Josie handed over her change and frowned. "You can always give me a ring and I'll pop over with whatever you need," she said.

"Thanks," Paula said. She started towards the door, then stopped and turned back. "You don't know anybody wanting cleaning done, do you? I've got to get some extra money, what with Jack Sr. not contributing. He's disappeared off the face of the earth."

"Oh, my goodness," Josie said. "But how would you manage with the baby still so young?"

"I was told the local nursery would take him two days a week. I'd get help from Social Services for that. Then with the twins staying for dinner at school, I could do quite a few hours. Anyway, if you hear of anybody . . ." She looked anxiously at her house over the road and began to open the door.

"Just a minute," Josie said quickly. "My mum might be able to help. She runs New Brooms, the cleaning business. Shall I ask her?"

Paula's face cleared. "Could you? It'd be ever so good of you. I'm a good worker, you can tell her. Got references, an' all. Paula Hickson's the name. Better get back, an' thanks." She ran across the road and into her house. As she opened the door, Josie could hear screams, and hoped the twins hadn't thumped the baby.

Were children really such a good idea? Josie was well aware she had a pleasant, well-organised life, devoted to her shop and able to manage her own time as she liked. Matthew was certainly more attentive than ever, and she had the feeling that any minute now the question might be popped. Well, perhaps it would be best to give Mum a ring about a job for Paula and let true love take its b.u.mpy course.

LOIS WAS IN HER OFFICE WHEN JOSIE PHONED. GRAN HAD JUST brought her a cup of coffee, and she had settled down with her computer. New Brooms team would be meeting here at noon, and she had a morning's work to do organising schedules and other admin that had piled up during the week.

"h.e.l.lo, love. All well?"

"O' course. Nothing earthshaking has happened since I saw you twelve hours ago. No, this is a business call. You know that woman who's moved into Pickerings' house? Mother with four children. Tearaway teenager, lively twins, newish baby. Needs money."

"Yep," said Lois, checking her emails while she listened. She knew what was coming, anyway. "So have I got a job for her?" she said.

"Exactly. So have you?"

"I'll certainly have a talk to her. She seems a nice woman, with a lot on her plate. I'll call and see her. I presume she's worked out some free hours?"

"When can you go?"

"Tomorrow afternoon? Say about two o'clock. Will that suit?"

"Yep. I'll slip across and tell her. It's half term, so all the kids will be there. Still, could be a good thing. You'll see the real Paula!"

Lois smiled as she went back to her computer. Soft-hearted Josie! Who would've thought when she was a troublesome teenager that she would turn out to be a good businesswoman with a heart of gold. She was a captive audience for villagers who wanted a listening ear, and always had some words of advice or comfort, even when she was dog tired. Still, Lois thought as she returned to the week's cleaning schedules, it was good business sense to be a cheerful, sympathetic village shopkeeper. Few people had the nerve to come in just for a chat. They almost always bought something, and although most of the village did their big weekly shop in Tresham supermarkets, if Josie had a welcoming smile and the right kind of stock, she could just about survive.

On the dot of twelve, a knock at the door heralded Hazel Thornbull, office manager of New Brooms in Sebastapol Street, Tresham. "How's the family?" Lois asked. Hazel had been with her a long time, and would be difficult to replace. Only one child so far, and no talk of another.

"Fine," Hazel said. "Has Derek told you I've been co-opted on to his village hall committee? I must be mad. A poisoned chalice if ever there was one."

"What d'you mean?" said Lois.

"Well, you know these village committees. Most of the time spent arguing and not much achieved. There's already a split in the ranks, with that Gavin chap trying to take over. Still, your Derek is a match for him. I've always thought Derek was a mild man, but apparently not!"

"Tell me more about Gavin Adstone," Lois said, but there was another knock, and then all the others came at once and settled down for the meeting.

After the usual business had been dealt with, and before they got up to leave, Lois said she had something else to discuss with them. "There's this single mum in the village," she said, and explained about Paula Hickson. "Anybody know anything about her?"

They shook their heads and Sheila Stratford, one of the original members of the team, asked where she came from. When Lois told her, she said she supposed she'd be one of those girls who get themselves pregnant to avoid having to work for a living. Lois explained that Paula Hickson had had a husband who had done a bunk, and that with four children she was still keen to earn some money for herself and not rely wholly on the state.

