‘You mean he could be here – right now?’ the girl asked, looking around excitedly as if Tom Mackenzie might walk into the shop at that very moment.
‘I don’t think so,’ Molly said. ‘I’m smarter than him.’
The girls gave each other a conspiratorial smile.
‘Anyway – about this donation?’ Molly prompted.
The girl grinned. ‘Come with me,’ she said, leading her out of the gift shop.
Molly followed her, the sound of a braying donkey filling the yard.
Tom had just reached Axminster when his mobile phone went off. Quickly pulling over, he answered it.
‘Tom Mackenzie.’
‘It’s Molly.’
Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘Molly!’
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ she said quickly. ‘I just wanted to thank you for today’s article in Vive!.’
‘I thought you might like it.’
‘But it only goes some of the way to repairing the damage you’ve done, of course.’
‘Oh,’ he said, somewhat taken aback.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any calls about Old Faithful yet, have you?’
‘Old—’
‘I mean my car,’ Molly corrected herself quickly.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Tom said. ‘But it’s early days yet,’ he added, finding it hard to disguise a small chuckle at Molly’s nickname for her car.
‘I don’t suppose I’d need two cars, though, would I?’
‘Especially two yellow Beetles,’ Tom said.
‘Who said I had a yellow Beetle now?’
Tom smiled. ‘But you have, haven’t you?’
‘Is that what people are telling you?’
‘There’ve been quite a few sightings of a yellow Beetle in the Devon area in particular,’ Tom added and was sure he heard her gasp. ‘That’s where you are, isn’t it?’
‘Look, I rang to thank you – nothing more – so please don’t start up all your questioning again.’
There was a moment’s pause.
‘Are you OK?’ Tom asked at last.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You sound tired.’
‘I am tired.’
‘That’s endless driving for you,’ Tom said, trying to roll the stiffness out of his shoulders.
‘You’re not kidding. Do your shoulders ache?’
Tom laughed. ‘They feel like concrete. I was just trying to loosen them up.’
‘Me too,’ Molly said and Tom tried to imagine her rolling her shoulders at the other end of the phone.
‘A good long soak in the bath,’ he said. ‘That goes some of the way at the end of a long day behind the wheel.’
‘Oh, that’s the best, isn’t it?’ Molly said.
‘Don’t you get a bit fed up of moving around all the time?’
‘No, I don’t. I’m loving it. You wouldn’t believe all the people I’ve met and the places I’ve seen.’
‘Yeah?’ Tom said.
‘England’s so beautiful.’
‘It certainly is,’ he agreed. ‘And I have to thank you for allowing me to see so much of it for myself too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I hadn’t really left my home county much before all this began.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Me too!’
‘I was kind of stuck in a Suffolk rut,’ he said and he heard Molly laugh. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh and he liked it. ‘Not that Suffolk isn’t beautiful, you understand,’ he added. ‘Because it is but, I guess when you’ve grown up somewhere, you don’t always see it, do you?’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘But your county’s beautiful,’ he said and there was a dreadful pause. Tom cleared his throat, worrying that he’d overstepped the mark in reminding her that he was practically stalking her. ‘I mean, what I’ve seen of it.’
‘It is,’ she said and he breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t hung up on him.
‘I could never live in a city,’ Tom said, desperately trying to keep the conversation going.
‘No, I couldn’t either,’ Molly said.
‘So, you’re not heading to any cities in the foreseeable future?’ Tom asked and then bit his lip. Had he pushed things? He waited for a reply. ‘Molly?’
‘What?’ she said. ‘I’m not telling you where I’m going.’
‘I wasn’t asking that.’
‘Are you sure? You’re a journalist. There’s more than one way of asking a question.’
‘Yes, I know. But I wasn’t – really. I’m just enjoying talking to you. You know, finding out a bit about you.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because you’re interesting,’ he said.
There was a weighty pause when Tom felt sure Molly was about to hang up on him, and it would have served him right too, he knew. He sighed, knowing that her defences were up again. Still, he wasn’t going to give up so easily.
‘You know,’ Tom said at last, ‘I could be good for you.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes!’ he said. ‘If you told me where you were – who you were helping and suchlike – my reports would add extra publicity for your campaigns.’
‘But I don’t want publicity. I just want to get on with this. You keep trying to turn this into some great crusade and it isn’t. It’s just me.’
Tom scratched his head. ‘But you’re not just you anymore. You’re a national figure.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But you are, and I want to help you – I really do.’
‘If you really do, then just let me know if you find my old car.’
‘Tell me where you are, Molly.’
‘I’m not going to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m not a public person.’
‘Yes you are.’ There was a pause. Was she weighing up his words? Was she starting to believe him? ‘Molly?’
‘I’m still here.’
‘Let me help you.’
‘I don’t need your help,’ she said, and she hung up.
