Chapter 24
‘Thank you, Officer Huntley.’ Meadowfield’s mayoress clapped as the uniform-clad police officer stepped away from the lectern and lowered himself into a chair at the back of the stage in the village hall.
‘Did the police officer really just speak about what I thought he did, as though a humongous crime had been committed, or am I hearing things?’ Leaning towards Ellie, who was sitting on his left, Murray tugged on his ear.
Leaning into him, Ellie whispered back, ‘Haha, you heard him correctly. Let’s hope no one’s caught or they’ll end up being banished from the village.’
‘Wow!’ Murray widened his eyes in mock-shock.
‘May I just take this moment to remind you all of how grave a situation this is.’ Miss Cooke shifted on her feet and gripped the wooden lectern with both hands. ‘If the pens are not returned to Meadowfield Library by closing time tomorrow, then we will be forced to install CCTV.’
A quiet hubbub of voices washed across the residents sitting in the audience.
‘Quiet, please.’ Miss Cooke paused and waited for every single person to turn their attention back to her before she continued.
‘And before I am inundated with comments that we’re only talking about a few pens, please, residents, think about what might be next.
All thieves begin with something small. They do so to test the water, and if left unchallenged, they’ll move on to bigger things, cars, house burglaries even.
I’m sure there’s not one person in here who wants to be sleeping with the fear that someone might break in and steal their television or computer or stereo. ’
Now it was Ellie’s turn to lean across and whisper in Murray’s ear. ‘They certainly won’t be best pleased if they break into mine then.’
Snorting in response, Murray quickly pulled a tissue from his pocket and pretended to sneeze. Once, twice, three times.
‘You can stop now. I think you got away with it.’ Jabbing him gently in the ribs, Ellie tried her best to stop her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
‘Isn’t that right, Officer Huntley?’ Miss Cooke glanced behind her and waited as the poor police officer turned a deep shade of beetroot and nodded sheepishly.
‘It can do.’
‘There you go then.’ Turning back to the gathered villagers, Miss Cooke nodded sharply. ‘And onto our next item on tonight’s agenda, we have two lovely villagers campaigning for our very own nature reserve.’
A round of applause erupted from the hall as two people stood up from the front row and clambered onto the stage.
‘Polly and Zac, welcome, welcome. We’re all very interested to hear what you’ve got to tell us.’ Stepping away from the lectern, Miss Cooke indicated they should take her place.
‘Hello, everyone.’ Leaning too close to the microphone, a loud whoosh echoed through the hall, and Polly stepped back and grimaced. ‘Umm… sorry about that. I certainly didn’t mean to burst your eardrums.’
Laughter momentarily filled the room before Miss Cooke’s glare hushed everyone back into silence.
‘Zac and I work at Meadowfield Nature Reserve with a very dedicated team and as you may be aware we’ve been busy fundraising for a new exercise and discovery trail to be installed around the nature reserve. We’re pleased to tell you we’ve now raised enough money.’
A loud cheer erupted before it too was quieted by Miss Cooke.
‘It’s been very important to us to make the trail fun and exciting for a range of ages and so we’ve had a lot of input from the village primary school, who have all been absolutely amazing at making suggestions and tweaks to our designs.
Although unfortunately, even with the best will in the world, we’ve not been able to take all the children’s fantastic ideas onboard.
For example, the dinosaur petting zoo and the lion taming arena were a little out of our budget,’ Zac added, and grinned.
‘And so, we’re here to thank you for all the support you’ve given us over the last few months, by attending the various activities we’ve put on at the reserve such as the Fun Run and the bake sales, but we also ask you to please pass on our thanks to your children, who, as I’ve said, have helped us immensely. ’
‘Thank you, Zac. Thank you, Polly. I’m sure everyone is looking forward to next year when the trail will be completed.’ Miss Cooke began walking back to the lectern.
Stepping forward again, Polly spoke into the microphone, being careful not to lean too close this time. ‘The installation began last week, and we hope to have the trail completed by the second week of the school summer holidays.’
Miss Cooke raised her eyebrows slightly. ‘Well, that will be wonderful. Now onto the final topic on this evening’s agenda.’
As Miss Cooke continued speaking, Laura, who was sitting next to Ellie, held her hand over her mouth and spoke quietly. ‘Polly and Zac stayed with us at Pennycress for a few months last year. You’ll love them. Really nice people. I’ll arrange for them to come over for dinner or coffee one day.’
