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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781780101637 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Severn House |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2012 |
| Series: | Prior's Ford Series , #5 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 495 KB |
About the Author
Hood is a former journalist. She is a adjudicator, lecturer and tutor on most aspects of writing.
Read an Excerpt
Mystery in Prior's Ford
By Evelyn Hood
Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2011 Evelyn HoodAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84751-396-0
CHAPTER 1
'I must be getting old,' Marcy Copleton announced. 'I hate change, and too many changes have been happening in this village recently.'
'Oh, come on – it's exciting,' Helen Campbell argued as she hoisted her basket on to the counter. 'I enjoy seeing new people around the place, and changes like the Gift Horse becoming Colour Carousel.'
'That's because you've got plenty to write about in the Prior's Ford column of the Dumfries News. And as for Colour Carousel, you're surely not saying that you don't miss Ingrid and the Gift Horse and the coffees we used to enjoy there.'
'Of course I miss Ingrid and Peter and the girls, but Anja's like a breath of fresh air,' Helen was saying when the village store's door opened and Anja Jacobsen swept in. With her black and white patterned top, crimson cropped trousers and blonde hair, cut short and dyed a vibrant purple around her elfin face, she seemed to flood the village store with colour and vitality.
'Hello, I am looking for chocolate biscuits,' she said in her sing-song Norwegian lilt. 'Jenny has been working hard all morning and she needs sustenance.'
'Chocolate digestives are her favourite. Second top shelf, right over there. How are things coming along?' Marcy asked.
'Very well. We'll be all finished for the opening next Wednesday,' Anja assured them as she put the packet of biscuits on the counter. 'Done and dusty, as you say.'
'Dusted,' Helen corrected her without thinking.
'That too,' Anja assured her, producing payment for the biscuits from a tiny scarlet soft-leather purse slung like a pendant from a silver chain about her neck.
'That's pretty. Where did you buy it?' Helen wanted to know.
'This? I made it.'
'Are you planning to sell purses like that in the shop?'
'No, but if you want one I can make it for you.'
'I have two daughters, Gemma and Irene. Could they each have one?'
'Of course. In different colours?'
'Yes please – you choose them.'
'It's as good as done,' Anja assured her, scooping the biscuits up. 'Goodbye!'
'I wish we'd been brave enough to dye our hair amazing colours when we were her age.' Helen's voice was envious. 'Doesn't just looking at that girl give your spirits a lift?'
'I suppose so – but I still miss Ingrid.'
'We all do.' Marcy, Helen, Norwegian-born Ingrid MacKenzie and Jenny Forsyth were all close friends, and Jenny had helped Ingrid to run the gift shop she had opened in the village some seven years earlier. But almost a year ago, Ingrid, her husband Peter and their daughters Freya and Ella had gone to Norway when Ingrid's father developed Alzheimer's and his wife was unable to cope with the family hotel on her own.
The original plan had been for Ingrid and Peter to find a new manager for the hotel and then return to Dumfries and Galloway, but that had turned out to be more difficult than first expected, and Ingrid had brought bad news for her friends when she returned on a flying visit at Easter with her two girls and her niece Anja.
'My father still thinks that he's perfectly able to manage the hotel, and it would be difficult for a new manager to understand how to work with him. He trusts Peter, and Peter's wonderful with him. But it looks as though we'll be away from home for more than the year we first spoke of,' she told her friends with regret. 'My mother needs us so much.'
'So do we,' Jenny said, and then, to the others, 'I've had to tell Ingrid that I don't enjoy running the Gift Horse on my own. I'm happier as an assistant than a manager.'
'And that's why Anja's come to Scotland with me. She's just finished college and now she's a qualified interior designer, yearning to travel and meet people and set up her own business. So Peter and I thought that she could take over the Gift Horse with Jenny's help, selling paint and wallpaper to people who want to decorate their homes, and also offering advice and her own services as a decorator. And she can live in our house. She's so excited about it all.'
'So am I,' Jenny chimed in. 'I'll keep the shop going, selling paints and wallpaper and various things for the home like pictures and mirrors, to leave Anja free to visit people in their own homes. She's decided to change the name to Colour Carousel.'
Ingrid nodded. 'This is a good time for her to come to Prior's Ford; I see that people have begun to move into that new housing estate across from the farm.'
'Clover Park,' Jenny said.
'Sam must be pleased at the prospect of getting new customers.'
'Oh, he is,' Marcy's voice was dry, and the others chuckled. Sam Brennan, Marcy's partner and owner of the village store, liked nothing more than the sound of money dropping into the till.
'So we're not going to see much of you and Peter and the girls for a while.'
'Don't worry, Helen, we'll be back to stay eventually. I need to be with my Norwegian family just now,' Ingrid said, 'but the Scottish part of me misses Prior's Ford and you three so much!'
Three days later she and her daughters were on their way back to Norway and a sign writer was busy changing the name of the Gift Horse to Colour Carousel.
