Page 22 of Summer at Harbour View House
‘I’d rather wait for you,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t want to get abducted.’
Ordinarily Natasha would have told Hannah not to be ridiculous, but having met Ketchup-Vest next door, Hannah was probably right to be cautious. ‘Alright,’ she called. ‘Just wait there a minute.’
‘I’ll see if I can get a signal on my phone,’ Hannah said.
Natasha sighed. ‘Great, you do that.’
She figured the most likely place to find something to cut the brambles back with would be the shed, so she made her way through the grass, the chicken following behind her. As she trod carefully over weed-strewn mounds and around protruding objects, she realised that a variety of garden features lay buried beneath her feet. Hard edges of submerged flowerbeds poked up here and there, and near the house a mesh of weeds barely covered a paved patio area. She hadn’t come here with the idea of doing any sort of maintenance work, but as she passed the marshy remains of a pond and then a lumpy, waist-high rocky thing she suspected was a birdbath, she began to understand why her dad liked gardening so much. As well as a way to get out in the fresh air, it was a voyage of discovery.
The lock on the shed door had rusted off and fallen into the weeds, but heaps of mulch held the door shut. With little alternative, Natasha squeezed her foot into a gap in the planks and twisted, levering the door open until she could squeeze inside. With its behavior beginning to more closely resemble that of a dog, the chicken squeezed inside with her, then began to strut around the dirt floor, pecking at bugs.
‘At least one of us found something to eat,’ Natasha said with a wry grin, as the chicken knocked aside a small piece of wood and found a feast of woodlice beneath.
The shed had a delightful earthy smell. Old cupboards overflowing with junk lined its walls, while the tree she had seen from outside turned out to be the branch of a bigger tree behind the shed which had broken through the wooden slats and now poked out of a hole in the roof. Other mulch and leaf matter had built up around it, filing in the gap and giving Natasha the feeling of being inside a riverbank cave. Careful not to knock it as she leaned around it, she pulled open a cupboard door and peered inside.
Instead of old paint pots, jars filled with brushes, and stacks of used flowerpots, to Natasha’s surprise she found several plastic boxes, their lids clipped shut. Through the transparent plastic that had faded with age she thought she could make out stacks of old photo albums and personal papers.
Figuring that the boxes were both none of her business and a curiosity that perhaps she and Hannah might investigate after a glass or two of wine, she shut the doors and tried to focus on the task in hand. She discovered a pair of shears behind the door, but they were rusted solid, so instead went with an old scythe that looked like it had claimed a few souls in its time. Pushing it out through the door in front of her, she climbed out after, then pushed the door shut to keep the chicken inside, just in case an accidental swing of the scythe gave them chicken nuggets for dinner.
‘Just hang on a minute,’ she said, as it poked its head out of a hole left by a broken board and clucked at her. ‘I’ve got to go and rescue the princess before she gets kidnapped by another farmer or something.’
She made her way back across the garden, located the path and the steps beneath a mound of brambles, then slowly hacked her way through. The scythe was rusty and blunt but five minutes later she had managed to clear a rough route through the brambles.
‘Haha,’ Hannah said as Natasha cleared a way for her to climb up. ‘I thought you were some kind of Cornish Grim Reaper.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Wow, it’s a little overgrown, isn’t it?’ Hannah said.
‘Just a bit. We should go and get our cases before they get stolen.’
‘Why don’t we just have a quick look inside?’
Natasha shrugged. ‘Might as well. It can’t surely be worse, can it?’
They made their way across the garden to the house. The key to the front door was under a big stone flower pot beside it where Tina had told Natasha she would find it. She brushed off a bit of dirt and stuck it into the lock.
‘Right, here goes.’
The key turned. When she tugged on the door handle, however, the door didn’t budge.
‘I think the wood’s swollen or something,’ she said. ‘Give me a hand.’
She moved to the side a little so Hannah could join her. They put their hands over the door handle and leaned back. The door creaked, shifting a little.
‘Nearly!’ Hannah cried. ‘Come on, one hard tug!’
‘Three, two, one—’ Natasha said, and they both leaned back again, pulling as hard as they could. There was one loud crack, and then suddenly they were falling on to the front step, the door coming down on top of them.
‘Help!’ Hannah screamed, rolling sideways out of the way, leaving Natasha to stick up her hands just in time to stop the heavy wood cracking her in the middle of the forehead. As she eased the door to the side and got up to her feet, she stared at the house in dismay.
A gaping hole stood where the door had been, the rusted hinges broken off, taking chunks of the wooden frame with them.
‘At least we can get inside now,’ Hannah said. ‘Shall we see if there’s any tea?’
8
A Harbourside Auction and a Chivalrous Saviour
