Barbara Jackson
Kitty Cartwright
Monica Jones
Celia Fassett
Moira Wallbank
Dorothy Nixon
And that was it, plus a typed note at the foot of the memo: ‘Recipes Are For Sharing’. There were no minutes of what had been discussed at the meeting, no matters arising or action points to be followed up. And, apart from her mother’s, none of these names were familiar to Della, suggesting that the society wasn’t based in Burley Bridge. Even as a child she had known pretty much everyone in the village, at least by name. She studied the list, trying to dredge up some long-ago memory of these women being mentioned, intrigued by the possibility of Kitty having had a circle of women friends whom she had kept strictly separate, gathering together only for meetings. Or maybe – and this was perhaps the most likely explanation – Kitty had attended one meeting and decided it wasn’t her thing?
Della turned the piece of paper over, hoping for more information. It was blank, apart from a faint pencil-written note she had to squint to read: Such a delightful evening, Kitty, yours affectionately, R.
R? She checked the typed names again: no R there. She folded up the piece of paper and slipped it back into Sugarcraft Delights, then eased the book into its pile.
Not remotely tired now, Della flicked through other books for notes hidden inside, but found nothing. Checking all of them would take days and, in any case, she didn’t really know what she expected to find. She gathered herself up and examined Mark’s golf clubs. Like the putter upstairs, these wore little black leather hats too. One by one, she removed them and inspected their heads. A couple were flecked with dried mud, suggesting … what exactly? That somehow she had changed from being a woman who went about her business in a reasonably cheery manner to the type who crept downstairs in the night to examine her husband’s sports equipment? She shuddered and made her way to the living room where she perched on the sofa and flipped open her laptop. It was wrong, of course; downright stupid even. Della knew, as she Googled Heathfield Golf Club, that she had tipped into paranoia and should be in the kitchen right now, making a mug of chamomile tea before heading straight back to bed.
The website looked as if it had been designed by a ten year old. Maybe Jeff was right and Sophie should consider website design, at least as a lucrative sideline. The colours jarred and the text – light blue on a sage green background – was barely legible. Still, she clicked on the news page and stared at a photo of the golf course dotted with small dark mounds.
Course Closed Due To Mole Invasion read the headline. As our members may be aware, Heathfield Golf Course has suffered an influx of tunnelling moles, which has caused considerable damage to the greens …
She frowned. Of course, a few moles burrowing about didn’t mean that the clubhouse was closed. Mark could still have met Peter and Ivan and Rory, or any of the others he’d mentioned in passing occasionally. Apparently, Peter had been the one to invite Mark to join the club in the first place, when he’d come to have his feet seen to and it had transpired that Mark had dabbled a little as a teenager. Della had thought it quite sweet, two middle-aged men chatting about golf while Mark treated Peter’s crumbling toenail with his laser machine. But the whole place had looked shut and, even if the clubhouse were still serving drinks, would Mark really have whiled away his entire Saturday there? She couldn’t imagine many worse ways to spend a day.
Perhaps he’d been studying the moles?
Della turned at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. She heard Mark stumble, then curse, ‘Christ, these damn books!’
‘Are you okay?’ she called through.
‘Yeah, fine. Nearly broke my neck, that’s all, tripped over that bloody margarine book … can’t we put them somewhere else?’
‘Like where?’ she asked vaguely.
‘I don’t know. Like a storage facility or something.’ He stomped through to the living room. ‘Anyway, why are you up at this time of night?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’
His face softened as he sat beside her on the sofa. ‘Something worrying you?’
‘No, not really.’ He lifted her laptop from her, rested it on his own lap and flipped it open. Heathfield Golf Club appeared.
‘The golf club?’ Della’s heart quickened as he blinked at her. ‘Why were you looking at this?’
‘I was just, er, curious,’ she murmured.
Mark gave her a bewildered look. ‘Thinking of joining, are you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Because there is a ladies’ section, you know, although I’m not sure it’d be your sort of thing …’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, with it being such a slow, sedate game and me not being built for speed.’ She broke off, aware of Mark gawping at her.
‘What are you on about?’
‘Anyway, I can’t imagine belonging to anything that has a ladies’ section …’
‘Dell, what on earth’s got into you tonight?’
‘Nothing! It just sounds like it’s stuck in 1972, that’s all. The ladies’ section.’ She shuddered and glared at him, knowing she sounded bitter and out of sorts. Mark was studying the screen now. For such small creatures, moles couldn’t half wreak havoc on a course. In certain areas the piles of earth had all joined together, almost obliterating the grass.
‘Della …’ He paused. ‘You weren’t … checking up on me, were you?’
‘No, of course not.’
She looked around the room, at the study in neutrals. Even the abstract painting above the fireplace was a homage to beige, a series of perfect circles that might have been drawn around a coffee mug.
‘Yes, you were. What on earth made you do that?’
Della looked back at her husband, wondering how a fifty-two-year-old man could still look so attractive in rather old-mannish checked M&S pyjamas at 3.20 a.m. ‘I just wondered,’ she muttered, ‘when I was coming back from Mum’s and drove past the course and saw it was closed.’
‘Oh, right.’ His tone lightened. ‘Well, yes, you’ve read about it now. Mole invasion. Completely out of control these past couple of weeks.’ She watched his shoulders relaxing, and glanced at the wisps of dark hair on his chest. ‘Started when Gordon – he’s the new green keeper – took over,’ Mark added. ‘Bit of an environmentalist.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, the guy before used poison and there was barely any problem at all.’
‘Poison? That sounds pretty extreme.’
‘You can’t just chase them away, Dell,’ he chuckled.
‘And what does this Gordon do?’
‘Nothing,’ Mark remarked with a wry laugh. ‘That’s the problem. He’s tried humane traps where you catch the buggers, then take them off for a drive and release them so they can wreak havoc somewhere else. And when that didn’t work he had some mole whisperer guy come round …’
‘A mole whisperer?’ Della spluttered. ‘Is that really a thing?’
‘Apparently so,’ Mark replied, closing her laptop. ‘He was supposed to be able to coax them out of their tunnels by, I don’t know, whispering sweet nothings, I guess.’
Despite everything, Della laughed. ‘I