Poppy Plays Fair E-Book

Leigh Russell

• Herausgeber: Crime & Mystery Club
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: A Poppy Mystery Tale
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 325

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The NEW cosy crime novel from million-copy-selling author Leigh Russell!

The fair is in town in Ashton Mead and everyone is keen to join in the fun - that is until a young woman falls from the Ferris wheel and all fingers point to Emily's new friend, Dana. With her outsider status, mysterious past and penchant for stretching the truth, who else could it be?

As the villagers grow increasingly suspicious of the fairground people and tensions start to bubble, Emily vows to clear Dana's name and protect her friend, much to the dismay of those closest to her. But can Emily and her dog Poppy find the real culprit before the town erupts, or will Emily risk her life for nothing?

Page-turning and heart-warming, The Poppy Mystery Tales are perfect for fans of Richard Coles' Murder Before Evensong, Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club, Ian Moore's Death and Croissants and SJ Bennett's The Queen Investigates series.

Readers love The Poppy Mystery Tales

'A great mystery which kept me turning the pages long into the night... A delightfully, light read and extremely well plotted... Five stars for Leigh Russell and a bone for Poppy' *****

'As expected, Leigh's writing is excellent, as are her descriptions of small town life... We Poppy fans just want to see more of her!' *****

'A thoroughly delightful read. Cosy, entertaining, intriguing (with a mystery to solve, of course) and interesting characters all set in a somewhat typical English village. With the star of the show... Poppy. As a dog enthusiast, I love Poppy!' *****

'Poppy is the best dog hero since Lassie!' *****

'Charming... An extremely well- crafted cosy mystery... It offers a great mystery to keep you guessing, a perfect location that pulls you in, and even romance, and I could almost smell those newly baked scones in the café that Emily works in' *****

Leseprobe

Critical Acclaim for Leigh Russell

‘A million readers can’t be wrong! Clear some time in your day, sit back and enjoy a bloody good read’ – Howard Linskey

‘Taut and compelling’ – Peter James

‘Leigh Russell is one to watch’ – Lee Child

‘A brilliant talent in the thriller field’ – Jeffery Deaver

‘Brilliant and chilling, Leigh Russell delivers a cracker of a read!’ – Martina Cole

‘Leigh Russell has become one of the most impressively dependable purveyors of the English police procedural’ –Times

‘DI Geraldine Steel is one of the most authoritative female coppers in a crowded field’ – Financial Times

‘The latest police procedural from prolific novelist Leigh Russell is as good and gripping as anything she has published’ – Times & Sunday Times Crime Club

‘Another corker of a book from Leigh Russell… Russell’s talent for writing top-quality crime fiction just keeps on growing…’ – Euro Crime

‘Good, old-fashioned, heart-hammering police thriller… a no-frills delivery of pure excitement’ – SAGA Magazine

‘A gritty and totally addictive novel’ – New York Journal of Books

This story is dedicated to Lily, who sadly passed away before the book was published. Enjoy the unlimited treats in doggy heaven and rest in peace, beloved little Lily.

1

Every year the residents of Ashton Mead anticipated the annual summer fair with varying degrees of excitement and trepidation. Working as a waitress in the local tea shop, I overheard customers expressing their views. Some of the locals deplored any disturbance to the peaceful life of the village and grumbled to one another about strangers running rampant through the streets.

‘We don’t want hordes of showpeople roaming around our village.’

‘It’s not the showpeople, it’s all the visitors who drop litter everywhere.’

‘I blame the council. They don’t put enough bins out. I mean, how difficult can it be?’

‘… and the noise.’

‘Remember last year? Old Meg Forster’s grandson was mugged in broad daylight.’

Others were excited at the prospect of the fair returning to the grassy slopes near the river and talked enthusiastically about taking their grandchildren on rides.

‘This year I promised to take him on the big wheel.’

‘… the bumper cars.’

‘… the merry-go-round.’

‘… the helter-skelter.’

