Snowflakes Over Bay Tree Terrace (Willowbury) Read online

  Snowflakes Over Bay Tree Terrace

  Fay Keenan

  For the key workers, especially those in the emergency services, who, in 2020, have faced so many challenges with grace, kindness and professionalism. Thank you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Nine Months Later

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note And Acknowledgements

  More from Fay Keenan

  About the Author

  Air Ambulance Charities

  About Boldwood Books

  Prologue

  A Christmas Surprise

  ‘…And to my great-niece Florence, I leave Number 2, Bay Tree Terrace. I know how much she loved visiting as a child, and it seems only right that, in the absence of a daughter or granddaughter of my own, the house passes to her to do with as she wishes.’

  John Hampshire, of the firm Hampshire, Thomas and Robinson, of Willowbury, Somerset, glanced up at her and smiled. ‘Well,’ he said as he caught sight of his client’s aghast face. ‘That’s rather a lovely Christmas present, if I do say so myself.’

  Florence Ashton was glad she wasn’t holding the cup of coffee she’d been given when she arrived, otherwise it would have ended up in her lap. When she’d been summoned to the solicitor’s office, she assumed it would be to sign some papers or some such other mundane business. Great-Aunt Elsie’s funeral had been a while ago, and the executor of the estate had been a friend of Elsie’s that the family didn’t know, so there’d been no contact up until the phone call she’d had at the end of last week from the solicitor’s office. It turned out she was walking out of there the owner of a pretty, red-bricked terraced house in Somerset.

  ‘Mince pie?’ Mr Hampshire passed the plate that his PA had brought in with the coffee in Florence’s direction. Gratefully, she took one, shocked at how much her hands were shaking.

  ‘Thanks.’ She bit into the one she’d chosen, the warm, spiced and orange-infused filling reminding her of the Christmases she’d spent at Bay Tree Terrace with Aunt Elsie and her mother while her father had been on one of his many tours of duty with the army.

  ‘So how long are you staying in Willowbury?’

  Florence swallowed her mouthful of mince pie and took a sip of her coffee. ‘Well, given what you’ve just told me, it would seem I might be moving here.’ She laughed. ‘Sorry. It’s just a bit of a shock.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mr Hampshire replied. ‘These out-of-the-blue things can take a bit of getting used to. Of course, you don’t have to drop everything and move into the house. There’s no condition about that. You could just instruct an estate agent to sell it. I know of a good one in Willowbury who’d be more than happy to handle it for you.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Florence said hurriedly. ‘I loved spending time here when I was younger. And I’ve been thinking of making a move somewhere else for a while.’ She’d been teaching for nine years in York, which was the longest she’d stayed anywhere, and was just starting to think about change.

  ‘Well, give it some thought,’ the solicitor smiled. ‘There’s no rush. It’ll take a week or two to tie up the last of the paperwork, and if you’re sure then about keeping the house, sorting out the rest of the estate shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ Florence asked, taking another sip of her coffee. ‘I haven’t been back to Willowbury in a while.’ She swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in her throat. ‘Towards the end… Aunt Elsie didn’t really want visitors, so Mum popped down for a bit, but she wouldn’t allow anyone else to actually stay with her.’

  ‘Of course.’ He rummaged in the box file for the door keys. ‘After all, it’s yours now, so really, you can do as you wish.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Taking the keys, with their surprisingly cheery Highland Terrier key fob, Florence stood up on somewhat shaky legs.

  ‘My pleasure,’ Mr Hampshire replied. ‘We’ll be in touch to confirm all the details in due course.’

  As Florence left the solicitor’s office and wandered out onto the busy Willowbury High Street, she glanced at the sky, which seemed thick with heavy, snowy clouds. Snow was unusual in this part of Somerset, but a small, childish part of her couldn’t help hoping for some of the white stuff this close to Christmas. She smiled as she saw the seasonal decorations in some shop windows, and the pagan and alternative colours and shapes of those who celebrated more ancient rituals. Willowbury was a haven for all kinds of spirituality; the centre of the town might have been the ruins of the old priory, destroyed during Henry VIII’s time but acquired by the National Trust to be preserved in perpetuity, but there were plenty of corners of the town where the ancient religions and customs found their home, too.

  Sprigs of holly and fragrant cut pine branches graced nearly every shop doorway, with the odd sneakily placed frond of mistletoe tucked away in a few, as well. In the air was the heady scent of cinnamon from the festive versions of hot drinks in the cafe on the High Street, the invitingly named ‘Cosy Coffee Shop’. Florence decided she’d grab a cinnamon latte from there before heading over to Aunt Elsie’s house – there was a real chill in the air and she wasn’t sure how warm the terraced house would be.