"Anyway," Lois added, "I'm going to see her this afternoon, but I'd be glad if you would ask around and see if there's anything I should know. Thanks a lot. I'll keep in touch, as usual."

They left chattering to each other, but Floss lagged behind. "Mrs. M," she said. "Have you got a minute?"

Lois pointed to a chair, and said she always had time for the team.

"I don't know if I should say this," Floss began, "but I was talking to Kate Adstone. You know she's got that little toddler, and seems a bit lonely. I asked her round for coffee, just to be friendly, and she was pathetically grateful!"

"Very neighbourly of you," Lois said, looking at her watch, "but what has this got to do with New Brooms?"

"Nothing," Floss said. "But it has got something to do with Derek's SOS committee. The subject came up, and I don't think she connected me with you or Derek. She was saying that Gavin had come home laughing his head off at the committee. A load of no-hopers, was what he had said, apparently. Kate said he had big plans for the village hall, but they certainly weren't those of Derek Meade's committee. Then she looked a bit guilty, as if she shouldn't have told me." She looked anxiously at Lois. "I just thought you should know. Maybe tell Derek, so's he can be prepared?"

Lois nodded wearily. "You did the right thing," she said. "I reckon Save Our Shed is going to Blight Our Lives for a good while. Thanks, Floss. Anything else you hear, report back to me."

NINE.

NEXT MORNING DOUGLAS AND SUSIE WERE SITTING AT THE breakfast table, encouraging a reluctant Harry to eat his porridge. "What time did you say you were going?" Susie said, looking at the clock that had been presented to her old granddad when he retired from the railway station in Tresham. He'd been so proud of it, and of his medal pinned on him by the great cigar-smoking leader when he came by train to visit the town. Both house and medal were now Susie's, left to her in old Clem's will, and she and Douglas had "knocked through" to the house owned by Lois next door, making a good-sized home in Gordon Street for the newlyweds and their firstborn.

"Ten o'clockish," Douglas said. "Check-in time is eleven, and the plane leaves about one. Should be there soon after three. I'll ring you from the hotel." He worked at an American company's office in Tresham, and was off to Italy for a jolly bonding meeting in Venice. It was a bit of a waste of time, in his opinion, but he meant to enjoy himself and make the most of it.

"Think of me," said Susie, "talking to this small person here and only ever getting a beaming smile and a load of rubbish in reply!"

"Mum said she'd call in later, to make sure you're all right," Douglas said, and Susie bridled. "Of course I'll be all right," she said. "What on earth could go wrong? And there's always my mum and dad up on the estate."

Susie's dysfunctional parents lived on a run-down estate in the suburbs of Tresham, and were not much good in the way of support for their daughter. Still, she had managed to maintain reasonable relations with them, and they would be better than nothing in an emergency, she hoped.

What emergency, though? She dismissed the thought. "You'll be back on Friday, won't you?"

"Friday evening," Douglas said. He was writing now on the back of an envelope.

"What's that?" Susie asked.

"Just working something out. Nearly finished." He wrote down a number with a flourish, and handed the envelope to her.

"So?" she said. "Maths for idiots? I can't make any sense of it."

"It's just to show you I learned something from our visit to the National s.p.a.ce Centre," he said with mock superiority. "You know it's Mum's birthday next week? Well, if she lived on Pluto, where a year is 246 earth years, she would be around two months old, and so not due for a Pluto first birthday for another ten months."

"Wow! That's worth knowing! Come in very handy, that will." She made a face at him and said she was giving up on Harry's porridge. "Time we got going," she said.

IN THE BIG GENERAL OFFICE OF WORLDWIDE SOLUTIONS, GAVIN Adstone headed for the gents, or comfort station as some of his colleagues called it. As he stood washing his hands, a pimply youth came in. "Hi," he said. "Settling in?"

Gavin recognized a very junior employee, and considered his question as overfamiliar. The lad seemed to think long service with Worldwide Solutions-a whole year-ent.i.tled him to take a definitely patronising air.

"Of course," Gavin replied. "Nothing difficult about this job."

"Worked in this kind of business before, then?"

"Yes. Back to work then," he snapped, and headed for the door.

"Just wondered if you'd met Doug Meade," the youth said, looking sly. "Higher up the ladder than us, o' course, but a nice chap. No side, if you know what I mean."