My best friend and boss, Hannah, was cautiously pleased about the fair, which always attracted visitors from neighbouring villages, and even from the nearest town of Swindon. More people coming to the village translated into more customers for the tea shop. Hannah fretted about her tea shop which, so far, was thriving, thanks to her hard work and scrumptious baking. She insisted that a business needed to grow if it was to survive. It was true that current success was no guarantee of future prosperity and her profits were precarious, so she was understandably worried about the future. Owning a café had always been her dream, and when she had received a generous divorce settlement from her ex-husband, she had invested the lot in the Sunshine Tea Shoppe. When I had moved into the picturesque cottage left to me by my great aunt, Hannah had offered me a job. Without that modest income, I might not have been able to stay, and I had fallen in love with my property and with the lovely village.

In the three years that I had been working for Hannah, my mother had not hidden her snobbish disdain for my job, but I was very happy working as a waitress. Not only was I spending every day with my best friend, but I could walk to work. When Hannah’s mother was unable to look after my little dog, Poppy could stay in the yard at the back of the café. When it rained, she slept in her little bed in a corner of the kitchen. Poppy had been bequeathed to me by my great aunt, along with her cottage, Rosecroft. Never having owned a dog before, I had been nervous to begin with, but Poppy was irresistible. A Jack Tzu, with white and brown fur and an expressive face, she was not only adorable, but highly intelligent. Living alone, I very quickly came to rely on her companionship. Unlike any boyfriend I had ever had, Poppy never let me down, not even for an instant. I could no longer imagine life without her.

Following a dry spell, the morning before the fair was due to arrive in Ashton Mead there was a torrential downpour, but the weather cleared up by early evening. Poppy and I wandered down to the grassy slopes by the river to watch the fair being set up. Poppy trotted around happily sniffing the ground at every step, while I trod carefully to avoid the worst of the mud. Even so, from time to time my boots squelched as I walked, and I resigned myself to the fact that they would need to be cleaned after our walk. It was impossible not to marvel at the speed and deftness with which the stalls and rides were being erected. Within a few hours, the scene would undergo a complete transformation from an empty open space to a bustling hub of fairground attractions. Indistinct figures strode in and out of shadows cast by bright lights illuminating a strange scene, men and women dragging poles, trestle tables, curious chunks of brightly coloured plastic, coiled wires and bags of tacky prizes. Underlying the seemingly haphazard activity, there was a sense of purpose in the hectic scene.

Hearing raised voices, I peered around and was surprised to make out the familiar form of Dana Flack. A newcomer to Ashton Mead, she had come to live on the outskirts of the village when she lost her job as a reporter on the local paper. While she had been working as a journalist, I had found her arrogant and intrusive, and had done my best to avoid her. Since she had been made redundant, she had taken to hanging around the village looking so crestfallen that I almost felt sorry for her. This evening, she appeared to be arguing with a blonde woman whose shrill voice penetrated the general din of clattering metal and shouted instructions.

‘You’re just jealous, that’s what it is,’ I heard the blonde woman snap as Poppy and I came within earshot.

Poppy growled very softly, almost furtively, as though she understood we might not want to be caught eavesdropping.

‘You think I’m jealous?’ Dana scoffed, tossing her head and flicking her black hair off her sharp-featured face. ‘You can’t be serious, not after everything he’s done. And you know as well as I do that it’s all true.’

After that, Dana said something about it being the best decision she ever made, and the other woman laughed with obvious derision.

‘What the hell are you doing here, anyway?’ the blonde woman demanded. ‘You don’t belong here with us, and you’re not welcome here neither.’

‘I’ve got as much right to be here as anyone else,’ Dana replied. Her words were defiant, but she sounded tired and in the semi-darkness I could see that her shoulders were bowed in defeat. ‘You can’t dictate where I can and can’t go. It’s a free country.’

‘Free!’ the other woman echoed scornfully. ‘You can’t stand there and tell me you’re free of him.’

The woman took a step towards Dana so that they were almost touching. Her hair was unkempt and she looked younger than Dana, who must have been in her thirties. The stranger’s arms were hanging down at her sides but, as she moved into a patch of dusky light, I could see her fists were clenched. ‘Why have you come here?’ the blonde woman repeated. This time, she no longer sounded hostile, but genuinely curious.

