Page 6 of The Little Cottage by the Cornish Sea

I spent the entire morning cleaning the cottage as best I could, including the windows that, on closer inspection, were barely held together by layers and layers of chipped paint. But it did now finally afford a view of the rectangle of weeds that had once been the garden.

But I could see dots of colour under the grey brambles.

It was April, after all, and some flowers were trying to reach the sun.

Oh, those poor, poor blooms! I went around to the potting shed in the back and found a tiny hoe.

It looked like it must have belonged to a child, but it was all I had, so I began to whack away and pull out everything that was dry and grey.

By the time I’d cleared most of the bramble, scratching my hands and face even more, I discovered that there was indeed a splendid garden desperate to live again.

Daffodils, tulips, black-eyed Susans, bluebells, dahlias, agapanthus, forget-me-nots, all at various stages of blooming, and even fruit trees in bud!

There was a pear tree, an apple tree, a cherry tree and even green tufts of rhubarb.

If all this was out already in April, I couldn’t wait to see what the summer would bring.

Wiping my forehead from the ghastly work, I filled at least three heavy-duty compost bags I’d found in the shed and sat on the stoop of the open French doors leading into the kitchen.

From there, I’d be able to see all this beauty.

How lucky had I been to find this place after all?

My garden would be my sanctuary. I couldn’t wait!

After I got my stamina back, I found the hose, hoping it was connected to the mains and not to the mystery that was the household water mess, and yes!

Victory! Water flowed freely, so I gave everything alive a good soaking.

It was too bad there was hardly any water inside the house as now I needed a major wash from head to toe and it was too cold to wash outside.

So I lugged a few buckets inside which I poured into the kitchen sink, too tired as I was to haul water up to the tub upstairs.

Then I cleaned out and disinfected the chest of drawers in my new bedroom and put Sophie’s clothes away. I wondered how Will would justify a burglary in their home where none of the jewellery had been taken. Surely Sophie would be suspicious.

By now, furious that I hadn’t unwittingly walked into work only to be nabbed by Scotland Yard, he would have contacted Tamsin, who could honestly say that she had no idea where I’d gone.

But that would not have stopped Will. He would have fed the police more stories about me.

As if depicting me as a criminal wasn’t enough.

A criminal . That was what I officially was now.

I didn’t think Will would go so far as to splash my picture online in his search for me; he wasn’t very hip to social media.

I, on the other hand, was obsessed with it at time.

My Instagram channel, Where Are They Now?

would only confirm my interest in the lives of celebrities, nailing my coffin shut once and for all.

Because the firm did have a few celebrities as clients.

They probably thought I’d cottoned onto some famous person’s darkest secrets via the confidential files of my workplace and that I’d used the information to blackmail them.

Funny, though, how I had become the one to seek privacy and anonymity.

Perhaps it served me right for not letting sleeping dogs lie.

In my defence, my channel was always very respectful of the celebrities and I never made any assumptions on where they were physically today.

I simply reviewed their career with old footage that was available on the internet, stirring the nostalgic fans’ memories of how great those days were.

I had never searched for nor divulged their whereabouts.

But lately, I had tired of it all. It had only been a hobby, something to do when I wasn’t at my job, and lately, it hadn’t been giving me any pleasure. And now, more than ever, I understood the value of privacy. Why dig into the past of these people who now just wanted to be left alone?

Of course now, the irony of it all did not escape my notice; after digging these people up from oblivion, karma came back to bite me on the arse.

Now I was the one to want to hide, and Will and the police would do everything in their power to find me.

I had already cut my hair. I’d wear hats and shades and avoid getting too up close and personal with anyone.

So I needed to find a job quickly to put me in a stronger position and to allow me to stay hidden for as long as possible. Anything that would allow me to pay my bills.

After a delicious lunch of bread, cheese and chutney washed down by a nice hot cup of tea, I brushed my short hair and put on my hat, shades and coat to reacquaint myself with Starry Cove and see if I could find any Hiring signs.

I threw open my front door like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music and breathed in the air with gusto.

Practically skipping down Meadow Lane with its beautiful Georgian cottages, I admired the pretty little windows looking out onto miniature front gardens with daffodils and flowers of all kinds already shooting up proudly to meet the cobalt sky.

You wouldn’t think, looking at me, that I was a fugitive.

Halfway down the lane, I came to a wide brook crossed by an old stone arched bridge.

A few yards in, I stopped to look down into the swirling waters and imagined children playing pooh sticks, or tiny rabbits hopping along the banks.

It was like a Beatrix Potter story and if I stopped and looked just a little harder, I might have encountered Mrs Tiggy-Winkle or Jemima Puddleduck. What a gem this place was!

On the other side of the bridge, Meadow Lane melted into School Lane which led straight to the centre of the village and then to the seaside that held many dear memories for me.

And it was so apt that my new life had started where my happy one had been interrupted by, well, life. But hopefully, my new life had begun!

‘Good day!’ I greeted an elderly man on my way.

So much for keeping my head down. He was holding the back of his grandson’s bicycle as he was just learning to ride.

The little boy’s face was happy but determined, his eyes focused ahead and his chin jutting out.

It was such a lovely picture of happiness and security. This child was obviously much loved.

The man looked up and smiled at me. ‘It certainly is now that the sun’s come out, ma’am!’ he called back.

I almost stopped in my tracks at the unexpected kindness.

Ma’am? When had anyone ever called me that?

Where I came from, all people said to each other in the street was, Sorry when about to collide with one another.

The city way. Ah, but here, we couldn’t be any further from a city.

No, Starry Cove, as per my childhood memories, was just as idyllic as ever.

I wondered whether the ice cream kiosk on the seafront still existed.

Or the beauty salon my mum used to go to.

And the toy shop where Dad used to buy me something every summer as a souvenir of our holidays.

I would spend most of our days on the beach building sandcastles with my father while my mother ran her errands, which included visits to the local beautician, fashion shops and what have you, so she’d look properly dressed for dinner, as she’d always say.

Dad and I would snicker as we ate with our hands and plunged our feet into the soft sand and built our castles full of dreams. And then he’d lift me onto his shoulders and we’d walk along endless beaches, and I’d close my eyes in sheer happiness against the caressing sea breeze, happy to be alive, wishing September would never come.

Those summer days were suspended in my mind and heart like the snapshots that we used to take of each other making funny faces in the camera.

My father would never haul me up onto his shoulders or swim with me again.

I would never feel his reassuring hand around mine, never hear his gravelly voice or his bellowing laugh.

All I could do now was strive to make the same lovely memories for my own child and make sure that she would never feel neglected or sad.

She would never know her father, God willing, but it would be okay, because I’d be both.

On my way toward the centre of the village, I walked past quaint little shops with colourful signs and original names, like Bend Or Bump, which seemed to sell everything from safety pins to sailboats, no kidding. There was a sign that read, For sailboats ask Jago . What a typical Cornish name!

I decided I had a good chance of finding pretty much most of what I needed in this little emporium and I was not disappointed.

Household furnishings, kitchen items and bath accessories were neatly stacked in separate sectional areas so that it was very easy to locate everything and within ten minutes, I had filled out my list. In the next room was nursery furniture, but I avoided going in there lest I attracted attention from the other pregnant ladies in there ooh-ing and ah-ing over this cot and that changing table. There was time for that later.

Feeling a great sense of accomplishment nevertheless, I hoarded my purchases over to the counter where a carbuncular boy in his early twenties tallied everything up for me.

He didn’t say much except for the total cost, but then again, I was too excited to leave and be on my way.

I wondered if he was Jago and how many sailboats he actually had for sale.