Kate Lawson - Lessons in Love

Balanced on top of the bin behind number 3 were a large carton of orange juice, an overripe banana and a bag of crisps. Beyond that, down past number 1 where Creswell Road turned abruptly into Lower East Row, it was hard to tell. Jane screwed up her eyes. It crossed her mind that what she really needed was a pair of binoculars. The leafy suburbs had badger watch, while out here on the towpath behind Creswell Road they had tramp watch. Right on cue Gladstone shuffled slowly downstream on his dining foray. He appeared to be singing and grooming his whiskers. Bill Oddie would have been so proud.

Jane picked up her handbag and the letters, and then as an afterthought clipped her library security pass to her top pocket. At the very least it would help prove she was who she said she was.

As Jane drove across town, Buckbourne basked under a cerulean sky. The tightly packed Victorian and Edwardian terraces corralling the town centre rapidly gave way on the far side of the inner ring road to smarter semis and then 1930s detacheds trimmed with trees, then seventies estates and finally nineties and new millennium neo-quaint, with their double-glazed leaded lights, gingerbread-house-style dormers and matching fibreglass chimneys. They in turn opened out on to the new bypass, a series of interlinked mini roundabouts and the out-of-town retail park. Another mile or so round the bypass and Jane was skirting the walled edge of the Creswell Gardens Estate.

She took a left off the next roundabout, down through lush woodland to an impressive set of gates, where a sign printed in swooping copperplate print advertised the development, along with an artist’s impression of the finished area.

Creswell Gardens Elegant Homes, sympathetically created to reflect the Gracious Living of a Bygone Era. Viewing by Appointment only.

Jane drove into the estate. Beyond the sales boards and a row of mature lime trees that scented the morning air with their heady perfume, stood the old manor house. It was a great rambling mongrel pile built from red brick, over-egged with towers and turrets, castellations, crenulations and fabulous Georgian windows, clashing deliciously with Elizabethan chimneys and gothic Victoriana, and had been converted into half a dozen elegant apartments. There was a corporate flag fluttering in the morning breeze from a pole on one of the turrets.

Beyond the main house, the stable block and various outbuildings had also been converted, whilst the rest of the estate was further away, along a tree-lined avenue. The first phase had been completed, show houses and a dozen or so other homes laid out around a wide sweeping crescent, their well-manicured gardens set with planters and wrought-iron railings, and other houses already under construction beyond them, carefully screened by boards. Number 9 was easy to find, an elegant detached town house with a large garage and neatly clipped front lawn, which, even though it was brand new, fitted discreetly into the landscape like a well-cut jigsaw piece, its large windows and carefully chosen brickwork echoing the main house and the stables across the way.

Jane sat for a minute and wondered what it must be like to live somewhere so beautiful. The other J. Mills, whoever she was, couldn’t have chosen a more perfect spot. Beyond the crescent, acres of ancient parkland rolled away to a stream, crossed by a little bridge, trout lake and established woodland. A herd of deer grazed on the far side of the glittering water. The board on the building site offered twenty-five prestige homes for sale, sharing a hundred acres of mature parkland and landscape of a far grander time, all for a small annual service charge.

Jane sighed. All right for some.

‘Hello?’ Someone rapped on her car window. Jane jumped. A slim blonde woman dressed in a smartly tailored navy suit smiled at her, although the smile wasn’t so much a greeting as a barely veiled threat. ‘May I help you?’ the woman mouthed through the glass.

Jane lowered her window. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I wondered if I might be able to help, only we don’t encourage parking on the roadways. Viewing is strictly by appointment, and I’m afraid these properties have already gone. All these properties along here.’ She gestured at the other houses along the crescent as if selling them was a personal triumph.

‘Ms J. Mills,’ said Jane, picking up the bundle of letters.

The woman stared at her. ‘Sorry?’

‘Number nine. I’ve come to—’

The woman looked at her and then at the badge clipped to her shirt. ‘Jane Mills,’ she said, the smile suddenly warming a degree or two. ‘Jane? Oh, I’m so sorry. Gosh. Well, how very nice to meet you at long last. How are you settling in? Presumably the showerhead in the guest bathroom is OK now? I had Barry pop over and take a look. He’s naturally terribly versatile and, let’s be honest, even in properties of this calibre there are always going to be a few little snags, but anything you need, anything at all…Oh, apologies,’ she said, in response to Jane’s bemused expression, and held out her hand. ‘I’m Miranda Hallsworth. We’ve spoken on the phone a couple of times. I’m only in the show house at weekends—’

Jane took a breath. ‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I’m not J—’ but before she could explain who she wasn’t, a souped-up low-slung Ford Escort, with flames custom-painted onto the metallic blue bodywork, growled to a halt alongside them, bass beat pounding away inside.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Miranda. ‘You know we applied to make this a gated community? Why do these people insist on coming in? I mean, honestly, do they look as if they belong in Creswell Close?’

Jane turned to look. A large man with a belly like a well-upholstered fireside chair eased himself slowly out of the driver’s seat. He was very tall, and wearing a spotless white singlet, a pair of very shiny navy-blue tracksuit bottoms, and white trainers—all immaculate. His companion was tiny, a pocket Venus, with breasts like ripe melons and a waist that couldn’t have been more than twenty-two inches, above an impressively pert bottom. She had an unmoving burgundy-coloured bob, a tight peach-coloured top, cropped spray-on denims, raffia-heeled espadrilles and an ankle bracelet strung with tiny silver bells. Both of them were tanned the colour of Caramac and both were a long way the other side of fifty

They were tasteless to perfection. Miranda Hallsworth’s outrage was tangible.

‘Number seven, Tone and Lil,’ said the man, extending hand as Miranda glared at them.

‘What?’ snapped Miranda.

‘Number seven.’ He peered myopically at her name badge. ‘Miranda? Oh, right. You’re the bird in the brochure; you don’t look nuffin’ like yer photo,’ he said, catching hold of her fingers in his great hairy paw. ‘“Our well-trained staff will be only too happy to answer any questions.” Pleased to meet you, darling.’

Alongside him Lil nodded. ‘Likewise. It’s lovely, isn’t it? We saw this place on the Internet. And I says to Tone, I says, “you know I’d love a little place like that,” I says. Little place in the country—nothing flash, so’s we can pop over from España. Didn’t I, Tony? I says—’

‘Number seven,’ Miranda managed as Tony continued to pump her hand.

He nodded affably. ‘That’s right. Six beds, three baths, master bedroom, with spa-pool bath en suite. We’ve come to pick up the keys, but there weren’t nobody over in the show house. We wanted to have a little butchers before the furniture van gets here tomorrow. We’re staying at a hotel in town tonight. The Metropole, booked the honeymoon suite, didn’t we, Lil?’ He winked salaciously and when Miranda didn’t instantly react continued, ‘Tony and Lily Butler. Pleased to meet you.’