Helena came downstairs.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Perfect,’ I said, arranging the cheese on a slate platter with some grapes and celery sticks.
Helena started wiping down the worktops. ‘Nancy says she’s got into such a muddle with her WIP, she’s almost tempted to start again. How’s the soup coming along?’
‘It will need seasoning I expect. I haven’t been able to concentrate on it. There’s still no sign of Nick Fitzgerald. I hope he won’t be long. It’s twelve-thirty.’
Helena started opening the cupboards looking for side plates while I ran two French sticks under the cold tap before putting them into the oven to crisp up. There was a fresh block of butter in the dish; we were just about ready. I went rummaging through all the cupboards and drawers to find glasses and cutlery so I could set the table. It’s always difficult the first few hours in a strange house because no one knows where anything is and it’s a steep learning curve.
Suddenly Oliver’s door opened again. By the expression on his face he was not happy. ‘Do you have to make such a bloody racket?’ he said. ‘Shouting at each other! Opening and closing doors! Crashing around. I’m trying to work and it sounds like there’s an elephant on the loose out here.’
Flaming cheek! I know I might have put on a couple of pounds recently but there had been an offer on Wagon Wheels and I’d forgotten how much I liked them.
‘So sorry,’ I said, ‘but of course that’s the disadvantage of a ground-floor room. You could always go into the big sitting room. It’s right at the front of the house, very quiet and there’s a lovely wood burner in there. Very cosy.’
The oven timer beeped and I went to get the bread out of the oven.
‘I don’t want to be cosy; I just want some peace and bloody quiet,’ he said.
There was a knock on the back door and Oliver rolled his eyes in exasperation before disappearing back into his room.
Helena went to open it. It was a young man, rather attractive in a tousled, geeky, sports jacket sort of way.
‘Hello,’ Helena said, rather breathlessly, ‘you must be Nick Fitzgerald?’
He stepped into the room, bringing a swirl of rain with him. ‘I am.’ He shook her hand.
It was obvious he liked what he saw. A lot. I swear you could feel the electricity between them crackling across the room.
‘Filthy day it’s turned into. And it started out so well. Still, it’s looking up now I’ve got here.’
He gave Helena a wide grin and shrugged off his coat. Helena fussed and twittered around him and after a few introductions took him away to show him his room. She came back a few minutes later still rather dazed and silly. Most unlike her usual Miss Sensible demeanour.
Great, just what we didn’t need: Helena flirting with a guest. She’d never done anything like that before, although thinking about it we didn’t get many men as guests. And we’d never had someone with an unruly mop of tawny curls, smiling brown eyes, and the hint of a rather muscular frame under his tweed exterior.
There was soup to be served and bread to be sliced up and arranged attractively in the wicker baskets we had found. I fixed her with a steely look and willed her to calm down.
At one o’clock on the dot everyone appeared in the kitchen. Well everyone except Oliver Forest of course, whose bedroom door remained closed. I swear I could sense the chill of his disapproval seeping underneath it.
Nancy and Vivienne fussed for a few minutes about where to sit while Helena went to fetch a glass jug of iced water and a pile of paper napkins. Nick Fitzgerald came downstairs and sat at a non-contentious place halfway along the table, trying to watch Helena without appearing too obvious.
He half stood up as she came across the room towards him, his long legs still under the table so he was trapped in an odd crouch.
‘Can I help?’
‘No not at all, we’re all under control here,’ Helena said with a bright laugh. I swear if she’d had a spare hand she would have twirled her auburn hair.
‘I’d better go and check on Elaine. She’s not very good with stairs,’ I added a shade louder.
As I reached the hallway I saw Elaine was well on her way down.
‘Lovely house,’ she said. ‘Very inspiring. I’d like to work in the little space under the staircase. But only if no one else wants it? Comfy-looking chair, very pretty lamp.’
‘Consider it yours,’ I said. ‘Now come and have some lunch and meet the others.’
‘Even Mr Forest?’ she said with a wicked twinkle.
‘Well who knows,’ I said.
Elaine went to sit next to Nick, who gallantly stood to pull her chair out for her.
‘Perhaps we could start by introducing ourselves?’ I said. ‘Just to fill in the gaps? I’m Billie Summers. I love to cook and I work part time in my Uncle Peter’s bookshop. I’ve been trying to write a book for most of my adult life. This could be the week when I suddenly gain the necessary inspiration! Helena?’
Helena coloured prettily and sat up a bit straighter in her chair.
‘Helena Fairchild. I write children’s and YA. I’m a librarian. I sold a short story once, about a million years ago. It was about Bonfire Night. I’m not exactly setting the literary world alight just yet but I’m going to keep on trying. Nancy?’
Nancy was cutting a slice of cheddar and she paused, her knife halfway through the block.
‘Nancy Gregory, retired RE teacher. I write murder mysteries. The latest one has taken three years and I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing with it. I get so muddled I am quite capable of making the detective in charge of the case commit the murder.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps that’s not such a bad idea!’
Vivienne sniffed; her aquiline nose a beak of disapproval.
‘I’m Vivienne Noble. I’m a retired chemistry teacher. I’ve self-published a couple of novels on Amazon to mixed reviews. I write contemporary erotica. Nothing too outré, just a bit of S&M, some bondage, and some role-play.’
‘Really?’ Nick said.
Vivienne loved it when this sort of surprise was voiced and was inclined to play up to the audience and show off.
‘Well I may not have been married but it doesn’t mean I haven’t lived. And I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what does and doesn’t work.’
The table fell silent at this point until Helena cleared her throat and we all jumped.
‘Nick?’ she said. ‘Your turn I think?’
I kicked Helena under the table. She sent me a cross-eyed look in return.
Nick fidgeted a little and pulled his chunk of bread in half.
‘Blimey, I don’t quite know how to follow that. OK, I’m Nick Fitzgerald. I’m a contractor specializing in IT. I’m trying to write thrillers with a sort of international edge. Dan Brown, Ross Black, John Grisham – that sort of thing. I’ve had some technical papers published on subjects too dreary to go into, but as yet I don’t have an agent or any sign of one.’
He seemed to run out of steam at this point and he looked down and started buttering his bread.
We all turned to Elaine.
‘I’m