Zoë had set off for the police station along the main road to file her report having photographed the old man with her phone.
Minty maintained a possessive protectiveness over him, using the shop landline to call around all her contacts on every committee she sat on to ask if any elderly person amongst their number had disappeared.
Mrs Crocombe was on her mobile doing the same thing, sequestered amongst the stacks, trying to be discreet, but falling into lascivious gossiping on almost every call and forgetting her mission for minutes at a time.
Mr Bovis had long since turned up the collar on his ancient Barbour, obviously feeling every inch the TV detective, and stalked off into the drizzle, intent on knocking on every door in the village looking for leads.
The doctor concluded the man had a bladder infection that might be contributing to his confusion and antibiotics were sent for from the pharmacy along the promontory. Jowan had taken care of collecting them.
Annie had been impressed at Minty’s commitment to keeping the man comfortably installed in the village as opposed to being carted off to a hospital ward where he’d be exposed to, in her words, ‘goodness knows what infections and indignities’ and she wouldn’t hear of him ‘slumbering in a cell like a convict’. He was a guest in her village, as far as she was concerned.
Harri had kept the kettle boiling all afternoon and the man had steadily drunk two cups of tea with milk and sugar that he added himself. His cheeks had pinked up a little in the hearth light and, observing him, the doctor concluded it would be difficult to force the man’s admission into hospital, what with all the men’s respite wards being full to capacity and there being no passenger ambulances in the vicinity to take him on the hour’s drive anyway.
The doctor left with instructions to keep him topped up with antibiotics, hydrated, rested and warm until his family was found and, ‘under no circumstances is he to go wandering in this weather’.
As darkness fell, talk in the shop turned to what exactly they were going to do next.
‘The report will be circulating all across Devon by now,’ Minty insisted. ‘If someone’s looking for him, or if they recognise him, we’ll hear soon enough.’
‘And if they don’t?’ Harri asked in a low voice. ‘Where will he stay?’
Jowan and Minty exchanged glances.
‘You’ve got the whole of the Big House, don’t you?’ Annie said, not understanding why, after being so keen to keep their foundling, Minty wasn’t positively bursting to put him up for the night.
‘The estate is ours, yes, the gardens and such,’ Jowan explained in his soft way while Minty looked pained. ‘But the house was sold to developers, and split into apartments, which are privately owned now. There’s only one still on the market. An’ we’ve only our one-bed behind the original kitchens on the ground floor.’
So theDownton Abbeydream wasn’t quite what Annie had imagined. What a pity.
‘We’ll sit here with him, until word comes,’ Jowan said.
‘Mark my words, Clove Lore is a whispering place. He’ll be reunited with his loved ones within the hour,’ Minty proclaimed confidently.
Annie looked at her phone. It was almost five-thirty. In the commotion she’d forgotten about the double date. A glance at Harri, who was lurking by the stairs, told her it hadn’t slipped his mind for a second.
‘Maybe we should… knock tonight on the head, given the circumstances,’ Harri said, furtively.
This made everyone in the shop, apart from the insensible man, snap their heads to him.
‘What?No!’ This came from Mrs Crocombe emerging from the stacks, her phone lowered momentarily. ‘It’s all arranged. You two young ones go and get yourselves ready. We’ve everything under control.’
Annie wanted to go to the pub. Anything to get out of the strange atmosphere of suspense that was falling over the shop. She approached Harri on the stairs. ‘You heard the lady. They’ve got this under control,’ she said, and he let her pass. ‘And I was promised cider and chips.’
Harri folded, just as she knew he would, and he sloped off to get changed.
Within half an hour Annie was showered, made-up, and in a dress she’d originally bought to wear to her school’s Christmas pageant, in a clingy, pale olive velvet. She’d been desperate to wear it again and paired it with her long blanket coat, her chains and rings, and her brown boots. She felt pretty good as she made her way gingerly down the clanking spiral stairs.
‘Annwyl!’ Harri gasped when he saw her, which didn’t go unobserved by the Clove Lore cronies. Even the old man turned laboriously to look.
Harri was in a proper shirt with his thick woollen jumper, black jeans and boots (not his walking boots, for once). He’d even scrunched his hair with some product and put his contacts in. And he was blushing right to the tips of his ears.
Annie was about to tell him how cute he looked but everyone’s attention was on the lost old man who was trying to get to his feet. The whole shop fussed at once, and Jowan offered him his arm. He seemed intent on coming close to inspect Annie.
As he drew near, Annie smiled broadly for him. ‘Will I do?’ she asked, suddenly struck by the memory of twirling in her party dress for her grandpa.
He was going to say something. Everyone waited. The only sound was his socks shuffling across the floorboards.
‘Annwyl?’ the man said, reaching for her hand, which she took.
