Chapter Thirteen
“I’m afraid Ms. Armitage is in a meeting,” the secretary said briskly. “May I ask who is calling?”
“It’s just Imogen, tell her,” said Imogen.
“In connection with...?” barked the secretary.
“Erm, I’m a friend,” she added, remembering punishments meted out to her in the past for taking personal calls at the office.
“Imogen?”?’ parroted the secretary, clearly enunciating for an unseen audience.
There was a brief pause.
“Ah, yes, it appears Ms. Armitage has finished her meeting, I’ll just put you through.”
“Imo, honey! Where’ve you been?”
“Sorry! Busy, actually, you know how it is,” said Imogen. “That Rottweiler you’ve got screening your calls is a bit fierce,
isn’t she?”
“God, yes, she scares the hell out of me, but she keeps the baying hordes off. My office has been transformed from Piccadilly
Circus in the rush hour to a Zen temple of serenity and mindfulness.”
“Sounds like hell,” said Imogen, knowing perfectly well how much Sally thrived on chaos.
“Yeah, well, it’s just one of the things that one must put up with when one attains the heights of senior management—like
what one has,” said Sally loftily if ungrammatically. “Anyhow, about that funny little guy I was telling you about. Hang on,
I’ve got him on LinkedIn.”
Imogen listened to an extended period of keyboard tapping.
“Here!” came Sally’s voice triumphantly. “Now, it’s not actually him, it’s this woman he’s in partnership with who’s massive
in children’s publishing. Wait, there’s a link... yeah, so it’s Rowena Plummer-Jones. Ring a bell?”
“Actually, yes,” said Imogen, in awe. “But she’ll never take me on. I’d never dream—”
“Well, he said he can’t—obviously—promise she’ll take you on. She has to like your stuff. But, he said, call him before you
submit, and he’ll smooth the way.”
“This is really very sweet of you,” said Imogen, her heart pounding with nerves at the thought of laying herself open to scrutiny.
Instagram was one thing, but having the temerity to send her portfolio to Rowena Plummer-Jones was something else.
“Not at all. I just can’t bear the thought of you sitting in that lovely house piddling about with the odd bit of drawing
when you could be slaving your guts out like me,” said Sally uncharitably.
“Are you actually slaving, though?”
“Yup. At least, I thought I was being a thrusting, successful, high-powered businesswoman, but according to Alistair, I’m just another rat in the rat race and a neglectful mother too,” she said lightheartedly, but unable to prevent the bitterness seeping through.
“I’m sure he didn’t say exactly that.”
“Maybe not exactly, but still,” said Sally. “He said he’d love to see you, though. You should come up and stay sometime. It’s
tough finding friends he’s prepared to be polite to, but he’s always been fond of you, for some reason.”
“I’d love to come,” Imogen told her. “Maybe if this Rowena Plummer-Jones does actually agree to see me and my work, I’ll be
up sooner than you think.”
“Well, make sure it’s this side of Christmas, anyway,” replied Sally, “God help us, that’s not far away now—nightmare!”
Making whatever promises were required, mainly around eating properly, sleeping properly, not talking to strange men—which
ruled out most of the men she knew in Middlemass— Imogen persuaded Sally to let her go on the promise she made the call straightaway.
Checking her watch again and looking at the fading light outside, Imogen dialed the number nervously.
She was fully expecting to have to, embarrassingly, remind him of his conversation with Sally, explain who she was, and then
listen to him sighing and regretting having offered to help. She was relieved when he immediately said, “Ah, yes! Sally said
you would be in touch—a very impressive woman. In every way,” he added thoughtfully, as if to himself.
Imogen suppressed a smile. He was obviously another sucker for Sally’s charms. Many times Imogen had watched Sally use her considerable feminine powers to manipulate men, leaving them broken in her wake as soon as she got whatever business advantage she was after. Imogen couldn’t imagine ever behaving like that. Of course, that was because—in her case—she doubted it would work.
Returning to her call, Imogen heard Quentin Barker-Williams—just the sort of name a literary agent should have—telling her
something she could hardly dare to believe.
“Spoke to Rowena about you—she’s the children’s books specialist, you see. As you probably know, Barker-Williams and Todd
is fully committed usually, but—as it happens—Rowena has just lost one of her authors to an archrival. She’s spitting about
it, of course,” he mused, “but I expect they’ll live to regret it. Obviously, we haven’t seen all your work, but Sally steered
me toward your Insta account, and I loved what I saw. A not unimpressive number of followers you have too, by the way. It
all helps. We are both intrigued,” he went on. “Rowena told me to tell you to speak to her PA about making an appointment
with her for some time next week if you’re free?”
He paused, waiting for a response that Imogen was too stunned to give.
“Is that all right?” he prompted.
“All right? It’s amazing!” she crowed, her tongue finally unsticking as the brain caught up with the good news. “Yes, please,”
she added, more calmly.
