Secrets and Scandals in Little Woodford Read online

  SECRETS AND SCANDALS IN LITTLE WOODFORD

  Catherine Jones

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About Secrets and Scandals in Little Woodford

  Little Woodford has a sleepy high street, a weekly market, a weathered old stone church and lovingly tended allotments. A peaceful, unexciting place, the very heart of middle England.

  In Little Woodford no one has fingers in more pies than Olivia Laithwaite, parish councillor, chair of the local WI, wife, mother and all round queen bee. So of course it’s Olivia who is first to spot that The Beeches has been sold at last.

  Soon rumours begin to swirl around the young widow who has bought this lovely house. Why exactly did she leave London with her beautiful stepdaughter and young sons? Are they running from someone? Hiding something? Though if they are, they won’t be the only ones. Sometimes the arrival of newcomers in a community is all it takes to light a fuse...

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Secrets and Scandals in Little Woodford

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Acknowledgements

  About Catherine Jones

  The Soldiers’ Wives Series

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  To Fearne Lace Stibbs – 16th February 2017

  1

  Olivia Laithwaite, resident of Little Woodford, mother of four, town councillor and general do-gooder, was on her way to her hair appointment when a car zipped across her path, over the pavement and through the gate of The Beeches. So, thought Olivia, maybe this heralded the new owners who were moving in at last. She took a few more paces then peered round the gate post and saw the estate car parked on the gravel drive. A youngish blonde was getting out of the driver’s seat and a sultry-looking teenager with raven hair spilling down her back emerged from the front passenger seat. Out of the back tumbled a couple of small boys, both fair-haired like their mother. From the way the four interacted, chatting, laughing, the girl holding hands with the smaller of the boys, it seemed as though this must be a family, except that the girl bore no resemblance at all to the others. Maybe she took after her father. And where was he? wondered Olivia. Not that it was any of her business.

  She strolled on towards Cutz and Curlz, the lone hair salon in the town, passing, as she did, an estate agent. She examined the A4 cards with the house details, pasted in the window. She liked to see what prices houses in the area were achieving – not that she was planning on moving but it gave her a sense of smug satisfaction to know that, if some of the smaller houses round and about were hitting the half-a-million mark, her huge barn conversion, at the top end of the town, must be well into seven figures. She recalled that when The Beeches had gone on the market the previous owners had wanted an eye-watering amount but it had been up for sale for so long that Olivia doubted they got what they’d been after. She remembered that the For Sale sign had gone up way before Christmas and now Easter had come and gone and, in under a fortnight, the schools were due to start the summer term. She longed to know what the final price had been – she expected it to have been north of a million and a half, but not the nearly two million they’d wanted. Which begged the question: how could such a young family afford the place? She was still mulling this over when she reached the hairdresser’s and pushed the door open. At the ping the receptionist looked up. Olivia didn’t think her blue hair did anything for her – made her look quite sallow. What had the girl be thinking of when she’d dyed it that colour?

  ‘Mrs Laithwaite. Mags is just finishing off another client. She’ll be with you shortly. Can I take your jacket?’

  As Olivia shrugged off her navy blazer and handed it to the receptionist to hang on the rail in the alcove behind her desk, she looked across the salon to where Mags the proprietor was working. Mags was little and dumpy with bright auburn hair cut short and brushed into artful spikes. Olivia was in no doubt that both the artful spikes and the colour were courtesy of hairdressing skills and had nothing to do with nature. She sniffed. And wasn’t Mags too old to have that shade of red? If she was any judge, the woman had to be pushing sixty – wouldn’t a slightly less garish shade be more appropriate?

  She sat on the sofa and picked up a magazine. Across the salon, she could see Mags puffing spray onto Belinda Bishop’s newly styled hair – at least Belinda’s shade looked more natural. The two seemed to be discussing some reality TV show or other. Olivia sniffed again. Really, she thought, she could understand Mags watching such tripe but Belinda? And when did she have the time? Surely as the landlady of the Talbot, the local pub, she would be better off running her business than slobbing in front of rubbish. Ah well, each to their own. Olivia shook her head. Belinda and Mags were laughing now. Maybe if Mags got on with her job instead of chatting, she wouldn’t be running late for her next appointment. Olivia stopped trying to eavesdrop and instead immersed herself in an article about Carole Middleton. Now that was a family to envy.

  *

  Mags’s daughter Amy glanced across the street at her mother’s hairdressing business as she walked to one of her many part-time jobs; this morning she was cleaning for the vicar’s wife. She needed to ask her mum if she’d do her a cut and colour sometime soon; her roots were starting to show something terrible. Maybe she’d pop round tonight to fix up a time. Actually, maybe she’d do it right now. Amy crossed the street and pushed open the door. Oh, gawd, there was Mrs Laithwaite, another of her ladies that she ‘did’ for.

  ‘Morning, Mrs L,’ she said with fake cheer.

