One
Jemma Granger took one last look around her home office to ensure she hadn’t left anything behind that she might need. She was leaving her two-bedroom, ground floor flat in Orpington for a whole month – the longest she had ever been away from home in her entire life, and although her destination was less than a two-hour drive away, she didn’t want to travel back and forth just because she had forgotten to pack something or other. She was spending the month in a tiny village called Betancourt Bay. A village she had never heard of until her editor had called her a week ago with news that had made Jemma’s day.
‘Hey, Jem!’ Clarice had been unable to hide the excitement in her voice. ‘You know you said, when we last spoke, that what you really needed to finish writing this book was an escape to somewhere peaceful? Well guess what? I’ve got the perfect place. It’s exactly what you wanted. An idyllic cottage available to rent for at least a month. Tick. Near the sea. Tick. In a quaint little village. Big tick. With lots of open space and tranquil places for you to walk, and think, and breathe fresh air. Tick and gold star.’
‘Really? Wow. It sounds perfect.’ Jemma couldn’t believe her ears. She’d scoured the internet on and off for several days after that conversation, and hadn’t found anything even vaguely close to what she wanted. ‘How did you find it? None of my searches came up with anything suitable. All the good places were already booked.’
‘I know. And I wasn’t even looking. But the moment I heard about it I knew it was right up your street. It’s owned by a friend of a friend. My friend’s always saying she wants to move to a place like that one day – although between you and me, she never will. It’s just a fantasy. The only way she’ll ever leave London is if she’s dragged away, kicking and screaming. Anyway, I met her for cocktails last night and she was telling me that a friend of hers from her school-days has recently inherited a picture-postcard-perfect cottage. My friend showed me a couple of photos of the place, and I have to say, it’s beautiful. Even I could be tempted to stay there. And you know how much I dislike that whole quaint English village vibe. Apparently, it was left to her by her gran and she doesn’t want to live there but she’s not ready to sell it either, so she wants to rent it out while she makes up her mind what to do with it. I think it must be Fate.’
‘Or simply perfect timing.’ Jemma had never really believed in Fate. She adhered to her beloved gran’s mantra of, life is what you make it. ‘Where is this dream cottage?’
‘The village’s called Betancourt Bay. It’s nestled between woods, open fields, and the sea, and it sits on top of the white cliffs that go all the way to Dover, so not only will you have the tranquil walks in the open air you said you long for, you’ll have some spectacular views too. Or so I’m told. But most important of all, there’s a pub at the end of the road, so you won’t die of thirst. And it serves food, plus there’s a café less than a five-minute walk from your door, so you won’t have to cook, unless you want to.’
‘This sounds too good to be true.’ Cooking was not something at which Jemma excelled. Spaghetti Bolognese was about as far as her skills went. And even then she didn’t stick to the recipe. Having both a pub and a café close by was an added bonus.
‘It gets better. If you get sick of being hidden away in a tiny village, the town of Folkestone’s a few minutes’ drive away. I’ve never been to Folkestone – or to Betancourt Bay, of course, but they both look pretty perfect to me, judging from my friend’s photos, and my own subsequent online searches, just to check the place out. I’m sending you the details, so open your email, and get it booked!’
Clarice had been right. Oak View Cottage did look perfect. As did Betancourt Bay. Even so, Jemma had made one of her lists – as she did for every eventuality in her life – this time the pros and cons of leaving home for such a long time, and then another list for renting a cottage. But Clarice had sent her a follow up text saying, ‘Forget the lists, Jem. Just do it!’ and Jemma had laughed because Clarice knew her so well.
For once in her life, Jemma had torn up her lists, called the number she had been given, spoken to a lovely young woman called Molly, and booked herself a summer hideaway before she had time to change her mind.
Since then, Jemma had written lists to help her pack, and had begun to do so two days ago, ticking off each item as she placed it into one of her three suitcases. But she couldn’t quash a niggling doubt that she had forgotten something. A doubt that had awoken her in the early hours for the last two mornings. Along with the one that kept questioning if she was doing the right thing. And the one that wondered if the residents of the neighbouring cottages might not be elderly people pottering in their well-kept cottage gardens as she had imagined, but instead be loud and obnoxious, or nosy, gossipy, and bothersome. Or possibly even … murderous.
The latter, of course, was highly unlikely, such thoughts having no doubt been brought to the fore due to Jemma having binge-watched an entire series of bothMiss Marple, andMidsomer Murdersone particularly wet and dreary weekend a few weeks before.
Jemma repeatedly told herself that worrying about it wouldn’t help, and she would soon discover who the neighbours were. But after two nights of intermittent sleep, she was now both eager and anxious in equal measure, to get to Betancourt Bay to find out, one way or another.