Sitting in the car park of the donkey sanctuary, Molly couldn’t help wondering what had just happened. She’d been chatting to Tom Mackenzie – her public enemy number one – and it had been the sort of easy conversation she might have had with anyone. She frowned. She couldn’t possibly be getting to like this man, could she? She shook her head, doing her best to dismiss the thought. She had other things to think about and yet she couldn’t help mulling over Tom’s words. He wanted to help her. He’d already proved to her that he could with his national appeal for Old Faithful, so maybe she should make use of his help for her good causes? No, she thought, shaking her head. This was her project and she didn’t want anybody else getting involved in it. It wouldn’t work – it would get out of hand, messy, confusing and competitive. This way, she alone was in charge. Anyway, it wasn’t meant to be some grand scheme – it was just a whimsical way of spending the summer, which just happened to involve spending the best part of four million pounds. She still couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
Leaving the donkey sanctuary, Molly pulled out onto the main road without really planning where she was going next. Bridport, Bournemouth, Bognor? There were so many places to discover and so many people whose lives could be made all the sunnier for a small injection of cash.
Before she could make her mind up, her phone rang. Pulling into a lay-by dwarfed by a sky-scraping hedgerow, Molly picked up her phone. If it was Tom Mackenzie ringing her back, she’d have to get tough with him.
‘Hello,’ she said somewhat abruptly.
‘Ms Bailey?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Malcolm McCleod from Marie Celeste. We have some news about your mother.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Being a step behind Vive!, which was a step behind Molly, the Baileys arrived in Devon just after Molly had left.
‘We don’t want to stay he
re if we can help it,’ Magnus growled from the back seat. ‘Hideously expensive – even when it isn’t holiday season.’
‘Overrated too,’ Old Bailey joined in with a knowing nod.
‘Oh, have you been before?’ Carolyn asked.
‘No,’ he said, looking surprised by her question.
‘Then how do you know it’s overrated?’
He frowned at her. ‘What do people want with all those cream teas and fudge? Load of nonsense – just another way of getting money out of people.’
‘But people wouldn’t buy them if they didn’t want them,’ Carolyn pointed out.
‘Ah!’ Old Bailey said, waving a thick finger in the air. ‘That’s exactly it! These places make you think you want these things, but you don’t! There’s nothing wrong with a Tesco’s-own tea bag and a digestive biscuit.’
‘That reminds me – shall we have that flask now?’ Marty asked from the front.
‘Good idea,’ Old Bailey said, and Marty pulled over at the first convenient lay-by.
Carolyn grimaced at the thought of what was to come: three men sharing a cup of tea from one plastic cup. Old Bailey had taken a handful of tea bags from the tea tray in the bed and breakfast the night before and had knocked on Marty and Carolyn’s door to take theirs too.
‘We’re paying for these, you know,’ he said when he saw her disapproval. What bothered her the most, though, was the fact that they expected her to join in.
‘Marty,’ Carolyn said, ‘can’t we stop for a proper cup of tea?’
‘Don’t you want some of this?’ he said, offering her the yellowing top from the old flask which had already been swigged out of by Magnus and Old Bailey before reaching Marty’s lips.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, trying her best not to retch at the thought.
‘We’ve got to try and find Molly – you know that.’
‘We can’t keep stopping. We’ll never catch up with her if we stop at every café en route,’ Magnus added.
‘I’m only asking for a bloody cup of tea!’ Carolyn suddenly shouted, and the car filled with a stunned silence.
‘Carolyn!’ Marty said in shock.
‘I’m not asking too much, am I? A ten-minute stop for a quick cup of tea. That’s not expecting too much, is it?’
‘Er – no,’ he agreed. ‘Dad?’ he said, looking to Magnus to help bail him out.
Magnus’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps a quick stop might be refreshing.’
‘Granddad?’ Marty said.
The car filled with silence once more as they waited for Old Bailey’s answer. But he wasn’t going to be budged on this one. He was a flask man. ‘You know, young lady,’ he said, looking sternly at Carolyn, ‘you’re beginning to remind me of that bloody Percy woman!’
Molly was shaking. All these years she’d longed to hear news of her mother and the minute she did, she froze, panicked and lied.
‘You’ve made a note of the address?’ McCleod asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘So you’ll be heading to London straight away?’
‘Yes,’ Molly said, but the word sounded foreign and without meaning as she said it.
‘So that wraps our business up, then?’
‘I suppose it does,’ Molly said. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she added. ‘You’ve been amazingly quick.’
‘We like to do our best,’ McCleod said, ‘and Legs is the fastest in the business.’
‘I’ve no doubt he is,’ Molly said and, hearing McCleod coughing loudly into the phone, she said her goodbyes and hung up.
How strange. How very strange, she thought, looking at the tiny piece of paper she’d scribbled the address on. This was her mother’s home and, according to the information Legs had gleaned, she’d been living there for almost nine years. Cynthia Bailey had become a city girl. Molly shook her head. What had happened to her mother to make her quit her beloved countryside?
As much as Molly longed to know, she was also absolutely terrified of finding out.
Tom sat frowning down at his mobile phone. He hadn’t expected that phone call. He’d hoped, stupidly, that it was Molly. Instead, it had been bloody Anise.
‘That was Mummy, wasn’t it?’ Flora said.
Tom nodded. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have answered.’
‘What did she say?’
