The Country Escape (26 page)

Animal Magnetism was finishing its set with a victorious drum roll. The girls were returning from the ladies’ loo, heads swivelling in horror
as Dougie vanished through the main door again.

‘What did you say to him this time?’ Russ’s cousin slid in beside Kat, her face now painted with huge, soulful, smudgy eyes and bee-stung lips.

‘Asked him to fix my car.’ Kat was clapping the band, rolling her fist in the air and whooping loyally.

He’d left his wallet alongside his phone this time. She was dying to have a peek,
but the cat-calling had started for the Animal Magnetism encore, and she was duty-bound to join in, whistling and slow-clapping above her head to call them back. Russ gave her a personal power salute as he stomped back out of the loo corridor, where the band was obliged to wait for their stage-storming finale. Kat realized she had no idea what star sign he was. Russ refused to celebrate birthdays,
insisting it was a bourgeois affectation.

Dougie came back into the pub just as the band launched into the Undertones’ ‘Here Comes The Summer’
as a deafening encore. The girl grooms had now relocated his drink, phone and wallet to the opposite end of the table so that they could win his attention. A pretty girl wearing too much makeup beamed up at him. ‘We’re both winners today!
I won the members’ race.’

‘Good for you.’ Sitting down, he tried to catch Kat’s eye, but she was watching the action on stage. She hadn’t touched the pint of cider he’d bought her. Following her gaze to the tall guitarist flailing at his fingerboard, he wondered exactly what the deal was with Badger Man.

The girl beside him was still talking about the point-to-point, shouting, ‘Seriously
hard going! Took a lot of stamina!’

Like flirting with Kat Mason, Dougie reflected. She was going to be a challenge, particularly after their bad start. He remained sceptical about his so-called bonus, but his ego wouldn’t let him give up on Dollar’s grand plan without some proof of his abilities, not least because he wanted to win her respect. He’d never met anyone capable of detaching
sex from feelings, as Dollar could, or expressing so little outward emotion. By withholding so much, the slightest flicker felt like a breakthrough. By contrast, Kat Mason was an overload of smiles, anger, enthusiasm and passion that seemed messy and out of control. She also appeared to have a very big boyfriend.

‘Is the guitarist local?’ He nodded to the stage where the badger was doing
a fret-climbing solo that was remarkably tuneful.

‘My cousin Russ,’ shouted the girl with too much makeup. ‘He’s an arboriculturalist. I’ll introduce you.’

Dougie had no idea what an arboriculturalist was, but the fact it included ‘culture’ gave him hope that Russ might be an arty-farty type who rarely swung punches.

When Russ bounded off stage, he accepted a free pint from
the bar, clanked it against the earthmen’s, downed it in one, then followed his cousin’s beckoning arm to meet Dougie Everett, squaring up to the newcomer, rock star to mere mortal. In this pub, Animal Magnetism was the legend that would live on. What he hadn’t anticipated was that his badger outfit reeked so strongly of beer tent, cigarettes and stage sweat, it was impossible to stay downwind without
feeling faint.

Standing up to shake his hand, Dougie took a sharp step back, knocking his chair over, spluttering a few platitudes about his musical talent, then dashed apologetically outside, his phone and wallet still on the table.

Swaggering away for a second pint, believing the smaller man was intimidated by his size and reputation, Russ left a trail of desolation as
drinkers shrank away. Only the earthmen remained unbothered, sliding another drink across to him. ‘Reckon that actor’s after your bird,’ one warned darkly. When Russ’s eyes instinctively flew to Mags, canoodling with Calum by the dartboard, the earthman laughed. ‘Not the missus, Russ. The other one.’

Coming out of the loo, mildly alarmed that wearing the deer’s head all day appeared
to have given her an itchy scalp and stained her forehead orange, Kat was disconcerted to find the earthmen doing their silent Greek chorus thing at the bar, staring at her. Behind them, Russ was discreetly sniffing inside his badger costume.

‘There you are,’ said a smooth voice, as Dougie Everett appeared at her side, pocketing his phone and wallet. Despite being shorter than he looked
on screen, he was a good head above her, she saw, affording him a close-up of her itchy red parting. ‘I’m going home, but I’ll swing by and look at your car soon.’

She had an image of him yodelling into Lake Farm on a vine, like Tarzan on a vine. He had such a lazy, husky voice, it just had to be affected, in the same way those eyes were far too blue and flirtatious to be standard issue,
staring so deeply into hers she half expected him to get out a watch on a chain and tell her she was feeling sleepy. Her vital organs were on the move again, huddling together nervously.

