Falling for you

God, all this hassle for the sake of lop.

Chapter 9

‘It’s perfect,’ the elderly woman was saying as she ran a gnarled hand over the glossy deep crimson surface of the casket. Alerted by the sound of footsteps — and possibly Norris’s laboured sumo-like breathing — she turned and greeted Kate with a cheerful smile. ‘Hello, dear, come and take a look, hasn’t this young man done a marvellous job?’

At least concentrating on the casket meant not having to meet Jake Harvey’s eye. Kate studied the picture of a leggy brunette in mid high-kick, presumably dancing the can-can. Frowning, she struggled to work out the significance.

‘It’s me,’ the woman explained with pride. ‘I was a dancer at the Moulin Rouge. I was nineteen when this photograph was taken. It’s where I met my husband. Such happy days.’

Intrigued, Kate peered more closely at the lid of the casket, wondering how the effect had been achieved.

‘You make an enlarged colour photocopy of the original print,’ said Jake, reading her mind, ‘and cut around the figure you want to use. Then you soak it in image transfer cream, place the copy face down on the lid and rub over it with a cloth. When you peel the paper away, the photo’s transferred to the lid. Couple of coats of varnish and you’re done.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Kate told the woman, careful to keep the left side of her face out of view.

‘I know, I can hardly wait to get in it!’ Her eyes brightwith laughter, the woman said, ‘And it’s going to drive my children demented.’

‘Why?’

‘Ha! If you met them you wouldn’t need to ask. I have three,’ said the woman, counting them off on fingers weighed down with glittering rings. ‘A bank manager, a Tory MP and a perfect-wife-andmother who lives in Surrey. I don’t know where I went wrong. They’re dreadfully ashamed of me. I’m the bane of their lives, poor darlings. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all I suppose. Jake, would you be an angel and pop it into the truck? I want to show it off to my friends.’

Jake effortlessly loaded the casket into the back of the woman’s muddy Land Rover. Reaching up, she kissed him on both cheeks, leaving scarlet lipstick marks, then hopped into the driver’s seat and with a toot and a wave roared off.

Norris was by this time flat out on the dusty ground, snoring peacefully in the sun like a drunk.

‘Business or pleasure?’ said Jake.

‘Sorry?’

‘Are you here to buy a coffin?’

Kate suppressed a shudder. ‘No.’

He smiled briefly. ‘So, pleasure then.’

Hardly. ‘Not that either. Your mother asked me to tell you to take the lamb chops out of the freezer.’

Jake laughed. ‘Sounds like one of those coded messages. You say, 'Take the lamb chops out of the freezer,' then I nod and say, 'Lamb chops are excellent with mint sauce.' Are you sure you aren’t a secret agent?’

She hadn’t expected him to sound so normal, friendly even. Stiffly, Kate said, ‘And she also said not to forget about Sophie’s party.’

‘Ah yes, the party.’ Still nodding in a spy-like manner, Jake said, ‘Five o’clock, in ze village hall.

Zat is when ze party begins. I haff ze situation under control – oh bugger, actually I don’t.’ He looked at Kate then, quizzically, at Norris. ‘Where did the dog come from?’

‘We’re looking after him for a friend of my mother’s. Just for a few weeks. Actually, it was your mother’s idea,’ said Kate.

‘Tell me about it.’ Jake’s greenish-yellow eyes narrowed with amusement. ‘Ideas are my mother’s speciality.’

‘She thought a dog would get me out of the house.’

‘And here you are, so she was right. Would you be on your way to the shop, by any chance?’

‘Yes.’ Kate eyed him warily. ‘Why?’

‘Ze party at five o’clock. I haff ze present, but no paper in vich to wrap it.’

‘OK,’ sighed Kate; was this where her future lay, as some kind of lowly gofer? She jiggled Norris’s lead and he opened a baleful eye. ‘Norris, come on, get up.’

‘ Leave him with me,’ Jake said easily. ‘You’d only have to tie him up outside the shop.’ Taking the end of the lead, he looped it over the gatepost, then dug a pound coin out of his jeans pocket.

‘There you go. Actually, I’m holding him hostage to stop you running off with my money. Bring me the wrapping paper and you’ll get the dog back.’

‘You’re assuming I want him back,’ said Kate.

‘And von more zing,’ Jake called after her as she headed along Main Street.

She turned. ‘What?’

‘Ze wrapping paper. No Barbies. No pink.’

The general store, a kind of mini supermarket-cum-tardis, was owned by a garrulous old spinster called Theresa who had run the place for the last forty years and knew everything that went on in Ashcombe. Kate couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

‘Hello, dear, heard you were back, look at your poor old face, eh? What a shame, what a thing to happen, that’s America for you though, isn’t it, everyone drives like maniacs over there, rushing around, I’ve seen ‘em doin’