The two women hugged, and Arrina smiled to see the bond between them. It was nice to hear that the daughter of Julie’s Aunty Lou also thought of herself as part of the Wen family.
Maggie cut Arrina a large slice and watched her carefully as she tasted it. Arrina made a huge display of enjoyment, complete with lots of yummy noises and even a belly rub.
‘OK, OK,’ Maggie said. ‘I know I’m being a bit crazy on the cake front. But my dad’s coming over later.’
Arrina froze midchew. Her brain stuttered over the words my dad. Hugo was dead. She’d been to his funeral several weeks earlier.
But then she remembered Maggie’s stepfather had raised her from a baby and had even given her his surname—Maggie thought of that man as her dad as well as Hugo. The two of them had struggled for a few months when Maggie had been drawn towards her biological family, but Quentin Lee had been there for his daughter in the wake of Hugo’s death.
‘He sent me a big box of my mum’s things,’ Maggie continued. ‘All her old recipes were in there, and she’d written a note on top of the lemon drizzle one.’
Maggie showed it to Arrina. A handwritten scribble in the top corner said Quentin’s favourite. Then Maggie handed over another piece of paper.
‘The box also contained this. I want to ask him if he knows why my mum never sent it.’
The two women sat down in creaking wicker chairs of pale willow by the large kitchen window. Julie clattered around at the other end of the room while Arrina read the letter. It was from Maggie’s mother. The letter was addressed to Hugo, and it told him how much she loved him for keeping their relationship going in secret for so many years after her parents had forbidden it. Louise thanked him for never asking more from her than the occasional weekend when she could get away from her parents to be with him.
Then it went on to ask him if he was ready for something different—for them to fight for a life together—a life for the two of them and also the baby that was on the way.
Julie’s conspicuous busyness at the far end of the kitchen suggested that she knew the reason her Aunty Lou had never sent the letter. Arrina guessed the reason stemmed from her parents. Arrina would ask Julie about it later. But not now. It seemed best for the young woman to learn the truth from her father.
Arrina folded the letter and handed it back to Maggie.
‘I’m sure he’s going to love the cake,’ Arrina said. ‘If you ever decide to open up your own café, you’ll put Julie out of business on your first day.’
‘Oi,’ Julie said. She threw a tea towel in Arrina’s direction, but she was too far away. The three women laughed and all tucked in to large bites of the sweet lemon cake. ‘Arrina might have a point though. You’re not planning on going pro, are you?’
‘I think I’ve got more than enough on my plate trying to work out how to run a farm.’
‘Well, speaking of being busy, I’ve got to head back to Do-Re-Mi.’ Julie gave the women quick hugs goodbye and rushed off. Arrina felt bad about the dark circles under her best friend’s eyes. The situation had improved at Julie and Phil’s farm but not much. The Environment Agency had reopened the farm after the investigation into what they’d called milk dumping but which was in fact just the spillage from the broken milking machine. Phil had decided to keep the herd, mostly as a stubborn response to the Environment Agency’s meddling. But milk prices were continuing to make it a difficult business.
‘I still feel bad that I don’t have time to teach chemistry,’ Maggie said. She poked her fork into the spongy yellow cake on her plate but didn’t take a bite. ‘I’m so sorry to let you down like that.’
‘That’s nothing for you to worry about,’ Arrina said. ‘I’ve found a supply teacher who’s more than happy to step into the breach.’
This was technically true. Though the supply teacher was only happy because he was being paid twice the going rate. Arrina knew she would hear about that decision, and the lack of a business mentor, at the next Board of Governors meeting. The board had showed no lenience to Arrina in this new school year. They hadn’t even seemed apologetic when they reinstated her and quietly got rid of Gillian DeViers.
The only slight sign of guilt from anyone about what had gone on before the start of term was the reversal of the access road decision—the college was finally getting its connection to the bypass. Gillian DeViers was keeping uncharacteristically quiet on the matter.
‘I still feel awful,’ Maggie said. When Arrina opened her mouth to protest again, Maggie held up a hand. ‘No, really. I want to do something to make up for it. In fact, it would kill two birds with one stone. You know I’ve got more farmland here than I know what to do with. How would you feel about expanding the college’s Agricultural Programme onto my fields?’
Arrina sat open-mouthed in shock. She’d long wanted to run more courses to support the farming community. But land was at such a premium in the area that she’d virtually given up hope. Now she was being offered access to some of the best fields in the area. It was a dream come true.
‘You’re not saying anything,’ Maggie said. ‘You wouldn’t need to pay for it, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I’d even do some of the teaching myself. I was thinking about doing some research into more effective natural pesticides. Do you think that would be OK? Would the students be interested? You’re still not saying anything.’
Arrina looked out of the kitchen window and across the beautiful landscape of the Hayes family farm. The late summer was finally easing itself into the reds and golds of autumn. A squirrel hopped about in a beech tree near the house, busily preparing for the oncoming winter.
‘It’s perfect,’ Arrina said. ‘It’s more than I could ever have hoped for.’
‘Well,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m glad you like it, but that’s not quite everything. I had breakfast with Fiona this morning, and she asked me to pass on some of the money from Hugo’s will. We’d like you to use it for yourself.’
