The Easter Egg Hunt – I

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…

It was all Ben’s fault. If he hadn’t suggested we buy two overgrown paddocks, and a small orchard that backs onto the pub garden, none of this would have happened. But he did, and it did. And at least it’ll make a good story for our grandchildren – if he lives long enough to tell it.
But to begin at the beginning.
Ben returned from a meeting of the Parish Council wearing his thoughtful face.
“You got a minute chooch?”
I nodded and he more or less dragged me out of the office and across the garden to our private patio. He sat down on our favourite bench and I cuddled in beside him.
“What’s got you so excited?”
“It’s about the orchard. The one that Jed is dying to get his hands on.”
Jed being the young giant who runs our thriving market garden for us, I nodded encouragingly.
“I’ve just found out that it’s up for sale. The only downside is it comes with the two paddocks on the other side of the lane.”
“I take it the paddocks are of no interest.”
“Not any use for growing stuff, Jed says. But he’d rather like to keep a couple of goats.”
“And we know this because?”
He blushed and shuffled his feet a bit. “I might have been to see him and asked what he thought.”
I couldn’t help laughing at six feet of handsome hunk squirming under my gaze. Sensing that he was off the hook, Ben laughed too.
“Yeah. I know. I was thinking we might get the twins a pony.”
“No. We will not.” I snapped my teeth together. “Nobody has the first idea how to look after a pony, or the time to do it.”
His grin was entirely unapologetic. “I know that now. Jed called me a bliddy fule and Finoula went so far as to bet me a tenner you’d veto the idea straight off.”
I shook my head helplessly. “You owe her a tenner, and you should be feeling grateful that I don’t have the energy to box your ears.”
“What has eaten up your energy, love?”
“We had a mega-madam in at lunchtime. She was rude to just about everyone who dealt with her. Then, after eating all her meal, she decided it wasn’t what she ordered and announced that she wasn’t going to pay for it. She elected to storm off in well-rehearsed indignation. Morgan was managing food service, so she went after her, and the bitch managed to ‘slip’ on a nonexistent damp patch on the floor and whilst ‘saving herself’ backhanded Morg across the face. Hard. I happened to be passing through and I caught that. The ‘lady’ in question found herself in the car park so fast her feet didn’t touch ground. There were a couple of off-duty cops in for tapas and they came out to see the fun. Stupid woman almost got herself arrested for trying to slap one of them, but at least she fecked off. Even so, we’re out the price of her lunch.”
“Oh dear. But we’ve had worse.”
“We have, and we have a video of her getting in my face and swearing, if she chooses to go on social media with her version of events. But she gave me a headache. And poor little Morgan has a nasty cut on her face from madam’s cheap jewellery.”
Morgan is my young assistant and the stepdaughter of our long-term family friend Mark Brown, the managing director of Brown Brothers Security (a very profitable concern that walks a thin line between legitimate security and less legal enforcement). Ben and I love her like she is one of our own tribe and he immediately understood my disquiet. He pulled me into his lap and we cuddled for a minute or two.
“It’s Morgan’s face that upset you isn’t it?”
“Course it is. Far more than it upset her.”
“Where’s Morgan now?”
“She insisted on finishing her shift, but when she was finished, I gave Stella an hour off to take her to see her mum. Stella’s back in the kitchen, baking bread, and she said Debs will bring Morgan home in the morning and that I was specifically ordered not to worry.”
“Maybe try not to worry then.”
“I’m better now I’ve told you.”
“I wonder if I could think of something to make you even more better.” He leered theatrically. “If I remember rightly the gruesome twosome are off to a birthday bash straight from school.”
“I keep telling you not to refer to our charming daughters as gruesome.” I poked him in the ribs, but couldn’t help giggling at the most doting daddy in the land pretending not to be besotted by his daughters. “However. They are indeed out enjoying the fleshpots. We have to pick them up from Maccy D’s at seven o’clock.”
He stood up with me in his arms.
“Plenty of time then.”
A good while later, smoothed and with my headache quite gone, I leaned my elbows on Ben’s chest.
“Tell me about this land.”
“You know about the orchard, and the two scruffy paddocks. Plus there’s a bit of a field that Jed is itching to incorporate into the market garden. It’s about six acres in all.”
“I’m assuming it’s covenanted.”
“Yes. As it falls within the purlieu of the forest it’s not building land, so pasture or market garden.”
“How much are we going to be needing to pay? If it’s full value for agricultural land that might even be ten grand an acre. Which I’m not sure we can justify.”
“That was what I thought. But the present owner wants rid of it as simply and quickly as possible. Offered it to the Parish Council for 25k. The council has no use for the land and no money to buy it. That’s how come it’s been offered to us at the same price.”
“And what do your council chums get in return?”
His grin nearly split his face. “Jack Ellis said we’d not get that past you. I absolutely agreed, but the rest of the dinosaurs were convinced they could outsmart a mere woman. The buggers are after someone to cut the grass in the churchyard. They’re willing to pay, just not what the local contractors want.”
Jack and Brenda Ellis farm the land that borders on the pub, and they have become good friends in the time we have been here, even if Jack is a bit of a rogue. I was pretty sure he’d have been right with Ben, so I drew a bolt at venture.
“What did Jed say about grass cutting? I’m darned sure you and Jack asked him.”
“Said it’s fine by him. So long as it’s cash in hand. Which, I think, was only to discomfit the dinosaurs. Jack went off laughing. Wished me luck.”
I sniggered and polished my fingernails against the front of a shirt I wasn’t wearing before I spoke.
“Twenty-five thousand is eminently find-able.” I thought a bit more. “Even though I don’t see how we can charge anything to the Fair Maid, I’m pretty sure the orchard and the small field can be set against the market garden. And as they will both count as arable land there should be a substantial write-off.”
Ben shook his head admiringly. “Your business brain never fails to amaze me. Now I even begin to see why you insisted on keeping the two businesses separate.”
“That’s only part of the reason. There’s people’s homes at stake too. The way things stand, Jed and Finoula are secure even if the Fair Maid goes tits up. Not that there’s any chance of that while I have breath in my body.”
“Speaking of bodies…”

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.