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‘How could you leave me in there?’ He rubbed the side of his head ruefully. ‘I think my ears have started to melt.’
He was followed by his wife, Penny. Widely agreed to be both the kindest woman in Fittlescombe and the worst dressed, Penny de la Cruz was almost invisible tonight beneath about six layers of sweaters, her wild, Pre-Raphaelite hair spilling out at the top like a fountain. Penny, bravely, had been on the side of the ramblers in the great ‘right-to-roam’ debacle. Santiago felt strongly that they should all be shot.
‘Honestly.’ Penny looked at Gabe, Laura and Santiago disapprovingly. ‘The three of you look like naughty schoolchildren, smoking behind the bike sheds. Come back inside before you catch hypothermia.’
‘Has she stopped?’ Gabe asked.
‘She’s stopped.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘And … I have gossip.’
That was all it took. Two minutes later the four of them were seated round a corner table, ignoring the next act while Penny spilled the beans.
‘Riverside Hall at Brockhurst has finally sold,’ she whispered importantly.
‘That’s it?’ said Santiago. ‘That’s the gossip?’
‘Nooooo.’ Penny shushed him. ‘The gossip is the new owners.’
She smiled cryptically.
‘Well, go on then,’ said Laura. ‘Who is it?’
‘Guess.’
‘We can’t guess. How are we supposed to guess?’
‘Simon Cowell,’ said Gabe.
Santiago gave him a look. ‘Simon Cowell? Why would Simon Cowell move to Brockhurst?’
Gabe shrugged. ‘Why not? You did. All right then. Madonna.’
‘Now you’re just being ridiculous.’
‘What? She loves the English countryside,’ said Gabe. ‘She wears flat caps and drinks pints, remember?’
‘That was in her Guy Ritchie stage. Now she dates Brazilian teenagers and photographs her armpit hair,’ Laura reminded him. ‘Do keep up, darling.’
Never let it be said that she was behind on her celebrity gossip.
‘I’ll put you out of your misery,’ said Penny. ‘It’s Sir Edward Wellesley.’
There was a stunned silence. Gabe broke it first.
‘Isn’t he in prison?’
‘He gets out next week.’
‘Blimey. That wasn’t long. I might avoid my own taxes next year if that’s all you get.’
‘You have to have income to pay taxes,’ Laura reminded him sweetly.
‘Good point.’ Gabe squeezed his wife’s thigh.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Santiago asked Penny. For some reason he found it hard to imagine England’s most notoriously flamboyant, disgraced politician settling down to the quiet life in the Swell Valley. Especially in Riverside Hall, a grand but isolated old building that had stood empty for well over a year.
‘Positive. Angela Cranley saw Lady Wellesley with the estate agent last week. They completed ten days ago, apparently.’
‘Isn’t she supposed to be a nightmare?’ Gabe asked. ‘The wife?’
‘God yes. She’s a horror, a terrible snob. Do you remember how “Let them eat cake” she was at his trial?’ said Santiago.
‘I’m sure she was under immense pressure,’ Penny said kindly. ‘We must all give them a chance.’
Laura sipped her gin and tonic and felt a rush of pure happiness. She loved Penny and Santiago. She loved this pub, and village life, and the tight, gossipy world of the valley, a world where a new arrival with a scandalous past was ‘big news’. But most of all she loved Gabe and their boys.
I’m so lucky, she thought, reaching for her husband’s hand under the table. Life really doesn’t get any better than this.
Sir Edward Wellesley looked around the room that had been his home for the last year. As odd as it sounded, he’d grown fond of it.
Pictures of his wife and son, Milo, hung on the walls, along with countless shots of his beloved border terrier, Wilf, and of Eddie himself, shaking hands with world leaders or speaking at the Tory Party conference. In the corner was a small desk where Eddie had spent many fruitful hours working on his memoirs.