About to tell him there was really no need to swing anywhere, she thought about the starter motor she couldn’t afford to get repaired, and said, ‘We’re usually around.’

‘I look forward to it.’ He
flashed his devastating smile, did the look-through-the-lashes trick and ducked out of the pub to an audible chorus of female sighs from the large table by the stage, followed by a fluttering rush past Kat as the under-twenties headed back into the loos to gossip.

Kat went back to the table to gather her pint, which she suddenly found she wanted a good bolt of.

‘Everything all right?’
Russ joined her, sitting alongside.

She looked at him fondly, trying not to breathe in too deeply. His face paint had slipped so that he looked like Alice Cooper, but she was grateful for the kindness and concern in his dark eyes. ‘I’m cool. You were great tonight.’ She put an arm around him and snuggled tight, then regretted it as she found herself slithering against sweaty leather, her
nostrils filled with acrid cider fumes despite the shallow breaths. Straightening up and gulping more of her pint, eyes watering, she asked, ‘What’s your star sign?’

Striking a rapper’s pose, Russ held up his long fingers in a cat’s cradle of geometry shaped like a five-pointed star.

Kat laughed: he probably had no idea. ‘When were you born?’

‘Early summer?’ he guessed, counting
through ten months on his fingers from the fruit-picking season when his parents had met. ‘Anything else you want to know?’ He pressed his palms together, fingertips on his nose, dark eyes mesmerizingly alive.

‘What’s my star sign?’

The palms went up.

‘Sagittarius,’ she told him. ‘The Archer.’

Dollar’s white Porsche was parked outside the mill, the kitchen
table laid with goodies that played straight into Dougie’s James Bond fantasies.

Settling the sleeping Patterdale puppy into his temporary cardboard box bed by the Aga, he picked up the small carbon-fibre composite bow with a sheath of lightweight arrows. The bow was custom-made, inlaid with wood set with his initials. ‘A welcome gift from Seth,’ Dollar explained. ‘It is the very latest
technology. He will look forward to a display of your skill when he visits with guests.’

Dougie tried to quash an image of himself in a Robin Hood hat skipping around the lime-tree avenue in front of suited businessmen, shooting flaming arrows into braziers of accelerant-doused wadding. ‘When will that be?’

‘Not for many weeks. By then you will have fully familiarized yourself with
the estate and its hunting grounds. Your horses will be fit and the dogs in training.’

‘I’ve made a start on the dogs, if not the hounds.’ He looked at Quiver stretching his small front legs rigidly in his sleep, then arching his back and settling into a tight curl.

‘And of course you must gain Kat Mason’s trust and affection as a priority. I take it tonight went well.’

‘On
target.’ Turning back to the table, he selected an arrow and set it in the rest before drawing back his string hand and aiming at a particularly ugly oil painting above Dollar’s head.

‘Don’t!’ She ducked as he fired it. It sailed cleanly into the nose of an enraged-looking miller’s daughter.

‘That’s better.’ Dougie followed the arrow to its landing spot and narrowed his eyes as he
pulled it out to examine it. He winced at the vicious angular ends, designed to inflict maximum damage, hopeless for target practice compared to the field points he normally used. ‘I think Cupid might require a softer tip. These bastards are broadheads.’

‘It is good that you have now connected with the girl.’ Dollar picked up a chunky little mobile, which opened like a penknife to reveal
an antenna. ‘This is a satellite phone for you to carry at all times. You will report in to me regularly. It’s pre-loaded with all the numbers you’ll need. I will call you as soon as I arrive in Mumbai tomorrow. Please do not shoot any more furnishings while I am gone.’

‘You’re leaving?’ He was momentarily nonplussed, accustomed to being closely policed.

‘Seth wants me in India.
His diary always falls apart when I am not around to organize it. I fly tonight.’ To a bystander, her face would still be a beautiful, inscrutable mask, but Dougie knew her well enough now to read tremendous excitement in the eyebrow elevated to a high crescent, dark eyes glowing, lips trying hard not to curl into a smile. She couldn’t wait to get home.

He looked around at his immaculate
kitchen, at the snoring puppy and the polished floors, and suddenly realized he could be messy, loud and sociable again, a prospect that delighted him, along with ditching the vegetarian health food and punishing workouts.

‘I have printed out details of your diet and exercise routine.’ Dollar was hurriedly ticking off bullet points on her tablet.

Dougie was reminded of being dropped
off at boarding school as a child, deposited there each term by a succession of over-controlling stepmothers and nannies. ‘When will you be back?’

‘Not for some time. I am no longer helpful here. The locals think we are lovers, and you must be seen as a single man.’

‘We
are
lovers.’ He moved towards her with a roguish smile, ready to run through a few highlights before she left.

