to yawn because Shelby had been up at the crack of dawn and Hannah left the pub at the same time as her, shivering and pulling up her hood as she realised something cold was falling, touching her face like icy fingertips.
‘Snow?’ Deanna gazed at the spicules dancing like moths in the halo around a street light.
‘More like sleet,’ Hannah decided, thinking of the big feathery flakes she’d grown used to in Sweden. ‘Brr. Let’s go.’ After hugging goodbye, as Deanna lived on the Bankside Estate and Nan’s cottage was in the opposite direction, she strode through the village, calling goodnight to other hurrying villagers huddled into thick coats.
She halted, captivated by a Christmas tree in a window of a red-brick terraced house, lights flickering green and red, tinsel glittering. Evidently, the little house’s occupants were in a hurry to welcome Christmas.
Her heart warmed. She was going to be home in Middledip for Christmas after all with carol singers and festive meals, fairy lights glowing through winter mists. It would be the first of December tomorrow. A good day to make a new start.
Chapter Fourteen
Next morning, Hannah left fifteen minutes early for the meeting with Cassie, intrigued to see what was needed to get Carlysle Courtyard up and running.
Port Road took her out of the village past the performing arts college. A couple of miles later she turned left into Fen Drove. Hawthorn hedges edged the lane, a tracery of bare sticks and thorns in the pale winter light. The remnants of last night’s sleet edged ruts and crevices like tentative white brushstrokes on a painting.
The turning into Carlysle Courtyard looked like a farm track, rutted and muddy. She swung her mum’s car into the paved square that would once have been the stable yard and jumped out. Three small vans, two white and one yellow, stood on a gravel car park beyond the hedge.
All was quiet. The stone stables with slate roofs formed three sides of a square, hence the name ‘courtyard’, presumably. Given a new lease of life by their conversion into shops, their new, large windows were presently smeared with plaster and dotted with stickers. Signs above read: Daintree Pottery, Posh Nosh, Paraphernalia, Fen Stones, Pix & Frames, Crafties and Mark’s Models. Doors stood ajar and from somewhere came the whine of distant music. Everywhere was speckled and splashed with plaster like a Jackson Pollock painting. Empty sandbags huddled in corners, dirty and torn.
‘You can’t park there.’ A middle-aged man wearing dusty overalls and a disgruntled expression emerged from Mark’s Models. ‘Deliveries can be made from the car park.’
Hannah met his dourness with a smile. ‘I’m meeting Cassie Carlysle.’
‘Good! I’d like a word with her.’ He vanished back inside the dim interior.
Undaunted, allying herself naturally with retailers rather than landlords, Hannah followed, calling after him as she stepped over a spattered stone threshold into the acrid smell of new plaster. ‘Are you the trader?’ ‘Trader’ was generally better received than ‘shopkeeper’.
He turned back. A scraper and broom at his feet suggested he’d been scraping clean the tiled floor. ‘That’s right. I’m Mark,’ he acknowledged gruffly.
‘I’m Hannah. Have any of the shops opened?’
‘Ha!’ He wiped his dusty forehead on his dusty sleeve. ‘Not quite.’ Dripping sarcasm plainly invited her to use her eyes and see the mess everywhere.
‘Had you hoped to be, by now?’ she asked sympathetically. ‘I used to trade at Creative Lanes so I know what landlord issues are like.’
Mark’s brown eyes showed a spark of interest as he snorted, ‘We’ve been left properly in the cart. Simeon took himself off and the builders left this bloody shambles behind. When he was trying to get tenants for the place Simeon promised all kinds of opening hoopla but nothing’s been done and he doesn’t answer his phone. Mr and Mrs Carlysle fob us off.’
After they’d talked for a few minutes a small blue Mercedes swept into the square and a dainty woman in her fifties stepped out, well-cut hair blowing over the collar of her waxed jacket.
Hannah murmured to Mark, ‘This is Cassie? How about you leave me to talk to her first?’
He agreed, picking up his scraper. ‘I’m not going nowhere.’
Striding outside, Hannah pinned on her most confident smile and introduced herself.
Cassie, face pinched with worry, wasted no time on small talk. ‘What do you think?’
Hannah glanced around the courtyard. ‘What’s needed to get the shops ready to open looks cosmetic. I’ve been talking to Mark at Mark’s Models and his utilities are connected and he’s