MONDAY

      ‘All right, so let’s run through it again. Who’s going to open the batting with Will?’

      The five men considered this all-important question in the beer garden of Fittlescombe’s prettiest pub, The Fox. This Saturday was the big match, an annual cricketing fixture between Fittlescombe and the neighbouring village of Brockhurst. Dating back more than a hundred and fifty years, the Swell Valley cricket match was older than the Ashes, and every bit as hotly contested. For the last six years in a row, shamingly, Brockhurst had trounced the home team. Indeed, almost since the match’s inception, Fittlescombe had been perceived as something of a gentlemanly shambles, gracious losers in the great tradition of affable, British sporting failures. The village had produced only two county players in the last century, in comparison with Brockhurst’s six, and no Test cricketers at all (Brockhurst could boast two). But this year the men of Fittlescombe were confident the tables would be turned, thanks in no small part to the return to their ranks of William Nutley, a brilliant batsman whom many locals considered good enough to play at county level. Will had grown up in the village, but his family had moved away a few years back, after old man Nutley lost the family fortune in a string of bad investments and was forced to sell his gorgeous Elizabethan manor house. But now, aged twenty-two, Will was back, living modestly in a rundown farmworker’s cottage, and playing better than ever.

      ‘It should be one of the older lads. Someone steadying, to calm the boy’s nerves.’

      It was George Blythe, the local carpenter and Fittlescombe’s captain, who made this observation, but it was greeted by universal nods and murmurs of assent from his table mates – namely Dylan Pritchard Jones, the handsome young art teacher at St Hilda’s School in the village; Gabe Baxter, a local farmer and handy fielder with a first-class bowling arm; Timothy Wright, a retired stockbroker who lived in the village and who in his youth had been a star bowler at Eton; and Frank Bannister, the sweet-natured church organist, who was frankly an appalling cricketer but was far too nice a person to be kicked off the team. The Fittlescombe XI ranged in age from fourteen (Seb Harwich was coming home from school for the match) to sixty-five-year-old Timothy, and the levels of ability were equally diverse. Not all of the players had been able to make it to tonight’s get-together at The Fox. But all had agreed that the five men present would settle on a batting and bowling order, as well as arranging a schedule for the week’s practices. The key question at issue, however, was whom to pair with Will Nutley. Everybody knew that, while Will was their great white hope, he was also prone to terrible nerves. Especially when playing in front of his beautiful ex-girlfriend, Emma Harwich, who was sure to be there on Saturday supporting her brother. One silly mistake, one lapse in concentration on Will’s part, and all Fittlescombe’s long-cherished hopes would be dashed. The choice of batting partner was crucial.

      ‘I vote Tim,’ said Gabe Baxter. Blond and stocky, like a handsome pit-bull terrier, Gabe was considered the sexiest player of the tournament, closely followed by the good-looking but terribly vain Dylan Pritchard Jones. ‘You’re our safest pair of hands. And you’ve known Will forever.’

      Timothy Wright smiled ruefully. Bald and paunchy, with a permanently red nose and cheeks latticed with broken red veins after a lifetime of hard drinking, Timothy was not one of Fittlescombe’s heart-throbs. ‘I’m flattered, dear boy, but an opening batsman I am not. I’m afraid I’m very much a one-trick pony.’

      ‘Lionel, then?’ said George Blythe, the thin and wiry village captain.

      Lionel Green, owner of Green’s Books on the high street, was the next oldest player after Timothy at fifty-seven, and a competent, if not spectacular, batsman.

      ‘I think he’d be a better bet,’ said Timothy. ‘He should steady the lad’s nerves. Although the very best thing would be to think of a way to stop the Harwich girl from coming at all.’

      ‘I doubt you’ll succeed at that,’ Dylan Pritchard Jones said archly. At thirty-two years old, with a thick mop of curly hair and twinkly, lapis-blue eyes, Dylan was considered almost as much of a catch as Gabe Baxter; although, like Gabe, he was spoken for, married to the patient and lovely Maisie. ‘Emma Harwich could give Tatiana Flint-Hamilton a run for her money when it comes to loving the cameras. There’s bound to be a ton of press here on Saturday. She won’t miss a chance to get her pretty little face in the papers.’

      Local teen Emma Harwich had been signed to a London modelling agency last year, since when her career had taken off exponentially.