Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📗

Mill Grange family, making it a condensed and concentrated dig, will make great TV. It also means we don’t have so many people here to worry about feeding and so on.’ She laughed. ‘Bert’s already been out to buy extra toilet roll!’

‘Seriously?’ Shaun swept up the loose soil by his knees, and tapped it into their shared bucket. ‘Are you ready to be filmed later? We could practise the script as we dig if you like.’

Thea screwed up her face. ‘I’m not sure it’s for me, being on telly. It’s like I’m someone else when I stand there. I can hear my voice, but it’s as if I’m listening to myself as a third person. Does that make sense?’

‘Perfectly. That’s how I feel when I’m working. It’s a good thing. Stops you believing you’re special. Makes it more professional, as you’re critiquing what you’re saying with another part of yourself as you speak.’

‘Suppose that makes sense.’ Thea’s trowel made a metallic scraping sound, as it hit something beneath the soil’s surface. They exchanged glances as, hardly daring to breathe, they lifted a little more clay.

Seconds later Shaun laid a hand on Thea’s. ‘Stop.’

‘Stop? But we’ve found it, the side of a stone wall.’

‘I know, and we need to get Phil over here so he can arrange the filming of the uncovering process.’

‘How frustrating! We’re so close.’ Thea pulled a crumpled-up copy of the survey results from one of her combat trousers pockets. ‘This matches the geophysics. It’s the left outer wall!’

Shaun got to his feet and waved for Phil to come over, ‘I know. And in an hour you’ll be uncovering the wall under the watchful eye of the camera.’

‘An hour?’

‘We’ll need lighting, sound, test shots and our make-up and hair redone.’

‘You have got to be joking about that last bit. We had ourselves all beautified this morning.’

‘And it’ll happen again.’

‘But an hour’s forever.’

Shaun kissed Thea on the nose. ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of television.’

Forty-Nine

October 3rd

‘Hunting for a real Christmas tree was not how I imagined spending my first day with Dylan in months,’ Tom muttered as he steered Helen’s borrowed Land Rover around the bends that led away from Mill Grange.

He’d been surprised when she’d offered him the key, but as she’d said, even if he did find a tree, he’d never fit it in a Ford Fiesta. Tom’s eyes strayed to the list of local Christmas tree farms on the passenger seat that Bert had given him. ‘You’ve got to hand it to that old guy. He’s a fount of local knowledge.’

As Tom drove on, winching as he crashed the gears of the unfamiliar vehicle, glad Helen wasn’t there to witness his poor driving, he felt his nerves mounting. It had been almost six months since he’d seen his son. Sue had moved the poor kid around from place to place, playschool to playschool, following boyfriend after boyfriend. He winced to think that he’d once been one of them. And Sue was so easy to lead a merry dance. At least she had been. Now Dylan had reached school age, however, something in her had finally clicked. She had decided to stay still while he was educated, so he could have a better life than his parents. At least – that’s what Sue was saying for now.

‘He’ll have grown. He might not even know who I am.’ Nausea rose in Tom’s stomach. ‘God knows what his mum has told him about me.’

Braking to let some suicidal pheasants cross the road, Tom caught his breath. ‘Just calm down! You’re going to see your son. You’re going to see if he likes his school and hear about his friends. Then you’re going to take him on a forestry adventure.’

*

Tina looked out of her attic room window at the mini camp site that had gathered around Sam’s tent. It had felt good last night with the television crew bedding down around them. Everyone had been wrapped in thermals, happily clutching thermos flasks of hot chocolate and hot water bottles. Unlike when Woody, Ann and Dave had come, rather than feeling invaded, Tina was enjoying a real sense of camaraderie.

‘I just hope that feeling stays.’ She could see the heads of people bobbing up and down in the distance as they bent to dig, or wandered around fetching, carrying or filming. It had been so busy since the filming had started that Tina’d hardly had time to think about the first guests arriving. There could be no putting off those thoughts now, however. Six forces veterans were due from four o’clock the day after tomorrow.

Walking into the final attic room, opening the doors that led on into the roof space, Tina shuddered as the scent of neglect hit her. Dust flew in the air alongside a city’s worth of cobwebs.

Drawing on the gardening gloves she kept in her trouser pockets, Tina stepped through the narrow doorway. ‘Of all the jobs I had planned for today, I did not imagine I’d be hunting for potentially non-existent Christmas decorations.’

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, grateful for the bare bulb that cast a subdued glow over the dozens of boxes, sacks and old suitcases, Tina opened box after box, swallowing down the idea that literally anything could be hidden up here. She was absolutely not going to find a dead body.

When Phil had explained why he wanted the tree, Tina had been swept up in the romanticism of the scenario. As the Mill Grange episode was to be set at Christmas, Phil wanted a tree in the drawing room, preferably next to a roaring fire, with Shaun seated next to it, talking about the house and Sam’s plans. It sounded perfect. Tina knew the house would look amazing swathed in Christmas decorations. She just hadn’t considered how much extra work that would create today, when she should have been giving the place a final clean and helping Mabel with the kitchen supplies and pre-guest cooking.

Tina had searched through just