'Owen, I don't think you should tell Auntie Dinah that . . . not just yet,' Annie advised. 'Shall we just stick with Billie needed a wee, so she went behind the tree and then you fell in this hole.'
Owen nodded in agreement.
'What is this?' Annie asked. 'Why is it here?'
'I think it's an old well,' Owen called up. 'It's a bit soggy at the bottom and the sides are made of brick.'
'Oh Owen!' was all Annie could say as she tried not to think about how unlucky the two children could have been.
Annie wished there was some way of capturing Dinah's happiness as she galloped down the hill towards them, once she'd heard Annie's shouts that she'd found the children.
'Billie, Billie sweetheart!' Dinah kept saying from the top of the old well, 'are you OK?'
But Billie, who'd spent a long, hot afternoon climbing trees, walking through fields and then playing an interminable game of paper, scissors, stone down in the well with Owen, could not be woken.
It was Connor and Mr B whose minds quickly turned to the practicalities of getting the children out.
'So shall I go down and lift them up to you?' Connor volunteered.
'But how we get you out?' asked Mr B, who was now, sleeves rolled up, as deeply involved in this family drama as everyone else.
'No idea,' was Connor's helpful response.
'Just go down!' Dinah, who couldn't even think about relaxing until Billie was in her arms, urged Connor. 'We'll worry about you later.'
'OK . . . deep breaths, Dinah,' he added because Dinah's fright had been so severe that she was now trembling with happiness and relief.
Using the muscles he'd honed so hard in the gym, Connor lowered himself over the edge of the well and, scrambling for toe-and hand-grips, began to climb down.
'Stay out of the way!' Annie warned Owen.
But the well wall wasn't quite as simple as the plastic and rubber artificial climbing wall in the state-of-the-art fitness studio Connor attended. Just as he reached the halfway point, something didn't quite go according to plan. Maybe the wall jutted out roughly there, maybe there was a rogue loose stone or he couldn't find a toe hold. Whatever the reason, there was a loud 'Ow', followed by a thud and a cry of, 'Bloody hell, I've skinned my nose!'
Annie and Dinah found it hard to care, 'Oh dear . . . well, just bring up the children,' Annie encouraged him.
Sleeping Billie was lifted out first. Connor raised her up as high as he could, then Mr B and Dinah leaned in to get hold of her. Next came the carrier bag full of fruit, which Owen didn't want to leave behind, and finally Owen, whose ankle was clearly swollen and causing him some pain.
Mr B had to get involved in Connor's undignified scramble to the top of the well, which resulted in both of them getting very dirty.
'Don't they have well covers in Italy?' Annie asked irritably as soon as Owen was safely out. 'Don't they think holes like that should be covered up instead of just sitting there waiting for people to fall into them?'
'We were warned,' Owen, who'd had a lot of thinking time in the well, told her. 'I think the Italian for deep might be profondo.'
Owen hopped on one leg, supported by Annie and Connor, whose face was now bleeding freely. Billie stayed fast asleep in Dinah's arms and Dinah would not be persuaded to let go of her, even when it was obvious she was struggling with the weight as they walked up the hill.
Just as they approached Mr B's car, intending to cram into it for the brief ride up to the villa, they were met with the bright headlights of a shiny police car in one direction and the beam of a lone torch in the other.
'
Ed!
' Annie shouted out, as the police car illuminated the figure carrying the torch. 'We're all here. We've got them.'
Somehow in the excitement of finding the children and the complication of fishing them out of the well, Annie had unforgivably forgotten to at least try and phone Ed and Lana, who'd had forty minutes longer to worry than anyone else.
Annie could see Ed's face in the car headlights. A grin was splitting across it and he began to run towards them. He shot Annie a smile, but his eyes were fixed on Owen. As he bounded up to them, he reached out, flung his arms round Owen and lifted him into the air.
'Watch his ankle,' Annie warned.
'Owen!' Ed said over Owen's giggles, 'you . . . you total . . . you
idiot
!' but like everyone else, he was grinning with relief.
Spotting Dinah and Billie, Ed asked, 'Is Billie OK?' Dinah nodded curtly in response, and Ed suspected he had some major apologizing ahead of him.
Meanwhile a black leather jacketed, capped and armed Italian police officer was climbing out of the police car.
'Would you talk to them?' Annie asked Mr B, who nodded and strode forward, happy to be the group translator.
'Who's that?' Ed asked, now that he was beside Annie, now that he had slung a comforting arm around her waist.
'Mr B from the handbag factory – the one I was telling you about.'
'Oh . . .' There was something of a pause before Ed said, 'Let's get back to the house, we need to tell Lana and Aunty Hilda.'
Aunty Hilda!
Annie hadn't thought about her since she'd left the house that morning. She didn't think she'd even mentioned her to Mr B.
It wasn't quite the evening Annie had planned. Once the wine debris from earlier had been swept and mopped from the kitchen floor, everyone congregated round the table on the terrace for whatever could be cobbled together from Ed's afternoon shopping trip.