Arrina sat back in her chair. Her eyes welled up. Maggie handed her a cheque, and Arrina could not quite believe the amount wasn’t a blurry doubling through her tears. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She blinked and looked at the cheque again. ‘I suppose I have been wanting to update my office for a while.’ Arrina’s thoughts of sleek furniture and artful lighting were quickly replaced by images of the Christmas ornaments she could buy for her office instead—handblown glass baubles, needle-felted woodland creatures, a silver filigree star for the top of her tree.
‘It’s supposed to be for you, not the college.’
‘That is for me. My office is like a second home.’
Maggie frowned at her. Arrina could tell the young woman was hoping she would spend it on something more indulgent, like a holiday or a new car.
Arrina racked her brain for a minute. Then she thought of something.
‘I’ve got it,’ she said. Maggie’s face brightened. ‘It’s something that I need but also a real treat.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears—it was now almost a ragged bob. ‘I’m finally going to get a trim.’ And once she’d got that sorted, Arrina was going for that drive she’d been dreaming of, wearing huge sunglasses and red lipstick and winding through the country roads like she didn’t have a care in the world.
The two women smiled at each other and tucked into second helpings of the delicious lemon drizzle cake that Maggie had made.
They looked out together over the landscape and made plans for the many wonderful developments that the college would undergo in the year to come. It hadn’t been an easy road to get there, but Arrina was glad that the next few months were going to be a change for the better and that she would be able to help the people of Heathervale in many new and exciting ways.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me on this journey into Heathervale and all the mysteries it contains. If you’ve enjoyed Arrina’s adventures, head over to my website (MatildaSwift.com) to sign up to the mailing list
and learn about the upcoming books in this series. Please also rate and review this book wherever you can. Reviews help other readers find the book, which is essential for the series to succeed.
Read the free prequel to this series, Rotten to the Marrow, here. Set five years before the events of The Slay of the Land, this free novella covers Arrina’s move to the village of Heathervale and her very bumpy start there.
Read on to the end of this book for a sneak peek of that prequel, which explains how Tinsel first entered Arrina’s life, and the mystery he was tied up with. As always, the book includes plenty of murders, mysteries and mugs of tea.
See you again soon, Matilda Swift
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the many writing courses I’ve taken and the critique groups I’ve been part of over the years. From the outside, the writing life seems very solitary, but it’s really a hive of feedback and support, without which no book would ever see the light of day.
I’ve been very fortunate to make my home in Hong Kong, which has a thriving writing community. Laura Cook set up the wonderful Kornhill Salon and set me out on the journey to this book. I will be forever grateful to her and to all the group’s many helpful members who’ve come and gone throughout the years. Shannon Brown deserves a special shout-out as the indie champion who inspires us all, as does Rachel Marsh, who finds the heart of my writing and makes it shine.
As always, I am thankful to my father, who is everything.
About the Author
Matilda Swift lives in Hong Kong, where she writes while hiding from the city’s sweltering heat and swirling typhoons.
She’s originally from Manchester, England. Its nearby Peak District is the setting of her Heathervale Mysteries series.
Matilda’s childhood hikes through the Peak District sparked her love of the countryside. A lifelong obsession with The Archers and a year of living in the woods on a small eco-farm further fuelled the passion. Now, she enjoys diving into village life through her own stories, and she loves taking readers with her on the journey...
Follow her blog for more updates on her writing life, or check out her Facebook and Instagram.
MatildaSwift.com
The Heathervale Mysteries
Have you read the other books in this series? Sign up to Matilda Swift’s newsletter so you never miss a new release. Read on for the details of the other books in the series.
Rotten to the Marrow (Book #0) – available here
Cakes, kittens and... killers? The English countryside isn’t all it seems!
The rural English village of Heathervale has everything Arrina Fenn wants—a cozy cottage, a cake-filled café, and a cute silver kitten to curl up with.
Unfortunately, a quarrel in the middle of the village and a run-in with the local police make Arrina’s first day a rocky one. When she stumbles upon a dead body the next morning, all fingers point in the newcomer’s direction.
The local police detective—short, scatter-brained and soon to retire—can’t solve the case. With her perfect job starting soon, hard-working Arrina Fenn must find the real killer before she loses her home, her position and the cozy life she dreams of in this idyllic English village.
Dying over Spilled Milk (Book #2) – coming November 2019
When dairy farming turns deadly, spilled milk just might be worth crying over.
Head-teacher Arrina Fenn is determined to make her sixth form college’s first Career’s Fair go off without a hitch. In the rural village of Heathervale, with its small-town secrets and family squabbles that line the streets as thickly as crops in the fields, that’s not as easy as it seems.
When one of the fair’s staff members turns up dead, Arrina’s hopes for success are dashed to pieces, and Arrina is once again dragged into the investigation.
With the wrong person heading to trial, growing tensions in the village, and something increasingly strange going on with the young people of Heathervale, Arrina must race to find out what really happened on the day of the Careers Fair, before it’s too late.