Tom sighed and raked a hand through his thick hair. He needed a haircut as well as a shave. ‘She wants you back home by the end of the week. She’s back from her gallivanting early. Obviously bored of lying on a beach all day.’
‘Is gallivanting what she does with JP?’
‘Yes,’ Tom said shortly.
‘And what is it again?’
‘Messing about.’
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway, you probably heard, I told her you’re staying with me until my job’s done.’
Flora nodded. ‘I heard.’
‘Is that all right with you? Or do you want to go home now?’
Flora shook her head and she grinned. ‘No way. I want to find Molly and I’m not going home till we’ve found her.’
Tom laughed and ruffled her hair. ‘Me neither!’ he said, and started the car up again before pulling out and heading for Lyme Regis.
Molly had been driving for most of the day but she wasn’t exactly heading to London. Not yet. She didn’t want to face her mother until she had formed some sort of idea of what she’d actually say to her. Her emotions were still too raw and too many questions were tumbling round her head. She needed time to think and so had found herself drifting through Dorset until she stopped at a picture-perfect village.
Half expecting to see the cast of a Thomas Hardy novel walking around, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a wedding in full swing. Walking along the narrow lane and allowing Fizz to snuffle around the thick grassy verges, Molly watched the bride and groom posing for photographs. The bride, in a creamy-gold slim-fitting gown, looked elegant and serene, and the groom looked as if he’d walked straight out of a Merchant-Ivory film.
Molly thought back to Marty and Carolyn’s wedding. It hadn’t been anything on the scale of this one judging by the number of bridesmaids and the size of the bride’s bouquet. She remembered Carolyn picking out the flowers in The Bloom Room.
‘That’s so beautiful,’ she’d said, looking through the photograph album of bridal bouquets, ‘but it’s a bit on the expensive side even with our family discount.’
Yes, even when it came to his own wedding, Marty had budgeted until practically all the fun had been erased.
Looking over to the bride and groom, she wondered how long they’d last. She knew she was being an old cynic but it was hard not to be one when she thought about her parents’ marriage and the ever-precarious one between Marty and Carolyn.
The photographer was waving his arms around like a windmill in a hurricane and Molly watched as one of the bridesmaids stepped forward, a huge smile bisecting her face.
‘Now!’ the photographer yelled, almost leaping off the ground with excitement as the bridesmaid sent a shower of confetti over the bride and groom. It swirled, light as blossom, on the summer air. Molly gazed at the sweet shower of pastel colours, the laughter of the wedding party ringing out in place of the church bells. It was the most beautiful thing Molly had ever seen.
And that’s when she had an idea: the most wonderful, fun-filled, excruciatingly exciting idea.
Running back to her car, she gave Fizz a great squeeze before doing up her seat belt.
He looked up at her, his eyes large and softly adoring.
‘London,’ Molly said to him. ‘We can’t put it off a moment longer.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Despite the fact that she adored her new car, and the fact that Fizz was sitting beside her, Molly was beginning to feel quite lonely. She hadn’t had a proper conversation since leaving Eleanora Howard’s in the Cotswolds and she was beginning to wish that she had a travelling companion.
As if
she’d sent a prayer up to heaven and God didn’t have any queues, Molly saw a hitch-hiker. She’d never picked up a hitch-hiker in her life. She’d never dared.
‘There are more strange people than sane out there,’ her father had warned, his dark eyebrows drawn together over the bridge of his nose. ‘You do not want them in your car.’
But this girl didn’t look like an axe murderer or escaped convict, and it would be nice to have somebody other than a dog to talk to, and it was still a long way to London.
Pulling over, Molly took a good look at the girl. She didn’t look more than about nineteen or twenty. She was wearing a faded black shirt and green combat trousers with more pockets than a snooker table. Her face was as pale as a Pre-Raphaelite’s and she was wearing her long dark-blonde hair in pigtails. Definitely a student.
‘Come on, Fizz, it’s time you were relegated to the back seat,’ Molly said, unclipping his belt and lifting him up before leaning across and opening the passenger door.
‘Gosh!’ the girl said in surprise. ‘Thank you so much. I’ve been stuck here for hours. They don’t seem to be very friendly with the lifts round here.’
Molly smiled as the girl heaved her rucksack into the back of the car.
‘I’m Jo,’ the girl beamed.
‘Molly.’
‘Hi, Molly,’ Jo said, extending a hand with at least three silver rings on each finger.
‘Welcome aboard,’ Molly said as Jo scrambled in.
‘This is such a great car!’
‘Thank you!’
‘And your dog’s so cute too!’ Jo said, leaning back to give him a pat on his snowy head.
‘That’s Fizz. I hope you haven’t got any food in your rucksack because he’ll find it if you have.’
‘No, nothing in there,’ Jo said, doing her seat belt up as Molly pulled out.
‘You’re heading to London, I take it?’ Molly asked.
‘Yes. That wasn’t the original plan. I was meant to be going InterRailing with a friend but she’s since found a man and doesn’t go anywhere without him. And I didn’t want to be travelling round Europe with a couple of lovebirds.’
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