“Great,” Quentin said, sounding relieved to have discharged his responsibilities. “Well, I’ll put you on to Rowena’s secretary,
and we look forward to seeing you soon.”
Appointment booked for the following Tuesday, Imogen put down the phone and blew out her cheeks.
“What on earth did Sally say to him?” she asked Tango, causing him to lazily raise one eyelid. “Whatever it was, it could
end up keeping you in that fancy gourmet food you insist on for a very long time.”
Refusing to be impressed, Tango stretched languidly and then went back to sleep.
Imogen could not help a skip of excitement that turned out to be more of an elephantine thud now her pregnant belly dictated
her center of gravity. Beaming inanely, she pulled on her coat and boots and headed out belatedly for her walk.
In her first few days at the house she had gathered up some bricks and stones and improvised a little step to help her climb
over the wall into the field from the orchard. She was intrigued to discover, as she started her walk that afternoon, that
someone had replaced the wobbly pile with a properly constructed wooden stile. It could only have been done for her to use.
So, who was it that was watching over her?
Setting off in a daze, she fantasized about her meeting with Rowena for the first half mile. She would need to prepare a portfolio,
a roundup of the work she had to show. There were an awful lot of possibilities, perhaps including the illustrated Aesop’s Fables from forever ago, but eventually, she decided on the first fully illustrated Tango and Ruth story, plus the two further stories she had finished sketching out, even though only a few of the illustrations were fully drawn and colored. She chewed her lip anxiously. Surely not having finished them wouldn’t be a problem? She didn’t want to waste the biggest break she had ever had.
Dismissing her preoccupations for now, Imogen stopped and took a deep breath, enjoying the rich, fungus smell of the recently
plowed earth. She was on her favorite walk, a track that followed the perimeter wall of the estate, taking her through fields,
skirting woodland of several acres that wrapped around the rear of the manor house, then back, eventually, through the woods
and over the river to the cottage. She was walking around the edge of a field where she remembered wheat had been growing
when she had first visited Middlemass, last spring with Nigel. It felt like a hundred years ago now as she plodded through
the mud, already thinking of hot cups of tea and maybe buttered crumpets.
Reaching the brow of the hill, Imogen paused briefly to drink in the view. The early sunset was already flooding the skies with a wash of pink and orange streaks like hand-painted silk. Glancing at her watch, Imogen scolded herself for setting off on the longest route she knew—maybe not such a good idea after her delayed start. She should crack on. As soon as she entered the woodland on the narrowing path, the canopy of branches intensified the gloom of the fading daylight. Although she was still able to see ahead of her clearly enough, the shadows deepened and encroached ever closer. Pondering the wisdom of retracing her steps, she came to a little rabbit track she had noticed before. Knowing vaguely that it must cut through to the path in the valley below, saving probably about fifteen minutes’ walk, she decided to give it a try. Her bump was starting to ache, and her legs were already tired and heavy. Plus she didn’t much fancy stumbling into Gabriel or one of the other estate workers in the pitch-black, which was what would happen—knowing her luck—if she didn’t get home before darkness fell. Also, she admitted to herself, she always felt a little like she was trespassing when she walked on the estate. That said, she reasoned, Storybook Cottage was sheltered, just inside the high brick estate walls that ran for miles around the perimeter. In her mind, that made them an extension of her own garden—at a push.
Groping ahead of her with both hands to save her eyes from the whippy low branches, Imogen soon found herself unable to discern
the track beneath her feet. Instead, the steep incline was thickly covered with dead leaves over stones and treacherous tree
roots that threatened to turn her ankles at every cautious step. Surely the path must be not far below. She pressed on, sliding
down the steeper slopes on her bottom at times, sorry her inelegant and noisy approach was frightening the squirrels and rabbits
she usually saw. Their presence was only indicated now by skittering, scurrying sounds all around her. At least she assumed
it was squirrels.
A loud crack off to her left made her stop dead. Was it a deer breaking a branch? It was too loud, surely, she thought, her heart pounding as she peered into the shadows beneath the canopy of branches. Another crack, louder this time, followed hard by a bloodcurdling scream, set the hairs on the back of her neck crawling. Frozen, Imogen listened intently. It must be a fox, like the one she sometimes heard at night. They could sound like banshees, couldn’t they? Staring wide-eyed into the gloom, Imogen listened with increasing confusion.
Then, a crashing sound much closer and coming closer still. She spun around toward it, catching her foot under a tree root
and staggering forward with a tearing pain in her left ankle.
Next, a series of what felt like slaps on the chest. Spinning around, Imogen glimpsed a neon-bright plastic gun held below
a terrible, screaming face before she crashed onto her back, all breath leaving her body as she hit the earth.
