“I heard there’s a delay on the ballroom.”
He stopped in his tracks, not sure if the dulcet tones of Veronica Moore were welcome right now or not. He also wasn’t sure how she knew, given that he’d only just found out himself.
“Afternoon, Gran,” he said, spinning round to see the small but sturdy old lady he’d known pretty much all his life. He’d been in the same primary school class as her granddaughter, Vanessa, and had felt the power of Gran’s right hand on the back of his head when he’d tried sneaking out a dirty magazine from the post office that she’d always run.
“I notice you didn’t put the ‘good’ on the front of afternoon there, Zack Maynard,” Gran said. “I also notice you look like you developed a new way to murder someone and dispose of the body without being caught.”
He found himself smiling. “Jake. And his fu… flipping alpaca monsters. And that stupid site manager. Plus, the idiot woman who bought the old building and is trying to set up a boutique hotel in Severton.” His smile faded, knowing that the list could continue. His mood darkened to the same colour as the river during a nighttime storm.
Gran eyed him. “So where do you start? I’m not sure your dad would thank you if he lost Jake any time soon. Best let him live a little longer and maybe stuff his exhaust with manure like you did last time.”
“He’s still checking his exhaust every time he takes the Range Rover out. It didn’t help that Scott stuffed it full of mashed potatoes two weeks after the manure,” Zack said.
He truly loved his family. His two brothers, Scott and Alex and his cousins, Jake and Rayah, were the reason he’d come back to Severton after working in Manchester for three years once he’d graduated. They’d all drifted back to their hometown, even after swearing as teenagers that they were going to leave and never return, but the small town pulled them back home like a magnet.
Gran nodded sagely. “He never was as stupid as he made out. Have you met Sorrell?”
“Sorrell?” Zack squinted. “What’s sorrel? I thought it was a herb?”
“It is. But it’s also an unusual name. It’s the woman who’s turning the old care home into a boutique hotel. I’m having to start stocking up on more knick-knacks in the post office to cater for all the overnighters it’s going to bring in.”
Zack rolled his eyes and walked with Gran down to the main lounge. It was a brand-new purpose-built building with one wing dedicated to residents who had dementia. He was proud of it: three years of researching, planning and persuading the local council for permits had resulted in an environment he knew was the best it could be. And he was passionate about his job. As a social worker, he’d specialised in care for the elderly; now he got to be hands-on, making sure that the care they received was as good as it could be; as good as they deserved.
“I thought it was a man who bought it.” He hadn’t paid too much attention to the sale of the old building where the care home had previously been housed. His uncle, Jake’s dad, was the conglomerate, and he oversaw the larger financial operations.
“Hmmm.” Gran raised an eyebrow. “I think it was a man involved initially. Not sure of the finer details—Davey would have those.”
Gran, of course, knew his uncle, and his father. Hell, she knew everyone and probably had more information on them than they had on themselves. Rumour had it that she was the great-great granddaughter of a witch and she’d inherited those powers, but this was a rumour from when he’d been ten and contemplating pinching sweets from the post office and his mother had caught him.
“All I know is that they got it for a steal.” Zack did a quick check of what was going on around them and whether there were any more alpacas hovering. “And because of that, my budget got lowered. Whoever did the negotiating isn’t getting a drink bought from me.”
Gran shook her head. “You’ve done a good job, Zacky-boy. It’s a fine place to visit and I can see from how Glenda’s doing that it’s a fine place to live. I’ve had a really good chat with her today—she even asked about Vanessa. Mind you, next time she might be shouting at me for the time when I took Frankie Morrow round the back of the sheds when she liked him.”
Zack decided that by not asking, he wouldn’t have to bleach his brain later. Glenda Roberts was a childhood—and adulthood—friend of Gran’s who had started with dementia when she was in in her late fifties. For a few years, she managed to remain in her home, thanks to her friends and family and the people of Severton, but after she’d gone missing from home overnight, causing a mass search party to hunt for her, the decision had been made to move her somewhere she could get the support she was starting to need.
And that had led to the birth of the Sunlight Wing, a specialist part of the care home for people with dementia and it had grown to the extent that Severton Sunlight Care Home needed to grow physically as its reputation spread—hence the move to a purpose built campus where the dementia wing had specific rooms set up from various eras where people could find the familiar items from their living memories.
“That’s what keeps it entertaining here,” Zack said. “You never know what your day is going to bring: crockery being thrown at you, impromptu parties and your cousin walking down the corridor with an alpaca… What the fuck, Jake?” The volume of Zack’s voice increased so that old Peter Musgraves who used hearing aids and always had his TV sound on full put his hands over his ears.
The alpaca made a noise that sounded like a disgruntled cluck and shot Jake a look that could’ve killed him, which would’ve saved Zack the trouble.
“One of your staff left the door open again that leads on to the field. Apparently there’s another one roaming around the Netherwood wing.” Jake patted the alpaca on the back of its neck.
“Does that mean it’s shitting all over the corridors?” Zack folded his arms. “Where have these creatures come from, Jake? Why have thirty odd alpacas just landed in one of the fields? Shouldn’t they be in South America somewhere?”
Jake shook his head and gave the lopsided grin that had once persuaded several girls to go behind the same sheds where Gran had taken Frankie Morrow. “They don’t shit everywhere. They’re really clean animals—they all use the same spot in a field to do their business, which is more than you can say for a lot of humans. And I got them from a place in Halifax. The farmer was moving to France and needed to get rid of them in a hurry. I offered to take them off his hands.”
Zack groaned. “What’s Dad said?”
Jake shrugged. “Not much. Think he’s more concerned with Rayah.”
“What’s she done?”
“Spent a night in the cells. She’s in work today, so she’s fine.”
Zack shook his head. His only female relative apart from his mother had always been a wild child, despite now being the town’s nursery school teacher. She was great with little kids, mainly because she hadn’t mastered adulting yet.
Gran laughed. “She wasn’t arrested, so you needn’t worry.”