  Olivia barely looked up from her magazine as she acknowledged the greeting. ‘Morning, Amy.’

  As usual the old bag looked like she’d swallowed a wasp but her mum said she was a good tipper and Amy herself always got given a bonus at Christmas, so she wasn’t all bad, just a bit heavy going. Mind you, thought Amy, it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford the odd show of generosity, not with living in the big house and everything.

  ‘Hi, Janine,’ she said to the receptionist. ‘Love the colour.’

  ‘Ta,’ said Janine, picking up a lock and staring at it. ‘Thought I’d try something a bit differen
t.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Hi, love,’ called Mags. She put down the mirror she’d been using to show Belinda the back of her new hair-do. She swished a brush over Belinda’s shoulders to get rid of the last of the stray hairs and then helped her take off her gown. ‘There you go, Belinda. Janine’ll sort out the bill. With you in a mo, Mrs Laithwaite.’

  Olivia sniffed and turned a page. Amy grinned at her mother. ‘Can you do me a cut and colour, Mum?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soonish?’

  ‘Of course, deary. Want to come round mine at the weekend?’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Not changing the colour or nothing, are you?’

  ‘Same old, same old. Anyway, I like being blond.’

  Janine rang up Belinda’s bill and the till pinged open.

  Mags reached over and took out a couple of twenties. ‘I know things are a bit tight for you and Ashley.’

  ‘Mum!’

  Mags pressed the notes into Amy’s hand. ‘Go on, take it. Don’t want to see you two going short.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Best I get going...’ She popped the money in her handbag and zipped it up. ‘Off to do for Heather.’

  ‘Tell her hello from me. I’ll see her at the WI.’

  Olivia coughed loudly and impatiently and Amy, standing with her back to her, winked at her mum.

  ‘Bye then. Bye, Mrs L. See you later in the week.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Amy grinned to herself as she left the shop. Bloody hell, waiting a couple of minutes wasn’t going to kill her, was it? She walked along the high street and past The Beeches. The sound of children laughing made her look over the gate. Thank gawd for that, she thought, someone had finally moved in. Months and months it had been since the previous owners had moved out; months and months of her not being required to clean it. The old owners had employed her twice a week and the hole in her income, when they’d sold up and gone, had made quite a difference to her. That was one of the reasons she and her son were finding it a bit of a struggle to keep body and soul together – as her mum liked to put it.

  She’d tried to get other cleaning jobs but the people who might want a cleaner already had one, and the people who couldn’t afford one, or who preferred to clean their own places, were hardly likely to change their minds and employ her out of charity. She sometimes managed to pick up the odd extra shift behind the post office counter – another of her part-time jobs – but it didn’t always make up the difference. Amy made up her mind to speak to the new people, once they’d had a chance to settle in, to see if they wanted some domestic help. Surely, if they were loaded enough to afford a place that size, they could afford to have a cleaner too.

  She watched the two boys playing for a couple more seconds then a foreign-looking girl came round the corner of the house, shot a frightened look at Amy, and swished them away. It was, thought Amy, as if she was scared of something. Although, what there was to be scared of in a place like this was beyond her.

  *

  Heather Simmonds was tidying up the vicarage prior to Amy’s arrival. Her long pepper-and-salt hair was tied up and stuffed into a messy bun held with a clip. Heather wasn’t one for vanity and as long as she looked clean and tidy she never bothered much about her appearance – anyway, she didn’t have the spare cash for luxuries like make-up. Besides, she’d been blessed with good bones, and although she was still in her mid-fifties she knew she looked quite youthful. And she’d kept her figure too – although that was possibly due to the fact that, with cash always being a bit tight, she and Brian could rarely indulge in anything other than a pretty basic diet. No cream cakes or bottles of wine except on special occasions. Being as poor as the proverbial church mouse, she mused, had some benefits as she could fit into clothes she’d had for years. She had skirts older than most of the choir.

  She turned her attention back to the tidying. It was, she thought, a Herculean task, given her husband’s utter inability to put anything back in the place in which he’d found it. She knew people thought her mad for cleaning for the cleaner but she paid Amy to dust and hoover, and if Amy had to spend the first hour of her time shifting Brian’s books, correspondence, half-finished sermons and other muddles, most of the house wouldn’t get dealt with.

  She shuffled a bunch of papers into a tidyish pile and carted them through to Brian’s study.

  ‘Tea?’ she offered as she put everything on a corner of his desk.