"No, why should I have met him?" Gavin was furious at being bracketed with this spotty youth in front of him. But he hesitated. Meade? That was a familiar name, certainly.

"His mum lives in Long Farnden. Your village, ain't it?"

Ah, of course, Gavin said to himself. Derek Meade, chair of SOS. So his son was Douglas Meade, fast-tracked up the ladder at Worldwide, and highly regarded. A useful bit of information from the spotty youth. He forced a smile, and said he'd look out for Douglas and introduce himself. The smile vanished quickly, and he barked out that he had work to do and left.

When lunchtime came round, he approached his manager and said he needed urgently to collect a parcel from the depot on the other side of town. "n.o.body at home to receive it when the courier called. The usual thing. One knock, and if the door isn't opened in seconds, they clear off and leave a card through the letter box. Shouldn't be too long, but if I'm a few minutes late back, is that okay?"

That was the trouble with these out of town business parks, he reckoned, as he set off in his car. Miles from b.l.o.o.d.y anywhere. Still, he put his foot down and sped out of town, but nowhere near the direction of the courier depot.

The Silent Man, a pub in the village of Broughton, had been rechristened with its ridiculous new name after it had been bought by a chain and redesigned in a way to attract thrusting young business people from the new park. It was formerly the Greyhound, a sleepy farmers' inn, which had been there on the drovers' route to the market town of Tresham for hundreds of years, and had a Scots pine tree in the garden to prove it. It was Gavin's destination, and he parked the car round the back of the pub, out of sight, and went in quickly through the rear door.

Inside it was fashionably murky. Small lamps shed pools of light at each shiny new table, and Gavin stood still, looking round. His eye was caught by a figure waving a hand at him from the darkest corner, and he headed over and sat down.

"Morning, young man," said the heavily built man, smiling at him from the shadows.

"Mr. Froot," said Gavin, with a knowing grin, "a very good morning to you, too."

AT TWO O'CLOCK EXACTLY, LOIS WALKED DOWN THE PATH TO Paula Hickson's front door and rang the bell. She had a slight shiver of unpleasant memory as she heard footsteps approaching from inside. It was not so long ago that she had been dragged into this house and held captive in order to deliver a baby from an illegal immigrant woman who'd worked for the evil trafficker in human lives.

The door opened, and Lois caught sight of little Frankie crawling towards her with a broad smile that warmed her heart. Paula asked her to come in, and Lois instinctively bent down and picked up the warm little body, kissing him on his cherry red cheek. He smelled of Johnson's baby shampoo and freshly washed clothes. A good start, Lois thought, and handed him over to a nervous-looking Paula.

"Come in here, Mrs. Meade," she said, leading the way into the sitting room. Clean and tidy, Lois noted, and a bunch of daisies on a table by the window. A toy box in the corner occupied Frankie, and, refusing tea or coffee, Lois began the interview.

She asked Paula about her life in Tresham when she still had a husband living with her, and heard a tale of sadness and brutality. "Mind you," Paula said with a half smile, "as you can see from my four boys, we got on really well for thirteen years. Unlucky thirteen, it turned out to be. Jack lost his job, and that's when the trouble started.

It was a familiar story of the sort Lois read every week in the Tresham Advertiser. Man out of work, spends his dole money on booze and gambling, goes home full of guilt and beats up his wife. Paula was anxious to stress that he had never touched the children. Just her, she said, and bared her arm. A scar about four inches long ran down to her wrist.

"Looks like you were lucky, after all, not to get that cut across the vein," Lois said coolly. "I can see why you had to leave. Anyway," she continued, "that's enough of all that. It's your private business, and I shall see that n.o.body else discusses it on the team. Now, what hours can you work? Didn't you say the playgroup in the village hall could take Frankie? Would that be on a regular basis?"

Paula said that two whole days had been agreed, and they had been very accommodating about payment. "I am very reliable, Mrs. Meade," she said. "Except, of course, if any of the children got sick, and I suppose that's bound to happen sooner or later." Her face fell as she realised this was a problem she had not really thought through.

"Could happen to any of my cleaners who have children," Lois said. "We are well organised to cope. Mostly with me filling in!" she said, and smiled rea.s.suringly.

