Free A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison Page B

tonight?”
    â€œYes. Love you, Mum.” I kissed her cheek and left the room.

 
    Chapter Seven
    I pulled on a warm coat, woolen hat and gloves and grabbed a flashlight. Of course I hadn’t wanted to talk to Eric. I just needed to be alone with my thoughts. I knew the day would come when David would meet another woman but never in my wildest imaginings did I think he would reconcile with Trudy.
    I cut across the courtyard and dragged open the corrugated iron gate to Eric’s scrapyard. The warning T RESPASSERS W ILL B E P ROSECUTED: P OACHERS W ILL B E S HOT flared in the beam of my flashlight. I wondered when was the last time someone was shot for poaching a rabbit.
    As I strode across the crisp grass I turned back to see if Mum was still at the window. If she wasn’t, I planned to take a walk through the woods and circle back to the Carriage House. Unfortunately, I saw her silhouette watching me. She waved. I waved back. Now I’d have to visit Eric.
    I knew she was worried about me. I knew that she tried hard to distract me by making silly jokes or asking for my help with her stories. She was happy here and I knew I would be, too. Eventually.
    Despite Mum insisting she could read the tea leaves, she always said that no one knew what was around the corner. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be living in the middle of nowhere without David or the paparazzi, dressed in jodhpurs with my hair crushed under a hairnet, I would have laughed.
    Yet, Honeychurch Hall meant something to my mother. For a childhood spent on the road, it was the one place that remained constant and now she was back for good. I imagined how her summers must have been. Magical, I suspected, as all summers are when looked back through rose-tinted spectacles.
    I reached Eric’s old caravan and heard the murmur of male voices. At least Eric wasn’t “entertaining.”
    For a moment I hesitated, then rapped smartly on the caravan door.
    The talking ceased immediately, then, “Were you expecting someone?” I heard a voice say.
    â€œNo.” There was a twitch from a grubby net curtain and Eric’s face pressed against the glass. To my surprise he smiled. “It’s Kat. I forgot she was coming over tonight.”
    It was obviously untrue but definitely piqued my curiosity.
    Eric threw open the caravan door. “Come on in.”
    I stepped up into the living area of the cramped office and was instantly assaulted by the smell of stale cigarettes and alcohol along with the usual musty aroma that was peculiar to caravans.
    â€œRapunzel!” Bryan waved from one of the two red banquettes. He raised a plastic tumbler in a toast. “We meet again.”
    â€œBryan!”
    â€œYou know each other?” Eric sounded confused. “How?”
    â€œWe met earlier,” I said. “Do you know each other?”
    â€œWe do now,” said Bryan smoothly. “Give the girl a drink, Eric, Where are your manners?” He gestured to a bottle of Captain Morgan rum on the bay window ledge.
    â€œNot for me, thanks,” I said.
    â€œGo on,” said Bryan jovially. “Just one.” By the color of his red nose I suspected he had definitely had more than one, and even Eric had the glassy-eyed look of someone who was three-sheets to the wind.
    â€œGo on, Kat, please.” Eric sounded unusually desperate.
    â€œJust one,” I said. “But small.”
    â€œTake a seat,” said Bryan magnanimously.
    I perched on the edge of the stained banquette opposite. As Eric poured me a glass I looked around his so-called office. I’d never been invited inside before. It was a typical six-berth layout with the two banquettes that Bryan and I were sitting on that could be converted into beds. Next to the door was a kitchen sink and primer stove. Opposite that was an island table that could fold away to allow for a Murphy bed to pull down from the rear wall.
    Engine parts