  ‘What, love?’ He looked up from his computer screen, his glasses halfway down his aquiline nose, toast crumbs from breakfast down the front of his sweater, his brown eyes looking into the distance rather than at her, and his silver hair was spiky because he had a tendency to run his fingers through it when he was thinking. When brushed, his fringe flopped over his high forehead but that generally only lasted until he sat at the breakfast table and began to read the paper; the first headline was usually enough for him to push his hair off his face and give him an untidy Mohican. Consequently, when he was at home, and not expecting visitors, he looked like an unmade bed. The trouble was, being a vicar, visitors arrived whether they were expected or not. Still, thought Heather, he was paid to minister to his flock and not to be a poster-boy for his vocation, and anyway, his parishioners didn’t seem to mind. Although, sometimes, she wished he didn’t look quite so ramshackle. It made her look like a bad wife, as if she didn’t look after him properly, which was grossly unfair.

  ‘I’m offering tea. Would you like a cup?’

  ‘If you’re making one.’

  Heather smiled inwardly. No, she wasn’t making one for herself, she was offering to make Brian one... never mind.

  She pottered into the kitchen, with its hideous lime-green tiles and chipped enamel sink, filled the kettle and plugged it in then looked out of the window. Across the garden she could see the old vicarage – a beautiful Regency house, with sash windows, a pretty wrought-iron porch and a walled garden. Very Pride and Prejudice, she always thought, with the symmetrical arrangement of a window on either side of the front door, three windows above and then two dormers set into the old stone tiles on the roof. So much nicer to look at than her sixties box, the new vicarage, which was what the Church had built for the incumbent when they’d sold off the old one. Heather tried to console herself with the knowledge that the old vicarage probably cost a fortune to heat and had antique plumbing and, because it was grade II listed, any sort of repairs or alterations were nigh-on impossible, but it was small compensation for the sheer ugliness of her current home.

  The doorbell rang and was followed by the click of a key in the lock.

  ‘Coo-ee,’ chirped Amy’s voice.

  ‘Morning, Amy,’ said Heather. She liked Amy, who didn’t have an easy life being a single mum, but she was invariably cheerful and she was a hard worker. ‘The kettle’s on.’

  ‘Wouldn’t say no, Mrs S. Parched, I am.’ She came into the kitchen, shrugging off her mac as she walked, revealing a low-cut blouse, a fair bit of cleavage and a minuscule skirt. Given her curves there seemed to be more of Amy unclothed than clothed and, not for the first time, Heather thought she looked like a young Barbara Windsor. She hung her coat over the back of one of the kitchen chairs and grabbed her pinny off the hook behind the door. ‘Someone is moving into The Beeches.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Taken a while, hasn’t it? Mind you,’ said Amy as she tied the apron strings behind her back, ‘they wanted nearly two mill for it.’ She sighed. Heather thought it sounded a little wistful. ‘Fancy having that sort of cash to spend.’

  ‘Indeed. Although money doesn’t make you happy.’

  ‘Really?’ said Amy with raised eyebrows. ‘Trust me, not having any isn’t much of a giggle either.’

  ‘No.’ Heather knew that; vicars certainly did their job for love, not money.

  The kettle on the counter crescendoed to a boil and clicked off. Heather took two mugs off the shelf and made the tea. />
  ‘Could you take that through to Brian?’ she asked Amy, handing her a mug.

  ‘You not having one?’

  ‘No, I’ve got to go and see Olivia Laithwaite about the church flowers. The ones we did for Easter have gone over and I really must sort new ones out for the weekend.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have to do it but... well, I’ve been let down.’

  ‘You’ll be out of luck with Mrs L,’ said Amy. ‘I saw her in Mum’s salon. And I’m sure she’s got some meeting tonight... I might be wrong but I doubt if she’ll have time today – you know what she’s like.’

  Heather did. She sighed. ‘Dash it.’ She looked at Amy. ‘I don’t suppose you’d...’

  ‘What? You want me to do the flowers? Sorry, Mrs S, no can do. For one I wouldn’t know how and two, when have I got time? Some of us have to work for a living.’ Amy left the kitchen to take Brian his tea while Heather wondered about telling Amy that being a vicar’s wife was not all coffee mornings and flower arranging.

  ‘I mean,’ said Amy as she returned to the kitchen, ‘I know you work at the comp part-time and all, but you get lots of holidays, don’t you – like now, and all those weeks in the summer.’

  ‘Oh yes, holidays.’ Those weeks when Heather caught up with everything that had slipped through the cracks because of her part-time job; all those other tasks that came with the post of being a vicar’s wife. And obviously she employed a cleaner because she had money to burn, not because there just weren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done and keep the house decent. Heather looked at Amy and thought about telling her that she worked at the comp as a teaching assistant as it helped make sure she and Brian could afford to eat and keep the lights on because, sometimes, they came very close to having to choose. Heather took a breath before she said, ‘Maybe I’ll ask Joan.’

  ‘Joan Makepiece?’

  Heather nodded. ‘She’s a good sort. She may help. And Bert’s always got lots of lovely flowers on his allotment even at this time of year. I’ll go and ask her.’ Heather gave Amy instructions as to that week’s cleaning priorities before she took her coat off the peg in the hall, picked up her battered handbag, and let herself out of the house.