‘We both know that is no longer practicable.’ She tapped her screen, turning away. ‘I was very satisfied with your performance.’

Dougie imagined a tick-box beside his name being checked with a French manicured flick. The flare of anger he felt burned itself straight out. It was far too soon after Kiki for him to be shackled to a control freak, and he was relieved Dollar was leaving.
Right now, he wanted to be surrounded by dogs, horses, woodland and tweed-coated cider drinkers who thought it normal for musicians to dress as wildlife. But he would miss the carb-burning, guilt-free sex.

Standing with her back to him, Dollar let out a long sigh, suggesting that she might just miss it too. Then she squared her shoulders and continued, in her bossiest monotone, ‘You will
report directly to me and nobody else regarding Kat Mason. The hound pack, horses and kennel staff are entirely your responsibility, but you will need to liaise with Alasdair Armitage on a regular basis so that his team can notify you of wild game sightings. Money should not be an issue. These have all been set up for you.’ She fanned a selection of plastic cards on the table, like a croupier dealing
a winning hand. ‘There is no limit on the debit card, but our team will keep an eye on the activity on all your accounts, so don’t go mad. There is also cash in the safe. Please put all gifts for Miss Mason on the separate charge card provided – flowers, chocolates and so forth.’

‘I don’t think she’s the sort of girl who puts out for two dozen roses and her bodyweight in praline.’ He turned
over the AmEx. Then his eyes lit upon a bright yellow membership card among them guaranteeing him Home Start and he laughed. ‘Then again, I might just be her dream man.’

Having seen Lake Farm only from a distance, Dougie was shocked by the state it was in when he drove into the farmyard, his Land Rover axle groaning as it bumped over the potholes. The animals all seemed well cared-for and there were
signs of new fencing and good pasture maintenance, but the old outbuildings and stables were leaning against one another at drunken angles and the house itself was a wreck.

Finding the door open and nobody inside – there was an ancient rheumy-eyed Labrador splayed on the cool flagstones of the kitchen and piles of half-folded clothes on the table, including some vast skull-and-crossbones
boxers – he headed back out into the yard. Several rare-breed chickens watched him suspiciously from a pile of abandoned pallets while doves flew in and out of a loft through gaping holes in the roof. No wonder Seth wanted to buy the place back and overhaul it, Dougie reflected. It was falling apart.

The wind that had blown blossom around like a snowstorm at the point-to-point had now dropped
and shower clouds clustered overhead, playing a coquettish fan dance with the warm sun. The bluebells were out in full force, a far more appealing sight than any red carpet Dougie knew as he headed along a track into the old arboretum, marvelling at the size of the oldest trees.

He finally tracked down Kat to a pig enclosure in the woods where she was trying to fetch a water bucket that
had been knocked over and trampled on. A huge, affectionate sow rubbed her back vigorously against Kat’s welly tops as a scratching post while she struggled for grip in the mud.

‘Hello there!’ He stepped into the enclosure, causing her to swing round in surprise and lose balance, feet planted in deep sludge. Leaping forwards, he grabbed her before she landed face down in it, noticing how
soft and slight she was compared to Dollar’s bodybuilder physique, and that she smelt pleasantly of soap and fresh hay amid the pong of pig. But this picture of fragrant, vulnerable femininity was shattered when she yelled at him, ‘Get out! Quickly!’

He mustered his most heroic smile, refusing to be deflected, as he set her gently upright again. ‘I’ve come to mend your car.’

‘Seriously!
Get out!’ she wailed, as a series of outraged grunts started up. Moments later, he found himself being charged by a territorial pot-bellied pig.

‘Jesus!’ He winced as his legs were knocked out from under him by twenty stones of outraged swine, and instinctively hung on to Kat for balance. Still halfway out of her wellies, she was as unstable as a sapling and they went down together with
a loud splat.

Squelching and slithering around like two mud wrestlers, fighting off the furious porker, they finally clambered out.

‘Are you okay?’ Kat checked breathlessly.

Dougie brushed the foul-smelling muck off his favourite red trousers. ‘That boar is dangerous.’

‘Pot-bellies are very defensive. They hate strangers coming into their space.’ Kat turned back to
the enclosure, making reassuring clicking and cooing noises to settle the agitated animal, which was still glaring at Dougie. ‘And these are both sows. You might know a lot about horses, but you’re talking out of your booty there.’ She looked at him over her shoulder, green eyes amused. Behind her, the sow lumbered grumpily into her sty and flopped down next to her equally giant companion, who’d slept
on throughout. ‘She’s very protective of me,’ she told him, stretching over the fence for the stray bucket.

