn’t one of them, it gave her that same feeling of unease the original piece of craft-fiti had. The only saving grace (if it could even be called that) was that it didn’t seem premeditated in the same way as the attack on the Gin Shack. There wasn’t the same level of planning and, donning her criminal-psychologist hat, Olive reckoned there was a chance it was a copycat incident.
‘But only the people at the meeting know about that sign. How can anyone outside of us copycat a crime they don’t know anything about?’ Olive was talking to herself again with no real chance of answers that made any sense. ‘Or whoever did the other one did this in a rush. They saw the beach hut was associated with the Gin Shack and decided to send a message.’
Although it wasn’t a very clear message if it was one, and what grudge would anyone have against the Gin Shack to make them behave in that way? The business hadn’t been open long enough to create any enemies, or at least ones Olive knew of. Perhaps it was the old owners, upset that their failed business had been turned into a success by someone else? It was the only thing she could think of, but, reflecting on it, she remembered the old owners had moved elsewhere, so the business hadn’t folded just because it was flagging. There’d been a purpose behind their selling up.
With three kilner jars filled with differing amounts of her Christmas concoction, Olive decided it was time to head to Tony and Esme’s house for her visit with him. She needed to find another human
being to talk to who might help her reason her thoughts.
It was a whole twenty-four hours since they’d thought someone was in the beach hut. They’d headed back to the Gin Shack yesterday to see if anyone knew anything more about why there were brown streamers attached to the sign. Olive had requested that Randy and Veronica make no mention of the supposed intruder. With Richard now in charge of the bar, he would soon hear about it and, as he was a worrywart by nature, she didn’t want him to become concerned. He’d always worried about his elderly mother having free access to the beach hut and was often concerned she’d somehow meet her end while down at the beach. Olive couldn’t think of a better place to be if the worst was to happen, but she didn’t say that to Richard. In some ways, when people got to Olive’s age, it was okay to admit to not being a Duracell bunny, no longer destined to go on for ever. If she was going to die at any point soon, she wanted to do it in glorious style, not cooped up in a room to keep her safe.
Olive was getting breathless and she realised her thoughts were far too maudlin for someone potentially at the point of gasping her last. When did hills get so troublesome? She stopped to catch her breath. It wasn’t even a hill, more of an incline. Tony and Esme’s house wasn’t so very far away from the beach. Two roads away was all, and about the same distance as her old house. Only six months ago, she would have managed that kind of distance with relative ease. Perhaps it wouldn’t do her any harm to have an MOT check with her doctor. It was all too easy to put every ache and pain down to age, when in fact they might be things that could be helped. However much she didn’t want to go on for ever, she wanted to remain healthy for as long as possible. And seeing as she’d already had a mini stroke, which had led to her moving into Oakley West in the first place, it seemed wise to continue getting things checked if ever she was worried.
Her breathing having settled, Olive continued towards Tony’s gorgeous detached property. One of the newer ones along the avenue.
Christmas at the Gin Shack Page 6