'It's the village's character I'm concerned about.' Marcy reverted back to the original topic as she helped Helen to pack her purchases. 'Twenty one pounds and thirty pence, please.' Then, as Helen began to fish around in the depths of her shoulder bag, 'New housing means growth and that pleases Sam, but I like this place just as it is. As I said earlier, I hate change! I even miss old Ivy McGowan's sharp tongue – and I never thought I'd hear myself say that.'
'Sometimes I wish some clever person could invent tiny helium balloons to fasten to the contents of handbags so that they float to the top when you need them,' Helen fretted, and then, producing the large shabby purse she had used for more years than she could recall: 'At last! I miss Ivy more than I thought would, too,' she went on as she began to count out notes and change. 'She was so determined to outlive Doris Thatcher and so pleased when Doris went first and left her as our oldest inhabitant. And within a year she was gone too, six years short of getting her telegram from the Queen, poor old soul. We don't even have an oldest inhabitant any more.'
'We must have – we just don't know who it is.'
'Sometimes,' Helen said as she tucked her change into the purse, replaced it in her shoulder bag and gathered up her shopping, 'I feel as though it might be me.'
'So, how's your love life comin' along?'
Clarissa Ramsay winced. 'Amy, that's no question to ask of a mature woman in her fifties.'
'Forget the mature, and forget the fifties.' Even though Amy Rose was at home in America her voice travelled the miles with ease; it was as though she were standing in the hall with Clarissa. 'You're a woman, and love strikes at any age – as you well know. Come on, how are you and Alastair managin' with all that distance between you?'
'I've spent a week in Glasgow since I last spoke to you,' Clarissa admitted. 'It was lovely to see him. He's enjoying working in that art gallery.'
'I hope you stayed with him?'
'Amy, he shares a small flat with a work colleague. I booked into a hotel.'
'On your own?' Amy's voice rose a good half-octave.
'Yes, on my own. It's ... difficult, with Alastair being so much younger than I am.' Clarissa shuddered at the thought of walking into a hotel, even a small one, with Alastair and booking a double room. 'Imagine the looks we would get!'
'Oh, tosh! I bet he said let's go for it and to blazes with what other people think,' Amy retorted, and then, taking her friend's silence for agreement, she went on: 'Look here, Clarissa, you've finally admitted that you're mad about the boy – remember that song? I still love it – and he's clearly mad about you, so for goodness' sake will the two of you do somethin' about it? If you wait until he comes back to the village it'll only be worse because then you'll have to face everyone. If the two of you are a real couple by the time that happens, it'll make the facin' a lot easier because you can do it together.'
'Maybe you're right, but —'
'You're darned right I'm right. Listen,' Amy said, 'one of the reasons I phoned is to say that I fancy another trip to Scotland. Are you up for it?'
'That would be lovely. You know that you'll always be welcome here.'
'Good, that's settled. I'm all booked up to arrive some time in June. I'll buy myself a runaround automobile same as last time and get in a bit of travellin' while I'm in Scotland. Why don't you arrange a week's holiday for you and Alastair for just after I get there? A cottage somewhere quiet, without anyone else around?'
'But —'
'Or a tent, even. I'll hold the fort while you're gone. It'll be great to catch up with what's goin' on in Prior's Ford. Can't wait,' Amy Rose said, and hung up, leaving Clarissa to gape at the receiver in her hand.
It wasn't possible, she told herself once she had remembered to close her mouth and put the receiver back on its rest. She and Alastair couldn't just ... she felt her face grow hot at the thought, while butterflies began to flutter around in her stomach.
She had allowed herself to get into the most terrible mess. A [??] short while after she and Keith, the man she had married in her late forties, retired to Prior's Ford he had died suddenly, leaving her alone and among strangers. The discovery, while going through his papers, that Keith had been unfaithful to her throughout their marriage, and with her closest friend, had been a terrible shock. She had wandered from the house and was found by Alastair Marshall, an artist in his thirties, sitting on a stile in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin. He had rescued and befriended her, and helped her to gain the strength of mind to rediscover herself. Ridiculous though it was, they had fallen in love with each other.
Amy, on a visit to Clarissa the previous year, had forced the two of them to accept the truth they were trying to deny, but by that time Alastair had accepted a job with an art gallery in Glasgow.
They missed each other badly, phoned almost every day, and Clarissa had been to Glasgow two or three times. It had been wonderful, spending the evenings and weekends together, but she was still afraid to make the final commitment. Amy was right; Alastair had begged her to book a double room, but she had refused.
'I'm ... you might not ...'
'Clarissa, I love you for being the person you are, and for your mind and your warmth. I want you, all of you, not some brainless bimbo with a beautiful body. I will never ever let you down; I just want us to belong to each other, completely. What else can I say?'
The whole situation was ridiculous, but the simple truth was that she wanted Alastair as much as he claimed to want her. She longed to be with him, but still saw the age difference as an insurmountable barrier. Perhaps, she thought, Amy had the right idea. Perhaps they should rent a cottage in some quiet place where nobody knew them. It would take all her courage, but they couldn't continue the way they were. Her middle-aged body might repel him, but if she kept refusing to take the final step she would probably lose him anyway.