‘Okay, that’d be nice.’ Ellie grinned. Now that she wasn’t driving to Chipping Norton every day to work with Melissa and she was now properly based in the village, she was beginning to feel as though she really belonged for the first time since she’d moved.
The community she and Murray had felt when they’d visited was definitely still alive today, and now her dream of becoming part of it was feeling closer to reality than it ever had.
‘…the planning in anticipation of the influx of tourists…’
Letting Miss Cooke’s voice wash over her, Ellie reached across and took Murray’s hand, their fingers interlacing automatically.
She didn’t care if anyone noticed, not now.
In fact, now they’d both decided to try again it was all she could do not to stand up right then and there and shout over Miss Cooke’s voice and tell everyone she and Murray were together.
She glanced towards Laura, who raised her eyebrows and grinned at her. Ellie didn’t care if the village became gridlocked with cars and coaches, she was just excited to see where her life might lead now Murray was back in the picture.
Standing up from the hard plastic chair, Ellie rubbed the small of her back. It always took her a few minutes to recover from sitting in one of those, especially as these meetings seemed to get longer each time.
‘We’re going to run off ahead as someone’s just come up to say they think they saw a sheep running through the village.
’ Leaning over the back of the chairs in front of Ellie where she and Charlie had been sitting, Nicola grimaced.
‘So, we need to hurry and check it’s not Claudette before Miss Cooke gets wind of it. ’
‘Yikes. I’ll come and help.’ Bending down, Ellie grabbed her handbag and drew the strap up to her shoulder.
She remembered the almighty fuss villagers had made last year about poor Claudette, a sheep which had escaped from one of the local farms. Fortunately, Charlie had managed to trap the poor animal and rescue it from its certain fate.
‘Me too. I’ll help in any way I can if there’s an emergency. Whatever that might be.’ The expression on Murray’s face was pure confusion.
‘Thanks, Laura and Jackson are going to come too. Hopefully, between us we’ll find her before a certain person realises she’s missing again.’ Charlie looked pointedly at Meadowfield’s mayoress, who was making a beeline for them. ‘We’ll see you out there.’
Ellie nodded as Nicola, Charlie, Laura and Jackson hurried to the door before Miss Cooke could reach them. Taking Murray’s hand, Ellie edged them past a couple still sitting and chatting in their seats in the hopes they could avoid walking past the mayoress.
‘Evening, Ellie,’ Miss Cooke’s shrill voice called from the aisle.
Too late.
Reluctantly, Ellie turned and walked slowly back down the row of chairs before she and Murray were standing in the aisle with Miss Cooke. ‘Hi. How can I help you?’
‘Well, I was going to ask how the plans for the great Pennycress wedding were coming along, but I see you’ve brought an outsider to the village meeting,’ Miss Cooke answered abruptly as she glared at Murray.
‘Oh, he’s not an outsider. He lives here in Meadowfield.
’ Ellie remembered the last time someone had dared to bring a person who lived outside of the village to one of the meetings.
Miss Cooke had berated them for so long, going on and on about confidentiality and countless other completely senseless reasons why only people who resided in Meadowfield were allowed to attend, that the poor woman and her friend looked about to cry.
Tilting her head, Miss Cooke frowned, deep lines appearing across her forehead. ‘You do?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Murray smiled his easy lopsided smile, the one sure to put whoever he was talking to at ease. And, sure enough, Miss Cooke’s glare began to thaw, and she held out her hand to him.
‘In that case, I do apologise. I’m normally kept up to date with the housing market and the comings and goings of our residents by the lovely Ms Taunton.
’ Still gripping Murray’s hand, Miss Cooke glanced around the now almost empty hall as though looking for Evie Taunton, Meadowfield’s estate agent, who was sure to be interrogated over this when Miss Cooke finally tracked her down.
‘Thank you for your welcome.’ Murray carefully extracted his hand from her steel grip before shoving his hands in his pockets to ensure they remained broken-bone free.
Snapping her attention back to him, Miss Cooke nodded. ‘Whereabouts are you living?’
‘Where am I living?’ Murray raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, yes, your address? What is it, and I’ll have the village welcome pack sent out. It contains all sorts of valuable information, such as the dates and agendas of the next three village meetings, a master list of community clubs and groups you may wish to join, a—’