The one with a big fat zero on the end.
Yesterday that hadn’t bothered her. She’d never understood why anyone would want to stop the clock at ‘twenty-nine’.
Today, if some fairy godmother were to appear and offer her three wishes, that would be number one on the list. Well, maybe not number one…
But, while fairy godmothers were pure fantasy, her date of birth was a fact that she could not deny and, by the time she’d reached the last park bench before home, the one overlooking the lake that had once been part of the parkland surrounding Coleridge House, her legs had been shaking so much that she’d been forced to stop.
Once there, she’d been unable to find the will to move again. It was a sheltered spot, a sun trap and, despite the fact that it was the first week in November, pleasantly warm. And while she sat on this park bench she was still Miss Mary Louise Coleridge of Coleridge House. Someone to be respected.
Her place in the town, the invitations to sit on charitable committees were part of her life. Looked at in the cold light of day, it was obvious that it wasn’t her they wanted, it was the Coleridge name to lend lustre to their endeavours. And Coleridge House.
No one would come knocking when she didn’t have a grand room where they could hold their meetings, with a good lunch thrown in. An elegant, if fading house with a large garden in which to hold their ‘events’.
It was the plaintive mewing of a kitten in distress that finally broke through these dark thoughts. It took her a moment to locate the scrap of orange fur clinging to the branch of a huge old beech tree set well back from the path.
‘Oh, sweetie, how on earth did you get up there?’
Since the only reply was an even more desperate mew, she got to her feet and went closer.
‘Come on. You can do it,’ she cooed, standing beneath it, hoping to coax it back down the long sloping branch that came nearly to the ground. It edged further up the branch.
She looked around, hoping for someone tall enough to reach up and grab it but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Finally, when it became clear that there wasn’t anything else for it, she took off her jacket, kicked off her shoes and, skirting a muddy puddle, she caught hold of the branch, found a firm foothold and pulled herself up.
Bitterly regretting that he’d taken advantage of the unseasonably fine weather to walk in to the office, Adam escaped the building via his private lift to the car park. He’d hoped to pick up a taxi at the rank on the corner but there were none waiting and he crossed the road to the park. It was a slightly longer way home, but there was less chance of being seen by anyone he knew.
Oblivious to the beauty of the autumn morning, he steered the buggy with one hand, using the other to call up anyone who might have a clue where Saffy was heading for.
His first action on finding Nancie had been to try her mother’s mobile but, unsurprisingly, it was switched off. He’d left a message on her voicemail, asking her to ring him, but didn’t hold out much hope of that.
Ten minutes later, the only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing. The new tenants of the apartment, her agent—make that ex-agent—even her old flatmate denied any knowledge of where she was, or of Michel, and he had no idea who her friends were, even supposing they’d tell him anything.
Actually, he thought, looking at the baby, it wasn’t true that he knew nothing.
While the movement of the buggy had, for the moment, lulled her back to sleep, he was absolutely sure that very soon she would be demanding to be fed or changed.
Ask May. She’ll help.
Ahead of him, the tall red-brick barley twist chimneys of Coleridge House stood high above the trees. For years he’d avoided this part of the park, walked double the distance rather than pass the house. Just seeing those chimneys had made him feel inadequate, worthless.
These days, he could buy and sell the Coleridges, and yet it was still there. Their superiority and the taint of who he was.
Asking her for help stuck deep in his craw, but the one thing about May Coleridge was that she wouldn’t ask questions. She knew Saffy. Knew him.
He called Enquiries for her number but it was unlisted. No surprise there, but maybe it was just as well.
It had been a very long time since he’d taken her some broken creature to be nursed back to health, but he knew she’d find it a lot harder to say no face to face. If he put Nancie into her arms.
It is not high, May told herself as she set her foot firmly on the tree. All she had to do was haul herself up onto the branch and crawl along it. No problem…
Easy enough to say when she was safely on the ground.
Standing beneath the branch and looking up, it had seemed no distance at all. The important thing, she reminded herself, was not to look down but keep her eye on the goal.
‘What on earth are you doing up there, Mouse?’
Sherbet dabs!
As her knee slipped, tearing her tights, she wondered how much worse this day could get. The advantage that she didn’t have to look down to see who was beneath her—only one person had ever called her Mouse—was completely lost on her.
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ she asked through gritted teeth. ‘Checking the view?’
‘You should be able to see Melchester Castle from up there,’ he replied, as if she’d been serious. ‘You’ll have to look a little further to your left, though.’
She was in enough trouble simply looking ahead. She’d never been good with heights—something she only ever seemed to remember when she was too far off the ground to change her mind.
‘Why don’t you come up and point it out to me?’ she gasped.
‘I would be happy to,’ he replied, ‘but that branch doesn’t look as if it could support both of us.’
He was right. It was creaking ominously as she attempted to edge closer to the kitten which, despite her best efforts not to frighten it further, was backing off, a spitting, frightened orange ball of fur.
It was far too late to wish she’d stuck to looking helpless at ground level. She’d realised at a very early age that the pathetic, Where’s a big strong man to help me? routine was never going to work for her—she wasn’t blonde enough, thin enough, pretty enough—and had learned to get on and do it herself.
It was plunging in without a thought for the consequences that had earned her the mocking nickname ‘Mouse’, short for ‘Danger Mouse’, bestowed on her by Adam Wavell when she was a chubby teen and he was a mocking, nerdy, glasses-wearing sixth-former at the local high school.
Her knee slipped a second time and a gasp from below warned her that Adam wasn’t the only one with a worm’s eye view of her underwear. A quick blink confirmed that her antics were beginning to attract an audience of mid-morning dog-walkers, older children on their autumn break and shoppers taking the scenic route into the town centre—just too late to be of help.
Then a click, followed by several more as
