The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,34

and delved inside the pail. Having found what she was looking for – a key – she turned the key in the lock and opened the dilapidated barn door (which was so rotten the key was almost an irrelevance) and stepped inside. With a pride on her face usually associated with a new mother at a Christening, she pulled an old bed sheet away and revealed, of all things, a copper gin still and behind it, a small-scale bottling plant.

‘Meet Maggie …’ she said, patting the shining copper still with affection. ‘She’s the crankiest old boiler in Cornwall, but I do love her.’

I shook my head. Amazed.

‘You make gin?’

‘Every year – Christmas Spirit, I call it.’ She tapped her nose. ‘Made from a secret family recipe. Not allowed to sell it, a course. Special friends only.’

‘How much do you make? How many bottles, I mean?’

She hunched her shoulders and stuck out her bottom lip, thinking.

‘I suppose I usually clear about … five-hundred bottles?’

My eyebrows shot through the barn roof. Good. God. Just how many friends did she have?

Fenella threw the sheet back over Maggie, walked out of the barn and closed the door behind us.

‘Can’t be too careful,’ she said, glancing around furtively before snapping the lock shut and leaning into me with a whisper. ‘There’s folk in this village would literally kill for this gin! Been desperate to get their hands on the recipe for years!’

Fully in cahoots with the village bootlegger, now, I nodded. ‘Oh, I bet they would!’

We ambled back into the kitchen just as the fridge whirred up and the kitchen light came on.

‘Ah, finally. It’s back on. Thing is,’ she said, not pausing to take a breath, ‘There won’t be any gin this year if I can’t get a fresh supply of …’ She sniffed and her nose twitched.

‘Of?’

She tapped her nose again. ‘My secret ingredient.’

‘Which is?’

She looked over her shoulder out of the kitchen window (you clearly couldn’t be too careful in this rogue part of Cornwall) and then glanced back at me.

‘Promise you’ll keep it a secret?’

I crossed my heart. ‘I promise.’

She grabbed the kettle again. The tea just never stopped.

‘It’s Seaweed. Now then. What do you think of that?’

I was pretty sure seaweed was put into other several, quite trendy, gins but chose to keep that little morsel to myself.

‘Seaweed?’ I confirmed, my eyes wide, playing along.

‘Not just any old seaweed, mind you. I use a special kelp that’s only found around here, on the other side of the Angles.’

‘Ah, I know all about them,’ I said, feeling like a local. ‘They’re the little islands in the bay.’

Fenella nodded.

‘Thing is, I can only harvest my …’ she winked ‘… special ingredient, on the night of a spring tide, because it grows deep. Doesn’t lay around on the beach like your common or garden kelp. Gerald normally takes out his canoe and gets it for me – I need to use it fresh, see, that’s the secret.’

‘And when is the next low tide – the spring one?’

‘Tonight. And with Gerald away …’

‘With Gerald away?’ I asked.

‘He said you would go.’

‘I would go?’

‘When he dashed off, he said, not to worry, Katherine’s done lots of canoeing, she’ll do it.’

Lots? I’d done a five-day course in the Lake District ten years ago with James and his students and hated it.

‘Well, it’s got to be done by someone,’ she said (quite forcefully I thought, considering I was a guest). ‘I make a batch for the old folks’ Christmas party every year, and I wouldn’t want to let them down. It’s for the forgotten ones.’

‘The forgotten ones?’

‘Those with no family, or family that don’t bother with them. I sometimes think it’s only my gin that keeps them going. It takes three days to make, so …’ She tailed off – literally – by disappearing into the hallway and returned holding a wetsuit. ‘This should fit you.’

Holy crap.

I looked into Fenella’s watery eyes. They didn’t meet mine but travelled towards the little box on the table. If she hadn’t nailed it with the story about the abandoned elderly, then she definitely had me with the dead dog. I glanced at the harbour through the window. There was still a bit of a swell going on, even in the shelter of the harbour.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that …’ she said, following my gaze. ‘You’d be amazed at how quickly the sea calms down – with a southing breeze and a calm moon, she’ll be as flat as a fart