In fact, she liked to relieve the girls occasionally, keeping her hand in and giving her a chance to check on clients firsthand. And in certain cases, this had given her useful opportunites for what Derek insisted on calling ferretin'. It was amazing how careless people were with their cleaners. Like servants in the old days, the daily help was in some ways invisible. Private papers were left out on tables, telephone conversations held at tops of voices, and rows between husbands and wives carried on, all without a thought for an observant member of New Brooms' team.

There was an unspoken agreement, never spelled out, that Lois's team would keep its eyes and ears open if given a hint from the boss that this might be useful.

After a general chat, Lois had summed up Paula and her household, and decided she would give the woman a trial period of four weeks, if only to please Josie. She asked Paula to provide a couple of references and said she could come along to next week's team meeting. "Monday, at twelve noon," she said. "That should be all right with the playgroup?"

Paula's face was scarlet with relief, and she nodded. "Mondays and Wednesdays, they said. I hope that will fit in."

"By the way," Lois added, as they went to the door, "where have you worked before?"

"Oh, I was in a builders' office. Part-time general dogs-body, on a minimum wage." Paula grinned. "They were quite big developers in Tresham, with offices in London and several other cities. Covered the whole country and some abroad."

"Are they still there?" asked Lois.

"Oh, yeah. Head office is in Amsterdam, I think. It'll be nice to work for a small business like yours. You can rely on me, Mrs. Meade," she repeated, cuddling Frankie close.

"Mrs. M," Lois said, smiling kindly. "That's what the others call me. Mrs. M."

TEN.

WHAT TIME IS YOUR MEETING, DEREK?" GRAN WAS READING an old recipe book that had been her mother's, planning what to cook for their evening meal. There was no longer a butcher in Long Farnden, but Josie at the shop had lately done a deal with John Thornbull to supply her with his farm-reared meat, already vacuum packed, and in manageable sizes for elderly people who could not get into town and were reluctant to have food delivered from supermarkets. "Don't trust 'em, myself," Gran had said. "I like to see what I'm buying."

Now Josie had chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s, packets of beef and lamb mince, sausages of several kinds, all labeled as local produce. They sold well, and Gran was searching for a recipe she knew her mother had cooked, using slices of chicken, shallots and herbs.

"It's seven thirty," Derek replied. "I fixed for it to be in the Reading Room. I can see we'll probably be having more than one meeting a week as things go on, and Lois ain't too keen on missing her telly programs."

Gran's face fell. "That's a shame," she said. "I was goin' to make some shortbread for you lot to have with your coffee."

"You can still make it," Derek said, knowing perfectly well that a vanished opportunity for eavesdropping was the real reason for her disappointment. "I'll take it with me when I go."

"Can't think why we need all this fuss about restoring the village hall," Gran said sulkily. "The Reading Room is fine, just the right size for meetings."

"All right for small meetings, but not for putting on concerts and plays, and playing badminton and havin' cookery demonstrations an' that. Anyway, Gran, I must be off now. I should be finished that job over at Fletching today, and then I can start on Sam Stratford's rewiring job."

Gran found the recipe, and decided to walk down to the shop to buy chicken and other ingredients. They needed several other things, and she unhooked her shopping bag.

It was a lovely morning, and Gran thought proudly that the village was good enough to be in a film, with its gold-stone houses and trim gardens and hedges. Hey! That was an idea for raising money! She must remember to tell Derek. If they could persuade filmmakers to use Farnden as a location, that would surely bring in big money, wouldn't it? Her friend Joan, who lived in Blackberry Gardens, had been to the Island of Mull where the popular children's TV program Balamory was filmed and crowds of tourists came specially to the island to see the place and the actors in the flesh.

"Morning, Gran," Josie said. "You're down here early. Everybody gone off to work?"

"Yep, leaving me to do the ch.o.r.es and provide hearty meals and comfort and advice," Gran said, hands on hips.

"Oh, go on with you," Josie replied. "You know you love it. What would you do with yourself if you were still in that poky little bungalow on the Churchill?"

"Well, you might be right. But enough o' that. I need some chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

"Making chicken Kiev?"

"Certainly not," Gran answered, "whatever that is. No, I found a recipe of your great grandmother's, and thought I'd try it for supper."

"Dad's got a meeting, hasn't he?"

"Yep, but it'll all be ready when they get in. For some stupid reason, they're meeting in the Reading Room in future."