about that so-called mystery was a damp squib. She latched onto the tale out of desperation, having had another local story crumble before she had even managed to move into the village. One of the reasons she so coveted a place there was Haydn Shady, an unlikely-named villain who had taken possession of a big property on some of the estate lands outside the village. He was a shady character indeed, suspected of extortion and fraud at the very least, plus kidnapping and murder if you believed the gossip. He seemed omnipotent although he was seldom spotted. He was large, with a completely shaved head, and he always wore sunglasses, the myth being that no one had ever seen his eyes.
The manor house he stayed in was originally leased from the aging Baron who owned nearly all the land around. Somehow, through threats it was believed, Shady had then managed to purchase the house outright, along with many acres. The original theory had been that he needed the privacy to oversee his nefarious business, and he needed the land to safely bury the bodies of his murdered enemies. Bit by bit he seemed to eat into the estate, purchasing parcels of land here and there so that many of the tenant farmers suddenly found themselves at the mercy of a new and far more ruthless landlord, one prepared to raise their rents without scruple.
All this was juicy enough gossip for any aspiring journalist, although it was a story most would fear to follow, given the reputation of the subject. The plot thickened when it transpired that a new road had been proposed, a bypass that would run through the estate lands. The old Baron would never consent to such a thing but he held only a small area that could still stop it from happening, and it seemed Mr Shady was more than happy to allow the purchase of his newly gained land for a whopping sum, far in excess of what had been paid for it.
Everyone waited with bated breath, sure that the villain would bully or threaten the poor Baron and get this remaining land. The new road would have seen the whole area ruined. Ancient woodland would be levelled. Noise and traffic pollution would increase, spoiling the general atmosphere for ever. Most of the farmers would be driven out and the village would die a slow death, peopled only by the commuters who may have silently been pleased with the faster routes onto major road networks. Mimi, following the story over the months and years as closely as she could from her flat in Oxford, decided that she couldn’t bear to see the area she so loved desecrated. This would be the cause to champion, the story that would show her mettle and talents and make her a heroine to the locals – who might reward her with a house there on the cheap.
However, another hero beat her to it. A few months before she secured her room at the Spinster’s house, the equally mysterious Pieter Bakkers stepped out of nowhere to help the ailing Baron. He was a powerful businessman who seemingly could not be bullied. He saved the day by buying up much of the estate’s remaining lands, promising to restore it to its former glory and never to sell off any further land. The loss of these ancestral lands and properties was tempered by the knowledge that they would be in the hands of someone with a genuine desire to keep the estate and restore it to its former glory.
Bakkers ‘discovered’ rare butterflies breeding in the meadows that the new road was set to go through, and quickly ensured the fields were designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, which meant that they were legally required to be maintained as they were. The proposed road plan was dead in the water. Mr Shady was no doubt grossly put out that his scam had failed but, rather than fight it in the way the villagers thought and feared he would, he instead decided to accept an offer from Bakkers for all the property and lands he had screwed from the Baron.
The price paid was apparently more than generous, an offer that simply could not be refused, although how anyone knew this, other than the protagonists and perhaps a single solicitor, was unclear. Maybe grateful locals were just quick to swell the legend of their saviour. Whatever the truth, Mr Shady sold up and slipped away without a word, leaving a new lord of the land in place, one who saw to it that the farmers were charged a fair rent again and that the village would never again come under threat.
Mimi was elated that Shady had been defeated but sad that her story had evaporated along with him. She would have loved to do a piece about the new hero but the man just seemed to be a ghost. No one ever saw him and no one could understand his vast generosity. The only explanation was that he was a true philanthropist, a lover of tradition and beauty and of the quiet, perfect villages quaintly nestling so far from his South African homeland. He made sure that buildings were properly maintained and, where necessary, renovated. He provided money for the church roof. He used his influence to ensure the post office stayed open, at a time when so many others fell under the axe.
Like most South Africans he was rugby mad, and he also came to the rescue of a local amateur rugby club who found themselves without a home. Not only did he assign an area to be used as a pitch, and build changing rooms and even some seating for the crowd, he designated other estate buildings as the clubhouse, to be used gratis by the team members for functions, and as a centre for the players to participate in outdoor leisure pursuits such as cycling and hiking, all great for building team spirit.
It was rumoured that the man himself secretly watched his new amateur side play, although no one seemed to know him by sight so no one could confirm this. It was said that he was away almost permanently on business, but it remained unclear why he never showed himself in person. Perhaps the weight of being so much the hero was too much for a genuinely generous man to carry. All dealings were overseen by an estate manager, and journalists’ requests for interviews with the Great Man were politely declined. Mimi knew she would win few friends by trying to unmask a beneficiary who wished to remain anonymous.
With the status quo returned, the village lapsed back into its tranquillity. Mimi even found herself a little isolated, particularly in the winter months. Her naughtiness seemed to increase exponentially with her boredom, and since Dominic was usually otherwise engaged or unreachable she had to resort to her fingers to sate her needs. Once in a while she found herself alone in the house and could dig out the carefully secreted vibrators. But on most nights the landlady stayed resolutely at home and Mimi came close to tearing out her hair with the frustration of not daring to reach for her toys. One overheard buzz and it would be all round the village before breakfast.
Her fingers were willing substitutes, seemingly working to their own plans as soon as her bedroom door was shut. Soon even the thought of another night in her room trying to avoid the Spinster’s incessant chatter had the strange dual effect of making her chest heave and her pussy tingle with anticipation. She seemed to spend all her leisure hours lost in either sticky-fingered escapism or guilt at her own wantonness. Her fantasies became more extravagant and drawn out, her head full of images of her being pleasured or, more commonly, abused by ever greater numbers of the most immoral people imaginable.
She tried to escape the slavery of masturbation by focusing on anything that might involve her in social life and keep her from her room and her mocking sex toys. She scanned the local paper for events or clubs she might join – anything that might prove more enticing than frigging while thinking about being held down and desecrated. Then one day she saw it, a barely noticeable advert in a little box buried within the classified section of her own paper.
‘The Ana Lucia Plan: a magical way to lose weight. For girls 18–30.’
Mimi didn’t know if the figures referred to size or age, nor had she ever heard of this Ana Lucia. But that wasn’t the name that struck her most. The one below it was; the one given as the contact, with a phone number beside it: Morgana Innamorato. Mimi thought the name so exotic that she repeated it over and over in her head and then felt compelled to say out loud, just to hear it roll off her tongue. The Spinster broke off from her TV-induced trance at the sound of the words, a deep frown forming as if it were sacrilege for that name to be spoken under her roof.
‘She’s a witch,’ she said, and meant it.
The landlady felt that no other qualification was needed and went back to her soap opera. Mimi’s imagination had already been captured
