Murder at Mistletoe Manor, page 30
‘I’d say three murders is probably an emergency.’ Nick tries to smile at her, but finds his voice is shaking.
Harriet breaks away and pours him a glass of wine from the open bottle on the table. It glows crimson in the candlelight.
Everything he’s longed for is here. The battered sofa, the scent of home, the little Christmas tree, bushy and fresh, with its spangled decorations and soft white lights. Harriet has lit tall church candles in the fireplace, and there’s a pie in the oven.
Most of all, his wife, and their daughter. Harriet’s beautiful, tired face, her long dark hair held back by a red bow for Christmas Eve, her familiar perfume. And Cara. On the long drive back, after a jump-start from the friendly sergeant, Nick feared his baby might have forgotten him, but she crowed with delight, reaching her arms to him in her Christmas-pudding Babygro.
‘She missed you even more than I did,’ said Harriet. ‘She’s been an absolute madam all week.’
‘That’s my girl.’ Nick danced Cara round the room as she shrieked with excitement. Now, their baby is finally asleep in her cot, the coloured lights of the mobile twirling over her face.
‘We should eat,’ says Harriet. ‘I’ve been so worried, I’ve been living on toast all week. Let’s sit down and you can tell me everything, from the first moment you arrived at Mistletoe Manor.’
As he crosses to the table with its holly-patterned cloth, Nick glances at the perfectly wrapped parcels under the tree and is struck by a terrible thought.
‘Harriet,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry. I haven’t got you a present …’
Harriet turns, laughing. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find you have.’
The newcomer is sitting proudly on the sofa. Nick and Harriet watch as he lifts his head and surveys his new home, before settling on to the cushions with an expression that clearly says, ‘Yes. This will do nicely.’
‘I think Jingle will fit in with us very well,’ Harriet says. ‘As long as he doesn’t fight with the orange cat at number twenty-four.’
‘He won’t. He’s a good cat.’
As Nick sits at their little kitchen table, he looks again at the tree, with its beloved, battered angel perched on the topmost branch.
Next year, he’ll help Cara put it up there. And again, he thinks, every year after that, for all their Christmases to come.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks and much gratitude to Charlotte Osment, Susannah Hamilton and Richenda Todd. Thanks to the Century editorial, design and marketing teams, who have made the process of writing this book both enjoyable and smooth. (Any lack of smoothness is entirely down to me.)
As ever, gratitude to the SCM for making me laugh every day, and a big, blood-stained thank you to crime queens Erin Kelly, Andreina Cordani and Catherine Cooper for the endless support.
Thanks most of all to Wolf, Andy, Mum, Dad, Joan and David, for ensuring my Christmases have never remotely resembled the one in this book.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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