It was a ‘room’ rather than a cell. Not like the awful hole he’d been shut up in for the first three months of his sentence at HMP Kennet. Some chippy pleb in the SFO had decided to make an example of the former Work and Pensions minister, packing Eddie off to the most overcrowded prison in Britain. It was a huge relief to be transferred to Farndale Open Prison, a rambling former stately home set deep in the Hampshire countryside. Compared to Kennet, it was the Ritz-Carlton. Eddie had gone from sharing a squalid cell with five men to sharing a comfortable room with one: a perfectly charming stockbroker named William Rees who’d been had up for insider trading. Will had been released a month ago. Since then Eddie had had the room to himself.
Not that Kennet was all bad. Eddie had made some good friends there too. The truth was, he made friends everywhere. Sir Edward Wellesley was an easy man to like.
In his early forties, with thick black hair greying slightly at the temples and a faint fan of laughter lines around his wickedly intelligent brown eyes, Eddie radiated charisma in a manner that had always drawn others in. Unashamedly posh, he somehow managed to carry off his Eton accent without making people want to punch him. Although not what one would call fit, exactly, at six foot four he carried his weight well, and projected a masculinity and youthful vigour not at all common in politicians. It was widely thought that Fast Eddie looked more like a handsome actor playing a minister than an actual minister. Women had always adored him and men admired him, perhaps because he never took anything too seriously, least of all himself.
‘Ready, Eddie?’
Bob Squires, one of the prison officers, stuck his head around Eddie’s door. A charming old boy in his sixties, Bob was a fanatical cricket buff. He and Eddie had bonded over their love of the game.
‘Not quite,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m still packing up, I’m afraid. Never do today what you can leave till the absolute last minute, that’s my motto.’ He grinned, placing a neatly folded Turnbull & Asser shirt into his suitcase. ‘Besides, chucking-out time’s in an hour, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ Bob Squires held out an envelope awkwardly. ‘I only stopped in early ’cause me and some of the boys wanted to give you this.’
Eddie opened it. Inside was a photograph of all the Farndale warders and staff, raising their glasses to the camera. On the back someone had written: ‘Good Luck Eddie – We’ll Miss You! – From all at Farndale’. Everyone had signed it.
‘My goodness.’ Eddie felt quite choked. ‘That’s terribly kind of you. I shall hang it up in my new house the moment I find a hammer.’
‘I’m not sure I’d do that if I were you. You might not want to be reminded of … all this … once you’re home.’
‘Nonsense,’ Eddie said robustly. ‘It’s been an experience! I shall hang it in pride of place in the downstairs loo. That’s the only place one ever really looks at pictures.’
‘Well, if I don’t see you, I wish you all the best,’ Bob said gruffly. ‘And I hope you stick it to that bastard Carlyle.’
Eddie laughed. ‘Thank you, Bob. I appreciate that.’
Zipping up his case, he took a last look around. Then he made a tour of Farndale’s common room and cafeteria, saying his farewells to inmates and staff alike and promising to keep in touch. Eddie had learned a lot in prison, but the main lesson he had taken away had been that those inside Her Majesty’s Prison walls were no different, intrinsically, from those outside. There, but for the grace of God, went all of us.
At ten fifteen, only a few minutes late, Eddie Wellesley walked out of Farndale to freedom. It wasn’t exactly a Nelson Mandela moment – there weren’t any gates to unlock for one thing – but it was still a strange and satisfying feeling. Last week’s dreary weather had given way to crisp, bright blue winter skies. A glorious frost blanketed the Hampshire countryside like glitter on a Christmas card. One couldn’t help but feel hopeful and happy on a day like today.
Eddie recognized his old friend Mark Porter, the Telegraph’s political editor, amongst the scrum of press that had surrounded his car, a chauffeur-driven Bentley Mulsanne.
‘Bit cold for you, isn’t it, Mark?’
‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, Sir Edward. How do you feel?’
‘Pretty good, thanks for asking,’ Eddie beamed.
‘Nice motor.’ Luke Heaton from the BBC, a weaselly, chinless little leftie in Eddie’s opinion, raised an eyebrow archly. ‘It doesn’t exactly scream “contrition”, though, does it? Given that you were convicted of fraud whilst in high office, do you not feel such an ostentatious show of wealth might be considered in bad taste?’
