Page 20 of Forgive Not Forget
Katherine placed the phone down on the work surface and stretched her arms across it. The police were interested enough in the vandalism that they were sending someone out to look at it as soon as they had the available resources. This was all she needed, more bad publicity for the abbey and more things to worry about. She was already physically exhausted and mentally drained; she wished everything would stop for a few days so she could get her breath back.
She inhaled and exhaled slowly to calm herself.
There was much on her plate; the last thing she needed was this vandalism mess. Bigger things were already on her mind, things like Harry’s well-being. She needed to listen to her own advice to Anna regarding Harry and stop fretting. His memory slip could simply be some impairment following his pneumonia or even some low-level depression clouding his mind. As much as she didn’t wish either on Harry, she certainly didn’t wish dementia or Alzheimer’s on him either.
Withdrawing her lunchbox from the fridge, she popped it into her handbag and fetched her coat from the understairs cupboard. With a quick check of her belongings, she called out, “Bye, Virginia,” as she always did whenever she left the house. She had no idea if Virginia was even home. When she had lived alone, there was only her to let the cat in and out, so she had a fairly good idea of her whereabouts. Now that Anna let her in and out as well, Katherine had completely lost track of the cat’s movements.
She scrunched her way across the drive, cursing her heels as they sank into the gravel. It reminded her that she had been meaning to ask her gardeners to lay a path between the borders and the gravel so she could leave the house without nearly breaking her ankles. Now that it was spring, it was the ideal time for them to do it. She removed her phone from her bag and set a reminder for the morning of their next visit.
As she entered the abbey’s staff room to put her lunchbox in the fridge, she realised she hadn’t asked Anna the location of the graffiti. She’d have to find her. After making two cups of peppermint tea, she took them over to Anna’s office. It was a crisp day, and a frost still lay on the ground in parts where the morning sun couldn’t reach. Katherine entered Anna’s office to find her tapping away at her keyboard.
She placed a cup on Anna’s coaster and smiled. It was a gift she’d given to Anna on the first day in her new office and was printed with a Jane Austen quote: “Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.”
“Thanks, I need that,” Anna said, immediately lifting it to her lips for a sip.
“You’re welcome. Can you show me where the graffiti is?”
“Yes, two seconds, I’m just sending you the report. It’s all done.”
“Great,” Katherine replied, adding some false enthusiasm; it meant one more thing she had to deal with that day. It would need to be checked before sending it on to the trustees — not that she didn’t trust Anna to do her job properly, but there was no room for errors. Once the trustees had Anna’s report and her own projections on the abbey’s running costs for the remainder of the year, financial decisions would be made as to further investments needed.
Katherine nosed in a box on Anna’s desk, hopeful it might contain the chocolate eggs. She’d skipped breakfast, and the few sips of tea she’d had were doing nothing to quell the rumbling in her stomach.
Anna reached under her desk and presented her with a chocolate egg and a snigger.
Katherine contemplated rejecting it, but she needed the sugar hit, so she took it from Anna and devoured it.
Anna returned to her laptop with a grin plastered across her face.
“Don’t judge me. I skipped breakfast,” Katherine mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate.
“I’m not,” Anna replied, her grin widening further as she shut her laptop lid. “All sent.”
Katherine ignored her and extracted some paper from the box on the desk.
“Is this for the Easter bunny trail?”
“Yes, and the printer sent some samples for our wedding invitations.”
Anna passed Katherine a swatch book from her desk.
Katherine took a cursory look through it and handed it back to Anna. There was no time to be dealing with invitations. She had no one to send them to anyway.
“Let’s look another time. Do you want to show me the graffiti?”
“Okay,” Anna replied softly, placing the swatch back on her desk. “It’s up at the far end.”
Katherine waited for Anna to put on her wellies, inwardly wishing that she’d thought of keeping a pair of wellies on-site, and then followed her out. They passed several visitors on the way to the far end of the site. Katherine hoped they wouldn’t wander as far today. It would be best to keep this bit of vandalism as quiet as possible.
“Why did they have to do this to the chapel of all places?” Katherine groaned as they approached the chapel where the extent of the damage became clear. “It’s our best feature.”
“And our special place,” Anna said, eyeing Katherine.
Katherine smiled at her and then looked around. “Whoever did this must have chosen it because it’s in a quiet corner. The other side, with our window, is overlooked by Abbey House.” Katherine thought back a few months to when they had sat in the chapel window to watch the New Year’s fireworks and surprised one another with marriage proposals. She looked at Anna, who immediately caught her eye; they must have been sharing the same thought, as affectionate smiles radiated from their lips.
Carrie appeared with some cones and tape and began cordoning off the area in front of the wall.
“I guess this must be a result of the newspaper article yesterday,” she said. “It advertised to every treasure hunter in the local area that there might be something to be found here. They certainly didn’t hang about.”
