Caroline’s two ticks developed into twenty minutes, the slap now having to be applied for a visit to the allotments. And care had evidently been taken to wear just the right low-slung hipster jeans to accentuate her figure, and the tightest of tops to do the same to her cleavage.
‘We’re going over to the allotments, not to a fashion show,’ he said in exasperation as she finally joined him.
‘A girl should always look her best, whatever the circumstances,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘That’s what my grandmama used to say anyway.’
‘That’ll explain why you never get your hands dirty,’ muttered Ben as he followed her down the path. Caroline was getting to be a serious pain in the proverbial, and he didn’t have a clue how he was going to get rid of her.
Saffron snuggled up to Pete. It was lovely to have him home, and the homecoming had been celebrated in exactly the right fashion. They had fallen on each other in the manner of famine-starved people. She had had no need for any sexy accoutrements at all. It had felt great to have her libido back – she hoped it wasn’t going to be temporary. Maybe the pole-dancing lessons were having some effect. Linda had laughingly told her she was getting the hang of it the last time she’d been. Mind you, with the school holidays and Pete having been away, she’d not been for a couple of weeks. She cuddled up to Pete again. If things carried on like this, maybe she wouldn’t need to go any more.
There had been no further intrusions either, and Pete had also been of the opinion it was kids mucking around.
‘I’ll put an extra padlock on just to be on the safe side,’ he said. ‘But it was probably a one-off. I shouldn’t think we’ll see anything more of them.’
Saffron put the puzzling incident from her mind, and instead was concentrating on her detective search. Linda hadn’t turned anything up yet, and Pete was convinced she was being paranoid, until she triumphantly discovered that Mrs Webster had received a couple of phone calls from an unknown woman, claiming to be Saffron’s assistant, who’d rung to cancel Saffron’s visit. On both occasions Saffron had turned up later that day, so Mrs Webster thought the woman must have made a mistake.
‘But now you mention it, dear,’ she said, ‘it does seem a bit odd.’
‘Doesn’t it just,’ Saffron replied grimly. A woman ruled out Gerry then. But it didn’t rule out his bit of stuff. She determined that she would confront Gerry about it next time she saw him.
Confronting Gerry, however, turned out not to be that easy. He had returned from his business trip and taken the kids out just once since, pitching up on her doorstep looking very dishevelled and taking them to Pizza Hut for the afternoon before returning them home an hour earlier than stated. Both children had made noises about Daddy smelling funny and not wanting to see him again, which had led to Saffron not following up a suggested time for their next visit with somewhat less guilt than she would have had normally. Mind you, when she had tried to ring, she only got his answer-phone, and his mobile seemed permanently switched off. It was all quite puzzling. However crap Gerry was generally, he usually managed to see the children once a fortnight.
‘Time I was up,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the kids sorted, and then I fancy doing a bit on the allotments. Are you up for a spot of babysitting?’
Pete gave her a lascivious look. ‘I’m up for something,’ he said, ‘but not necessarily that …’
‘Give over,’ said Saffron. ‘We have four children in the house, three of whom are probably about to knock our door down.’
As if on cue, Becky, Matt and Josh piled in demanding breakfast and TV simultaneously.
‘Okay, you win,’ said Pete. ‘If I can grab a bit more shuteye, I’ll let you have your moment of freedom.’
Saffron grinned as she got up and started to get dressed. Pete was a star.
‘Caroline, what a nice surprise.’ Amy was disgusted with herself for her insincerity, but she didn’t want Ben to think she was being ungracious.
‘I hope you don’t mind me pitching in,’ said Caroline, ‘but I thought I could help, and I wanted to see how my allotment was.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Amy, thinking it was anything but. ‘Here, have a fork. We’re digging over that patch there. It would be enormously helpful if you could fork the earth through, and pick out any weeds.’
Amy was pleased to see Caroline looking disgusted. From what Saffron had said, she was of the Diarmuid Gavin, ‘Let’s Design a Fancy but Impractical Green Space’ School of Gardening. Getting your hands dirty didn’t figure very highly at all.