Eddie’s smile didn’t waver. ‘No.’
Eddie’s driver, dressed in full livery, stepped forward to take his case.
‘Ah, Haddon. Good to see you.’
‘And you, sir. Welcome back.’
He opened the rear door and Eddie stepped inside. Scores of cameras flashed.
A girl from the Daily Mail called out from the crowd: ‘What are you most looking forward to?’
‘Seeing my dog,’ Eddie answered without equivocation. ‘And my wife, of course,’ he added as an afterthought, to ripples of laughter.
‘What about David Carlyle?’ A lone voice Eddie couldn’t place drifted across the melee. ‘Do you have anything you’d like to say to him this morning?’
‘Nothing that you can print,’ Eddie said succinctly.
‘Do you blame Carlyle for your incarceration?’
Eddie smiled, pulling the door closed behind him.
It wasn’t until they reached open countryside, crossing the border from Hampshire into Sussex, that he started to relax. He was excited to see his wife again. Whatever outsiders might think about the Wellesley marriage, Eddie loved Annabel deeply. But it was an excitement tinged with nerves. He’d put his wife through hell. He knew that. Annabel loved their life at Westminster and the kudos she’d enjoyed as a senior minister’s wife. When it had all come crashing down, she’d been devastated. It wasn’t just Eddie’s fall from grace and two-year sentence for tax evasion. It was the horrendous publicity of the trial, the humiliation of seeing Eddie’s mistresses crawl out of the woodwork one by one, like so many maggots. David Carlyle and his newspaper, the Echo, had seen to it that every skeleton in Eddie’s closet was dragged out and rattled loudly before the British public. Including Eddie’s devastated wife.
They hadn’t really talked about any of it during Annabel’s prison visits. Not properly. Now they would have to. Despite having had a year and a half to work on his apology, Eddie still didn’t fully know what he was going to say. ‘Sorry’ seemed so feeble. Annabel wasn’t keen on feeble. He wanted to thank her for standing by him, but that just sounded patronizing.
As for the new house, their ‘fresh start’ far from London, Eddie had mixed feelings about it. It looked nice enough in the photos. But now that he was actually on his way there it felt surreal.
What if we’re not happy there?
What if we hate living in the country?
Annabel had demanded a move, and he was hardly in a position to refuse her. But when she settled on the Swell Valley, Eddie’s heart had tightened. David Carlyle had a place there, a ghastly, overgrown Wimpey home on the edge of the golf course at Hinton. They wouldn’t be close neighbours. But the thought of living within even a ten-mile radius of the man who had single-handedly wiped out his career and demolished his reputation did not fill Eddie with joy.
‘Can’t we try somewhere else?’ he asked Annabel. ‘The country’s full of pretty villages.’
But it was no good. This was the house she wanted. The deal was done.
It’s up to me to make us happy, he told himself firmly. To make things up to her. The house will be fine. We will be fine.
‘Would you like to listen to the Test Match, sir?’ The driver’s voice drifted into the back seat. ‘Coverage is on Five Live, if you’re interested.’
‘Haddon, that is an inspired suggestion.’
Eddie closed his eyes and sighed contentedly.
He was a free man in a free world, listening to the cricket.
Everything was going to be all right.
CHAPTER TWO (#ucc7276c6-226d-56bc-8963-06f066523948)
‘Wilf! God help me, if you don’t stop that racket this instant I will have you put down!’
Annabel Wellesley looked daggers at the scruffy border terrier with his snout pressed against the window halfway up the stairs. He’d been howling, interspersed with the occasional growl, for the last hour straight. Perhaps it was the presence of all the television crews at the end of the drive that had so discombobulated him. Or perhaps the little dog had a sixth sense and somehow knew that his master was coming home today. Either way, the constant noise was threatening to stretch Annabel’s already strained nerves to breaking point.
She’d have liked to go out for a walk. To get some air and clear her head. But there was no way on earth she was going to run the gauntlet of all those vile reporters. Besides which, there was still such a vast amount to do in the house, to make things perfect for Eddie’s arrival.
