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‘Suse? Are you OK?’

‘Hm?’ Susie looked up from her old laptop, one knee hugged in against her chest as she scoured the South Hams County Council website. ‘Oh hey, didn’t hear you come in.’

‘I know. You didn’t hear me offer you a cup of coffee or then tea or then a nice line of cocaine.’ Temperance made her way to her desk.

‘Huh?’

The big sister slumped down into her chair.

‘What on earth is up with you? I haven’t seen you reading anything that intently since you did drama at school and someone told you there was a swear word in the play.

’ Her face suddenly pulled into a serious expression.

‘Did something happen last night? You can tell me anything, you know that.’

Susie slowly creaked the laptop shut and pulled her oversized denim shirt more closely around her middle. She’d felt chilly at 2am this morning and she’d stayed that way ever since. ‘Well. Yes.’

‘Yes?’ Temperance’s voice yelped nervously .

‘Nothing bad like that. For me. But maybe bad. For all of us.’ Susie shut her eyes and tugged at her long red hair, now in desperate need of a wash after being sweatily crammed under a wig last night.

‘Wha . . . what?! Did you carry on drinking after I left?’

‘Nope. But I wish I had. I wish I had been drunk so my senses were numb, and then I wouldn’t have read it.’

Susie didn’t need to elaborate that she didn’t mean a text or a newspaper headline. Temperance knew exactly the kind of reading unique to their family that could turn your heart inside out and pull it through your ribs.

Temperance went to the kettle. ‘You start talking. I’ll start brewing.’

When they were down to the last sips of sugary builder’s tea, Susie finally took a breath. ‘So he wants the village. For something super ambitious . And I need to find out what that is. Fast.’

‘OK. OK.’ Temperance was staring into the bottom of her mug. ‘Let me just . . . get to grips with this. You didn’t feel anything from what he was wearing earlier on in the night? And when you were, you know . . .’

‘Sucking his face off?’ Susie replied sardonically.

‘Nope, nothing then. I didn’t exactly have my head in the game.

So now I’m thinking maybe they were new things he bought to dress up in.

I don’t know. Ughhhh.’ She threw her head back and smacked her palms on the desk.

‘He asked me question after question about the village, about the pub, and I just cockily though “ Ooooh he’s so into me !” And all that time he was just snooping around to get some sort of advantage!

How up myself could I be?!’ Susie buried her head in her hands and was quickly wrapped up in a big hug .

‘You’re not up yourself. Not at all. He really got to you, didn’t he?’

Susie felt her cheekbones burn with shame.

‘It was something totally different with Mark. The hot bits were . . . incendiary. But also when we talked . . . he really got me. He listened to my plan to go to San Sebastian next year; he seemed to genuinely love the village as much as we do. But it turns out that he only loves it for its profit margins.’ Her mouth screwed up into a knot.

‘Before you recruit an angry mob, remember that we don’t actually know what Mark is up to. Before we write him off as a moustache-twirling bad guy, we need some facts.’

Susie surfaced from the reassuring folds of Temperance’s bright green cardi. ‘But I’m not going on a date with him either, until I know. Even if he does kiss like a bloody Greek God.’

‘Completely fair. I wouldn’t either. Don’t let things get messy and tangled.’ Temperance went back to her chair with a weariness Susie didn’t pick up on.

‘I need proof of what he’s up to, but how am I going to find it?

It’s not like I can frisk him to see if any diabolical plans just fall out of his pocket.

And if he is up to anything dodge he’s not just going to spill the beans, is he?

’ Her hands wheeled in the air. ‘I don’t know what to do next. But I need to do something .’

‘We could ask Mum?’

Susie ran her tongue along her teeth. ‘Let’s not bother her unless we really have to.

She’s probably still finding her feet with the job.

Right: the second homers want an extension or a new conservatory or whatever, they have to get council planning.

The council have to know if big changes are happening in the village. Who do we know on the parish council? ’

‘Gary! He joined last year, I think.’

‘I’m on it!’ Susie slipped on her trainers, grabbed her phone and legged it out the door.

Temperance found herself staring after her for ten good minutes.

‘I can’t say I hate the new-found focus, Suse, but I had thought we’d run the shop together today.

Oh, and my night? Thanks for asking. I’m pretty sure I let the love and lust in my costume kickstart a really hot dance with who turned out to be Abel, who then rejected me in no uncertain terms, with the Backstreet Boys for a soundtrack.