For a while they worked companionably. Ben dug furrows – Amy would have liked to, but she knew she could only work at half the speed that Ben did, so it seemed a bit more practical to do it this way – while Amy filled them with compost. To begin with, Caroline – who was clearly trying to impress Ben – seemed to fork through with enthusiasm. But after about ten minutes, she slowed right down. A further ten minutes elapsed and she had to stop altogether to attend to a broken nail. And after that she became preoccupied by a series of text messages, which evidently required an instant response.
Amy raised her eyebrows at Ben, who was resolutely digging away and ignoring Caroline’s antics. He gave her a rueful smile and an apologetic shrug. When Caroline announced she was going to pop in on Harry – ‘It will be so lovely to see him again,’ she trilled – ‘The pleasure will be all yours,’ muttered Amy – Amy and Ben drew a collective sigh of relief.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Ben, putting his spade down and wiping his brow. ‘I thought she’d never go. I’m sorry for bringing her, but she insisted.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Amy, thrilled that Ben had found Caroline’s presence as irksome as she did. ‘Does she always do so little work?’
Ben laughed. ‘Yup. She had me digging this allotment over more times than I can count, and she just used to stand watching me, directing operations. And, muggins that I was, it took me a long time to realise I was being rooked.’
‘Oh dear – you could say the same about me.’ Amy looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun, which was burning quite hot now.
‘Oh, I’d never think that.’ Ben leaned forward and tucked a stray curl behind Amy’s ear.
Her heart lurched, and she felt a sudden sensation of the world shifting on its axis. He thought more of her than of Caroline. Caroline was no threat to her. She was the threat to Caroline.
‘You’ve got mud on your face,’ she said. ‘Here, let me clean it for you.’
She moved closer to him, and wiped the dirt off his brow. For a second they stood, staring at each other. It was as if there was no one there apart from them.
Gently, Ben brushed his lips against hers, and she found herself responding with an instant passion. The kiss went on and on, dizzyingly intoxicating. The sun shone down on them and Amy was vaguely aware of birdsong in the background. She wanted to bottle up the moment and keep it forever.
Eventually they pulled apart, laughing.
‘Erm, sorry,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t know where that came from.’
‘I’m not sorry,’ said Amy.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Amy insisted, kissing him again to prove it.
‘What about Josh?’
‘Ever since you diagnosed a broken arm, you can do no wrong,’ said Amy, enjoying the sensation of being held as she happily laid her head against Ben’s chest. It had been so long. ‘I think if I explain things to Josh, he’ll be fine.’ If only such moments could last. If only she could keep them safe. And never ever lose them.
They pulled apart again.
‘This won’t get your seedbeds dug,’ said Ben.
‘No, it won’t.’
‘Right, to work then,’ Ben suggested.
‘To work,’ Amy agreed.
But still they stood there, unwilling to leave the moment. This precious moment when finally their feelings for each other had been laid bare. They held each other’s gaze for what seemed like an eternit
y.
‘Come on then,’ said Ben eventually, reluctantly turning away. And started to dig. Amy went back to filling holes, strangely disappointed and achingly aware of the closeness of Ben to her, of his muscular body, and of how much she wanted him.
Saffron had left Pete with the kids for a while as she went out to check on her allotment. As she approached her allotment, she noticed with dismay that the fledgling broccoli plants she had put out the previous week had been squashed flat, and something had marched right across the seedbed where she had recently planted carrots and parsnips.
‘Bloody foxes,’ she muttered, peering at the soil to make sure that the seeds hadn’t been disturbed, and trying but failing to prop up the broccoli. She went into her shed to get out a rake and spade, so she could get on with preparing a bed for her lettuces. The door wasn’t properly shut.
‘I must make sure Pete doesn’t forget that padlock,’ she muttered to herself. Then, ‘Bloody hell!’
