Authors: Victoria Connelly
Tom loved early morning silence. There was something about the stillness of a morning that wasn’t quite the same as any other time of day. Evenings never quite worked their magic for him because, prior to leaving his job, he was normally shattered with boredom by then, but morning had a stillness full of promise. Mornings were even more beautiful now that he was self-employed and didn’t have to report in to anyone and he was particularly enjoying the presence of his mate’s laptop. He’d sneak out of bed whilst Flora still slumbered, and place the portable on his thighs, running his hand across the lid, smooth and perfect as a sea-washed pebble, before opening it up and letting his fingers tap lightly over the keyboard. The lightness of touch was almost mesmeric and, twice now, he’d found himself startled out of his writing reverie by Flora bidding him good morning.
At home, he’d sometimes get up early to practise a few songs on his guitars. When he’d first moved into his house,
after the split with Anise, he hadn’t realised how thin his walls were until he’d had his ear bent by the mean old lady next door who didn’t appreciate being woken at half past six to the strains of ‘Hound Dog’. So he’d taken to playing in the bathroom as it was the only room with no adjacent walls. It was a bit odd strumming a guitar on the toilet but the acoustics were good.
Funnily enough, he wasn’t missing his early morning strumming session, not with the laptop at his disposal. The words were flying out of his mind straight onto the screen; work was fast becoming something enjoyable.
By the time Flora woke up, he’d got a few hundred words down. It probably wasn’t anything he’d use in his forthcoming articles but he was trying to work things out in his mind about Molly, and she was making a very interesting subject. What was her motivation? Why would anyone in their right mind want to give away so much money? It didn’t make any sense to Tom. Nobody was really that selfless, were they? Not in this day and age. If Molly was like other women Tom had met, she
had
to have an ulterior motive for being so generous, and what he had to do was find out what that was.
Leaving the hotel later that morning, Tom and Flora wrinkled their noses.
‘I don’t like it here,’ Flora said. ‘Can’t we go back to Swaledale?’
‘There’s no story there now.’
‘Does that mean we have to stay here?’
‘Until I get some feedback from today’s article. I’ve put out a plea for help from the readers – hoping they’ll spot Molly’s yellow car and let me know where she is,’ Tom explained. ‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Let’s go and get a
paper.’
Five minutes later, Tom had a great fat smile on his face. Not only had he managed to leapfrog to page five but the editor had gone for his idea of making a public plea as to the whereabouts of Molly, printing his email address at the end of the article as so many reporters did nowadays.
His Monday report had been a vague, impersonal story – interesting, yes, but there was nothing the public could sink their teeth into. Now, Tom had given them a name, a focus and, in return, he was hoping they’d be able to help him. All he had to do now was sit back and keep his fingers crossed.
When Molly had ended her call to Carolyn, she’d visited the nearest newsagent’s and bought a copy of
Vive!
. It was all very vague, she’d thought. There was nothing linking the story to her, even if Marty, Magnus and Old Bailey did stumble across it. But that couldn’t be said of the article on page five of Tuesday’s edition. Molly’s eyes were out on stalks.
‘Bloody hell!’ she swore beside the supermarket newspaper stand. It was all there in black and white. Whitton Castle. Lord Henry Hewson. Moor View flats. Yellow gerbera.
He knew who she was and what she’d been up to. He’d found out, and it could only have come from Lord Henry. Molly sighed as she read the words again.
‘
Bare legs up to her armpits and a bosom to die for
.’
She rolled her eyes to the heavens. How could he have said that? How could he have done that to her? He’d seemed such a sweet man. But then something occurred to Molly. Maybe he was still a sweet man and that it was this reporter, this Tom Mackenzie, who was the villain here. Reporters were
notorious at getting the worst out of people, and this peeping Tom had definitely done that. He’d probably bribed him with money, and Molly knew Lord Henry could little afford to turn it down. But why did this reporter insist on dwelling on what she looked like? As if that had anything to do with her mission. It was just tabloid titillation, and she could murder him for it!
She read the rest of the article.
‘“I heard the letter box go and when I saw what was in the envelope I thought I’d have a look around. Thought there’d been some mistake,” Ms Gunton said. And, indeed, it begs the question why somebody would leave five hundred pounds to a complete stranger. Is this the act of somebody desperately seeking attention?’
