Free Murder Most Fab by Julian Clary Page A

off.
    I
returned to my work and started to hum with excitement. Delightful chills were
thrilling me all over. He was the most desirable thing I’d ever laid eyes.
Steady on, I thought. Timothy Thornchurch wouldn’t be interested in me in a
million years. After all, I was a nobody, someone employed to weed the garden —
and not the whole garden at that. This wasn’t Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I
reminded myself.
    But a
few hours later, as I was walking down the poplar-lined driveway on my way
home, he pulled up in a battered Land Rover. ‘Do you live in the village,
Johnny?’ he said, with a grin. ‘Hop in, I’ll give you a lift.’
    ‘Thanks.
I live in Cherry Lane.’ I climbed in next to him, and we roared off down the
drive.
    Over
the sound of the engine Timothy said, ‘I’m going to check the sheep on the
knoll. Do you mind if we go up there first? Then I’ll take you home.’
    ‘That’d
be great,’ I said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. The idea of spending time
with this beautiful boy enthralled me and sent quivers of pleasurable
anticipation right through me. ‘Sheep are … lovely, aren’t they?’
    He gave
me a bemused sideways look. ‘I don’t know if “lovely” is the word. One got her
head stuck in a fence the other day. They’re too stupid to pull backwards.’
    ‘You’d
think Mother Nature would tell them to do that,’ I said, anxious to agree with
him.
    ‘No
fences in the wild, I suppose,’ he said. His voice was posh, and with a
languid, confident drawl that I guessed must come from his school. My own
accent wasn’t as rural as it might have been — my grandmother’s influence — so
I didn’t feel awkward. Besides, Timothy was friendly enough.
    I had
the curious tingling feeling that something was about to happen, though I couldn’t
guess what it might be.
    He
parked on the grass verge of a narrow country lane where the trees formed a
green canopy overhead. We got out of the Land Rover, climbed over a stile and
made our way across several fields.
    ‘All
this is ours,’ Timothy said, with a careless wave. ‘I don’t know where the
boundary is but it’s pretty much as far as you can see.’
    ‘Goodness.’
I tried to imagine what it must feel like to own everything within sight, but
it felt too strange. How could anyone own hedges and trees, fieldmice, clouds
and the wind? I knew what he meant — the land itself— but he seemed to imply
that every last thing on it belonged to his family and I didn’t see how that
was possible.
    We
walked in companionable silence until we reached one of the local landmarks: a
craggy, ancient burial mound, grassed over and dotted with rocks, ferns and
sheep droppings.
    ‘Is
this yours too?’ I asked as we climbed up it.
    He
shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not sure. Probably.’
    When we
reached the top we looked out across the woodlands to the marshes and the
still, grey sea in the distance.
    ‘So,
Johnny, what about you? What do you plan to do with your life?’ he asked. ‘Are
you going to be a gardener?’
    ‘I
don’t know, really. I’m not very good at anything. If I was a sheep I wouldn’t
have to do anything at all, just eat grass all day and sit in the shade in the
summer. That would suit me.’
    ‘You
could be a hippie. That’s the nearest you’ll get. Smoke grass and sit in the
shade.’
    ‘That
sounds nice, but I suppose I’ll have to earn a living somehow. Make some money
to look after my mother. We live together, just the two of us.’
    Timothy
looked envious. ‘You’re lucky not to have it all planned out for you. You have
the freedom to do anything you like, be anyone you want to be. I have to fulfil
expectations, or else.’ He gazed out to sea, then talked quietly, intensely, as
if he was reciting a boring list. ‘It’s been drummed into me. Oxbridge, the law
or politics, marriage, children, keep the family name going, inherit the estate
continue the lineage … Everything must be just as it’s always been.