Trisha Ashley - Creature Comforts

Avon

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2015

Cover design © www.alicemooredesign.com

Cover photograph © Lucy Grossmith/ www.heart-to-art.com

Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847562791

Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780007580446

Version: 2018-04-10

For my dear friends and fellow authors, Mary de Laszlo and Norma Curtis, with love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: Halfhidden, West Lancashire, 1993

Chapter 1: All Fools’ Day, 2012

Chapter 2: Fault Lines

Chapter 3: Moving Pictures

Chapter 4: Desperate Dogs

Chapter 5: Hounded

Chapter 6: Water Cure

Chapter 7: Regeneration

Chapter 8: Haunting

Chapter 9: Disconnected

Chapter 10: Sparks

Chapter 11: Charming

Chapter 12: Reverse Alchemy

Chapter 13: Disengaged

Chapter 14: Sweetwell

Chapter 15: Mission Statement

Chapter 16: Howling Hetty

Chapter 17: Dog Daze

Chapter 18: Lucky Charm

Chapter 19: Ghosting

Chapter 20: Not So Dusty

Chapter 21: Treasured

Chapter 22: Grimside

Chapter 23: Hidden Hoards

Chapter 24: Close Encounters

Chapter 25: Bird of Passage

Chapter 26: Skulduggery

Chapter 27: Night Passage

Chapter 28: Romantic Comedy

Chapter 29: Floating

Chapter 30: Blighters

Chapter 31: The Stars in Our Eyes

Chapter 32: Stopped

Chapter 33: Dream on

Chapter 34: Old Haunts

Chapter 35: Photo Finish

Recipes

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

That evening, Baz Salcombe’s old Range Rover, which was mainly used by his teenage son, Harry, and his friends, passed through the stone gateposts of the Sweetwell estate and paused briefly in the blackest of shadows by the turn to the Lodge, before pursuing an unsteady course up the dark, tree-lined tunnel of the drive.

The road beyond the first sharp bend first hunched itself up and then dipped deeply into a hollow, but either the driver had forgotten that or was recklessly convinced that the car would fly over it, for it suddenly leaped forward with a roar – then the brake lights flashed and it swerved, flipping sideways into the trees with an almighty crash.

The ominous sound, together with the incessant blaring of the jammed horn, carried as far as the Lodge and set off a cacophony of barking from Debo Dane’s Desperate Dogs Refuge. Judy Almond, her friend and housekeeper, who was starting out for the local pub to collect Debo’s niece, Izzy, stopped dead with the car keys in her hand, heart racing.

Tom Tamblyn was halfway down the woodland path that led to his cottage by the Lady Spring when he heard the crash, but Dan Clew, Baz Salcombe’s gardener, was first on the scene, for he’d been so close by that he actually felt the resonance of the impact through the soles of his feet. Arriving at a run, he found the crumpled car lying on its side in a thick tangle of old trees, wheels still spinning and the headlights blazing out at a crazy angle.

The uppermost doors had burst open and, to his great relief, he saw his son Simon climb out and then stagger up the bank, where he slumped with his head in his hands. A girl was screaming hysterically and even before Dan had fished out a torch from his pocket and investigated, he guessed it would be Cara Ferris, the local vet’s daughter.

Cara, her face masked with blood from a deep cut, was already frantically scrambling out of the back seat and it looked as though she’d had a lucky escape, for a branch had impaled the car from front to back, as if preparing to spit-roast it.

Dan moved the torch beam to the front and could see at a glance that his boss’s son, Harry, had taken the brunt of the collision and there was nothing to be done – and the girl slumped next to him had a bad head injury and didn’t look in much better shape. He paused for a moment, looking over his shoulder as if to check for any sign of other rescuers, before reaching in and gathering up her small, slight form.

Tom Tamblyn was just in time to see Dan lift the unconscious figure out of the front of the car, before laying it down on a bit of flat turf next to the drive.

‘Is that young Izzy Dane?’ Tom gasped, still panting for breath, for he was somewhat beyond the age of sprinting up steep paths. ‘Eeh, she looks bad – and you shouldn’t have moved her with that head injury, Dan.’

‘Thought I’d better in case the car goes up – there’s an almighty stink of petrol,’ Dan said shortly, looking up. ‘She was in the front with Harry and they had the worst of it – my lad and the Ferris girl were in the back and got themselves out.’

He nodded at Izzy. ‘If you think she looks bad, you should see Harry.’

‘Like that, is it?’ Tom got out his own torch, took a look inside the car, and came back, shaking his head.

‘Poor lad,’ he said. ‘But he’s in the passenger seat so … are you saying young Izzy was driving? She’s not old enough to have her licence yet.’ He took off his old tweed jacket and laid it over the still figure on the grass, after checking her airways were clear and she still had a pulse.

‘She was in the front next to Harry – it’s clear enough what happened.’

‘Your Simon always drives them back from the pub, though, doesn’t he?’ Tom said. ‘On account of being teetotal.’

‘Not this time.’

‘This is all Izzy’s fault!’ Cara exclaimed hysterically, the wadded hem of her T-shirt held to her bloody face. She’d scrambled up the bank and was sitting next to Simon, who was still slumped with his head in his hands. ‘I’m going to be scarred for life – and Harry?’ Her voice rose shrilly. ‘What’s happened to Harry?’

‘It was Howling Hetty’s ghost that did it!’ Simon slurred, looking up with a face as milk-pale as any wraith, and then he threw up copiously into the grass next to him, narrowly avoiding Cara.

Tom blanched and said uneasily, ‘Nay, never say you’ve seen her!’

‘Of course he hasn’t! Simon, pull yourself together and ring for help, if you haven’t already,’ Dan snapped. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Teetotaller or not, he’s drunk,’ Tom said, fishing a mobile phone the size of a brick out of his trouser pocket and dialling 999.