Free Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

air out while Dominic called in with his Airwave which got, much to my surprise, better reception than either of our phones. I was that thirsty that I’d just started psyching myself up to brave a rummage in the Nissan when Dominic lowered his handset and beckoned me over.
    ‘Were you expecting a delivery?’ he asked.
     
    Dominic’s mum was a round woman who barely came up to my chest. Her chestnut hair was streaked with grey and tied up into a rough bun at the back of her head. She’d obviously caught the sun that summer, because her skin was brown and she wore streaks of sunblock across her cheekbones. She came hurrying out of the bungalow as soon as Dominic had parked outside and thrust out her hand for me to shake. Her skin was warm and as soft as chamois leather and the bones underneath felt delicate like those of a small bird.
    ‘It’s nice to meet you at last.’ She was breathing hard as if the short dash from her front door had left her out of breath. ‘Is the room all right?’
    ‘Perfect,’ I said.
    She nodded and withdrew her hand. I gave her a moment to catch her breath before asking about the delivery. She pointed to the paved area by her front door where two old-fashioned oxblood leather-bound trunks had been left side by side.
    I sighed and asked Dominic to give me a hand.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ he said when he tried to lift his end. ‘How long were you planning to stay?’
    ‘It’s the housekeeper,’ I said. ‘She gets carried away.’
    Dominic gave me an odd look.
    ‘Housekeeper?’
    ‘Not my housekeeper,’ I said as I tried to avoid knocking over a garden gnome. ‘Our nick has a housekeeper.’ Which I decided sounded even weirder.
    ‘Okay,’ said Dominic. ‘Well, Leominster nick’s got vibrating chairs in the rec room.’
    ‘Vibrating chairs?’
    ‘You know. You sit in them and they vibrate,’ he said. ‘It’s very relaxing.’
    The inside of my room, a.k.a. the cowshed, was boiling, so once we’d dumped the trunks we retreated back outside with a jug of homemade lemonade provided by Dominic’s mum. When the air had a chance to cool inside, me and Dominic had a rummage in the first of the trunks. The top layer, thank god, consisted of about half the contents of my wardrobe, freshly laundered and the creases ironed to a knife edge – which just looks weird on a sweatshirt. The trunk was equipped with a number of convenient drawers and compartments which yielded a miniature brass camp stove with matching pot and kettle and a leather case which contained a cut-throat razor, a shaving brush and a stick of dehydrated soap that smelt of almonds and rum. I wondered if this was all Nightingale’s stuff or whether Molly scavenged it from elsewhere in the Folly. A lot of men must have left their belongings behind in 1944 believing that they were coming back.
    I put the shaving kit back where I’d found it.
    The second trunk contained a tweed shooting jacket, matching yellow waistcoat, a vintage Burberry trench coat, riding boots, a green canvas camp stool and a shooting stick. It was therefore less of a surprise when at the bottom, disassembled in their own oak and leather case, I found a pair of two-inch self-opening shotguns. Judging from the chasing on the mechanism they were Nightingale’s two Purdey guns that he kept in a locked case in the billiard room.
    I looked at Dominic, whose eyes were bugging out.
    ‘You didn’t see that, okay?’
    ‘Absolutely not,’ he said.
    ‘Right.’
    ‘The Glorious Twelfth was Monday,’ he said. ‘So grouse is in season.’
    I suddenly wondered if Nightingale’s contemporaries had bothered with shotguns, or whether they’d trooped out to the countryside and banged away with fireballs. I say, good shot there, Thomas! Winged the blighter, by god. It occurred to me that I was currently less than a half hour’s drive from a man who might be able to tell me – if the bees didn’t sting me to death on the doorstep.
    ‘What the fuck?’ said