She had made a new list for her ‘last-minute’ items, like her toothbrush and toothpaste, shower gel and shampoo, and such, which she had checked and double-checked this morning, along with the previous two lists. Yet she still could not rid herself of the niggling doubt that she had forgotten something important, hence the final check of her home office.
She cast her gaze slowly over the bulging bookshelves, festooned with warm-white fairy lights that she had set, via her Google Nest Hub – together with some other lights in her flat – to switch on and off at various times of the evening on each day for the month she would be away, so that passers-by wouldn’t think the place was empty. Her upstairs neighbour, Joanne, would keep an eye out for anything suspicious, and Jemma had left her a spare key, just in case, but it wasn’t the lights, or security that she was thinking of now. She had been tempted to take her bumper-sized, Oxford English dictionary with her but had decided she could use the online one instead as it was far more practical than lugging a massive hardback around, yet as her gaze landed on it, her hand instinctively reached out. She tutted and gave herself a mild rebuke. The dictionary could stay where it was.
The large bookshelves left little space for anything else in the small room, except her ancient wooden desk and Captain’s chair – both charity shop finds ten years ago.
Her desktop computer, large monitor, and keyboard (which she would not be taking) sat in the centre of the desk, and to the right were a box of tissues and a potted plant. To the left sat a sparkly silver lamp with a massive round bulb, and in front of that a silver-framed photo of her beloved, long-departed, gran, Esme Granger.
Jemma made a loud gasp. How had she forgotten that? She had known there was something. That niggling doubt had been right.
Venetian blinds blocked out most of the early afternoon sunshine streaming through the panes of the large sash-window, but one narrow beam shone on the photo. She grabbed it, and hugged it to her. She had photos of her gran on her phone, of course, but having Esme’s smiling face in front of her while she worked was imperative. Esme was her inspiration. And so much more than that. Everything in the room – even the room itself – had been purchased with money Jemma had inherited from Esme, the bulk of which had come from the sale of Esme’s cottage, and most of that had paid the large deposit on Jemma’s ground floor, two-bedroom flat.
It was as if that beam of sunshine was a message from Esme herself, saying, ‘I’d like to share this adventure with you.’
For once, Jemma was grateful for the sunshine stealing through the blinds, although it that had been a constant problem for the last ten years. No matter how often Jemma rearranged her desk and chair the sun always managed to find a way to cast a ray of light across her screen. To avoid that completely, she would have had to directly face the window, but then sunshine would have hit her full in the face, plus her back would have been towards the door; something she would never do. It was wise tobe able to see who might be approaching as she beavered away at her desk, even though she lived alone – in fact, especially as she lived alone, and had done so since moving into the flat in Orpington. Her upstairs neighbour told her it was unlucky to sit with one’s back to the door, but Jemma had seen enough slasher movies and so-called, cosy crime series, to be aware of that. Not that there were many murdering maniacs in Orpington. But as her gran had so often pointed out, it was better to be safe than sorry. A motto Jemma lived by. The best positions for her desk, chair, and screen were the ones they were in now, but still a ray of sunlight crept across her desk. A good thing today, as it happened.
Had she forgotten anything else?
She scanned the large whiteboard fixed to the wall behind her desk, on which various ideas, plot themes, names of characters and places, along with other details, had been scrawled, together with one or two reminders. Nothing there that she needed during the coming month, although she had already copied a couple of the reminders into a notepad, just in case.
Beside the whiteboard, a calendar hung at a slight angle and Jemma reached out and straightened it, tapping the date she’d highlighted in green, with the tip of her forefinger. Today’s date, the first of June.
A small lump formed in her throat and a tear pricked at her eye. She had moved into this flat ten years ago today, six months after her beloved gran had passed away, and Esme’s tiny cottage, in which they had both lived, had been sold.
The cottage was in serious disrepair, but was snapped up by a developer, no doubt due to the generous size of the garden and the bargain asking price. Jemma briefly considered keeping the cottage, but neither she, nor Esme, had sufficient savings, and a new roof was just one of the many things on an extensive list that needed replacing or repairing.
On top of that, it broke her heart to live there without her gran. Jemma had never felt so alone or lonely as she had during those first few months after Esme’s passing, although the place was filled with Esme’s belongings, and their shared memories. Or, perhaps, it was because of that fact. The memories Jemma wanted with her always, were the memories she held in her heart.
At the time, she thought a fresh start in a new home might do her good. And it had. Yet she had wept inconsolably when she returned to the cottage just two years later to find six small houses crammed onto the land and garden on which the home she and Esme had shared for so many years had stood. She had not been back there since.
But selling the cottage had been the right thing to do; the only option in the circumstances. And the sales proceeds had enabled her to put down the large deposit on her flat in Orpington.
