The Country Escape - Jane Lovering Page 0,8

make me an offer to buy the cottage. Maybe he was one of those ‘house flippers’ from the programmes that Poppy liked to watch and then gossip about with her friends; where people bought derelict places really cheaply, did them up in a cursory fashion and then sold them on before the rampaging damp and lack of underpinnings became evident. And then I felt a bit insulted, because Harvest Cottage was nowhere near derelict. And had very good underpinnings. The damp was a question yet to be resolved.

‘Have you thought about using it as a location?’ The question was slow, although that might have been the amount of tea towel it was filtered through.

‘Yes. It’s a location for us to live in. I thought the boxes of stuff all over the place would be a giveaway.’

A quick headshake. ‘I mean for films.’ A pause while he looked at the blood again. ‘I work for the company filming down in Steepleton at the moment. They’re making a detective series, called Spindrift, just got the green light to go to a second series, and we’re looking for locations.’ Another quick look around the kitchen. ‘And this would be great. If you don’t do too much to it.’

A woodlouse outlier hurtled across the flags from the back door to the pantry and flung itself through the crack. The room was so quiet I could almost hear its legs scrabbling.

‘Do they… pay?’ I asked, slowly. Trying not to sound desperate.

‘Oh, yes. Depends on how long we need to shoot for, but, yep, they pay pretty well.’ He took his glasses off the table and slid them back on. ‘It’s got a good look. Unkempt.’ There was a patch over near the window where grass had grown in under the wall. ‘But picturesque,’ he added quickly. ‘And we need a location where we can film an entire storyline without being mugged by tourists. This is pretty isolated.’

Well. Money would be good. Luc was paying for Poppy, and the money from the flat had bought the cottage outright, but there would be bills I hadn’t foreseen yet. The cottage didn’t have central heating and, in Game of Thrones parlance, winter was coming. I didn’t have great hopes of the little wood-burning stove to heat the whole place, and the electricity tripped out if you plugged in more than four devices at once.

And I didn’t have a job.

‘I’ll leave you to think about it.’ Gabriel stood up. Indoors he looked taller; his head nearly rapped the beams. ‘You’ve got my number.’

‘I’ve also got the horse.’

‘Very true.’

‘Did you drive up here?’ I began to wonder. I hadn’t heard a vehicle before Luc’s, not since the early morning milker had dashed through on his motorbike on his way to the next valley.

Another headshake. ‘Walked. I don’t drive. Eyesight, you see. Not only can I not read a number plate at the required distance, I can’t even see the car the number plate is attached to.’

‘That must be…’ I tailed off. I had no idea what it must be like. Annoying? Or life changing?

‘It’s fine. You’re only two miles from Steepleton, if you go up over the cliff, and walking is a far better way to find locations than driving past. But, can I just ask for a quick tour? So that I can take a package plan back to HQ? Often we only use one room, but with this place – I think we could use the whole cottage.’

‘You want a tour. Of the cottage.’ I was desperately trying to remember if I’d picked yesterday’s pants up from the floor and whether my bedside reading looked suitably erudite. Had Poppy left shampoo and wet towels all over the bathroom? Was her room even possible to enter?

‘Just really quickly.’ Another grin. ‘I only want to get a general idea. I won’t judge, I’m not your mother.’

No, sunshine, you certainly aren’t, I thought, leading him slightly grudgingly out of the kitchen. He looked around the tiny hall, peered into the bare-floored living room, where our huge angular couch took up space like a dowager duchess in a squat. Up the stairs to the creaky landing, and a quick glance into my bedroom – where pants were not in evidence – and Poppy’s, which was ninety per cent K-pop posters. He ignored the bathroom, which was just as well.

‘It’s a lovely little place.’ I finally got him out of the front door. ‘If you give me the okay, I’ll put it forward.