The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

I don’t know, Janey – at least you were always around when Poppy needed you, which was more than Mags or Lou managed. And she had ponies and birthday parties, and you let us camp in the paddock and have midnight feasts and things like that, a bit like the children in an Enid Blyton novel.’

      She smiled. ‘Thanks, Chloe, I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

      ‘I suppose you don’t want to tell me where Mum has got to, do you?’ I asked hopefully, thinking I would try my luck while she seemed to be in an unusually forthcoming mood.

      But a shutter seemed to come down. ‘Me? Why should you think I would know?’

      ‘Because I’m sure Mags does and when one of you knows something, you all know it. Only she won’t say either, although I suspect it’s Goa.’

      She neither confirmed nor denied this, simply changed the subject back. ‘Do you know what the cards meant about Poppy?’

      ‘I’m starting to have an inkling, but we’ll have to wait and see if I’m right.’

      Now I could see that Poppy and Felix were made for each other, I only wondered why I hadn’t spotted it before. The only problem was making the two of them look at each other with fresh eyes…

      I’d have to work on it.

      That evening Chas Wilde phoned up again, this time to say he would be in the north soon and would like to pop in for a quick visit.

      ‘It’s ages since I’ve seen you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘How are you settling into your new home?’

      ‘Oh, I love it,’ I said abstractedly, then on a sudden impulse took the plunge and added, ‘and I’m glad you rang, because there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

      ‘That sounds ominous!’ he replied cautiously.

      ‘No, not really, though it is difficult. You see, when I was packing up to move, I found some of Mum’s old letters.’

      He sighed. ‘I think I can guess what you want to talk about, then, and it’s long overdue, after all. You want to know how your mother and I…came together?’

      ‘Not exactly. Knowing Mum, I can imagine. I also know she got pregnant with me on purpose, as a sort of insurance policy after Wilde’s Women disbanded, because she told me so.’

      ‘She would. But I did a wrong thing in a weak moment and I had to pay for it, though I never grudged one penny I gave her to support you, Chloe,’ he said sincerely.

      ‘I know that,’ I answered, because Chas is a kind, decent man, weak moment or not. ‘But the thing is, I’ve discovered that she also told another man that he was my father too, so you might have spent eighteen years paying out for a child that wasn’t your own!’

      In the long silence that followed I could hear my heart thumping. ‘Chas? Are you still there?’

      ‘Yes, I’m here. Look, Chloe, the thought that you might not be mine had crossed my mind from time to time – you look nothing like me, for a start. But as I said, I made a mistake and so it was right that I should pay for it. Anyway, I’ve grown fond of you – you feel like my daughter.’

      ‘And I’m fond of you too – which makes it all the harder not knowing for sure what the truth is!’

      ‘Well, we could find out with a DNA test, if it matters to you?’ he suggested. ‘I could organise that.’

      ‘Would you? It would be something to know one way or another. And if you aren’t, then I’ll have to assume it’s this other man, though I suppose she could have been lying to him too!’

      ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we? And we’ll hope the test is positive. I’ll see about it and I expect you’ll have to send a swab or a hair sample or something off to a lab in the post. I’ll let you know.’

      ‘Thank you, Chas, and for being so understanding too. I thought you might be really angry.’

      ‘With Lou, perhaps, but never with you, Chloe,’ he said kindly.

      I so hoped he was my father!

      I was feeling a bit edgy after that, so later, when Jake’s phone suddenly played a snatch of Mortal Ruin’s ‘Darker Past Midnight’ I immediately insisted he change the ringtone to something else. I wasn’t terribly tactful about it either, so he was miffed and we had a bit of an argument. Then he slammed off up to bed in a sulk.

      I suppose it did seem totally unreasonable. It would have been so much easier if I could have told him why.

       Chapter Sixteen: Dead as My Love

      In the morning I apologised to Jake.

      ‘That’s OK. I suppose because you hear it everywhere, it just got on your nerves,’ he said handsomely. ‘I’ve changed it to something else now.’

      ‘Thanks, Jake. That song just seems to be haunting me. It was even playing on the phone when I was put on hold the other day,’ I explained. ‘By the way, Chas is calling in sometime before too long – he rang last night.’

      Jake knew the situation (or what we thought was the situation!) so he evinced no surprise at this, and went off in Grumps’ car to collect Kat. They planned to spend the morning listening to some friends rehearsing their band. If the DNA test proved Chas wasn’t my father, it would be time enough to tell him then…

      When I went to Grumps’ study to collect the latest chapter or two of Satan’s Child, which had recently galloped off in an unexpected direction just when I had thought it was about to come to an end, he was removing the wrapping from a rectangular cardboard box.

      ‘Morning, Grumps,’ I said, putting down his cup of tea with the two biscuits balanced on the saucer – after a brief flirtation with Garibaldis we were back to the Jammie Dodgers again, I saw. ‘Have you been buying things at auction, or has someone sent you a present?’

      ‘Neither. Nor do I get the feeling that this contains anything good.’ He lifted the lid, took a brief look inside, and then slammed it down again as though something evil might escape.

      He looked rather pale. ‘As I thought!’

      ‘What’s the matter, Grumps? Is it nasty?’

      ‘A warning – unwelcome, if not entirely unexpected. Mann-Drake has evidently arrived in the village, for Zillah found this on the doorstep addressed to me early this morning.’ He looked up at me seriously. ‘Until I have taken steps to protect us all, should he contrive to introduce himself to you, have nothing to do with him. Certainly do not invite him across your threshold – and warn Jake. I will speak to Zillah myself.’

      ‘He might not tell me his name,’ I pointed out, starting to feel as if I had suddenly stepped straight into the world of one of Grumps’ novels and wondering if he himself could tell the difference between reality and imagination. ‘What does he look like?’

      ‘Perfectly ordinary and harmless, though he has a voice that could charm the birds off the trees. In recent pictures from the internet he looks not much different from the last time I saw him, though he was dressed up in some ridiculous outfit, like a conjuror.’

      ‘Yes, Jake showed me those – eerily lit from below, and with a sort of cowl shadowing his face!’ I agreed, thinking that Grumps himself always seemed entirely unaware of his own eccentricities of dress, though of course he never looked ridiculous, just odd.

      He gestured to the box. ‘He would have used the powerful conjunction of the ley lines at the Old Smithy for dark purposes, and this shows me the depth of enmity he feels towards me, because I managed to purchase the Old Smithy while he was incapacitated