Chapter One
Lily
On a cold and cloudy morning in Old Wyckham Woods, the bluebells vanish and the trees burst quietly into leaf. Lily Travers is running, her eyes focused on a sunny clearing up ahead as the bluebells wither into seedheads beneath her feet and the woods darken around her. Her friends are calling after her, but she doesn’t slow down. The last thing she needs right now is their fake sympathy and pitying looks and she pushes herself to keep going until she reaches the clearing. Only then does she turn and look back. She sees them, just for a moment, silhouetted at the edge of the woods, then they merge with the shadows and are gone.
Lily sits on a fallen tree and presses her temples. ‘You weren’t meant to hear that,’ Josie had said. Like hell she wasn’t. Even when they broke their journey at the Old Station Café, Josie and Samira kept exchanging glances when they thought she wasn’t looking – she’d thought they were amused by how excited she was about the old-fashioned cakes – whereas they’d probably been working out how to tell her for a while. Although they’re making something out of nothing – Josie had only seen Matt with a woman at a university bar. And so what? Probably just a colleague. Besides, everything between her and Matt is absolutely fine. She’d know if it wasn’t. At her party last weekend, didn’t everyone say they were the ideal couple? Matt so gloriously saturnine in his black dinner jacket, a perfect foil for her – and she was the best-dressed woman in the room in her silver Jean Harlow frock – everyone took photos. Matt was lovely … making sure everything went smoothly … mixing cocktails … schmoozing her producer ... and when Grandad accidentally crashed the party, all confused, poor love, and wanting his auntie’s apple cake… nobody could have been sweeter than Matt.
So there’s absolutely nothing in what Josie said. Matt’s just been working hard for his upcoming conference – like she has for her TV show. It’s true, there were nights when she was asleep when he got back … and a few apologetic calls just before dinner, saying he’d be late. She feels a twinge of anxiety, then shakes her head. If anything, Matt’s been even more attentive lately. What about his goodbye kiss before he waved her off this morning? She feels a delicious little shiver. You can’t fake that. No. She doesn’t need to worry about Matt.
She stands up. But she does need to worry about her photoshoot. However awkward it may be with Josie and Samira, she must get that done. She’ll tell them she’s not discussing Matt, do the shoot and then go home. She’s certainly not going to stick with the plan and hang out here all day. If they won’t drive her back, she’ll walk to the nearest road and get an Uber.
At the edge of the woods, she steps out into the field, shading her eyes against the dazzle of the sun, ready to tell them what’s what. With the sun burning down on her head, she gazes around the empty field and her heart skips a beat.
Where the hell are they?
Where’s the car? The table? And all the food, come to that?
Lily turns full circle. It’s definitely the same field. Edged by trees, the South Downs rising up behind. She gropes in her bra for her phone and her stomach lurches. Damn. She must have put the bloody thing down on the table. She takes a deep breath. Keep calm. Get the brain in gear. Think what they would do.
Okay. The food was out in the sun … they’d put it back in the car … go and park in the shade … crack open a bottle of wine. They won’t have gone far.
She runs along the edge of the woods, shouting their names. She stops and listens. Shouts again. Picking up a stick, she bangs it on a tree and the sound ricochets like gunshots. A crow flies up, cawing angrily and Lily waits as the echoes dwindle to nothing, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. She looks around. Something’s not right. The trees perhaps? Taller? And – oh God - where are the bluebells? The wood was full of them, the scent rising up as she ran. That would explain it. She must have taken the wrong path through the woods and come out in the wrong field … which is strange, because she prides herself on her sense of direction … but hey, she was upset.
Nodding to herself, she retraces her steps back to the clearing and sets about trying each and every path. The first one to the south leads down to a stream - and she definitely didn’t cross a stream. Going west, she comes to a track where they drove down earlier – although it can’t be if this is the wrong wood. North is a large, ploughed field reaching up onto the Downs. And east is the empty field. And that’s it.
She is seriously and weirdly lost.
No point waiting here, then. She gives a vicious kick to a stone on the path and it skitters away into the bushes. Her best plan is to find someone with a phone … unlikely that anyone will be out walking in this heat … that means getting back to a road … houses. She’ll walk to the edge of the woods until she can see the South Downs. If she walks in that direction, she’ll soon get her bearings. It’s not like she can be lost for long in Sussex.
She sets off up the hill and after ten minutes, pauses under the shade of a tree to scour the landscape. The track stretches for miles across open fields, shimmering in the heat and there’s no sign of life – unless you count sheep. She sighs and leans back with a thud against the trunk. A few black feathers float down and she looks up to see a bunch of dead crows swinging gently in the breeze, wafting decay. She leaps away, almost falling into some bushes.
‘Bloody countryside.’
She steadies herself on a wooden fingerpost. Tilted at a drunken angle and obscured by brambles, it seems to point to a footpath through a copse up ahead. With any luck, it might lead to a house - although the way her day’s going, she somehow doubts it.