Hours seemed to pass. Imogen gazed at the sky, through a lacy canopy of branches. The birdsong had ceased. There was no sound
beyond the ringing in her ears. This is what it must be like to die, she thought serenely. For some reason, fate has decreed
that my life should end at the hands of a screeching madman rampaging through the Devon countryside with a pink plastic machine
gun, mowing down everyone and everything in his wake. And that is completely fine. In a minute, I will look down and see my
life’s blood pumping out onto the ground. I have not breathed for what seems like hours, and I know now that I will never
breathe again. This is not a problem. Dead people don’t have to breathe.
Although, weirdly, her chest didn’t hurt.
Eventually, she lifted her head a couple of inches and peered down at where the shots had landed. Bizarrely, her shabby green waxed jacket was covered, not with blood as she had expected in her worst imaginings, but with some strange, viscous substance that was bright, luminous yellow. Imogen winced at the appalling color. And then she winced again as the first wince sent a bolt of pain shooting up her left leg, reminding her that her ankle was still pinned by the tree root in a place it would not have chosen to be in relation to her now horizontal body.
“Rupert, you wanker!” hollered a voice to her left. “You’ve bloody gone and shot a peasant.”
“Christ, so I have,” the madman with the machine gun exclaimed mildly.
“Are you all right?” he inquired solicitously, but spoiled the effect by breaking into a loose-mouthed grin. “I really got
you, didn’t I?” he crowed, pointing at the luminous mess on her chest.
“You bloody idiot,” said the voice that now presented itself as belonging to another young man, dark-haired and kitted out
in the same combat gear as the first. “Everyone else has been dead for bloody hours. We’re due back in the conference center
in precisely eight minutes.”
“Conference center... Debrief, eh? Yah, yah,” said the lunatic excitedly. “Better crack on then, eh?” He shifted impatiently
from foot to foot.
“Can you get up?” said Dark Hair to Imogen, holding out a hand.
“Yes, I... Ow!” she squeaked as her ankle violently objected to even the thought of movement. Imogen sank back again, biting
her lip.
“I’ve really hurt my foot,” she said, fighting not to sound as pathetic as she was beginning to feel. Remembering how far away from home she was, with the sky rapidly deepening to indigo and only two posh-boy idiots to assist, she felt impossibly daunted at the thought of the immediate future and close to tears.
Dark Hair looked perplexed and not a little bit irritated. “We’ll lose automatically if we miss the return deadline,” he said
distractedly.
“You’ll lose a bloody sight more than that if I ever see you on my land again,” boomed a stern voice out of the darkness.
They all jumped violently, Imogen immediately regretting the answering stab of pain.
“Who the hell are you?” said Dark Hair.
“I might ask you the same question if I gave a damn about the answer. What I really want to know is what the bloody hell are
you doing trashing my property?” said Gabriel, marching toward them and scowling thunderously.
Imogen was astonished. How was it that she should see him now? There she was, yet again, failing to be in command of the situation—and
there he was to witness her indignity. She couldn’t even fathom how he could have got so close without them hearing his approach.
Surely he hadn’t been trailing her? Standing with his back to the remaining light, he loomed above her, reassuringly solid
but unnervingly cross.
“I might have known you’d get yourself involved in this idiocy,” he snapped at her.
Relief was replaced with outrage at the injustice of it all. “What?” she said, affronted. “I’m out for a leisurely afternoon stroll when I get stalked and leapt upon by a khaki-clad idiot with a paint gun and splattered with gunge right here”—she indicated her chest area entirely unnecessarily—“and I’ve also really hurt my foot and now I can’t walk and I don’t know how I’m going to get home...” She trailed off, her voice beginning to crack. She was blowed if she was going to cry with Gabriel watching.
Kneeling in front of her, he threw her an exasperated look but examined her ankle, still trapped in the tree root, gently
enough. Cutting through the root with a penknife and then through her laces, he eased off her boot.
“Ow, ow, ow,” Imogen moaned through gritted teeth.
“You shouldn’t walk on it,” said Gabriel, feeling her already swelling ankle. “We’ll have to carry you back to the Hall—it’s
nearer than Storybook Cottage.”
“Look, I just want to go home,” she muttered ungratefully.
“The Hall is home. It’s my home. It’s also where my car is, and—believe me—I’ll be wanting to get rid of you soon enough, I’m too busy
for all this nonsense.”
“Righto—everything seems to be under control, so we’ll be off, then,” said Dark Hair hopefully, glancing pointedly at his
watch.
“No, you won’t,” said Gabriel. “It’ll take at least two of us to carry her over this terrain without jolting that ankle too
much.”
Crestfallen, the two gunmen fell into step, taking turns to link hands with Gabriel as Imogen clung embarrassed to their shoulders.
Ungainly enough with her huge tummy obscuring her view of her own feet, she was made even clumsier by such awkward close proximity
to Gabriel, who glowered indiscriminately at them all, occasionally stifling oaths as they stumbled over the uneven ground.