snuck its way into her brain, of her and Dan, lying together in their field at the bottom of the hill on a sunny day, Dan saying quite seriously, ‘Love you forever,’ when Pippa had only just got round to thinking the ‘L’ word. Everything was manageable with Dan by her side.
‘How did you guess?’ asked Pippa, lifting her last batch of scones out of the Aga and putting them on the pine kitchen island in the middle of the kitchen, replacing them with muffins. She took a broom out and swept away the mud Dan had brought in with him.
‘You always bake when you’re in a bad mood,’ said Dan.
‘And you always bring mud in from the farm,’ she said.
‘I did wash up,’ protested Dan.
‘But you forgot to take your boots off, as usual,’ Pippa rolled her eyes at him.
Dan responded by picking up a scone and taking a bite. ‘Delicious.’
‘Oi, they’re not for you,’ said Pippa. ‘But why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a cuppa and a fry-up.’
‘No, you sit down,’ said Dan, ‘and tell me all about it. What’s that bloody woman done now?’
‘Nothing more than usual,’ said Pippa, loving him for so perfectly tuning into her mood. ‘She’s wrung her hands as much as she can, but the upshot is we still have respite care for the short term, but monthly not fortnightly.’
‘Well, that’s something at least,’ said Dan.
‘I know,’ said Pippa. ‘But it’s the long term I’m worried about. What happens if we lose it altogether?’
‘We cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Dan, handing his wife a cup of tea.
‘Why are you always so positive?’ said Pippa. ‘Here I am finding problems, and you go round making out it will all be okay.’ That was Dan all over, her rock, her strength. He always managed to help her see a way through, when she felt overwhelmed.
‘One of us has to be,’ said Dan, ‘and you do enough worrying for the pair of us. Something will turn up, you’ll see.’
‘Oh Dan,’ said Pippa, suddenly feeling a bit teary. ‘Whatever did I do to deserve you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dan with a grin, ‘but if I’m allowed another one of those scones, you never know, I might even stick around a while.’
Cat was on the set of Cat’s Country Kitchen, her new TV show which was due to air in the autumn, when her phone buzzed. She’d been busy talking to Len Franklin the director about setting up a shot of her chopping onions for her Shropshire hotpot, which she was meant to be doing without crying. The phone buzzed insistently again. Damn. She thought she’d turned it off. Cat took it out of her pocket and saw, to her dismay, the school phone number. Her heart sank. Now what had Mel done?
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said to Len. She hadn’t worked with him before, and found him a little taciturn and unfriendly, so she wasn’t quite sure how he’d take the interruption. ‘Would you mind if I take this?’
‘If you must,’ said Len in long-suffering tones. ‘But please be quick, we’ve got a busy schedule and a lot to get through.’
‘Thanks,’ said Cat, smiling apologetically at the film crew, and wandered to the back of the studio.
‘Hullo, Catherine Tinsall here,’ she said. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. How may I help?’
She dreaded phone calls from school, which seemed to be happening with monotonous regularity of late.
‘Mrs Tinsall?’ The crisp tones of Mrs Reynolds, the school secretary, always made her turn to jelly. ‘It appears that Melanie is absent from school, and we haven’t heard from you. I take it she is ill?’
‘Ill? No of course not,’ said Cat in bewilderment. ‘I saw her off to school myself. Did you send me a text message?’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Reynolds.
‘Oh,’ Cat checked her messages. She’d missed one. ‘Yes I did get it. I’m at work, and didn’t pick it up. Didn’t Mel come in at all?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Mrs Reynolds frostily. Cat knew it was paranoid, but she always got the impression Mrs Reynolds thought all mothers should stay at home till their children had left school.
‘I am so sorry,’ said Cat. ‘I’ll try and find out what’s happened and where she is.’
She put the phone down, her heart thumping. Bloody hell. She’d had far too many conversations this year with Mel’s form teacher about her bad behaviour, but usually it was about cheeking the teachers, or not working hard enough. She’d even been suspended for a day for being caught smoking. Why on earth would she have skipped school? It was probably because she was due to get her mock results. Mel had been grumpy as hell for the last few days, and judging by how little work she’d done over the Christmas holidays, Cat wasn’t expecting miracles. It was the first time Mel had ever bunked off. That is, if she was bunking off, and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Oh God, Cat thought, what if something had happened to her?
‘Don’t even go there, Cat,’ she muttered to herself, and rang Mel’s mobile. Switched off, of course. She sent a text instead. You’ve been rumbled. RING ME, Mum.
She texted both James and Paige at school, though she knew, technically, they weren’t supposed to have their phones on them.
Do you know where Mel is?
No idea. James’ response was swift and to the point.
Paige took longer to reply.
Saw her talking to Andy outside school.
Andy who?
Dunno was the helpful response.
Great. Thanks for nothing, Paige.
‘Ahem, if we could get on?’ Len was tapping his watch, the film crew were looking bored, and Cat was conscious everyone was looking at her.
‘Yes, of course, nearly done.’ Cat made one last phone call.
‘Noel, I’m really sorry to do this, but Mel’s bunked off. I’ve no idea where she is and I was due on camera five minutes ago. Can you deal with it? I assume she’s in town somewhere. Possibly with a boy named Andy.’
‘Cat–’ began Noel.
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Cat, ‘I’ll get away as soon as I can, I promise.’
‘Okay, leave it with me,’ said Noel, ‘I’ll go out on a recce.’
‘Thanks,’ said Cat. ‘I owe you.’
‘Again,’ said Noel, who had, she realised guiltily, been picking up more of the domestic slack than her of late. ‘I’ll bloody kill her when I find her.’
‘Not