Molly’s mouth dropped open. He’d never met her before and yet he was making all these assumptions and daring to put it all down in print for the nation to read. How
dare
he do that? And what was Carolyn going to make of it all? It was one thing having a girly gossip about hot lovers, but quite another to have your private life splashed across the tabloids before you got a chance to explain things yourself.
Molly’s eyes stung with tears of frustration. She wanted to find this man and punch him but would that actually achieve anything? Wouldn’t she be better running away from him? And what was all this about him asking for people to contact him as to her whereabouts? He’d even found out what car she drove, and that she had a dog! Molly shook her head in anger. How dare he drag Fizz into this ugly business?
For a moment, she stared at the accompanying photograph of the reporter.
‘I hate you, Tom Mackenzie,’ she said but, even as she
said the words, she couldn’t help admitting that there was something about the face that was strangely likeable. He looked almost handsome but how was that possible? He was the lowest of the low and deserved nothing but scorn.
Paying for the newspaper at the checkout, together with a sandwich and a tin of dog food, she left the supermarket, her fingers grasped angrily round her copy of
Vive!
.
Getting into the car and slamming the door, she growled unhappily at Fizz. He looked up at her, his eyes so dark under the whiteness of his fur. How sweet he looked. She ruffled his fur and, as he closed his eyes in pure contentment, she tickled his chin. She was starting to calm down a bit and put it down to pet therapy.
‘I’m going to rise above this,’ Molly told a bemused Fizz. ‘He’s not going to have the pleasure of ruffling
my
feathers. Oh no!’
She turned the ignition and revved the engine. Then, cursing loudly, she crunched her gears and drove out of the car park.
No, her feathers weren’t ruffled at all.
Tom waited until eleven o’clock before checking his email, his face creasing with a smile as no less than eight messages downloaded.
‘Wow!’ Flora smiled.
‘Let’s not get too excited,’ Tom said, ‘there are a lot of cranks out there.’
Sure enough, the first two messages were from idiots.
I think your articles stink! Can’t you leave the poor girl alone?
the first one read.
Tom opened the second one.
Have you ever considered
treading the path to spiritual enlightenment?
He shook his head and deleted them before opening message number three, reading it to himself quietly. Then message number four, five, six, seven and eight.
M1 south of Wakefield.
A61 at Whitley, south of Chapeltown.
A57 towards Ladybower Reservoir.
Flora was getting impatient. ‘What do they say, Dad?’
‘I was right, Flo!’ Tom grinned. ‘She’s in Derbyshire.’
It was such a relief to venture into the Peak District after getting lost in the urban sprawl of Sheffield. It was yet another area of the country Tom knew little about but he liked what he saw: hills in green and bronze, dotted with copses and sheep; stone cottages and riverside pubs, and numerous walkers thudding through the fields in tank-sized boots. The only thing that puzzled Tom was what on earth Molly was doing here. There weren’t any high-rise flats so where was she planning to unload her money? Perhaps she was having a break or maybe she was looking to buy a mansion. Tom got excited at the idea. He hadn’t thought about that yet but maybe Molly wasn’t so selfless after all?
They stopped at the next village store and filled a basket with bread rolls, crisps, apples, chocolate, tissues and the local paper.
‘OK, Flo. I’m promoting you to head researcher,’ Tom said. ‘Molly must have got here some time yesterday and I
want you to look through that paper and tell me if you see any stories involving money. Now it could be anywhere in the paper: a full-page story or just a few lines tucked away somewhere, but I want you to read out anything to do with money, OK?’
‘All right,’ Flora said, opening the paper as they walked back to the car.
‘Anything?’ Tom asked after a few minutes.
‘There’s a pensioner who sold some antiques and made over fifteen thousand pounds.’
‘Doesn’t count,’ Tom said.
Flora turned the page. ‘A man has got three thousand pounds.’
‘Go on. Did he find it anywhere?’
Flora’s mouth set in a straight line across her face as she struggled to read the rest of the piece. ‘It says—’
‘What?’ Tom asked, beginning to sound anxious.
‘I can’t read it.’
Tom took the paper from Flora and scanned it. ‘Oh,’ he said at length.
‘Isn’t it the person we’re looking for?’