‘Who can blame her?’ Dougie admired her pert backside, determined to get the charm offensive back on track. ‘I’d be exactly the same. Now, where’s this car that won’t start?’

‘Would you like to wash that mud off before you look at it?’

‘No need.’ He cocked his head as
a loud engine pulled up to the gateway on the wooded track leading in from the ford entrance and they spotted a flash of yellow truck through the trees.

‘Excuse me!’ called a cheery voice. ‘Is this the right place for Mr Everett?’

‘That’s me.’ Shooting Kat a smouldering action-hero look, Dougie went to open the gate. A moment later, an AA van drove past.

The AA mechanic
diplomatically said nothing about the fact that his customers were dripping pig muck, although he politely declined a cup of tea as he looked into the faulty starter motor on Kat’s coupé.

‘Loose connection,’ he diagnosed cheerily, putting it right. ‘Nice sports cars, these. The little lady’s, is it?’ He nodded at the red-haired swamp monster trying to wash her legs off with a hosepipe.
They both watched, transfixed, as she gave up on subtlety and hoisted the hose higher so that water ran across her shoulders and flooded down over her cotton shirt, which clung to her body.

Dougie perked up at her lack of inhibition, which came as a pleasant surprise. But Kat was no red-bra-wearing seductress with a high-grade body like Dollar. She had practical base layers and a sports
bra of such reinforced enormity that no nipple bump would ever penetrate it. As she turned around, he could distinctly make out the lettering of the T-shirt she was wearing under the old cotton shirt, which read, I
Dublin: Carly’s Hen Weekend 2009. It clearly came from her previous life when hens had reeled between nightclubs wearing L-plates and suspenders,
not pecked around underfoot. For the first time, he found himself wondering what had brought her here, the Watford party girl turned rural recluse.

The AA man was spellbound. He had seen nothing as exciting since his wife had forced him to watch celebrities in the jungle and one page-three model had repeatedly taken showers in nothing but her bikini.

Unaware that she was being watched,
Kat started to hose out a big pile of feed buckets lined up beside the taps, attacking them with a scrubbing brush, red hair escaping from its topknot.

‘Hard-working girl,’ the AA man said admiringly. ‘Lovely place you’ve both got here. Living the dream, eh? Or is it a hosepipe dream?’ He laughed raucously at his own joke.

Dougie smiled stiffly – he had no choice, given that dried
pig muck was now cracking across his face. Looking around the farmyard again, he could see there was an old-world charm about it. In fact, with the sun now dancing down through the tree-tops, and doves cooing on the sagging roof arches, it was almost Disney-esque.

‘You’re a very lucky man.’ The mechanic sighed, gazing longingly at Kat again.

It was a seriously cute bottom, Dougie
saw. He was still admiring the way it gyrated as she stretched forward to scrub a rubber poultry trough when Kat turned back and frowned at them.

‘All sorted, sweetheart!’ the mechanic told her.

The frown transformed into that amazing smile and suddenly the farmyard looked even more idyllic. Kat Mason’s smile was seriously disconcerting.

Dougie reached for his wallet and flicked
through his new plastic to find the familiar yellow membership card, far more helpful in his seduction plans right now than a Priority Pass.

When the AA van finally drove away, half-heartedly pursued by two elderly barking terriers, Kat offered Dougie the hosepipe.

‘I’d prefer a hot shower and a back scrub.’ He gave her the benefit of his best Bond smoulder, revving the flirt engine
back into gear.

‘We don’t have a proper shower,’ she apologized. ‘There’s a bath with a mixer attachment, but I haven’t lit the range to heat any water and, anyway, the tub’s full of ducklings. The mother’s broken her leg,’ she explained, smiling at his baffled expression. ‘We found her in the lake last night desperately trying to look after them.’

He was genuinely shocked. ‘Don’t
tell me you’re taking showers with a hosepipe until she’s fixed up?’

‘It’s not so bad. In fact, it’s pretty refreshing after mucking out on a hot day like today. The sun dries you off in no time.’

Dougie remained unconvinced. ‘It’s no wonder your badger friend smells so high.’ Seeing Kat’s frown returning, he quickly flashed up his most disarming smile, voice dropping huskily: ‘So
you really do take in lame ducks. That is truly wonderful. Would you mind showing me round?’

‘I’m afraid I’m totally flat-out today.’ Kat regarded him suspiciously, arms crossed in front of her wet shirt. ‘Another time, maybe. Let me give you some eggs to say thank you for…’ there was a tell-tale pause and one red brow lifted ‘. . . mending the car.’