Voices. Lily hurries along the footpath and through a gap in the trees, she glimpses people in a garden. Her shoulders relax. Help is at hand. All will be well.
A little further on, she comes to a gate. On the other side of a vast lawn, a woman in a smart black uniform is heading for a table laid with white linen and tiered silver cake stands. Lily has an impression of shady hats, long pastel dresses and muted conversation. Unsticking the shirt from her back, she sets off across the lawn. Words drift towards her, ‘… light hand with pastry … custard tarts … white elephant … church bazaar …’
One by one, the guests turn to look at her and by the time she reaches the table, all conversation has stopped. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat is staring at her, a loaded scone dripping jam onto her lacy dress. The man next to her – a vicar, for God’s sake – is clutching his teacup in mid-air, poised to take a sip. Everyone around the table is staring at her open-mouthed - although she’s the one who should be staring at them, they’re all so insanely over-dressed in this blazing heat. Lily glances down at her scratched and muddied legs. So what if she’s a bit grubby? This is the countryside.
She puts on her most winning smile. ‘Good afternoon everyone. I’m sorry to disturb you but I was wondering if you could help?’
The silence continues for such a long moment, that Lily wonders if anyone is going to reply. Then cups clink down, men stand up and the woman in the wide-brimmed hat tilts back her head and surveys Lily down her rather long nose.
‘Good afternoon,’ says the woman. ‘Did you say you were lost?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ says Lily. ‘And unfortunately, I’ve also lost my friends.’
A man in a blazer, standing a little apart smoking a cigarette, says something that sounds like, ‘careless,’ to the woman next to him.
The woman, in a gorgeous yellow dress and bright red lipstick, gives the man a sharp nudge and then turns to Lily with a sympathetic smile. ‘How perfectly awful for you. What on earth happened?’
Lily shrugs. ‘I think I must have taken a wrong turn on my way back from a walk.’
‘Ah, you’re a hiker,’ says the long-nosed woman. ‘Although I was rather expecting you to say a bathing party.’ Her gaze sweeps over Lily’s legs and skimpy shorts. ‘Offer our visitor some refreshment, Harriet, will you dear.’
‘Of course, mother.’ The woman in gorgeous yellow pours Lily a glass of lemonade. ‘You must feel like a limp rag, trekking up here in this heat.’
‘Too right,’ says Lily knocking back the lemonade in one long gulp.
‘Now do sit down,’ says Harriet, pouring her another glass. ‘You’re looking quite done in.’ She turns and beckons to the man in the blazer. ‘Charles, bring a chair for Miss…?’
‘Lily Travers.’ Lily looks around, expecting the usual flash of recognition but she gets only blank looks.
Charles drops his cigarette on the grass and takes his time twisting it out with the toe of his polished shoe. He picks up a chair and brings it over, positioning it so Lily faces the guests like a candidate at an interview. ‘Allow me,’ he says with overdone politeness and holds the chair steady until Lily sits down. She feels his eyes on her bare legs and his breath on her neck as he murmurs, ‘What’s your game, I wonder, Miss Lily Travers.’
She turns to look at him. Oiled-back hair, a supercilious expression, and a blazer with Oxford University Rowing Club stitched across the breast pocket.
‘Perhaps you wandered further into the woods than you thought, my dear?’ says the vicar. ‘On a lovely summer’s day, time can be deceptive.’
‘I’m with you on that,’ says Lily, wishing Charles and his smoker’s breath would move further away. ‘The thing is, I didn’t walk very far. I was only gone for half an hour at most. It’s only twelve thirty-ish now, isn’t it?
‘I’m afraid not, my dear.’ The vicar pulls a pocket watch from his waistcoat. ‘It’s quarter-past three.’
‘Three?’ Lily’s shoulders tense. ‘It can’t be three already.’ She checks her watch and sees the numbers flashing twelve thirty-two. The vicar’s quaint old watch must be wrong, poor old thing. There’s no way she was wandering in the woods for three hours.
‘There we have our answer,’ says the vicar with a smile. ‘You were gone for longer than you thought, my dear. I suspected so at once.’
‘Thank you, vicar. Mystery solved,’ says the long-nosed woman. ‘Now, we don’t want to keep you from your friends, Miss Travers, and you mentioned wanting to use a telephone?’
‘Thanks,’ says Lily, standing up and waiting for someone to get out their mobile.
‘Harriet, show this lady the way and don’t be long, there’s a good girl.’ The woman waves her hand in dismissal and turns back to her guests. ‘Now Vicar. The arrangements for the church bazaar?’
Harriet gestures towards the house. ‘This way, Miss Travers.’
‘Oh, call me Lily … and if you have your mobile on you, I could phone from here.’ Although as she glances down at the sheer lines of Harriet’s dress, it doesn’t seem likely.
‘The telephone is this way.’
‘Okay then. I just didn’t want to take you away from the party for any longer than necessary.’ Lily looks back at the guests. ‘Is it a special occasion?’
‘Lord no. One of my mother’s tea parties with the neighbours.’ Harriet lowers her voice. ‘They’re a hideous bore, so I was delighted when you turned up. I could tell at once you’d create a diversion.’
