Better.
She tried a tap. Nothing. The same someone had sensibly turned off the water and drained the tank.
She left the taps turned fully on and looked under the sink for a stopcock. It wasn’t there and she opened the door to the scullery.
It was a mess. Directly below the damaged part of the roof the rain had seeped down through the upper floor and the ceiling was sagging dangerously and she certainly wasn’t about to risk switching on the light.
Using the little light spilling in through the kitchen door, she picked her way across the debris to the big old sink in the corner and opened the door of the cupboard beneath it.
Something scuttled across her foot and she jumped back, skin goosed, heart pounding.
It was a mouse, she told herself. Not a spider. She’d seen a tail. She was almost sure she’d seen a tail...
Swallowing hard—and desperately trying to think why she’d thought this was a good idea—she bent down and peered into the cupboard. It was too dark to see anything and too deep for her to be able to reach the stopcock without getting down on her hands and knees and sticking her head inside. She swallowed again, knelt gingerly and, with a little squeak as her face brushed against cobwebs, made a grab for the tap handle.
She was about to give it a turn when the bright beam of a torch lit up the inside of the cupboard to reveal the thick festoon of cobwebs and a startled mouse frozen in the spotlight.
Then, out of the darkness, a man’s voice rapped a sharp, ‘Come?’
Already on edge, a notch away from a scream, she leapt back, caught her head on the edge of the cupboard and saw stars.
‘Mi dispiace, signora...’
Too damn late to be sorry...
‘Don’t dispiace me!’ Andie staggered to her feet and, hand on top of her ringing head, turned furiously on the intruder. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Oh, you’re English.’
‘What in the name of glory has that got to do with anything?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘Epic fail,’ she retaliated gamely, but her shaky voice wouldn’t have scared the mice, let alone the man standing in the doorway, blocking out what little light there was. Half blinding her with his torch. She put up her arm to shield her eyes from the glare. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’
‘Matthew Stark.’ He lowered the torch, took a step forward, began to offer her his hand but wisely thought better of it. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the villa for the owner.’
‘Oh? She didn’t mention you when I picked up the keys. Rosalind Marlowe is my sister.’
‘Rosalind?’
‘She prefers Posy.’ She would have cursed her sister for not warning her that she had appointed a caretaker but she’d carefully timed her arrival at her sister’s digs for the moment when she would be dashing off to warm up for the evening performance. Sisters had a way of looking at you and instantly knowing that something was wrong. ‘I’m Miranda Marlowe.’
‘Oh...’ He sighed with relief, clearly not that keen on evicting a squatter. ‘Of course. You were at the funeral. If she’d let me know you were arriving I would have come up earlier and turned on the water. Checked that everything was working.’
‘It was a last-minute decision and, since I’m the practical one in the family, she knew I could handle a stopcock—’ spiders were something else and, stepping back to let him in, she said, ‘—but knock yourself out, Matthew Stark.’
‘Of course.’ He stepped forward.
‘Don’t stand on the mouse,’ she warned.
‘You like mice?’
‘Not in the kitchen, but I don’t want to have to clean up the bloody body of one you’ve squashed with your size tens.’
‘Right,’ he said, his tone clearly that of a man who wished he’d stayed at home. ‘No squashed mice...’
That was one squashed mouse too many and her stomach heaved as he ducked beneath the sink. He immediately backed out again and looked up at her. Breathing through the wave of nausea, she was grateful for the dark.
‘You’d better turn the tap on or the air—’
‘It’s already done,’ she snapped.
‘Of course it is,’ he muttered.
He re-emerged from the cupboard a moment later with a cobweb decorating his hair, which made her feel marginally more generously disposed towards him.
They retreated to the kitchen; he brushed the dust off his hands. ‘Shall we start again? And it’s Matt, by the way. Nobody calls me Matthew.’
‘Andie,’ she replied discouragingly as the pipes began to clang and air spurted noisily from the tap. ‘How did you know I was here? Did I trip an alarm?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing. No mobile signal, no Internet. I saw the light.’
‘Very low tech.’
‘You work with what you have. We were Sofia’s nearest neighbours as we live at the edge of the village. I looked out for her.’ He looked around. ‘Are you staying here on your own?’
She recognised that his question was provoked by concern—obviously if there had been anyone else in the house they would have appeared by now—but, conscious of her isolation, she responded with a question of her own.
‘You knew Sofia? How was she? I hadn’t seen her for several years before she died.’
‘Independent, crotchety, glamorous to the end and impossible to help but she was kind to my mother. She’s crippled with arthritis, which is why we came to the island. For the warmth, the hot springs,’ he added.
‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘It is what it is. She was using the spa at Sant’Aria but when Sofia heard she invited her to use the hot spring here on the beach whenever she liked. I laid some decking across the sand which made it easier for both of them to access the pool. I think she enjoyed having someone to talk to.’
‘My grandmother still came when she could.’
‘Yes. I met her once... Posy is happy to continue with the arrangement until the house is sold.’
She sensed a question and nodded. ‘Your mother is welcome any time.’
‘Thanks.’ He looked around. ‘This isn’t exactly home from home. Do you need any help clearing up? That ceiling is a mess.’
‘Are you a builder?’ she asked.
‘No, but I can handle a broom.’
He obviously meant well but she just wanted to lie down.
‘I think it’s going to need a little more than that but if you don’t mind I’ll worry about that in the morning.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Long day, rough crossing,’ she said, letting go of the chair back she was clutching for support. ‘And the taxi ride up here was rather more exciting than I’m used to.’
He didn’t look convinced but he let it go. ‘If you’re sure, I’ll leave you in peace.’ He paused at the door. ‘There’s no phone line but you’ll find a cord by the bed in the master suite and another by the sofa in her little sitting room. If you need anything, a tug will ring a bell I rigged up in the garden. I will usually hear it. Very low tech,’ he added, a touch sarcastically, ‘but—’
‘You