Moving in to Riverside Hall with no help, not even a cleaner, had been one of the most stressful experiences of Annabel’s life. A naturally gifted homemaker with a flair for interior design, Lady Wellesley was also a perfectionist and a woman who was used to delegating. In London, she and Eddie had had a full-time staff of three, including a cook and a butler, as well as a veritable fleet of ‘dailies’. Here, once the awful, gawping removal men had driven away, she had nobody but herself to turn to. Every surface to be polished, crate to be unpacked and drawer to be filled, Annabel had polished, unpacked and filled herself. Part of her had welcomed the distraction. But another part resented – with every fibre of her tiny, perfectly honed body – being reduced to such menial tasks.
She could perfectly well have afforded servants. It was an issue of trust. After the humiliation, the shame, of Eddie’s trial and incarceration, Annabel trusted nobody. Convinced people were laughing at her behind her back; or worse, that journalists posing as potential chefs or housemaids might weasel their way into the house under the pretext of coming to interview for the jobs, she had put off hiring anybody until Eddie was home and things were ‘settled’. Whatever that might mean.
Walking into the drawing room – anything to get away from the bloody dog – she looked at the two remaining unpacked crates with despair. How was it that every time she unpacked one box another seemed to pop up out of thin air to demand her attention?
In reality, Annabel was being far too hard on herself. It was less than two months since she’d first seen the house. Back then it had been as cold and unwelcoming as a grave. As its name suggested, Riverside Hall sat right on the River Swell. Scenic and inviting in summer, after a long, wet winter the river was swollen, grey and ugly, a fat, wet snake encircling the house. Damp, or a sense of damp, had pervaded everything. The flagstone floors had been as cold as ice, and every window draped with cobwebs.
Today, the house looked like something out of Homes & Gardens. Understated antiques and Wellesley family heirlooms – mostly simple Jacobean oak pieces with the odd Georgian bow-fronted chest of drawers thrown in for good measure – combined effortlessly with classic modern designs like the B&B Italia sofa in pale pink linen or the upholstered coffee table from Designers Guild shaped like a slightly off-kilter kidney bean. Huge vases of flowers plonked everywhere gave the house a casual, inviting air. Annabel had made sure that all the chimneys had been swept and the fires lit, transforming the gloomy rooms she’d visited back in November into welcoming havens of warmth and light. Faded Persian carpets covered all the floors, and an old pine dresser full of cheerful mismatched crockery made the kitchen look as if the family had lived there for years.
But Annabel didn’t see any of that. All she saw were the unpacked boxes. Combined with Wilf’s incessant howling, the fact that she was effectively a prisoner in her own home, and her mounting nerves about facing Eddie again (what was she going to say when he walked in the door, for God’s sake?), she felt close to tears.
The grandfather clock behind her struck twelve.
Noon. He’ll be home soon, surely?
Grimly she cut open another crate of books and set to work.
Penny de la Cruz trudged across the sodden fields, her wellies squelching into the mud with every step. Today was dry and bright, a glorious change from the relentless rain of previous weeks. But the once-green pastures between Woodside Hall – Penny’s idyllic medieval manor on the outskirts of the village – and Riverside Hall remained a slick, brown quagmire.
Not that Penny minded. It was lovely to be outside, although she felt guilty and strange going for a walk without the dog. Delilah, the de la Cruzes’ wire-haired dachshund bitch, had given her a thoroughly reproachful look as she set off with a basket of home-baked goodies under her arm, a welcome present for the Wellesleys. Everybody knew that Delilah was the naughtiest, randiest dog in Brockhurst. If Sir Eddie and Lady Wellesey had a dog, she would be bound to start dry-humping it embarrassingly the minute she got in the door. Best to make this a solo mission.
Like everybody else in England, Penny knew the sordid tale of Fast Eddie Wellesley’s fall from grace. Unlike everybody else, however, she didn’t rush to judgement, either of Eddie or of his wife, a woman the British public loved to hate.
‘She’s so stuck up, she needs surgery,’ Santiago commented over breakfast this morning.