Lily nods. That must be why Harriet’s taking her into the house to phone. ‘Lovely that you all made an effort … and I absolutely love your dress. It looks as though it were made for you.’
‘Of course, it was made for me,’ says Harriet, pausing to smooth the single silk pleat at her hip. ‘You think you can get a dress like this off-the-peg?’
‘I suppose not,’ says Lily. ‘Silly me.’ She should have guessed. People in a house like this with voices like royalty are bound to flaunt their wealth with criminally expensive clothes. Even so, she can’t take her eyes off the sheer lines of silk flowing around Harriet’s perfect figure. If this woman had been at her cocktail party at the weekend, she’d have been completely outshone.
As they enter a dark hall, Lily glances up. ‘Oh, my God.’ She takes a step back. The stuffed heads of a dozen tigers are snarling down at her.
Harriet follows Lily’s gaze. ‘Oh, those. I’m frightfully sorry. I should have warned you. They’re a terrific shock to visitors.’
‘You’re telling me,’ says Lily. ‘I’ve never seen stuffed animals look so … fresh.’
‘Of course, they’re fresh. My father shot them last year before we left India.’
‘Last year?’ Lily scans Harriet’s face. ‘But killing tigers is illegal.’
Harriet gives her an odd look. ‘Since when?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Years ago.’
‘If there is such a law, nobody in India pays any attention. In any case, nothing would have stopped my father. He liked shooting things, the bigger, the better, poor things.’ Harriet points to the other side of the hall. ‘The telephone’s over there, Miss Travers.’
A large black phone gleams on a polished oak table.
‘Wow,’ says Lily. ‘I love retro but seriously - can’t I just use your mobile?’
A hint of a frown appears on Harriet’s forehead and she points to the phone again. ‘Please. Do go ahead.’
‘All right then,’ says Lily with a shrug.
As she crosses the hall, she stops to look more closely at the framed sepia photos of a tiger kill. A woman in one of them looks very much like Harriet. They certainly take their retro décor very seriously. All rather weird. Although what does it matter? She only has to make one call and then she’s out of here.
Sliding her fingers over the smooth Bakelite, Lily waits for a dial tone and then tries her own number. Her friends should have found her phone and been waiting anxiously for her call by now. She looks up to see Harriet watching her as the dial circles back.
‘An unusually long number, Miss Travers.’
‘Not really,’ says Lily as she gets a dead tone. ‘But are you sure the phone works?’
‘Of course, it works. I used it myself less than an hour ago.’
Lily tries Matt’s number.
‘No luck?’ asks Harriet after Lily’s dialled three times. ‘A wrong number, perhaps?’
‘No. It’s definitely the right number. Can I try your mobile now?’
‘My mobile?’ Harriet looks puzzled.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t have one.’
‘I don’t,’ says Harriet.
‘If this old phone works for you, perhaps you could call me an Uber or a taxi?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by an oober. We don’t have them around here. And unfortunately no taxis either. There’s a bus that goes from the crossroads, but only on Tuesdays.’
‘No taxis?’ Lily stares.
‘Afraid not. I agree it’s a frightful nuisance. The blacksmith used to oblige, although he’s retired and moved down to his daughter’s at Eastbourne. My car’s in town or I’d offer to drive you.’
‘The blacksmith?’ Lily frowns. Then her uneasiness lifts. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re role-playing for a TV series … or, I know … a murder mystery party. Agatha Christie or something? That’s why you’re staying in character. The vicar, the lady of the manor, the philanderer. And you, in your film star dress.’
‘The philanderer?’ Harriet frowns. Then bursts out laughing. 'Oh, you mean my cousin Charles. Perceptive of you. Yes, I’ve heard of those dinner parties. That would be jolly - although my mother would probably have a fit if it were even suggested.’
‘What’s this doing here?’
Lily picks up a copy of the Daily Mail on the hall table, not in its tabloid form, but a crisp, thin broadsheet with a big black headline: ‘German Jews pouring into this Country, Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ The date is June 1936. She feels light-headed and looks round at the hall and then at Harriet in her silk dress with her eyebrows, plucked to extinction.
‘Why do you have this newspaper?’
‘I know. It’s a rag … but it’s my mother’s choice.’
‘1936,’ Lily says to herself, walking back across the hall. ‘That’s crazy.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asks Harriet, following Lily towards the door. ‘I think you should come and sit down. You might have a touch of sunstroke with all this rushing around looking for your friends. Going back into the hot sun will only make things worse.’
‘Everything all right?’
Charles is leaning against the doorway, hands in his blazer pockets.
‘Your mother wants you to rejoin the party, Harriet.’ His eyes narrow as he notices Harriet’s hand on Lily’s arm. ‘And it looks like this lady wants to leave.’
‘Dead right, I do,’ says Lily, pulling her arm from Harriet’s grasp. And pushing past Charles, she hurries across the lawn, and away from the curious eyes of the guests.
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