The Rhyme of the Magpie Read Free Page A

call him “Indy.” Yes, he did look rather like Indiana Jones. We all thought so—and he never seemed to mind the mild teasing about it. A dashing outdoors sort of fellow. It’s no wonder he’d been named Britain’s Sexiest Man of the Year a decade ago.
    The one step between pavement and cottage put us at eye level. He looked tired, as if he’d been on the road for days—not possible, of course; Cambridge was only twenty miles away. I stuck my hands in my cardigan pockets.
    His face lit up. “You cut your hair,” he said.
    My hand flew up to my cold neck, and then I crossed my arms. Behind him, the line of cars in the high street didn’t move, everyone waiting for someone else to move first.
    “May I…?” he asked. I nodded him in, and stood awkwardly as he gave me a hug. “I’ve missed you.”
    I clenched my fists to keep from throwing my arms around him. Then I noticed the carefully chosen “I” and not “we.” My thoughts returned to their dark place.
    “Tea?” I asked. Tea was always the answer.
    He smiled, as if we’d reached some monumental milestone in recovering our relationship.
    I switched the kettle on for a quick reheat as he looked round the flat. “Do you have enough room here?”
    “I don’t need much room,” I said, getting the milk jug out of the fridge and scooting the sugar bowl behind the biscuit tin. I dropped tea bags into mugs and poured the water as Rupert opened the back door and surveyed the garden.
    “What’s happened here?” he asked.
    “Dreadful, isn’t it?” I said, despite my best efforts at staying aloof. “Look in the corner—someone chopped down a huge elder.”
    “Far too tidy, but you’ll soon put it to rights,” he said. We both held our breath as a chirpy, wheezy warble floated on the air. “You’ve a linnet?”
    I shrugged, as if too humble to accept the compliment. “In the tangle of hawthorn just over the wall. I’ve heard him for days now, but haven’t caught a glimpse.”
    We returned to the kitchen, and Rupert took another look round while I fished the tea bags out of our mugs.
    “You’ve no garage here? Where’ve you stashed your car?”
    “I have a lockup off the high street on Ham Lane. Just across from the back of Nuala’s Tea Room. It’s quite convenient. But I hardly ever drive it—it mostly just sits.” We settled at the table, and I found myself wanting to tell him more—about Vesta and Linus and my ideas for tourism.
    “Is there any sugar?” Rupert asked.
    “No, there isn’t,” I said, and he caught me smiling.
    “Jools, you didn’t have to leave.”
    A cutting reply perched on the tip of my tongue, but it was so nice to sit there drinking tea with him that I thought perhaps I could be generous. “It was time.” Long past time, according to my sister.
    “You could come back for a visit.”
    I pulled my cardigan closer to me like woolly armor. “I’m far too busy here to take any time off. We’ve loads of special events in the works, and the bookings are through the roof.”
    “Just dinner. A drink. A cup of tea. It isn’t as if you have far to go. We’d love to see you.”
    As quickly as the ice had begun to melt around my heart, it started to refreeze. “I…can’t.” I couldn’t look at him.
    “I want to talk with you about something—Beryl said you were the only one I could come to, and she’s right.”
    I shuddered with revulsion at the name. Beryl—my mum’s best friend, almost a second mother to me my whole life. Beryl—the replacement wife. She and my dad had married three months ago—not even six months after my mother died.
    “I’m sure the traffic has thinned now. You’ll have no trouble on the drive back.” I stood, pushed the sleeves up on my cardigan, and collected our mugs, still almost full.
    Rupert stood, too, and I thought,
Good, please go.
But he couldn’t leave it. “I see you’re wearing your mum’s cardigan. You know it started out as mine,” he said gently.
    “Do