Poppy whimpered. Scooping her up in my arms, I scurried away before the two women noticed us watching. We passed several other shadowy figures who were busily setting up stalls and rides. Voices rang out all around us in the gathering darkness.

‘Easy there.’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘You’re too far over.’

‘Nearly done.’

The preparations went on far into the night, long after Poppy and I had gone home and been lulled to sleep by the distant clatter and shouts coming from the direction of the river.

The rain did not return and, on my way to work the next morning, I took a short detour through the fair. Most of the setting up had been completed the previous night. Although the stalls around the perimeter were not yet manned, and the food vans were still closed, we could hear distant thumping music coming from the merry-go-round. The roar and rattle of rides grew louder as we approached the centre of the site, where a generator contributed a background drone to the blaring noise of the attractions. Walking around the outer circle we passed a shooting gallery where a few boys were hanging around, waiting to try their luck. As we walked on, the stall holder began to take their money. The sharp popping sounds of the guns made Poppy shiver nervously so I picked her up and held her close as I walked on, passing yellow ducks bobbing up and down, impossible to hook, a mirror maze and a ghost train, a coconut shy and a sweet smelling candy floss stall. Assailed by so many new smells, Poppy fussed to be put down. She trotted along beside me, constantly alert, her eyes darting around, her nose raised to explore a conglomeration of smells carried on the air: oil and axle grease mingled with the cloying scent of sugar.

‘This is all very interesting, isn’t it?’ I asked her.

She glanced up at me briefly before turning her attention back to her surroundings, as if to tell me she was very busy sniffing all the different scents that had arrived on the grass by the river, and had no time to listen to me. We walked on, both of us enjoying the sights and smells and nascent exuberance of the fair. By late morning, the area would be packed with people, but we couldn’t stay around to watch the crowds arrive. It was time to head to the tea shop to serve breakfast. Hoping my long red hair wouldn’t smell of the fairground, I hurried to work. We had a busy morning and there was no chance for Hannah and I to chat, but I overheard quite a few customers talking about the fair in the village. Some people were pleased about it, particularly those who had children or grandchildren. Others were less enthusiastic. After grumbling about the prices of the rides, the conversation moved on.

‘That’s hardly fair,’ one woman piped up, hearing someone complain about the litter the fair would inevitably leave behind. ‘It’s visitors – members of the public – who leave a load of rubbish behind when they go home, and the fairground workers are expected to clear up.’

‘It’s the youngsters,’ someone else said. ‘No respect for the environment.’

That prompted another discussion, with some customers criticising teenagers, while others defended them vigorously. Listening from the kitchen, Hannah smiled. Pleased that the tea shop had become a popular social hub for many retired customers, she felt she was providing a valuable service to people who might otherwise feel isolated.

‘And it doesn’t hurt your profits to have a nucleus of regular customers,’ I added.

‘That’s a very cynical way of looking at it,’ she told me with a disapproving scowl.

‘Whatever you say,’ I grinned. We both knew I was right.

After lunch, I took a short break to give Poppy a walk, and to look around the fair again. During the day, the fair was mainly packed with families eager to enjoy a day out: children begging and cajoling and becoming hyperactive, having scoffed more sugar than was good for them; grandparents indulging their young charges; and parents trying to curb the spending spree. Most of the rides were noticeably more expensive than the previous year. In common with everything else, prices were going up, which added to Hannah’s worries. Increased running costs were affecting profits in the tea shop, where Hannah was doing her best to avoid having to put her prices up. Fortunately, few customers seemed to notice the subtle tactics she adopted to save money. Reducing the thickness of a scone by twenty per cent passed unnoticed, whereas an increase of a few pence on a cup of tea caused comments and raised eyebrows.

‘You can’t stand still in business,’ she complained. ‘If you’re not moving forward you’re going backwards.’

But where once Hannah had been optimistically making plans to extend the café or even purchase a second premises, in the current economic climate she was now having to work hard to maintain her current situation.