Dougie was expecting far more
gratitude than eggs, sarcasm and a brush-off. But, staying in role, he ducked his head, looking at her through his lashes, the playful smile so flirtatious and courteous it could have melted a chastity belt. This was the Everett Effect at full strength, perfect for medieval swashbuckling romances. ‘I can offer you a personally run bath at the mill any time you need it. In fact, I insist.’ He moved
closer. ‘It’s even big enough for two.’

Kat was gazing back at him unblinking – incredible green eyes, he noticed – and he was certain he had her in his spell. But then she threw out that disarming smile and marched towards the chicken coop. ‘You’ve been more than generous as it is.’

Dougie was certain she deliberately selected the pooiest eggs. He thanked her and headed to his Land
Rover, where Quiver was sprawled asleep on the passenger seat. ‘The offer’s there if you need it,’ he called back to her. ‘My bath is all yours!’

‘Thanks.’

He smiled suavely through the lowered window. ‘Delighted to be of help. See you later!’ As he drove away, Dougie realized his last few lines had sounded like a bad Brian Blessed impersonation, but he hoped she hadn’t noticed.

‘I know this sounds like I’m making it up, but Dougie Everett’s just called round here and flirted really, really badly,’ Kat told Dawn. ‘He was like Pepé Le Pew with a dash of Brian Blessed on ecstasy towards the end. I think he might have a drug problem.’

‘You’re making it up,’ Dawn said, blowing her nose at the other end of the phone line, her voice full of cold. ‘It’s
sweet of you to try to cheer me up when I’m ill and my garden looks like a muddy medieval fortress, but you’ll have to do better than that.’

‘What happened to the garden?’

‘Dad got the decking dimensions wrong.’ She sneezed noisily. ‘Instead of a little terrace for prospective buyers to visualize themselves enjoying a mojito and watching the sun go down, he’s built Plank World. You
can’t see a blade of grass. Now I have to find a garden-hating hay-fever sufferer to buy it.’ She blew her nose again. ‘And it’s made me realize I need grass. None of the flats I’ve looked at have gardens.’

‘Come here! There’s lots of green. It’s lovely now the weather’s better.’

‘Don’t tempt me. Will Dougie Everett come round and flirt with me if I do?’

‘I really wasn’t making
it up.’ She told Dawn about the point-to-point and then his strange dashes in and out of the pub later, followed by today’s visit and the back-scrubbing bath offer. ‘It’s all so completely over the top, it’s quite funny.’

Clearly jealous that she was stuck in Watford with flu while her friend had a heartthrob wooing her in the pig enclosure, Dawn’s cynical explanation did little to boost
Kat’s confidence, but it made sense: ‘Men like him flirt as default. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he dabbles in a few substances – that would explain the sudden career change and all his swift exits the other night. He’s really, really naughty from what I’ve read. You know he cheated on Iris Devonshire two days before they were due to get married?’

‘Ew!’

‘Every woman longs to be
the one to tame him.’ Dawn sighed. ‘If you Google him, I think there might be a sex tape too.’

‘Thankfully that’s beyond my dial-up connection.’

‘I’d still take him up on the bath offer.’ Dawn giggled. ‘He’s seriously buff, and your plumbing’s dire. You can fight him off with the loofah if he gets over-familiar.’

Kat had a sudden brainwave. ‘I’ll send Russ round in my place.’

‘You can’t!’ Dawn’s laughter turned into frenzied coughing.

But Kat thought it was genius. ‘He can play detective while he’s there. He’ll love that and he’s brilliantly observant. If the mill’s a vice den of Class A and orgies, he’ll figure out what’s going on.’

‘He’ll probably move in and refuse to leave.’ The voice on the other end of the line turned suspicious: ‘He’s not
still crashing at Lake Farm and expecting you to wait on him, is he?’

‘He comes and goes,’ she said vaguely, reluctant to admit that Russ’s washing was currently on her Pulleymaid overhead. He didn’t stay over often, now the days were long and the nights mild, but when he did, she felt safe. And since Dougie Everett had moved into the mill, with his steamy reputation and immense charm,
she needed to feel safe.

As Kat had predicted, Russ was more than happy to take a bottle of shampoo and a towel along the millstream path and stake out the huntsman’s house, but despite some intensive snooping, he found nothing useful, reporting back that Dougie was the height of charm and had asked about the cricket match, promising to do his best to ensure the pitch would be
available for the famous annual match between villagers and estate workers.

‘We’ll thrash their arses as usual, of course, but I’m not going to let on to that muppet,’ Russ said, with satisfaction, as he roamed around the kitchen pulling down clean clothes because he’d forgotten to take anything with him to change into. ‘I told Everett not to call in here uninvited again, by the way.’