glanced up at the menu boards and then back at the barista. ‘Just a flat white, thanks.’
‘We’ve got a promotion on the fair-trade South-west Guatemalan beans this week if you’d like to give them a go,’ Jack responded. ‘A hint of chocolate and almond. Goes down beautifully with one of our amaretto croissants, if you’d like one.’
‘Sounds great, thank you,’ Charlie replied.
Five minutes later he was chowing down on a flaky, amaretto-soaked croissant and trying to identify the alleged flavour notes in the coffee. He’d taken a seat by the window, so he could gaze out at the High Street, which was showing more signs of life now than when he’d headed to his office earlier that morning.
Even on a workaday Tuesday, he was surprised to see the more unusual inhabitants of Willowbury out in force. He was jolted to see a woman in nun’s robes standing by a cool box of what appeared to be wrapped sandwiches, which had a sign propped against it reading ‘Free lunch for the homeless’. There were one or two people taking advantage of this gentle charity and being handed a sandwich and a bottle of water with a calm and gentle smile by the nun. He had no idea that Willowbury had an issue with the homeless, although, he figured, perhaps with its proximity to both the Strawberry Line cycle track and the more major towns of Wells and Taunton, both tourist traps, it became more of a magnet during the summer months. He made a note on his phone to add that to his list of enquiries for Tom Fielding when they met later on. Some members of his party were positively medieval when it came to their attitudes to the homeless; Charlie wasn’t one of them. He believed in supporting people until they no longer needed to be supported, and if homelessness was an issue here, he needed to know about it.
‘How are you settling in?’ The barista’s voice broke into Charlie’s thoughts, bringing him back into the moment. Jack was wiping a recently vacated table near to where Charlie was sitting in the window, and Charlie turned his head slightly to reply.
‘Well, thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t popped in more officially yet, but I’ve been up to my ears in paperwork.’
‘I can imagine,’ Jack grinned. ‘Your predecessor didn’t strike me as the most organised of folks. Spent more time in the bars in Westminster than in the chamber, by all accounts!’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ Charlie said wryly. ‘Although his filing did leave a lot to be desired.’
‘Happen to come across any paperwork concerning that proposed new motorway junction?’ Jack asked, ultra-casually, as he continued to clear up the table. ‘Rumour has it that Hugo Fitzgerald took rather a large cut of the profits from the farmer who sold the land it’s being built on in return for pushing it through under the new, more relaxed planning laws.’ Jack shook his head. ‘Although it’s on hold now, of course.’
Ignoring Jack’s obvious fishing for grubby specifics, Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘On hold?’
‘Yup.’ Jack’s eyes twinkled. ‘Apparently, when the archaeological dig was scheduled, it turned up artefacts of specific historical interest to the town. Until the site can be fully excavated, there won’t be a new junction going through there.’
Charlie raised his eyes skywards. He was rapidly finding out that Willowbury was full of oddities – some good and some rather less so. ‘That seems quite a coincidence,’ he said.
‘Well, you know how it is,’ Jack said, flinging his damp towel over his shoulder. ‘It’s amazing what turns up when you least expect it. I mean, who knew there was an old Roman encampment right where the proposed junction was going to go? Not to mention possible proof that King Arthur really might have existed.’ His eyes twinkled again.
‘King Arthur as well?’ Charlie smiled into his coffee. ‘This place is full of surprises.’ Finishing up his croissant and his coffee, he glanced at his watch and realised that Tom would be waiting at the office in a few minutes. ‘Thanks for that,’ he said as he took his plate and mug back to the counter.
‘No problem. See you again soon,’ Jack replied. ‘This place is a hub for local gossip, so if you need the low-down on any of the local rumblings, feel free to ask. I’m the soul of indiscretion, as is my Twitter feed!’
Charlie laughed. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Strolling back out of the coffee shop, he shook his head. Small-town living was going to take some getting used to, he thought, especially in a town as out there as Willowbury. But something told him he was going to like it.
7
That same afternoon, Holly was taking a lunch break while Rachel kept an eye on the shop for half an hour, when their mother came through the back door of the flat with something large and bulky in her hands. As she waved off Holly’s offer of help, she headed into the living room and placed the object, which was a little dusty, on Holly’s coffee table in front of the sofa.
‘Your dad and I were having a bit of a clear-out of the eaves cupboards, and we thought you might like to have this.’ She gestured to the coffee table. ‘We took a quick look inside and it seemed to be most of your university stuff.’
Holly laughed as she flipped the catches on the old-fashioned blue suitcase. ‘I hope you didn’t find anything too incriminating in there!’ The suitcase smelt a little musty from well over a decade in her parents’ attic cupboards, but as she turned it over and flipped the rusting silver catches, opening the lid, she gasped. There, inside the case, was the contents of her university bedroom, complete with essays, posters and even the old college handbook from her first year.
‘Bloody hell,’ Holly said. ‘I had no idea you’d kept this stuff.’ Pulling out a blue cardboard document wallet, she scanned through one of her English Literature essays and shuddered. ‘I can’t believe I ever got my degree with work like this.’ Holly had graduated with a more than respectable upper second-class honours degree in English and Politics from the University of York, and as she riffled through the papers and pictures that were still neatly packed into folders and envelopes after thirteen years in her parents’ attic, she was assailed by memories of people, places and experiences she’d not thought about in years. Alongside the posters of classic films – Star Wars, Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Bladerunner, was a copy of the college handbook, a programme from a play she’d acted in during her first year and a stack of photocopied journal articles on the Romantic poets.
As she opened a large, manila envelope, an equally large stack of photographs was revealed. Some of the snaps took her back instantly; the photograph of her dearest friends from university, taken after they’d laughed themselves weak watching an episode of Desperate Housewives late one night while drinking sangria mixed in a storage box from The Works, reawakened a lot of good memories. Pictures of a couple of boyfriends from uni evoked some slightly different feelings.
Nights out, nights in, famous sights, all were captured on disposable cameras and sent to actual film processing places to develop. Somehow, that seemed to make the memories more precious, despite the poor quality of the images. While Facebook meant that she’d reconnected with quite a lot of her university friends, it was still nice to see pictures of them all as they once were. One particular shot that made her smile was their recreation of an iconic scene from Friends, with each of them looking around the door frame of one of their hall’s bedrooms.
Reaching for another pile of photographs, she furrowed her brow, trying to remember when they were taken. They were mostly of London landmarks, and many were blurry and out of focus. She couldn’t remember ever going to London when she was at university, as it was quite a trek from York, and for a moment she was confused. Were these her photographs or had she picked up someone else’s when she’d cleared out her room for the last time? Goodness knows things were very hectic at the end of that last summer term, and she and her friends were always leaving stuff in each other’s rooms. But as she flipped through them, she was brought up short by a very familiar face and her heart started to flutter as the spreading brushstrokes of recognition filtered