I pressed on, walking through the fair, dodging baby strollers and loiterers, and negotiating a path through the growing crowds, until I reached the innermost rides: the helter-skelter, the jangling carousel, the big wheel and the dodgems. Here the noise was almost deafening, loud music overlaid with intermittent waves of screaming coming from the rides, along with people yelling to be heard above the general din, a cacophony that drowned out the hum of the generator. Later on, in the evening, teenagers would gather in gangs and the atmosphere would become more menacing as darkness approached. But during the day, the fair was a fun place to while away an idle half hour on my break.

Even in the daytime atmosphere of good cheer, it was still a little risky walking around. Tugging at his mother’s hand and not looking where he was going, a small boy collided with me and began bawling.

His mother instantly turned on me with a ferocious frown. ‘Here, watch where you’re going.’

Sensing a threat, Poppy barked. Before I had a chance to remonstrate that the child had barged into me, the woman scooped her little boy up in her arms and elbowed her way off through the crowd. If it hadn’t been for Poppy yapping aggressively at her, she might not have been so ready to walk away. Even though she had deprived me of an opportunity to explain what had happened, I was pleased to see her go. I suspected any attempt to remonstrate would have ended in an angry confrontation. We sauntered on without further incident, mainly following the crowd, and manoeuvring our way around people going in the opposite direction, greeting neighbours and regular customers of the tea shop as we made our way slowly past the different rides. Seeing my next-door neighbour, Richard, who owned the only other house in Mill Lane, I paused for a brief chat, but the noise made communication almost impossible and we soon abandoned any attempt at conversation, instead settling for smiles and thumbs up gestures. I saw the tall figure of Dana Flack striding along. She was glancing around uneasily as though searching for someone, or perhaps avoiding them, and hanging around like a lost soul.

‘That woman needs to get a job,’ Hannah had told me one afternoon when Dana sat lingering in the tea shop over a solitary cup of tea.

‘Well, she’s not having mine,’ I said.

‘As if I could manage without you,’ Hannah replied, and I grinned.

In the centre of the fairground, the noise, the movement of people, and the different colours and flashing lights of the rides became overwhelming after a short time. Even Poppy seemed less alert. Her eyes began to close as she flagged under the assault of unfamiliar smells and loud noises. We walked on past bellowing barkers, their voices ringing out above the hubbub.

‘Three throws for a fiver!’

‘Roll up! Roll up!’

‘Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen, for the big wheel!’

‘A prize every time!’

‘The scariest experience of your life!’

‘Everyone’s a winner!’

‘How about it, darling?’ a man called out to me as I paused by his stall to pick Poppy up. He dangled a small plastic bag with a little goldfish in it. ‘Three throws for a tenner, and a one in three guarantee of success.’ He grinned as he offered me the chance to hand over ten pounds for nothing. ‘I can see you’re an animal lover,’ he added cheerily, nodding at Poppy who was snuggling comfortably in my arms. ‘He’s a real beauty. What do you call him?’

Poppy growled and watched him warily. A stray strand of candy floss floated past and she snapped at it, momentarily distracted. Shaking my head at the barker, and laughing at his glib patter, I continued on my way. After a while I came across my friend Barry, the local policeman. He was on duty in his uniform, and we walked on together for a few minutes. We reached the centre of the fairground, where the big rides rang out their strident tunes. A man leaped nimbly off a pole on the carousel and held out a calloused hand.

‘Fancy a ride, darling?’ he shouted, winking suggestively at me.

Under other circumstances I might have been tempted to take his hand, he was so attractive. But Poppy growled and I shook my head, smiling into his dark eyes. I had learned to trust Poppy’s instincts, and her hostility warned me to be wary. Experience had taught me that good looks were no indication of reliable character in a man. Besides, I didn’t think Poppy would be comfortable riding on the carousel in my arms. A woman appeared behind him on the running board of the carousel and I was almost sure she was the woman I had seen arguing with Dana on the previous evening when the fair was being set up. Blonde and pretty, under the bright lights of the ride she looked as though she was barely out of her teens. Her make-up failed to conceal a black eye, and when one of her sleeves slipped back, she pulled it down quickly, but not before I had spotted a bruise on her wrist. Knocks and accidents were probably common enough in such a physically demanding environment, but it crossed my mind to wonder whether someone had been beating her up. Her eyes met mine for an instant, her expression defiant yet frightened.

