Free Seven For a Secret by Judy Astley Page A

of strange vehicles.
    â€˜Bit of local colour,’ commented one of the men, indicating Julia who, as if dressed for the part by an over-efficient wardrobe supervisor, was wearing the Compleat Countrywoman outfit of Barbour, green wellies and a misshapen tweedy fishing hat of her late husband’s. There was probably, Kate guessed, a pair of unravelling string riding gloves screwed up in the pockets, too, stuck together with congealing Kendal Mintcake.
    â€˜Good morning!’ Kate called to her, trying to keep natural insolence from her voice.
    â€˜Oh! Oh it’s you Kate!’ Julia shouted back, startled. She took several hesitant steps towards the group, looking round for the support and protection of her uninterested dogs. ‘I thought . . . well goodness you are up early! Should you, er, be here?’
    â€˜Mum knows, it’s OK. These are some of the people who are doing the filming.’ Kate felt rather grand saying this, as if she was not only one of them but actually in charge. The men muttered greetings and the one with the fly-spattered T-shirt actually stood up and offered a plump hand for Julia to shake. ‘Brian – nice to meet you, and you are . . . ?’
    She took the hand with her automatic good manners overcoming what looked like a tremor of secret horror, ‘Er . . . Merriman,’ she conceded.
    â€˜Is your house one of those that we’ll be using?’ Brian asked. ‘Are you going to be totting up the tax-free after we’ve gone?’ He winked at her, and Julia backed away.
    â€˜No. Absolutely not my sort of thing,’ she answered coolly.
    â€˜Money is most people’s sort of thing,’ he replied with a knowing grin, returning to his mug of tea. Julia returned to her circuit of the rec as Simon crossed the road and joined them.
    â€˜I thought you’d be here,’ he said to Kate, scuffling his feet awkwardly, his hands half-thrust into jeans pockets that were too small to take them, waiting to be introduced.
    He’s so clean, she thought, gazing at his damp, freshly washed hair. On anyone else she would be suspicious that the dampness was really grease, but with Simon it was out of the question, for without fail he would have Washed and Gone. She could smell oatmeal soap on the breeze. Even at this hour he must have had a shower and taken time to choose the right clothes. She’d done the same, she admitted to herself, but that was different, that was quite an exception, a special occasion. Perhaps Simon had become so thoroughly conditioned by his boarding school that he couldn’t even contemplate starting a single day without a complete all-over scrub.
    â€˜Are you coming to our house?’ Simon asked the men, giving up on Kate and introductions. ‘We’re renting it out for a few weeks, Mum said. And the man who wrote the script is coming to stay, too.’
    â€˜Aha. You’ll be Margot Carpenter’s son then,’ Brian said, grinning at Simon. ‘Now there’s a lady with no objection to a bit on the side, as it were, in the cash sense I mean, of course. We’ll be along to you later with all this lot – just across there isn’t it?’ He gestured towards the far side of the road and the dense greenery that protected the houses from casual view. ‘You’re in for a spot of upheaval.’
    Kate was bored by the lack of activity. During the morning a few people arrived in the village by car and went either to the pub or to see Margot. The early morning men she quickly dismissed as mere crew and of no real use to her at all. Hanging around on the rec, she began to feel like a nosy child, and she worried that she’d be noticed in the wrong way – to be laughed at. Even Lisa hadn’t shown her pink-and-white face. Obviously the people to see hadn’t yet felt the need to arrive. So fed up was she that she found herself agreeing to accompany