  Heading towards the cafe, she passed the brightly lit window of ComIncense, the health and well-being shop that specialised in herbal remedies and relaxation products. Even in Yorkshire, Florence, a keen follower of politics, had observed the media’s interest in the owner of the shop, Holly Renton. Holly had gone up against and then, in a plot twist worthy of a prime-time television drama, had married, the member of parliament for Willowbury and Stavenham, Charlie Thorpe, this summer past.

  Glancing through the shop window as she walked by, she could see a tall, striking woman with tumbling red hair straightening the displays in the centre of the shop, and smiled back as the lady smiled Florence’s way. Not exactly your typical politician’s wife, Florence thought wryly, noting the ripped jeans and the flowing coloured tunic that Holly was wearing. But then Willowbury wasn’t exactly your typical Somerset town – it had a feel and an atmosphere all of its own, and people flocked from miles around to soak up its alternative atmosphere. And now she was deciding whether to come and live here. For her, it could go from just a nice holiday destination to a permanent place to live.

  Florence wasn’t, by nature, a risk-taker, bu
t at the age of twenty-nine she was due for a change. She’d taught at the same school in Yorkshire since she’d left university, and, as the daughter of a serving army officer, she was used to never staying anywhere for too long. The past nine years, happy and settled on the outskirts of the city of York, a place she’d come to love, had been wonderful, but literally being given the keys to a new life in a different, but comfortingly familiar, part of the world seemed like a great opportunity. She had a bit of money saved, and no house to sell as she’d been sharing a flat with another teacher since she’d moved out of the family home; she certainly had enough to live on if she couldn’t immediately find a job in Somerset. She had to give at least a term’s notice if she was going to leave her job, but, depending on the state of Aunt Elsie’s place, it might take that long to make it liveable.

  All this she pondered as she stepped up the couple of stone steps and into The Cosy Coffee Shop. There was so much to think about, and she’d not even begun to take in the fact that Aunt Elsie had left her a house. But for the moment, a cinnamon- infused latte, and possibly another mince pie, were the foremost in her mind.

  As she walked up to the counter and was greeted with a smile by the barista, a sandy-haired man in his late thirties, she determined that all other decisions would have to wait.

  ‘What can I get you?’ the barista, whose name was Jack, asked cheerily.

  Florence took a deep breath of the coffee-scented air, and gave her order. It felt like the first step of her new life.

  Nine Months Later

  1

  Florence hadn’t expected to sleep well the night before she began her new job. She also hadn’t expected, rather than the usual anxiety dreams about turning up to a classroom with no clothes on or shouting at the top of her voice while students ran amok around her, that it would be the noise from the neighbouring terraced house that would keep her awake. And not just any old noise, either. This sounded like the death throes of a Siamese cat being stretched on a rack. She had eclectic musical taste, but at three o’clock in the morning, even Harry Styles strutting his stuff and crooning personally to her would have got short shrift. Pulling her pillow over her ears even more tightly, she prayed that the owner of the electric guitar would garrotte himself on his G-string before she did it for him.

  Nine months ago, when Florence had walked into her great-aunt’s old house in the eccentric but charming small town of Willowbury, with the intention of living permanently there, it had been with a sense of excitement, laced with trepidation. Aunt Elsie’s death had been a great sadness to Florence; she’d spent many childhood summers here in Willowbury with her aunt, and it was only in recent years that life and work had taken over and she’d not seen quite so much of her. It came as a surprise to be remembered in the old lady’s will; not just a surprise, but quite a shock when Florence realised Aunt Elsie had left her the house and its contents. In true Elsie Barrett style, she’d left most of her actual cash to the Dogs’ Trust but set aside enough for Florence to move in and redecorate. Her great-aunt’s decision to make Florence the beneficiary of the majority of her estate had raised a couple of eyebrows in the family, but been met with good grace by those Florence was closest to, for which Florence was extremely glad. But then she had been the one, who, in later years, had tried to keep in touch with Elsie the most, even popping down occasionally to see her for a few days here and there. Towards the end of the old woman’s life, though, Elsie had pretty much cut herself off from family, preferring to spend her time alone. Florence, while sad about this, had respected Elsie’s desire for privacy, even if she was incredibly sad she’d never actually got to say goodbye to her.

