Morningstar Manor

Mum's car was perfectly adequate. Charlie remembered her driving a series of smallish hatchbacks of the Golf variety, so this sleek Audi soft top was a nice surprise. It had taken them from the civilised environs of Begravia to the wilds of Gloucestershire in just a couple of hours and they were pulling into the farm yard in time for lunch.

"Potty," Nia announced and nodded at Charlie when he glanced at her in the mirror. As usual he had let Deacon deal with the motorways while he had taken over on the winding roads of the countryside. He didn't think they had suffered time wise but Nia probably did need a comfort stop.

He pulled up outside the farmhouse, dived out and investigated under the usual pail for the key.

"Here we go," he said. ( Read more... )

Jazz had found a package in her mailbox today: a sturdy, mailing envelope that was thick and vaguely squishy. It was held closed with liberal amounts of packing tape. The return address and customs stamp declared to be from Cleo.

Intrigued she carried it with her to the Mocha where she purchased her usual diabetes inducing cup of sugar she dared to call coffee and settled in one of the booths. It took a few moments, but she eventually tore her way into the envelope and found a book with a small note tucked inside the cover.

A gift to help you recover your sense of humour, along with a sense of self-preservation. XOXO Cleo.

Smirking, Jazz turned the book over and read the blurb on the back before she shifted to rest her back against the wall and stretched her long legs out along the bench seat. She held the book open with one hand (inadvertently flashing other patrons with the vaguely macabre cover) turning to the first page and picked up her coffee to sip with the other.

A gift it might have been, but Jazz also suspected it was a gentle dig at her current choice in men.

In a place like this people didn't take much notice of trucks carrying containers. They were in and out all the time and there was always someone available who, in return for a few dollars, could get the container off the truck with a crane and stack it somewhere nice and quiet where you could go through its contents at your leisure.

With live cargo you never knew what you'd get and in what kind of condition. Sometimes it was so bad that it took three or four showers for Jimmy to get the smell of the shit and vomit out of his hair. But this particular consignment made quite a nice change.

"First of many," Jimmy said to Micah as they unlocked the padlocks and opened the doors. A box cutter made short work of the first crate and Jimmy uncovered the pastel coloured packets. He grunted, tore open a packet and sniffed the contents.

"Phwoar," he said. "Smells like a tarts hanky. Still I guess that's how it's supposed to smell. Five crates to start with. Let's be having you!"

He backed the minivan up to the container and they began to transfer the goods and had almost finished when they spotted a familiar car.

"Hi, boss," Jimmy said when he was within earshot.

The air blistered slightly and turned blue for a moment, at what Sibyl said to the two building site orcs that passed her as she was coming home from her fourth day at the Ashford Museum, only slightly earlier than the last three nights.

One of them, hurt in his manliness by the object of his oh-so-witty comment biting back, made a half-hearted dart at her, but she stepped aside, flipped him the bird, and then strode through the door of the Manor into the lobby.

The men walked on, after an obscene gesture or two, and Sibyl stood there, quietly fuming, letting her anger roll off her body in almost palpable clouds of steam. Her temper sometimes got the better of her, even though she knew the best thing would be to just ignore such jerks.

When she had collected her wits far enough, she went on to have a chai latte in the Mocha. Definitely not an evening for coffee.