The Secret of Orchard Cottage: The feel-good number one bestseller. Alex Brown
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she was just about to throw it hard into the window when a man’s voice bellowed right behind her, nearly making her jump right out of her skin.
‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’
April swivelled on her heel, the Birkenstock, like a brick at first glance, still high up in the air, the other hand pressed to her chest in shock, and saw a tall, well-built man wearing a tweed deerstalker hat over wavy blond hair with a furious look on his suntanned face. And a shotgun hanging from a leather strap over his shoulder.
April gulped, and then quickly pulled herself together. There really was no time to waste. Aunt Edie could be dead for all she knew. Oh please no. April wasn’t sure if she could cope with any more loss right now.
‘Um. Thank God you’re here. Come on, you can smash the window! Hurry!’ she ordered, before hopping forward to hand him the Birkenstock brick.
‘Er, I don’t think so!’ The man’s eyes flicked towards the sandal, before he gave her an up-and-down look, practically recoiling in horror at the state of her. His nose even wrinkled when the stench hit. ‘I’m calling the Old Bill. Stay right where you are.’ And he actually clasped a hand around the end of the shotgun and tilted it upwards as if to apprehend her in case she tried to abscond before the police arrived.
‘Well good luck with that,’ April quipped, stepping back as he lowered the gun and pulled out a big black phone that looked like it should be on display in a museum; it must be at least twenty years old. ‘There’s no signal in this place.’ She nodded, folding her arms around her body as if to protect herself.
‘Don’t need one.’ The man flashed her a look. April narrowed her eyes and held his stare, masking the panic that was mounting inside her. She needed to get to Edie, and quickly. This really wasn’t the time to be dealing with the local eccentric (must be – who went around tilting shotguns at people?) busybody, gamekeeper, rambler, or whatever he was. ‘Walkie-talkie,’ the man retorted, going to lift the handset to his ear. ‘This’ll go straight through to my pal, Mark, in the police house up in the village,’ he informed her, before doing a supercilious smile that made his conker-brown eyes crinkle at the corners in satisfaction.
April had heard enough, and with no time to waste she didn’t bother explaining – seemed the busybody had already drawn his own conclusions about her – so she turned back to smash the window and get to her aunt.
‘Yep! Mark? Is that you?’ A short crackly silence filtered into the quiet, rural, countryside air. ‘Got a nutter down here trying to burgle old Edith’s place …’
SMAAAAASH!
Glass went everywhere.
Using the sole of her Birkenstock, April carefully cleared the glass debris away as safely as she could and then reached her hand through the remaining shards to deftly lift the latch on the window.
‘Okaaaayyyy … got a live one here, she’s going in!’ The man with the shotgun continued commentating with a mounting urgency in his voice. ‘Bold as brass she is, right in front of my eyes. And covered in crap too by the looks of her.’ Another silence. ‘Whaaaat? Mark, you’re cracking up. Just get down here sharpish or I’ll have to execute a citizen’s arrest. She’s clearly a pro. And armed with a brick. Probably on drugs looking for a way to fund her next fix.’ And April felt the man’s hand on the top of her arm. ‘I’m arresting you for breaking and entering, you do not, um, er … well, you probably know the rest. A seasoned crook like you,’ he bellowed at the back of her head.
April managed to wrench her arm free.
‘Get off me, you idiot,’ she yelled back over her shoulder whilst attempting to pull herself up and over the windowsill. ‘It’s a sandal. See!’ April deftly attempted to wipe the Birkenstock as best she could with her sleeve, before waving it in his direction. ‘And Old Edith, as you call her, is my great aunt, and if you had bothered to investigate first … Sherlock Holmes,’ April flashed a disparaging glare at the silly deerstalker hat, ‘then you would know that she’s currently on the kitchen floor with her head inside the oven! Now get back on your walkie-talkie and tell Mark to send an ambulance,’ April instructed in the best staff-nurse voice that she could muster before pausing to catch her breath and adding, ‘SHARPISH!’
The man fell silent momentarily, his jaw dropped, he stared with a fleeting glimmer of admiration in his eyes, he closed his mouth, and then it registered.
‘Then why the bloody hell didn’t you say so?’ And he jumped into action. April instantly felt two large hands cupping her bottom, propelling her forward like a bowling ball hurtling towards a row of skittles, and she was immediately able to fling her right knee up on to the window-sill. Balancing carefully, she gripped the window frame with both hands and managed to hoist herself through the gap and on to the top of the tall, old-fashioned boiler directly in front of her. Crouching in the confined space – the beamed cottage ceiling was so low she could barely lift her head, let alone stand up – April contemplated just letting herself tumble on to the quarry tiles, but her great aunt’s surgical stocking-clad legs were right there in front of her on the tiny patch of empty kitchen floor, so she couldn’t risk doing that. What if she misjudged and landed splat on top of Edie and hurt her?
April managed to shuffle sideways on to the draining board and was just about to crawl on all fours towards the end of the counter, where she could see a tiny gap next to the pantry door that she could easily slip her body down on to, when the man with the shotgun appeared in the kitchen doorway with the cake tin in his arms and the peonies perched on top. He dumped his load on the table and after taking one long stride towards Great Aunt Edie, he bent down to place two fingers at the side of her neck to check her pulse.
‘Still going!’ he pronounced, as if checking on a snared rabbit in the woods. ‘And the oven isn’t even on, not that it matters, no gas around here if that’s what you were panicking about! Plus you can’t even gas yourself in an oven these days anyway – we might be out in the sticks in Tindledale, but this isn’t the 1920s.’
April’s mouth fell open as she sagged a little in relief at this news – thank God her aunt was still alive and hadn’t deliberately tried to kill herself. But that still didn’t explain why she was sprawled like this in her kitchen in the middle of the afternoon.
‘Um, well … I knew that!’ April said, her cheeks flaming.
‘No you didn’t.’
‘Yes I did.’
‘Why did you panic then?’
‘I didn’t panic! Anyway, I don’t have time for an interrogation; I need to see to my aunt. How did you even get in here?’ April asked as she scanned the scene and tried to work it all out. To the left of Edie was a dustpan and brush on the floor alongside a cloth.
‘Through the front door!’ he replied, glancing up at her and casually raising an eyebrow. April could see the corners of his mouth resisting the urge to smirk.
‘But how?’ she asked as he swiftly sprang up and swung her from the draining board before plonking her into a standing position on the tiles next to him.
‘Er, the usual way. You know, I pushed it open with my hand.’ And he actually laughed and waggled his hand in air as if to demonstrate the action before giving April a big wink. Cheeky.
‘So it was open all along?’ April shook her head as she bent down to tend to her aunt.
‘Of course! Old Edith never locks her front door … nor do I, come to think of it. Not sure anyone does here in the valley. Apart from the ones moved down from London.’ He paused to shake his head, clearly not enamoured by newcomers. ‘No need. This is Tindledale,’ he explained, as if the village was some kind of crime-free oasis leftover from bygone times.
‘Hmm, well, you could have mentioned it before I broke the glass and hauled myself in through the window,’ April bristled, carefully unbuttoning Edie’s crocheted waistcoat so she could push it back over her shoulders and loosen the collar of her