Eventually, if all went well between them, she and Alastair would have to present themselves to everyone as a couple. She winced at the prospect, then tried to take comfort in the thought that at least they would be facing the music together.
CHAPTER 2Ginny Whitelaw had never been happier in her entire twenty-eight years, and it was all thanks to Prior's Ford. She had come to the village with reluctance some three years earlier as companion to her mother, Meredith, who had rented a cottage for a year in order to get over the shock and humiliation of being written out of a top television soap opera. Although she and her mother were as different as chalk and cheese, Ginny had felt obliged to be a dutiful daughter in Meredith's hour of need.
Ginny's parents, both actors, had divorced when she was a child. Her father moved almost at once to Australia, where he still lived with his second wife and their children, leaving Ginny to be raised by a succession of housekeepers while her mother concentrated on her career.
To Meredith's annoyance her one and only child lacked the looks, talent and desire to follow her into the world of theatre, preferring instead to work in a flower shop and then in a garden centre.
Village life had done them both good. For several months Meredith savoured the pleasure of being the most famous person for miles around, and enjoyed throwing the local drama group, run by former journalist Kevin Pearce, into total disarray. Ginny's life had been completely turned around when she met Lewis Ralston-Kerr, who lived in Linn Hall with his parents, Hector and Fliss. An unexpected windfall had given the Ralston-Kerrs the chance to start making the rundown manor house wind-and-watertight, while Lewis took on the task of restoring the extensive gardens to their former glory with a view to opening them to the public.
Ginny immediately volunteered her assistance and was given the task of restoring the Hall's old kitchen garden. With the help of young Jimmy McDonald, who shared her passion for gardening and whose late grandfather had been Linn Hall's head gardener, Ginny threw herself into the task of locating vegetable beds, fruit bushes, trees and flagged paths beneath a thick tangle of weeds and undergrowth. When her mother, having been offered a part in a television play, cut her stay in the village short, Ginny opted to stay on. By the autumn she and Jimmy had restored the walled garden to the useful and attractive place it had been in the days of Lewis' grandparents and great-grandparents.
She had returned every year since then, and between them she, Lewis, and the one and only gardener, Duncan Campbell, had, with the help of Jimmy and the young backpackers who came to Linn Hall every summer – willing to work in the house and garden in return for bed and board – made a big difference to the estate.
The old stable block, used for many years as a depository for unwanted, useless or broken items from the house and grounds, was now a shop selling home-grown produce. Polytunnels had been brought in, and with Hector Ralston-Kerr's help Ginny had begun to study old account books and photographs in an attempt to find out exactly what the grounds had looked like in the days when the family was wealthy enough to employ a team of gardeners.
She and Lewis had tracked down several of the original plants, removing the weeds that had been hiding them for years and lavishing much-needed care on them. It was Ginny's idea to have every plant, bush and tree labelled and the gardens photographed every year in a bid to encourage visitors to return each summer to see for themselves the progress that had been made. The photographer was Cam Gordon, a villager who had been Lewis's closest friend when they were young, and knew the estate well. Cam, who worked for a building company, was an excellent amateur photographer and some of his pictures of the Hall and estate had sold well in the stable shop.
Ginny had also discovered that the stagnant lake and the small pond in the rose garden, which had been drained and turned into a flower bed, were originally fed from a stream running down the hillside behind the Hall. The stream was choked by rubbish at the top of the hill and her new project was to clear it and fill the lake and pond with fresh water once more.
The previous year she had bought herself a camper van and parked it in the kitchen yard so that she could spend every waking hour working on the estate. When Lewis found that there was enough money from opening the gardens to the public and selling goods from the stable shop to employ her over the autumn and winter, she was in seventh heaven.
With the extra time she had been granted, and assistance from a team of local helpers, she had cleared out both lake and pond, relined the lake with sand, traced the old water pipes and used a small hired JCB to reopen channels that had once kept the water flowing. The JCB had also been used to rough-dig the area round the lake. Now that all the rubbish had been cleared, Ginny was busy forking over the ground and visualizing how it would look in a year's time, once it had been replanted.
'Hi Ginny!'
She glanced up and waved, putting on her best smile while at the same time muttering a mild curse behind her bared teeth. Every garden had its thorns and red-haired Molly Ewing, Lewis's fiancée, was definitely the thorn in Ginny's side. She was emerging from the tree-lined path linking the lake and the lawns at the side of the house, hand in hand with her small daughter.
'Hello, Molly,' Ginny said as enthusiastically as she could, and then, with genuine warmth: 'Hello, Rowena!' Nobody could resist three-year-old Rowena Chloe.
'Look, Ginny, look what I got!' The little girl pulled away from her mother and dashed ahead, waving a handful of wilting weeds. 'Flowerth!'
'Any idea where Lewis is?' Molly wanted to know.
'He might have gone to the garden centre in Kirkcudbright, but I'm not sure.'
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mystery in Prior's Ford by Evelyn Hood. Copyright © 2011 Evelyn Hood. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
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