‘Alfie,’ she addressed her good-looking colleague. ‘Marge wants you to turn her music up. The volume button’s stuck.’

‘Tell her to fix it herself,’ he muttered. ‘I got my own ride to run.’

I shook my head and, with a breezy grin, he was gone, searching for his next punter.

I walked on with Poppy in my arms, resisting the ghost train and the dodgems. Poppy gazed longingly whenever a child passed us brandishing a stick of pink and white spun candy floss, and when we approached a food stall, she became frantic to jump down. I knew it was wrong to spoil her, but I stopped and bought a hot dog and shared the sausage with her, telling myself she was entitled to enjoy all the fun of the fair along with everyone else. We had almost completed half a circuit of the site, and I was about to turn back towards the tea shop, when a piercing scream penetrated the ambient clamour. The big wheel abruptly stopped turning. A fairground worker standing on the back of a bumper car shouted a command, and the cars slid to a halt. A message seemed to be telepathically relayed right across the main site because, as if by magic, all the music ceased. Only one jingly tune continued for a moment after the others had stopped. It rang out for a few seconds, thin and haunting, and then it too fell silent.

People around me stopped shoving and bustling. Those queueing for rides turned to look for the source of the scream. Men in greasy jeans began racing from ride to ride, leaping over couplings and wires encased in thick rubber tubes. Other showmen left their stalls or jumped down from runner boards to join them. Before long, at least a dozen fairground workers were charging towards the big wheel. An eerie hush descended on the central area of the fairground. The constant hum of the generator became audible once more. Visitors to the fair huddled in groups, murmuring and whispering as rumours started circulating around the crowd. A man had plummeted from the big wheel; a boy had leaned too far over the edge of the helter-skelter and had fallen to his death; a woman had been flung from the carousel and died after landing on her head and breaking her neck. Any one of those speculations could be true, but most people standing near me thought it was more likely to be a power outage.

‘It can’t be the power because the generator’s still working,’ I pointed out to a woman standing next to me.

She nodded. We could hear the uninterrupted droning of the generator.

‘It could be a problem with the internal connections,’ she suggested.

Her companion laughed at her. ‘Stop trying to sound as though you know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘You’re not an electrician.’

‘What’s your explanation for the rides all stopping then, if you’re so clever?’ she asked him.

Before he could reply, the crowd parted to allow a pair of first aiders to hurry towards the big wheel, closely followed by a couple of uniformed police officers. I recognised one of them as my friend, Barry. I stared at him in consternation as we heard the wailing of approaching sirens. A moment later, the arrival of paramedics seemed to confirm that someone had met with an accident. Their presence suggested it was serious.

The crowd surged forwards in the wake of the police. Barry and his colleague did their best to hold onlookers back. As far as we could tell, someone had been injured between the helter-skelter and the Ferris wheel, making it relatively easy for two police officers to block onlookers from coming too close to the body. It was impossible to see if the casualty was alive, but the fact that the paramedics appeared to be busy meant that the victim might have survived. No one around us seemed to know what had happened, although a rumour was spreading that someone had witnessed a body plummeting from one of the rides. It wasn’t long before a team of police officers arrived to set up a complete cordon around the scene of the accident. Some onlookers, particularly those with children, began to drift away. With nothing further to see, the youngsters soon tired of waiting.

Hannah arrived, wanting to find out if there was any truth in the news that had by now reached the tea shop. She could only stay for a minute. ‘We could be waiting here for hours,’ she said. ‘You can stay and see what happens, if you like. I have to run straight back, but don’t feel you have to come with me.’ She had phoned her boyfriend, Adam, to tell him that there had been an accident at the fair, and he joined us.

Even though I wanted to stay and find out what had happened, I agreed to accompany her. After all, it was my job to wait on tables in the tea shop, while Hannah prepared the orders. The brief lull between lunch and tea was over. We decided to leave Adam waiting by the police cordon. Hannah made him promise to report back to us as soon as he had discovered what had happened. She exhorted him to pump Barry for information if the cause of the drama was concealed from the waiting crowd, as seemed likely.