Saffron opened the door to a scene of utter carnage. Her tools were scattered everywhere and someone had piled up several hessian sacks in the corner, as though for a pillow. There were more chip papers and a pizza box in evidence, several empty cans of beer and a couple of empty bottles of wine.
It appeared that someone was camping out in Saffron’s shed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Harry, Harry!’ Saffron burst into Harry’s hut, where he was politely listening to Caroline’s woes about DBtB and Ben’s lack of interest in her.
‘Are you all right, my dear?’ he asked, looking delighted to see her. It was unlike Saffron to be so flustered. ‘Not really. My intruder’s back, and it looks like the cheeky bugger’s been camping out in my shed. Do you know if anyone else has noticed anything strange?’
‘I’ve been asking around, since you told me about the last break-in,’ said Harry. ‘But no, there’s been nothing. Have you rung the police?’
Saffron pulled a face. ‘It’s not important enough to warrant a police officer actually coming out here, apparently. They said it was probably a tramp.’
‘Well, I suppose it could be …’ Harry looked doubtful.
‘Exactly, that’s what I thought,’ said Saffron. ‘It’s not as if Nevermorewell has a reputation for being cardboard city.’
‘Then, if not a tramp, who?’
‘The only other person I could think of was Scary Slug Man. He is a bit odd,’ said Saffron.
‘Oh, surely not,’ Harry replied. ‘Even if he were camping out on the allotments, he’d probably do it on his own, there’s enough ground cover there, and he’s got enough wood on it to build himself a perfectly decent shelter.’
As Scary Slug Man’s allotment was overgrown with bushes and brambles, homemade compost heaps and a series of half-built sheds, it was a valid point.
‘You’re probably right,’ said Saffron. ‘But it’s beginning to freak me out a little. First my intruder, now this. And I still haven’t got to the bottom of why Amy and I are losing so much business. It feels as though someone has it in for me.’
‘Ooh, I do love a good mystery,’ said Caroline gleefully.
‘Er, hello, Caroline, how’s things?’ said Saffron, who hadn’t noticed her before. Saffron hadn’t got round to calling on Caroline yet. When she’d heard her business partner was back in town she had shuddered. She didn’t want to work with Caroline again, not one bit. Amy had shown just what a mug she had been before. Luckily their business arrangement had been fairly loose, so there weren’t many ends to tie up. ‘Well, you might not find it so entertaining if it happened to you.’
‘Can I do anything to help?’ Harry offered, trying to cut the tension between the two women.
‘No thanks, Harry. Whoever it was has just left a big mess, so I’ll bin it and put a padlock on the shed to make sure they don’t come back.’
‘I’ll put the word out that everyone needs to be more vigilant,’ said Harry. ‘If we all keep our eyes and ears open we may be able to track the intruder down between us.’
‘Thanks,’ said Saffron. ‘It just beats me who would do such a thing.’
‘There’s nowt so queer as folk,’ said Harry. ‘I have to say, whoever it is must be pretty desperate. I can’t imagine wanting to doss down out here of an evening.’
‘And you really have no idea who it was?’ Amy wanted to know, when she went to pick Josh up.
‘Not a clue,’ said Saffron.
‘Are you worried?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Saffron. ‘But it does leave a nasty taste in your mouth.’
‘My money is on it being that nutty old man who hangs about in the high street, shouting abuse at people,’ said Pete, walking in at that moment.
‘But do you think he’d have the wherewithal to wander up here though?’ Amy asked. ‘He always looks as though he’s about to keel over. I can’t imagine that he’d survive a night in your hut.’
‘Good point,’ said Pete. ‘But the key thing is, what, if anything, are we going to do about it?’
‘We could stake out the hut,’ said Amy. ‘Take it in turns to see if anyone pitches up.’
‘Sounds a bit drastic,’ said Saffron, ‘and I’m not sure if I want to spend a chilly evening on the allotments. What happens if we find him and he turns nasty?’
‘Ah, then you’ll need some big burly, hunky men to tackle him,’ said Pete, preening.
‘What, like you?’ Saffron snorted.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. If Ben, me, the Guys and Harry took turns we could probably sort out your intruder quite easily.’
