Bones in the Nest by Helen Cadbury Read Free Book Online Page A

that, but it doesn’t seem right. She stops at the top of the drive where a car park drops away to her left. There’s a grey-haired woman in a little hut selling tickets and brochures. Chloe looks back at the way she’s come taking in the sweep of lawns, dotted with trees, like something from a TV drama.
    Her appointment is with a Mr William Coldacre. He’s a big man, both tall and wide. He looks old, but she can see he’s still strong. They sit opposite one another across a table. There’s not much to look at in the small brick potting shed, except a newspaper with a crossword half done and a screwed up paper bag. Someone has scattered flaky crumbs on the table. Mr Coldacre doesn’t meet her eye and she realises that he’s almost as nervous as she is.
    ‘So, um, Miss Toms,’ he looks at her CV and her application form. She has taken her folder out of the carrier bag and fingers the envelope on her lap, waiting for the right time to hand it over, to practise the lines she’s been learning for this moment.
    ‘I don’t usually do the interviews. I’m more of a plantsman myself, but Giles, he’s the land manager, he’s off with the flu, so he’s left it up to me.’ He runs a large forefinger round the top of his ear. ‘Tell you what, Miss, uh – can I call you Chloe?’
    ‘Yes, that’s fine. Yes.’
    ‘Right, well, why don’t we have a look around the garden and we can talk about what you’ve done before and I can see what’s what? That would be the best way, I reckon.’
    ‘OK.’ She’s still holding the letter, not sure how to do this if they’re walking about outside. ‘I have to give you this,’ she says. ‘In case, well if you were to offer me the job, I have to— I mean, you have to read it.’
    He nods towards the sealed envelope with a grunt and puts it in his pocket.
    ‘Aye. I know the score. You’re not the first from the Probation, so don’t worry about that. I’ll pass it on to the boss.’
    She silently prays that he’ll keep it safe and deliver it to Giles, or whoever’s in charge. It’s her disclosure letter, explaining about her criminal record. She pictures him pulling out a hanky and the letter flying free, blowing along the paths between the clipped edges of the lawns, being picked up by a visitor and opened. That person would get straight on the phone to the tabloids and then the whole pack would appear.
    ‘If you’re lucky,’ Taheera said to her in the car, ‘people won’t remember.’
    Chloe hopes she’s right. She’s sure she looks quite different. Her hair’s lighter and longer and she’ll never go back to where it happened; she’s not allowed to anyway. But the law says she has to tell her employer and, even though it’s supposed to be confidential, she knows that confidential isn’t a wall or a fence that keeps you safe. It’s just a word, and it’s not a word that Chloe sets much store by.
    An hour later, William Coldacre (call me Bill) says they’ll let her know and wishes her a safe journey. He didn’t ask her much, except some plant names and about what tools she’d used before. She walks back down the drive. There’s a monkey-puzzle tree, its geometric branches standing out among the softer shapes of beech and ash. She stands still and listens to the birds. She can’t quite believe she’s here and she hopes, she prays, she’ll get the job and she’ll soon be coming back.
    At the bus stop she doesn’t have to wait long before she’s on a little single-decker, winding through a succession of old pit villages towards the station. When she gets off there are no proper station buildings, only a shelter on each side ofthe track and a narrow footbridge over it. The sign says: ‘Trains to Goole, Hull and York: Platform 1’ and ‘Trains to Doncaster: Platform 2’. She stares at the sign. She can’t understand how she missed it on the way here in the car, how she’s got this close without realising. She wonders how many miles it is to