Last Thursday, he remembered in a flash, when he’d walked to the high street for milk and bread and other essentials. Retracing his movements from memory, he remembered coming home with his bags of shopping, unlocking the door, closing it behind him and dropping the old-fashioned latch into place, carrying the groceries into the kitchen…
…and setting the ring of house keys on the counter while he stored his purchases in the fridge and kitchen cupboards.
He glanced towards the fruit bowl on the granite countertop and saw the keys still lying there where he’d left them, tucked beneath the rim of the bowl and obscured by a bunch of overhanging bananas. Grabbing the keys, he turned again for the front door. Between searching for his blazer, taming his mad hair, and looking for the house keys, he’d taken far longer to get moving than he would’ve liked. As he locked the door behind him, he checked his watch.
It was almost one-fifteen already.
Shaking his head at his terminal disorganisation, Travis hurried out onto Foxglove Street and turned towards the high street.
He was only a few steps into his journey when he realised he had no idea where Hamblehurst library actually was.
Pausing, he pulled out his phone and brought up the map app. With clumsy fingers, he tapped in his desired location and the map plotted a route from where he stood towards a destination about ten minutes away, across the high street and down a lane and into the market square beyond.
Ten minutes was too long to get over there, considering how late he already was. Travis broke into a jog, not wanting to keep the book club people waiting any longer than necessary.
He dashed along Foxglove Street, barely glancing at the gorgeous houses and pretty front gardens he passed because he knew better than to let the wandering eye of his inner creative spirit start peering around for inspiration and attempt to convince him to slow down for a better look.
Although even as he hurried past, Travis could admit to himself that it was an incredibly pretty street and he was lucky to be spending time here… even if he had been holed up indoors for most of the time since he arrived.
And he could also admit to himself that the change of scenery from city to rural town had already worked wonders on his muse, despite staying indoors most of the time while bashing out his new manuscript at the keyboard.
Travis’s home was in east London, where he lived in a spacious second-floor apartment in Spitalfields. He’d never dreamt of being able to afford to own a property in such a popular part of the city, but the success of the Maura Shaw mystery series had given him financial security and propelled him onto the housing ladder in one of his favourite London areas. Travis loved his flat in the old brick-fronted building near Spitalfields Market, and he loved the buzz of London life, with every city attraction either right there in his neighbourhood or quickly accessed with a short bus or tube journey.
Aged only thirty, Travis knew he was fortunate to enjoy an exciting London life, paid for by doing something he loved andwhich didn’t feel like work at all. Writing was his joy, his escape, his great passion, and the fact that it had bought him a flat in the middle of London still amazed him even now, several years into his commercial success.
There was nothing about his Spitalfields flat he didn’t love. Well, thathadbeen true, for a while, until a neighbour started renovating the flat directly below him and filling the entire building with construction noise from first thing in the morning until late into the afternoon.
Accustomed to the noise of city life, Travis had long ago learned to block out the world beyond his window when he was writing. Traffic, honking horns, shouting and yelling, comings and goings—all this, and more, was just part and parcel of London life. No one looking for a quiet life would ever think they’d find it living anywhere near central London.
But hammering and drilling and sawing taking place just a few feet beneath your floor was another prospect altogether. Add in workmen talking loudly to one another above the racket from their tinny radios, and the endless clatter up and down the shared stairwell as building supplies were brought in, and rubble was sent crashing down through open windows into skips set up on the pavement below, and life soon took became a misery for Travis.
Working from home was no easy matter when there was building work happening all day long and not even his noise cancelling headphones could drown out the sounds. He decamped to other locations to work on his book, such as nearby cafes and the local library, but none of these places were ideal for an introverted author who wrote best while perched at his desk at home.
With a deadline approaching for the completed manuscript of his latest Maura Shaw novel, and with progress constantly interrupted thanks to the endless racket happening inside hisbuilding, Travis had decided drastic action was required if he was to have any chance of finishing the book on time.
He’d searched around on various home holiday letting websites and was about to take the leap and just rent something—anything, anywhere—to get him away from the relentless noise at home, when he mentioned his predicament to Michaela one night while they chatted on the phone.
His sister had stunned him by announcing she had the perfect solution for him. A friend of hers had gone travelling with her husband for three months, driving a motorhome across Europe from France to Croatia, and although they’d planned to let their home to holiday makers while they were gone, they’d heard too many stories about guests trashing properties and leaving owners to deal with the mess, and in the end they’d decided they’d rather not spend their once-in-a-lifetime holiday worrying about what was going on inside their house while they were gone.
The couple had arranged with a group of friends to take turns checking in on the place instead, watering plants and making sure all was well. Michaela was one of those friends, it turned out. She’d suggested she contact her friend and ask how she’d feel about a completely reliable person living there for a few weeks, someone who could be trusted to look after the place.
Before Travis could give the idea any thought, his sister had already hung up to make the call to her friends. When she phoned him back thirty minutes later, he could almost hear her grinning down the line.
Her friends loved the idea. The woman had even read some of Travis’s Maura Shaw mysteries, and was thrilled at the prospect of having an author write his new book while living in her home. They apparently required little further persuasion that this brother of Michaela could be trusted, despite neverhaving met him, as they trusted Michaela’s judgement and that’s what mattered to them.
Travis could travel down to Hamblehurst as soon as he wanted and pick up the key from Michaela, who’d take him to the house on Foxglove Street and show him the ropes.
More than a little stunned by the speed with which this arrangement was settled, Travis was about to ask for a moment to think it through, not wanting to just decamp to some stranger’s house without at least seeing a few pictures of the place first. But before he could ask any questions, a piercing drilling sound started in the flat below him, so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of his sister’s voice down the line.
He couldn’t take another minute of the building racket, and nor could his manuscript deadline.
Travis had yelled down the phone to his sister, “Yes! That sounds amazing! I’ll be there later today!”
After some hasty packing, he caught a train to Hamblehurst that same afternoon. Michaela met him at the station in her car and helped him load his luggage into the boot before driving him the short distance to Foxglove Street.
The peace and quiet of the lovely street was matched only by the peace and quiet inside the lovely house. Two days after arriving, Travis had written more than he’d managed in the previous week and a half in London. Relocating to Hamblehurst had worked its magic.
Perhaps it had worked its magic too well, Travis thought as he hurtled down Foxglove Street on his way towards the library. The quiet house and quaint street had allowed him to become completely immersed in his new Maura Shaw mystery, to the exclusion of just about everything else.