‘Remember, ask Barry,’ Hannah reminded as we were leaving. ‘Tell him Emily wants to know.’ She grinned at me and winked at Adam.

I frowned at her. It was no secret that Barry fancied me, and she was evidently hoping it might be possible to cajole him into revealing confidential information to curry favour with me.

Meanwhile, we had to hurry to prepare for a rush of tea-time customers, and so we made our way back through the crowd as quickly we could.

‘Let’s hope Adam gets here soon with details about the accident,’ Hannah said, as we were preparing the first tea trays. ‘I don’t want to sound ghoulish, but I really want to know what all the fuss is about.’

I nodded. Life in the village was often eventful, but an incident as dramatic as someone plunging from a fairground attraction was unusual, and I shared my friend’s curiosity.

‘It’s not ghoulish,’ I assured her. ‘It’s natural to want to find out what happened.’

Before long, we were too busy to chat, but the disturbance at the fair was impossible to forget. Everyone was talking about it in the tea shop.

2

As we had anticipated, the tea shop was very busy that Saturday and we spent most of the afternoon running around serving customers. Although the pressure was stressful, it was also gratifying in the light of Hannah’s concerns over the precarious position of her business. Only one couple sat for an hour sharing a single pot of tea. People like that exasperated me, because their table could have accommodated customers willing to spend more money. Where I was irritated, Hannah was tolerant.

‘Perhaps that’s all they can afford,’ she would say.

After a while I stopped grumbling to her, because it only prompted her to give away free buns and scones to customers who ordered next to nothing but sat eking out a single pot of tea. With the recent sharp rise in the cost of living, their number increased for a while. Hard-pressed to keep up with orders, Hannah usually wasn’t aware of their presence unless I drew attention to them. Somehow she seemed unwilling to accept the connection between her bouts of liberality and her fluctuating profits. In a way she was right, because she insisted she only made a gift of surplus scones that were likely to be thrown away anyway. My concern was that her generosity attracted people who didn’t want to spend much, and they were not the regular customers we wanted to encourage. It galled me whenever we had to turn paying customers away, while a table was occupied by hangers-on who were literally eating into our profits. In the uncertain economic climate, it seemed important to guard against gaining a reputation for giving away free food.

Hannah was obdurate and, since she was the boss, I had to ostensibly support her views. To be fair, there are worse criticisms to level against someone than to accuse them of being generous. Nevertheless, I quietly did my best to ensure she didn’t know when any familiar freeloaders arrived, so she wouldn’t automatically start giving away food. At times we had seemed dangerously close to donating more food than we sold. Gradually, thanks mainly to my vigilance, the scroungers stopped swamping us before the business foundered. Hannah was pleased that her profits had improved, and I kept silent about my covert mission to save the tea shop from financial ruin. I tried to convince myself that I was acting selflessly to support my friend, but I was protecting my own livelihood as well.

Since losing her job, former journalist Dana Flack had become a regular customer at the tea shop. While she had been working for the local paper, I had mistrusted her. Turning up whenever anyone was in trouble, she would scavenge through people’s misery for a newsworthy scandal, like a literate vulture. Now she was no longer poking her nose into other people’s affairs, she turned out to be unexpectedly good company. Two single women who had both arrived in Ashton Mead as adults, it was natural for us to strike up a friendship. We sometimes chatted in the tea shop while Hannah was busy in the kitchen, and occasionally arranged to meet for a pint in The Plough.

‘How long were you living here before your neighbours stopped treating you like you had dropped in from another planet?’ she had asked me one evening when we were having a drink together in the pub.

I had laughed. ‘I’ve been living here for over three years and many of the locals still regard me as a newcomer.’

‘An alien, more like,’ she had muttered to her pint.