He shook his head. ‘No. This man won his money through a court case.’
‘And that doesn’t count?’
‘No. What we’re looking for is someone who
finds
money. Or maybe is
given
money – quite unexpectedly,’ he said, handing the paper back before opening a bag of crisps.
‘A woman found an envelope stuffed with money on her doormat.’
‘Read that one out in full.’
‘
Widow, Mabel Spriggs, of Castleton, woke up to find
an envelope stuffed with fifty-pound notes on her doormat yesterday morning. “I couldn’t believe it,” the
eighty-four-year-old
said. “I’d just been talking about what a struggle I was having the day before and then this happens!”’
Tom’s jaw slackened and his hand paused on its way into the crisp bag. ‘That’s our Molly,’ he said excitedly. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Just then, his mobile phone went. Stuffing the crisps onto Flora’s lap he searched the back seat, which had long been lost under a layer of clothes that needed to find a launderette.
‘Hello. Tom Mackenzie,’ he said after finding the phone under an old sock.
‘Tom, you old devil!’
‘Nick!’
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Derbyshire.’
‘Well, get your arse over to Manchester. I’ve just had Susanna Lewis’s personal assistant on the phone. She’s been following your story and wants to do a piece with you for her show.’
‘Susanna Lewis?’ Tom said, a fleeting image of the buxom blonde filling his brain.
‘You jammy git, you!’
‘Blimey!’
‘But don’t go getting too excited. You’ll be sandwiched between a couple of other guests and a phone-in, but this will really get your name out there.’
Tom could hardly speak for the shock, Susanna Lewis’s cleavage blocking any train of coherent thought.
‘You still there, mate?’
‘Y-yes!’
‘Just don’t forget to give
Vive!
a plug for us. This could secure you a permanent place on the old rag if you play your cards right.’
Carolyn had wondered why Marty had bought her flowers. They weren’t supermarket flowers either, but florist-bought, wrapped in red tissue paper with a swirl of silver ribbon.
‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the last few days,’ he’d whispered, kissing her neck delicately in a way that always set her skin on fire.
And then he’d dropped the bomb. ‘I told Dad we’d go round Granddad’s today. Dad wants a hand with some odd jobs round the place.’
Carolyn had stared at him. ‘Marty – this is supposed to be our holiday. I thought—’
‘It’s only for a few hours,’ Marty had interrupted quickly. ‘Then we can go out this evening – have a nice meal somewhere.’
Carolyn’s eyebrows had shot up in surprise. Marty never took her out to eat. ‘Just think of the amount of shopping you can get for the same price,’ he’d say.
‘Do you mean it?’ Carolyn had said.
‘Promise,’ he’d said. ‘It’ll be the real start of our holiday.’ With that, he’d kissed her neck in that oh-so-tender place again.
So two hours later she found herself at Old Bailey’s once again, cheap washing-up suds fizzing into nothing on her hands as she worked her way through a mountain range of dishes. As usual, Old Bailey hadn’t done any washing-up since her last visit. He’d simply let it fester in assorted heaps around the kitchen: a teetering tower of teacups here, a
precarious pile of plates there. Carolyn wouldn’t have minded at all if she ever got a thank you, but thank yous were as rare as smiles in the Bailey household. The living room was one collective frown today and Carolyn hadn’t any desire to be a part of it. She’d hidden herself away in the kitchen for as long as she could, making friends with every dirty plate and cup; washing, drying and stacking in a vain attempt to make the time pass quickly.
She ambled through to the back bedroom and said hello to the family of photographs. She fluffed her hair up in the bathroom and was just about to tell Marty that she was going to walk to the local shops when she heard the strangest of cries. Momentarily forgetting her latest idea for an outrageously short haircut, she ran through to the living room.
‘Marty? What is it?’ she asked, seeing her husband on the edge of his seat, his eyes twice their normal size, a copy of
Vive!
clutched in his hands.
Carolyn felt a cold chill shake its way down her spine. Who had brought a copy of
Vive!
into the house again?
‘Marty? What is it?’ she asked, dreading to think what he’d found in the paper and hoping it had something to do with inflation or shares dropping rather than his sister’s antics. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Molly!’ he said, pointing at the paper. ‘
Molly!
’