Serial part 4
Someone knew the story behind Clare’s lucky talisman – but would they reveal its secrets?
HAMPSHIRE, 2002
After Peter had phoned Clare to tell her about the young man known as Karel who had painted pebbles for local children in the 1940s, she could think of little else.
Next morning, she hurried from her rented cottage into central Tollington, wondering where to start tracing an address for Nancy Woodhall.
Deep down, she couldn’t help but acknowledge that Peter was right about the need to tread carefully, yet she was so tantalisingly close to solving the mysterious origins of her pebble.
Passing a newsagent’s, she glanced idly at handwritten cards placed in the window, then did a double take. Among the offers of piano lessons and clean rooms for rent was a jaggedly written card declaring, Bags of sawdust for pet cages, reasonably priced, apply Woodhall farm. Delivery on request.
Beneath was a phone number.
This could be her reason for visiting the farm where Nancy Woodhall lived! What was it Peter had said? She lived there with a husband and two adult sons – that was it.
Clare hurried into the newsagent’s, playing up her role as an out-of-towner.
She was so close to solving the mystery
‘That card in the window from the Woodhalls?’ she said casually. ‘Offering bags of sawdust… Do you have their address? I’d prefer to go and collect the stuff myself.’
She held her breath in case the answer was, ‘None of my business’ or ‘No idea’.
But the newsagent shrugged, ‘You can’t miss the place, it’s just past Buckler’s Folly. You’ll see a red barn roof and then the house, a higgledy place with an outhouse edging its yard.’
‘Thanks!’ Clare said fervently and hurried on to the town hall, ostensibly to continue work on her mural. But her mind was made up – she would visit the Woodhall farm in the hope of encountering