I had nodded. My answer hadn’t given the whole picture. While some villagers persisted in treating me as an outsider, many had welcomed me into the life of the village fairly quickly. It helped that my great aunt had lived there for years, long enough for her to be accepted as a bona fide member of the village community, many of whom couldn’t remember a time before she had settled there. My relationship with my great aunt was one reason why the locals accepted me so readily. In addition to my family connection, there was my property, which I was careful to maintain. I also had a job in the village and was good friends with Hannah, Toby and Barry, all of whom had been born and raised in Ashton Mead. My one neighbour in Mill Lane had moved to the village sometime after me, and his arrival had also helped to make me feel relatively settled there. Keen to establish a rapport with Dana, I realised that not having lived in Ashton Mead all our lives gave us something in common. So I had played down how quickly I had been accepted by the local community, instead making out that I too felt as though I was treated more or less like a stranger. Over a companionable pint, we had agreed that it was mainly the older inhabitants of the village who insisted on regarding us as outsiders.

‘I hadn’t realised how insular people here are,’ she had admitted plaintively. ‘I was sick of the pressures of urban living, and thought somewhere more rural would make a nice change. But people here aren’t exactly hospitable. I mean they’re very pleasant, and everyone’s civil, but almost everyone I meet seems to have lived here all their life, and everyone knows everyone else. In a way it’s worse than the anonymity of living in town because I don’t know anything about anyone else, but everyone seems to know all about me. I feel as though I have no privacy.’

As though sympathising with Dana’s despondency, Poppy had gone over to her and nuzzled her feet. Dana had reached down to pet her and Poppy had rolled over onto her back, pleased at the attention.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ I had assured my new friend. ‘And you’ll get to know the locals eventually. You just need to be patient. Give it another fifty years and they’ll be making you feel right at home here.’

We both laughed.

‘I’m used to being a pariah,’ she had admitted, taking a gulp of her beer.

‘What do you mean?’

Dana had looked at me but hadn’t answered my question directly. ‘I used to have to cover the fair for the paper,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be strange seeing it just as a member of the public, not as a reporter. I keep feeling a compulsion to take notes whenever something happens.’ She shrugged. ‘Of course, I had to report on it from the viewpoint of an uninterested outsider, and that in itself was pretty weird for me. But the editor sent me there, and it was more than my job was worth to refuse a commission. Not that all that kowtowing got me anywhere. I still ended up on the scrapheap. No one values hard work and dedication, not in the media industry anyway.’ She stared morosely at her glass.

Listening to her, I had been puzzled. ‘Aren’t we all “outsiders” at the fair?’ I had asked her.

‘Oh, I thought you knew. I grew up on the fairground.’ She had given a hollow laugh. Seeing my surprised expression, she had continued. ‘So I’m used to feeling like an outsider, never fully accepted by society. And now my own people have turned their backs on me.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘You can’t understand how it works if you haven’t experienced it. Living on a travelling fair is not like any other way of life. We’re always on the move, for a start, and it’s hard work. There’s no let up.’ She had paused to take another swig of beer. ‘It’s a close-knit group and, as long as you’re one of them, they protect you fiercely. To the death, if need be. Literally. But once you leave them, you’re an outcast. Family loyalty means everything to fairground people and, if you leave, you’re regarded as a traitor to the community.’

‘With mainstream society suspicious of them, I suppose they have to stick together,’ I had murmured.

‘Yes, but it goes deeper than that. It’s hard to explain our traditions to someone who hasn’t lived with them. Whatever you do, you’re supported. Honour among thieves and all that.’ She had smiled, before continuing gravely. ‘Even the most heinous crimes are forgiven, as long as they’re kept hidden from the outside world. Don’t get me wrong, most travelling showpeople are simple good-hearted purveyors of entertainment. We’re not bad people. At least, we’re no worse than anyone else, and a lot less judgemental than some. But the point is, my people stick together. We have to, for our own protection. Travelling showpeople are spread all over the country and have a web of communication that would put any spy network to shame. Now that I’ve left, I’m treated with suspicion by showpeople all over the world,’ she concluded.

‘Who do they need protecting from?’ I had asked uneasily, although I knew the answer.