‘I think it might be quite an adventure,’ said Amy, her eyes sparkling, the thought of spending an evening under the stars with Ben in the allotments not being without its charm.
‘Oh go on then,’ said Saffron. ‘I suppose we’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘You really are the bloody limit!’ Caroline was shrieking into her mobile as Ben unlocked the front door. He and Amy had cleared the seedbeds, and then she had gone to get Josh. He had badly wanted to suggest going for lunch somewhere, but with Caroline still hanging about he felt sure she would have ended up tagging along somehow. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere for a while, so whatever was going on between him and Amy – and from this morning’s events there clearly now was something going on – was going to have to wait till Caroline had left. As long as she was around it felt like he was part of a cumbersome and unwelcome threesome.
Caroline snapped her mobile off and flounced moodily to the sofa.
‘Bloody Dave,’ she said.
‘What’s he done now?’ Ben felt obliged to ask, when really he couldn’t give a hoot.
‘He’s only insisting on coming over here to see me,’ she said. ‘He wants to patch things up apparently.’
‘Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ said Ben, thinking, Come Dave, come. Take this problem off my hands.
‘No. It Is So Not a Good Thing,’ scowled Caroline.
‘Why not?’ Ben was puzzled now. Ever since Caroline had got here all she had done was moan about the fact that DBtB had ditched her.
‘Because … because …’ she was practically panting the words, and looking at him in a distinctly seductive way. ‘I’ve unfinished business here.’
‘Oh?’ Ben felt his heart sink.
‘You must feel it too, Ben,’ said Caroline, getting up and slowly moving towards him.
‘What?’ Ben backed off in alarm, hands in the air. Good God, was she about to make a play for him? Couldn’t she see how things stood between him and Amy? Or maybe she couldn’t. Caroline was so self-obsessed, it was probably impossible for her to imagine that anyone else might have taken her place in Ben’s affections.
‘The chemistry between us,’ she said in a playful manner. ‘Come on, Ben, I know it’s not just on my side.’
‘Oh, but it is, Caroline, it is.’ Panic was making Ben blunter than he would have been under normal circumstances. ‘I’m sorry, but whatever you imagi
ne was between us, it’s over. I’m not in love with you, if I ever was. I’m in love with Amy.’
I’m in love with Amy. The words had just tumbled from his mouth and he meant every one of them. ‘And I also think you should stop playing silly games with Dave and decide just what it is you want from life.’
Caroline crumpled instantly, as if he had slapped her on the cheek.
‘You can’t mean that,’ she wailed, tears flowing freely. How did she do that? It was a real talent.
‘I can and I do,’ said Ben. Flight was now clearly the only option. ‘So get used to it.’ And so saying he turned round and fled from the house, leaving Caroline to curse her misfortune.
Amy’s heart leapt when the doorbell rang and she heard Josh say, ‘Mummy, it’s Ben.’ She had been going to ask Ben back for lunch, but they had been disturbed by Caroline and Harry coming to tell them about Saffron’s break-in. And then she couldn’t quite work out a way of inviting Ben and not the other two without appearing rude. So she had said nothing, gone to pick up Josh and hoped that Ben would contact her. And now he had.
‘I’m not intruding, am I?’ Ben followed her into the kitchen. He seemed a bit out of breath and flustered.
‘What do you think?’ Amy said with a grin. ‘I was hoping you’d come. I hope you like pasta salad. I’ve made enough to feed an army. And fusspot in there –’ she indicated the lounge where Josh was trouncing monsters on the PlayStation ‘– has today decided that, having been his favourite, he no longer likes it.’
‘Pasta salad sounds fabulous,’ said Ben. ‘Mind you, the way I feel at the moment, anything sounds fabulous. Especially anything cooked by you.’
Amy blushed, but she felt warm all over.
‘Where’s Caroline?’
‘I left her at home, sobbing on the sofa because her boyfriend’s ditched her and I showed no inclination to take his place.’
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