Free Expose! by Hannah Dennison Page B

machine. I changed my mind about taking off my safari jacket and just undid the buttons. There was nowhere to hang it.
    In the end, I left the chocolates balanced on top of a row of empty milk bottles on the window ledge. “Can I do anything to help, Eunice?”
    “Take in the starters. Oh!” My hostess flipped my safari jacket open with her spatula and scowled at my jeans and top. “I said formal attire.” Peeping from the hem of her floral apron, I saw a shimmering electric blue skirt.
    “I came straight from the office,” I lied, stepping neatly away from the spatula. I didn’t want to get food on my favorite—and only—jacket. “It was a busy day.”
    “It’s too late to change now. Mary!” barked Eunice. “Leave that wretched tractor alone!” She gestured for me to come closer and said in a low voice, “We’ll talk later, but what did Dougie say about me?”
    “Well, he’s obviously still in a state of shock,” I said. “I think—”
    “Sssh! Not now ! Later .” Eunice hissed as her sister-in-law trudged toward us hefting an old car battery. “Mary always goes to bed early.”
    “I’ll take that,” I said, bounding toward Mary.
    “She can manage.” Eunice pointed her spatula at a wall of outdoor coats. “Go through that door into the hall. The dining room is the first room on the right.”
    “Where are the starters?” I said, stifling the urge to snatch the spatula out of Eunice’s hand and beat her about the head.
    “Mary will open the hatch.” Eunice waved her spatula— again— at a side table weighed down by stacks of moldy looking pamphlets emblazoned BAN CCTV! NO PRIVACY! Above them was a sliding frosted-glass window, underneath stood a mound of moth-eaten blankets and a half-chewed dog bone.
    “Where’s Jenny tonight?” I tried to sound casual but my stomach churned with fear.
    “In the barn,” said Eunice.
    Thank God! I’d have to get over my inherent terror of dogs, if Robin and I were to ever have a future.
    Having dumped the car battery on the floor where anyone could trip over it, Mary Berry grasped the door handle and, after much heaving and groaning, the hatch shuddered open to reveal a gloomy room beyond.
    “Pop around, Vicky dear,” Mary Berry said. “This is such a waste of time.”
    I slipped out of the kitchen and into the hallway. To my delight, the interior walls still retained their original oak paneled wainscoting. These days most of the Devon long-houses had been ruthlessly modernized. Dividing walls were knocked down to let in more light and inglenook fireplaces were bricked up to stop drafts and keep in heat.
    It would appear that Dairy Cottage had retained all of its seventeenth-century features including beautiful flag-stone flooring that shone like glass from hundreds of years of wear. It made me want to stop for a second to consider my own mortality.
    But there was no time for that tonight. I pushed open the door to a dingy dining room. The ceiling was so low I could reach up and touch the beams without standing on tiptoe. At the far end stood a vast inglenook but no fire burned merrily in the grate. Even though it was May, the place was freezing. It probably faced north. The smell of mildew and dust was overpowering. I suspected it must have been years since this room had last been used.
    I went straight to the diamond-paned, leaded-light casement windows and forced one open. Unfortunately, the stench of manure from the cowshed outside was even worse. I tried to close the window again, but it jammed. The evening was rapidly turning into a disaster and we hadn’t even sat down to eat what promised to be a somewhat challenging meal.
    I took in my surroundings. Imprints on the faded red-patterned carpet showed that at one time there must have been far more furniture here than just the heavy oak sideboard, refectory table, and high-backed chairs. The yellowing walls had lighter rectangular patches where paintings had probably once hung. Presumably,