‘Oh, everyone,’ was the vague reply. ‘People, society. Everyone likes the fun of the fair, but no one likes the people who turn up and provide the entertainment. It’s a constant struggle to keep going. My father was the boss of our crew, which meant it was his job to negotiate with the authorities for permission to trade, and those licences are precarious. They can be revoked at the first sign of trouble. Even as a child, I was aware of the hurdles he had to overcome just to keep the fair going. He took care of the showpeople, and he had years of experience in dealing with all the bureaucracy. He was a good boss.’ She sighed. ‘There were lean times for the fair after my father was killed.’

‘Did you say he was killed?’ I had asked her, startled by what she was telling me.

Dana had shrugged, her dark eyes troubled. ‘The community picked themselves up again, but I’d left the fair by then. I couldn’t bear to stay on after what happened to my father. I think some of them blamed me for what happened. At any rate, they don’t trust me. They can only suspect what I know, and that makes them uneasy. They’re still watching me.’

The conversation had taken a sinister turn, and I hadn’t been sure what to make of it. I had really warmed to Dana, and had been keen to express my sympathy for her situation, but I was floundering. None of the usual platitudes had seemed appropriate, given what she was telling me. As though sensing my quandary, Poppy had nuzzled Dana’s feet and my friend had leaned down to pet her. After that interruption, I had been relieved when Dana had started talking about the tea shop, and we had chatted about other matters for another half hour before going home. Dana had been interested to hear about my last long term boyfriend, who had dumped me only to reappear when he heard about my inheritance.

‘I was a mug to fall for his lies,’ I admitted. ‘He was a charmer, but he lied shamelessly. He hated Ashton Mead and was desperate for me to sell Rosecroft, but what really opened my eyes to his true character was when he tried to sell Poppy behind my back. She had never liked him.’

‘I’m not surprised. He sounds like a real louse. You’re better off without him.’

I nodded.

‘So,’ she went on, smiling, ‘is there anyone else?’

Sheepishly I admitted that the local policeman, Barry, had kissed me at Christmas.

‘It was a silly thing,’ I said. ‘Under the mistletoe, you know, and we were both a bit tipsy. But it’s no secret that he wants to go out with me. We did actually have a date once, but it never came to anything. The thing is, he’s a decent guy and I like him a lot, but I’m not sure I fancy him. That is, I wasn’t until he kissed me.’ I paused, embarrassed at having confessed my feelings. ‘You’re the only person I’ve admitted that to. Usually I talk about everything with Hannah, but I can’t talk about Barry with her because she’s friends with him, which makes it awkward. Whatever you do, promise me you won’t say a word about this to her. They grew up in the village and went to the same school and she’s very fond of him. She knows he likes me, and she’s always on at me to go out with him.’

Dana gave me her word she would be discreet, and I trusted her. It was a relief to be able to talk to someone about my feelings for Barry.

‘I’m glad you’ve come to live in the village,’ I told her, and she beamed.

The following day I had mentioned Dana’s problems to Hannah, who had laughingly dismissed my concern.

‘It sounds to me as though she was trying to make herself appear more interesting than she really is. I dare say she can’t help it. I mean, when she was working on the newspaper, it was her job to spy out potential drama, and exaggerate whatever stories she came across to make them sound really sensational. It may well be true that she grew up on a fairground, but if you ask me, that’s interesting enough without any added drama about murders and being watched. The part about the fairground community not liking it when she left them is plausible, I suppose, but the rest of it sounds to me like paranoid rambling. As for her father being some kind of organised crime boss, surely that has to be a gross exaggeration.’

‘She never said anything about an organised crime gang,’ I had protested, half laughing. ‘Now who’s being melodramatic?’

Whatever the truth was, we had agreed it must have been hard for Dana to be cast out by her community, and snubbed by everyone she knew. Being dismissed from her job on the paper must have damaged her self-confidence even further.

‘Poor Dana. We have to do our best to be kind to her,’ Hannah had said.

I had nodded, silently hoping that didn’t mean Hannah would start showering Dana with free food.

‘It might be best if we don’t tell anyone else about Dana growing up with the fairground people,’ she had added. ‘It shouldn’t make any difference, but it probably wouldn’t help her to be accepted here. People can be very narrow-minded, especially if they’ve only ever lived here in the village. I dread to think what stories Maud would come up with if she learned about Dana’s past.’