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POLLY

Polly was sitting on the bench near the teashop, watching with interest as a group of men worked to install the sound system. Two of them were up ladders, fixing brackets to the old-fashioned lamppost; the other two were deep in conversation as they faffed around with cables and a toolbox.

There was another group of men also working in the village doing the exact same thing.

She’d stood watching them for a few minutes as they’d fitted speakers to the lamppost on the green and had seen a few of the older residents of Rowan Vale shaking their heads at the folly of it all.

Millie had wandered over and admired one of the electricians who, she said, had a distinct look of George Harrison.

Polly had left them to it and headed to the mill complex to sit in the sunshine on the bench.

Even though she couldn’t feel the sun on her skin, the sight of it shining in a clear, blue sky cheered her up no end.

The awful weather had finally ended and the dying days of August were lovely and no doubt warm, judging by the clothes people were wearing.

The rain had been a bit depressing, but it had probably done the flowers and trees the world of good, she thought. Always a bright side.

She tried to pay attention to what the electricians were doing, but when she heard them calling something about ‘amplifiers’ and ‘power source’ to each other, she zoned out again. She wasn’t interested in how the music was going to be played during the 1940s weekend. She just wanted to hear it!

She’d popped into the church the previous day to listen to the choir practising their wartime sets. It had been lovely to hear all those old songs again. She’d sat quite near the front and closed her eyes, letting happy memories wash over her.

Of course, she’d had to battle to keep out the bad ones.

The day she heard Charlie had been killed, for one.

All that grief and anger. All those nights of sobbing herself to sleep, trying to put on a brave face during the day when she went back to work, forcing herself to go out with her friends because she knew it would make them and her mum happier if they thought she was getting over it.

Getting over it . Funny expression, that.

What did it even mean? She remembered the resentment she’d felt when one of her friends had assured her that time would heal, and she’d move on with her life.

She hadn’t wanted time to heal. She hadn’t wanted to move on.

And more than anything, she hadn’t wanted to get over Charlie.

She’d loved him! What didn’t people understand about that?

Every day that passed after his death felt like another day further away from him.

She was leaving him in the past and she didn’t want to.

Each New Year’s Eve, she would howl at the injustice of it all.

Leaving Charlie behind in 1941, while on her wall, new calendars came and went, reminding her of how far away he was from her.

She hadn’t thought she’d ever love again. She hadn’t wanted to. Charlie had been the love of her life, and she’d rather spend the rest of it alone than with someone who could never live up to him.

But she had found love again. And in the most unexpected place, with the most unexpected man. A kind man. A man very different to Charlie. And no one had known because no one must ever know.

She gazed at the teashop. Mrs Herron’s Teashop. Sir Edward had named it after her. She remembered the day the sign was changed from Deakin’s. People had thought it a lovely gesture, but only she knew the real reason he’d done it. For her.

There’d been no need, but it had been a lovely thing to do.

Sir Edward had been a good man, and it was a shame he and Lawrie had never got on.

That was all to do with Lawrie’s mum and how she’d carried on, and how Lawrie had blamed his dad for neglecting her.

Well, she supposed that was partly true, because Sir Edward had been devoted to this village and the wider estate, but for her own part, she wouldn’t hear a bad word said about him.

‘Good morning, Polly.’

She looked up, surprised to see Isaac, the former landlord of The Quicken Tree, standing beside her. She hadn’t noticed him approaching.

‘Morning, Isaac. Lovely day.’

‘It is that.’ He sat beside her on the bench and folded his arms, surveying the electricians as they fitted the speakers to the lamppost. ‘All over the village, they are,’ he said.

‘Them contraptions on the posts, I mean, not the workers. Although I’ve seen a few of them an’ all.

Ah, it’s going to be a smashing event, this.

I’m proper looking forward to it, aren’t you? ’

‘I am. Reckon it will bring lots of folks to Rowan Vale who haven’t been here before,’ she said. ‘Our Shona’s bound to make a killing.’

‘Talking of killing…’

Polly’s eyes narrowed as she saw him shift awkwardly on the bench.

‘What’s up, Isaac?’ she asked, seeing the way he was looking at her, with an almost guilty expression on his face.

‘Now, Polly, you know me. I don’t like to gossip and I’m not one for eavesdropping,’ he said, which made Polly almost laugh out loud, knowing how untrue that statement was.

‘But the fact is, I heard something the other day in The Quicken Tree, and it fair knocked the wind out of my sails, I won’t lie. ’

‘Oh? Well, you don’t want to believe everything you hear,’ she said.

‘I know that, and I know some folks will blether any old rubbish,’ he agreed. ‘But not your Shona. She’s not the type, is she? And when she’s talking, I tend to believe her.’

Polly frowned. ‘Our Shona? You were eavesdropping on her? Shame on you!’

‘Now, now, no need for that. She was sitting with that young fella with the funny accent, so I was bound to be curious, wasn’t I?’

‘Young fella?’ Polly nodded. ‘Ah! You mean Max, Rissa’s dad?’

‘That’s him.’

She supposed that, after hundreds of years stuck in Rowan Vale, Isaac probably considered a man in his fifties a young fella.

But what was Max doing in a pub with Shona?

Was Isaac about to tell her the two of them were getting all romantic, because she honestly didn’t want to hear it.

It was way too complicated. Or was it even worse than that?

‘It seems the two of them have been doing a bit of investigating. I won’t say into what. I’m sure you can imagine.’

Polly groaned. So, Max had kept his word to find out what happened to Gerhard all those years ago. And he’d roped Shona in to help him!

‘This is about Gerhard Janssen, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘it was a bit. But mostly, it was about you.’

Polly’s nails dug into her palms. ‘Me?’

‘You. And – well, I hardly like to say this, but I think you have a right to know – Sir Edward Davenport.’

Polly stared at him, fear coursing through her at the unexpected mention of Sir Edward. ‘What were they saying about him?’

Isaac’s mouth tightened and he looked at her, clearly wary of repeating anything else he might have heard, given her reaction.

‘Isaac, this is important! What were they saying about him?’

‘All right, all right. They seem to be under the impression that – well – that he wasn’t a very nice man, shall we say?’

‘Well of all the flaming cheek!’ Polly glared at him, as if it was all his fault that Shona and Max had been saying such things. ‘Our Shona said that? Why? What would make her say something so horrible?’

‘Calm down, lovely,’ Isaac said, patting her shoulder gently. ‘But I should warn you, they seem to be on a mission to solve a particular crime, if you know what I mean.’

Polly’s jaw clenched. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t have told you, but what they were saying was odd, to say the least. They seem to think Sir Edward and you were carrying on, and that he was the person who killed you.’

Polly put her head in her hands as the fear increased its grip. ‘I knew this would happen! Why do they have to go meddling in things that don’t concern them? Why bring this up after all these years? Some things should be left alone, shouldn’t they?’

‘That they should,’ he agreed. ‘Although,’ he admitted sheepishly, ‘there are a few of us who did wonder.’

She glared at him. ‘Wonder what?’

He held up his hands in defence. ‘About who killed you, my lovely. That’s all.’ He leaned a little closer to her. ‘Do you really not know?’

‘You haven’t told anyone else about this, have you?’

‘Of course not,’ he said indignantly. ‘Nobody else’s business, is it?’

‘Make sure it stays that way. I mean it!’

‘Whatever you want, Polly.’

Polly jumped to her feet. ‘I need to see our Jimmy,’ she said. ‘He needs to put a stop to all this nonsense, right now!’

Her nephew had to make his daughter see sense. Shona had no idea what damage she could do if she kept digging.