A Christmas Cracker: The only festive romance to curl up with this Christmas!. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ – you are?’ I stammered. ‘No, Mercy didn’t tell me that.’

      ‘Oh, yes, the whole family are benevolent Quakers so they’ve always employed ex-cons in the factory when they could. But there’s only the seven of us left now and we’ve all been here a long time, so you were a bit of a surprise, like.’

      ‘Oh, right,’ I said, relaxing a bit. No wonder Ceddie had thought of me! ‘I was convicted of helping to run a scam, selling fake vintage champagne,’ I explained.

      ‘Classy!’ she commented, seemingly without sarcasm. ‘I was done for persistent shoplifting and I met my Job in a hostel when I came out. He was a proper butler to a titled family till drink got the better of him and he absconded with the silver. But he took the pledge when Mercy offered him a job here and he’s been sober as a judge ever since.’

      ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said.

      ‘And there’s nowhere here to shoplift, unless you drive into a town, so that knocked that habit on the head,’ she added chattily. ‘There’s the village shop, up in Little Mumming, of course, but that Oriel Comfort what owns it has eyes like a hawk, even if I was tempted by her stock, which I’m not.’

      ‘No, I suppose it isn’t likely to be very exciting,’ I agreed.

      ‘At first, Job and me worked in the cracker factory, but now we’re semi-retired and work in the house, though we do lend a hand with packing the boxes if there’s a rush order on.’

      ‘Does that often happen?’ I asked curiously, in the light of what Mercy had told me about the business running down like an unwound clock.

      ‘Practically never lately, now I come to think about it,’ she said, looking vaguely surprised. ‘Job looks after Mr Silas – gets his breakfast and a bit of lunch and dinner, though when Mercy’s home, he comes out of his rooms and has afternoon tea and dinner with her. I get in any shopping needed and let the cleaners in Wednesdays, and bag up the laundry, that kind of thing.’

      The cat-flap rattled and Pye oozed in, stopped dead at the sight of a stranger and stared hard at her.

      ‘Is this yours?’ Freda said, surprised. ‘He’s a strange-looking cat and no mistake, with those funny eyes.’

      ‘Yes, he’s called Pye.’

      Pye continued to stare at her and then said something that was probably uncomplimentary, if you understood cat.

      ‘He doesn’t exactly look nice as pie, does he?’ she said, returning the stare assessingly.

      ‘He can be a little … tricky, till he gets used to new people,’ I conceded, ‘and he’s very vocal, so he certainly makes his presence felt.’

      ‘I remember when Mercy had a big Siamese cat – that was noisy too; yowled like a banshee sometimes.’

      ‘She did say she liked cats.’

      ‘There are two down at the factory, to take care of any mice trying to get into the place,’ Freda said. ‘Bing and Ginger. It’s to be hoped if they meet yours that they don’t fight, though those two rarely stray from the factory side of the bridge.’

      ‘I’m sure they’ll all get on fine together,’ I assured her, which I was – so long as the two resident cats accepted their sudden demotion to the bottom of the pecking order. ‘Did you say there were seven former prisoners working at the cracker factory?’

      ‘Only five, if you don’t count me and Job, and the others are all a bit long in the tooth. They work ten to four on weekdays, from February to November and manage the orders all right, but there used to be a lot more workers when business was brisker.’

      ‘Yes, that’s what Mercy told me.’

      ‘Well, she told me she was bringing in someone young and artistic to come up with new ideas for the crackers. Not that everyone’s that keen on new ideas …’ she mused. ‘But I suppose you’ll get to meet them soon, and you can size each other up.’

      That sounded ominous. I wondered what the others had been to prison for, but I was about to be enlightened.

      ‘Me and Job live in the first cottage and Dorrie Bird in number two – her daughter Arlene’s married with a family and lives in Great Mumming, but she comes and works in the factory office three mornings a week. Dorrie was done for running a house of ill repute,’ she added conversationally. ‘But she said she never did, it was just the flat was in her name and she let her friends rent rooms there. It wasn’t her fault if they brought their boyfriends back.’

      ‘Unlucky,’ I said, fascinated.

      ‘At number three is Bradley Dudge. He drives the delivery van when needed, keeps the garden here tidy and likes to tinker with his old car, but mostly he keeps himself to himself and gets fits of depression when he remembers what he did.’

      ‘What did he do?’ I asked, without meaning to.

      ‘Killed his wife, though they brought it in as manslaughter. Heard a noise upstairs where she was with her lover and thought it was a burglar. He was holding a heavy golf trophy in one hand he’d just won …’

      ‘He hit her with it?’

      ‘No, he threw it at her, but don’t worry, he’s never remarried, so he’s not going to make a habit of it,’ she assured me. ‘Then there’s Lillian in number four and Joy in five, both the wrong side of seventy. We all are, come to think of it,’ she said. ‘Still, I expect seventy is the new fifty, isn’t it?’

      ‘So they say,’ I agreed.

      ‘Lillian swindled thousands out of the benefits system and blew it on holidays, horses and men, and Joy used to stay in posh hotels, passing herself off as a toff, and then abscond without paying.’

      ‘Enterprising,’ I commented, riveted.

      ‘They’ve always been pally, though they fell out a few years back when Phil, in number six, was widowed, but he told them he wasn’t in the market for a new wife so it simmered down again. Ex-navy, he is, and must have been a firebrand when he was younger, because he killed someone in a fight. But there, we’ve all mellowed now and we often meet up of a Friday or Saturday evening for a drink and a game of dominoes in the Auld Christmas.’

      ‘The Auld Christmas?’

      ‘The pub in Little Mumming. With your young legs you can get to it up the footpath behind the factory in about fifteen minutes, but we oldies need to drive round by the road. Job can use the big estate car whenever he likes and Bradley, he’s got a car too. Phil’s more of a motorbike man and Lillian’s always glad to get her arms round a bloke, so when the weather’s fine she goes pillion.’

      ‘I won’t be going anywhere in the evening for a couple of months, because I’ve been tagged,’ I told her.

      ‘Well, it beats having to report to a probation officer every five minutes,’ she consoled me.

      Mercy came in and looked pleased to find us both there, chatting.

      ‘Oh good, you’re getting to know each other already.’

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