They were hardly the 'glamorous and gorgeous people from London' that Annie had thought would wow Mr B. They looked just like an ordinary, exhausted and slightly grubby family. And somehow Mr B had ended up in the chair next to Aunty Hilda.
'What was that?!' Annie kept overhearing Aunty Hilda ask him in her deep and penetrating voice.
'You know, she leaves the children with that man of hers all the time. He's not the father, of course, and Owen . . . well . . . a difficult child . . .'
Now Annie had to make a superhuman effort to tune out the old battleaxe.
The two policemen stayed for coffee because they had to file a report anyway. Mr B drank coffee too and ate a plateful of the food on offer. He ignored his mobile, which burst into life every so often. That had to be his irate date, Annie suspected.
Lana, sitting opposite Annie, had looked touchingly pleased when Owen finally made it back to the villa that evening.
'Did I even have
you
worried?' Owen had wanted to know.
'Just this much,' Lana had told him, holding her thumb and finger just a tiny bit apart, but her smile had been genuine.
'How's Andrei?' Annie leaned in to ask her daughter. 'Have you had a chance to speak to him with all this going on?'
'No . . . I've not got through to him yet, I'll try again later.' A flicker of concern passed across her face.
'Don't worry,' Annie reassured her, 'he's probably trying to keep busy so he doesn't miss you too much.'
Connor would possibly have liked to make some punchy response to this, but he was too preoccupied with the policemen and their leather jackets and truncheons. Not to mentions handcuffs.
Undeterred by everything that had happened to him this afternoon, Owen stuffed bread and tomato into his mouth. His ankle, carefully bandaged by Ed, who'd promised to call a doctor if it looked worse tomorrow, was up on a chair and whenever his mouth was empty, he launched into a new and increasingly lurid description of his time in the well.
There had now been a 'medium-sized' snake down there at the bottom of the well, along with a 'pure white' scorpion and a 'vicious-looking' one-eyed lizard.
Connor, when he could tear his gaze from the policemen, felt it was his duty to provide topical jokes. 'Well,
well
,
well
, Owen,' he began to everyone's groans. 'Let's hope you
fall
into a
deep
,
deep
sleep tonight.'
Dinah had put Billie to bed and stayed there with her for a very long time. So when she finally came out to the terrace, the policemen and Mr B were saying their goodbyes.
Maybe just as well, as Annie could see from Dinah's stormy expression that the words 'post-mortem' was definitely in the air.
After being lavishly kissed, four or maybe even five times on the cheeks by Mr B, who had told her to 'meet me in café for late beeeziness breakfast', Annie made Dinah sit next to her and poured her a large glass of wine. She urged her to drink it down and then poured her another one.
'You've had a horrible fright. Forget about sweet milky tea and get some of this down you,' she insisted. She was also hoping that the row Dinah looked as if she was ready to have with someone might be tempered a little by a glass or three of wine.
Aunty Hilda declared that she had to get to bed, Annie told Owen and Lana to go inside, wash and think about bed, so only Connor, Annie and Dinah were left at the table when Ed returned from showing the Italians out.
'You're seeing him tomorrow?' were Ed's first words to Annie and she could hear the edge to his voice.
'I have to go and get the car,' she explained. 'I had just a bit too much wine at his shop and that's why he drove me back. So we're going to meet in town, then he'll drive me up to get the car.'
'So what's going on with this guy? Is he offering you some work or something?'
Annie ignored the obvious snort that this provoked from Dinah. 'I'm going to sell his bags in London, through eBay or maybe though a couple of shops. He's got some great stuff – at brilliant prices,' she added quickly, aware that she was making it sound very easy.
'Right,' was all Ed said. He pulled up a chair and reached over for the wine bottle.
Sensing the awkward silence, what with Ed glaring at her and Dinah glaring at Ed, Annie took a mouthful of wine, then asked her sister, 'So . . . you got really sunburnt then?'
'Annie Valentine!' Dinah spluttered. 'Your pseudo-Sisley did this to me! Whatever is in that jar, I'm allergic to it. Totally allergic.'
Dinah had actually forgotten about her vibrant red rash. Now, thanks to Annie, she had another reason to be angry.
'Nasty allergy,' Connor agreed. 'I'll give you my dermatologist's number when we get back to London.'
'Oh just shut up!' was Dinah's not entirely grateful response. Then turning to Ed, all the terror of the last few hours rushing out, she began to rant, 'I just can't believe you sent them back to the villa on their own! How could you have been so selfish and so stupid and so completely irresponsible? Anything could have happened to them! Anything!'
Ed had already decided that he wasn't going to do any explaining, or justifying, he was just going to apologize. Dinah was far too upset. Anything else he said would just make it worse.
'I am so sorry,' he told her softly, 'I am so, so sorry. If there was any way I could go back in time and re-make that decision I would. I am so sorry to have put you through that.'
'You're a teacher!' Dinah was clearly going to have to get this off her chest, whether the others liked it or not. 'You know the dangers. Billie could have broken her neck falling down that well.'
'I thought Owen—' Ed began.