  So it was that Florence had made the move to Somerset at the tail end of the summer holidays, with two weeks to spare before the start of a new term, and had been so busy settling and trying to make it a home of her own that she hadn’t really noticed the presence of the neighbours on either side of her in the terrace. Perhaps moving to a terraced house in the country wasn’t quite as idyllic a prospect as she’d imagined it to be, after all.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Florence muttered as the noise of the electric guitar ramped up even higher. She hadn’t met her neighbours yet; they either seemed to be asleep or out when she was around, and this was not how she had wanted to be introduced to them. The old railway workers’ cottages that fronted the road but backed onto the hillside, with six-foot-high stone walls bordering off the back gardens, meant that pleasant conversations over the garden fence weren’t really an option, and although their front doors were only a few feet apart, she’d not bumped into the neighbours on either side yet. The brick walls of the terrace were thick but not soundproof, and as the caterwauling grew more strident, Florence’s temper frayed further. She hadn’t moved three hundred miles for this. Especially not on the eve (well, the morning, now) of a new job.

  Just as she was deciding she couldn’t take it any longer, the noise stopped. The silence, when it came, nearly deafened her. Her ears were still ringing. ‘Thank God for that,’ Florence muttered, removing the pillow from her ears and slamming herself face down into it. At least she’d get three hours’ sleep before the alarm went off at six. It might only have been an inset day, but it was a new school, a new department and a newish part of the country; she needed to be firing on all cylinders.

  Hearing the muffled thump, thump, thump of footsteps on what was obviously an uncarpeted landing next door and the flick of the bathroom switch before rather prolonged peeing, Florence sighed. She’d not expected the silence of the countryside to yield quite so much antisocial noise. Resolving to make herself known to the neighbours the next day, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

  It seemed only the blink of an eye before the alarm started going off. Flinging the covers back, Florence ambled down the stairs to the kitchen and flipped the switch on the bean-to-cup coffee machine that crouched like some vast black panther on the work surface by the sink. Aunt Elsie would have given the thing very short shrift, Florence reflected, having been a staunch tea drinker all her life, but Florence definitely needed an early-morning coffee shot.

  While the machine ground beans and then gurgled, Florence stretched her arms above her head and brooded on the lack of sleep the night before. If that kind of noise was going to be a regular thing, she’d definitely need to have a word with her neighbours. Or invest in some heavy-duty ear defenders.

  When the coffee was ready, she grabbed the cup and headed upstairs to the shower. At least there wouldn’t be any students today to run the gauntlet of; she hoped that her new colleagues were as friendly now she’d got the job as they’d appeared at her interview.

  In a short time, she was ready, and as she left the house she dithered for a moment. Was it worth knocking on her neighbour’s door now and making a firm but polite complaint about the noise last night? Then again, whoever it had been making that noise would doubtless still be in bed; after all, it was only eight o’clock, and they’d been playing until gone three.

  She glanced up at the front of the house and noted that the curtains on the front bedroom window were, indeed, still closed. Lucky that you can have a lie-in, she thought mutinously, forgetting that she’d been having a fair few of them herself over the school holiday, at least before she’d made the move. No matter what the teaching profession said about working conditions and workload, six weeks off, or at least working from home in the summer, were a definite bonus.

  She decided that a note might be a better course of action. After all, she hadn’t even met her neighbours yet, and she didn’t want to antagonise the people she shared a wall with. Perhaps, if she popped one through the door before she went to work, she could go round and introduce herself later, try to establish if the nocturnal noisemaking was going to be a regular thing.

  Heading back into the house, she cursed as she realised that the only pen she could find in her kitchen was of the pink and sparkly variety. She nonetheless scrawled a hasty note.

  Slammi
ng the heavy front door, that she’d painted a pale lavender shade, shut, she popped the note through the door of the adjoining house. Then, hurrying around to the back of the terraces, she unlocked her car and headed off for the short drive to Willowbury Academy. The great thing about living in Aunt Elsie’s old house was that she was only ten minutes’ drive from work, which would come in very handy during the dark nights of the Autumn and Winter Terms. Not that it was dark or gloomy at all on this sunny September day, she reflected as she drove.

  Willowbury in the early autumn was a lovely sight. The small town, with its array of crystal shops, alternative booksellers, ancient pub, butcher and newly opened, more mainstream independent bookshop was incredibly picturesque and would have been even without the newly planted tubs of winter pansies that adorned the shops and the hanging baskets full of violas that rustled gently in the still warm breeze. She’d loved the place as a teenager, and now she was a resident, she was looking at it with even more fondness.

  Lost in a reverie, it wasn’t until she was two tyres over the zebra crossing in the middle of the High Street that she noticed someone had stepped off the pavement to cross.