Sneak Peek: The Heathervale Mysteries Book 0: Rotten to the Marrow
Arrina Fenn was new to the village of Heathervale, and nobody would let her forget it. As she drove down the rural main road in search of a place to park, she caught sight of several people pointing and staring. Her car was a classic Jaguar, an XJ6 with unusual mistral blue paintwork. She often turned heads when she drove it. However, Arrina was convinced that people weren’t looking at the car that day.
It was a warm June morning, and as she drove along the busy and simply named High Street, Arrina rolled down her windows. The air carried scents of cut grass, turned earth and freshly baked bread. Underneath those, there were also several murmurs of Arrina Fenn.
Friends back in Manchester had warned her that village life would be a change, that every detail of her existence would be noted and discussed. She’d laughed this off as big-city paranoia. But now she wasn’t so sure.
Arrina wished that she’d worn something different that morning, especially if everyone she passed was going to stare at her. But she hadn’t had much choice. Her tight black jeans and fluffy, emerald-green jumper had been rescued from the charity pile at the last minute and stuffed in with bowls and plates as she packed. Now they were her only clothes not covered in dust from the move or packed away beneath piles of boxes.
She tried to put a positive spin on it: the green jumper did bring out the hints of red in her hair. Unfortunately, its thick, fleecy wool also brought a bright red flush to her cheeks on that warm June morning.
Arrina sat up straight in her seat, kept a smile plastered to her face, and held her hands at ten and two on the wheel.
Finally, she found an empty parking spot just outside a tiny building at the end of the street. A sign outside said Heathervale Supermarket in ornate gothic lettering. The front windows were thickly plastered with notices. Arrina saw flyers reading Morris Dancing Lessons, The Jams and Preserves Society, and Ferret for Sale before pushing through the squeaky front door.
From the street, the shop had looked no bigger than the place she’d bought her morning papers from back in Manchester. But inside, Arrina was pleasantly surprised to find a brightly lit room with tall rows of neatly arranged produce.
A tinkling bell announced her entrance, and Arrina braced herself for the attention of everyone in the shop. But of the dozen people there, only two looked up. One was a teenage boy with thick, carrot-coloured hair, who smiled and nodded and then returned to contemplating chocolate bars. The other was the old woman behind the till, whose dancing green eyes were outshone by a lime-coloured cardigan stretched over her tall, plump frame.
‘Oh, my giddy aunt,’ said the woman loudly. She dashed out from the high wooden counter and over to Arrina. ‘Look at us! Twins!’
‘Twins,’ Arrina echoed brightly with a smile and a nod, while trying to work out what on earth the woman could possibly mean.
The old lady clapped excitedly and then plucked at Arrina’s emerald-coloured jumper, holding up her own green, woollen sleeve beside it.
‘Jumper twins,’ Arrina said. ‘Great minds think alike.’
‘Did you make this yourself?’ the old woman asked. The jumper was in fact shop-bought, but before Arrina could say this, the woman continued. ‘Ethel and Maureen always say young folk nowadays don’t know one end of a needle from the other, but this is very good! Very good, indeed. I’ll be seeing them in a couple of hours when the coach comes to collect us for our trip. I’ll have to tell them all about you.’
Arrina had no idea who Ethel and Maureen were, or, for that matter, who this enthusiastic shopkeeper was. But she was pleased that the woman called her young, especially because she was closer to thirty-five than she cared to admit.
‘I’m sorry,’ Arrina said. ‘I’m not sure—’
‘Will you be teaching knitting at that new school of yours?’ the old woman asked, with her fingers still poking
and prodding at Arrina’s jumper and inspecting its stitches and seams.
‘At my school?’ Arrina asked.
‘You’re Miss Fenn, aren’t you? The head of the new school up by the Hayes place. I’m Pearl, by the way.’
Arrina took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was a very small village. She needed to get used to everybody knowing her business, although her first instinct was to smile politely and back away.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Arrina said. ‘It’s actually a sixth form college, which is like a school but just for 16-to-18-year olds.’ She spoke loudly, hoping to engage the interest of the ginger teenager a few feet away, but he was engrossed in the choice between a Yorkie and a Snickers. Arrina knew teenagers well enough to be sure that he wouldn’t hear anything until he’d made that difficult decision.
‘I’d not thought about a knitting class before,’ Arrina continued. ‘It sounds like a wonderful idea—I’m sure it would be a popular extra-curricular. Do you think Ethel and Maureen would want to help?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Pearl, with a shake of her head that set her wrinkled cheeks jiggling. ‘You’ll not want to ask them. A right pair of nattering Norahs, they are. They’d have your kids bored stiff with their jabbering on—always gossiping are those two. Of course, Ethel can’t help it, bless her. Not with that husband of hers—deaf as a post, he is. Farm machinery, Ethel would have you believe was the cause of it, but mark my words, it’s got more to do with decades down at the race-track with his ear pressed up to the Tannoy, praying for a win.’
As the old woman talked, a small queue formed at the till. The red-headed teenager caught Arrina’s eye and gave her a conspiratorial smile. He waited until Pearl paused to take a breath and then cleared his throat loudly.
The Slay of the Land (The Heathervale Mysteries Book 1) Page 24