Great night. Epic. One for the record books.

’ She pursed her lips and went to boil the kettle again.

The queue running out of Gary’s bakery and onto the gravel path was agonisingly slow today, maybe because Susie had lost all patience while the weight of the world was on her shoulders, or maybe because all of East Prawle were catastrophically hungover and in need of fresh sugary carbs.

‘Hey, Suse. Thought you would have still been dead to the world this morning.’

Susie turned to see Will, one of the campsite guys she’d met alongside Mark a few nights ago. ‘Oh, hey. No rest for the wicked, you know? Um, you’re not with Mark, are you?’

He rubbed his chin. ‘No, he headed back to Salcombe this morning.’

‘Salcombe?’

‘Yeah, you didn’t think a posh boy like that was actually camping, did you?

Not when his family have got one of those mega mansions built into the cliffside.

Looks like a Bond villain’s place.’ Will shrugged.

‘We let him kip with us a few times when it was too late for him to get his boat over the estuary.’

Susie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. ‘He has a boat. Of course he does.’

Will laughed nervously. ‘Just a little rig. Feel like I’m stitching him up now – I honestly didn’t mean to.’

‘No, no. It’s fine.’ Susie held up her hands. ‘The stinking rich can’t help how much they stink, I guess.’

‘Do you know, I . . . I don’t think I need a sausage roll after all. So, see you later, Suse.’

‘Will, wait!’ she spluttered. ‘What’s Mark’s last name, do you know? Just so I can add it to his contact on my phone – he gave me his number last night.’ She jiggled her phone in its pink bunny ears case, as if some kind of proof.

‘Beston, Mark Beston.’

‘Thanks.’

When Susie finally got to Gary’s counter she was faced with an unfortunate wince.

‘Iced buns went first thing, my dear. I know they’re your favourite.

But you’ve got to be quick for those when the campsite’s as full as it is.

And when the Faeries’ Delight was as punchy as it was last night.

I feel less than delightful myself.’ He chortled at his own joke.

‘I’ll have all the almond croissants you have then, please.’ Being the last in the line, Susie didn’t feel bad for clearing him out: she wanted him content and chatty, after all.

‘A big night, eh? Saw your Temperance running off just after midnight, looking grey. But two of these will perk her up, anyhow.’ Gary did the twisty flip on the paper bag that Susie had seen him do a million times and she took it from him. ‘So that’s six-fifty, love. Thank you.’

Susie cleared her throat and leant an elbow onto the counter. ‘Can I ask you something non-bun related, Gaz? It’s a parish council thing, actually. Just wondered if you know anything about big plans. Anything near the pub, in particular?’

Gary stood a little straighter. ‘What have you heard?’

‘Just a few . . . rumours going around.’

Gary’s eyes moved to the shop door and back to Susie.

‘I can’t share confidential information.

But I will say that should you look up – on the council website – a public document.

It’s the one that shows how the last private owner of the village left it in trust for the first fifty years after his death. ’

Susie’s nerves felt too raw after four hours of sleep to understand half of what he was saying. ‘Huh? Privately owned? How can someone own a village ? You make it sound like we’re going back down the Victorian mines or something, Gaz.’

He folded his arms around his barrel chest. ‘It’s archaic, I’ll grant you.

But way back when, the village was part of the Cavendish estate.

Old Spencer Cavendish didn’t want his son breaking it off into little pieces for sale, so he wrapped it up in a trust. But in two years’ time that expires.

And certain development companies ,’ his mouth moved around the words as if he’d found a worm in one of his Chelsea buns, ‘have already started to circle. Looking to shoehorn badly built second homes into every nook and cranny, pricing out locals too. The Parish Council have got our eyes peeled for anyone out measuring up the fields or taking fancy photos, but these firms are sneaky. They’ll find a way. ’

‘Like staying in a campsite when they’ve a perfectly good villain mansion to get home to. On their boat ,’ Susie muttered.

‘Sorry?’

‘Beston – is that one of the development companies?’

Gary looked at Susie like she was seven again and he’d just caught her minesweeping glasses of Coke from the pub tables. ‘What are you wrapped up in, Susie Molland? It’s not like you to get involved with village politics and what have you.’

‘Well, maybe it’s about time I did. Seeing as I love this place as much as the next man. More, in fact.’

‘I promised your mum I’d keep an eye on you this summer, and I won’t let her down. You keep away from the Bestons, you hear me? Far away.’