‘You are going to keep the horses, aren’t you?’
‘Of course! They’re the reason we bought the farm.’
‘Awesome. Can I still help? Anna said you only wanted me for two weeks but I love the horses and I’m such a hard worker.’
The desperate expression on her face was gut-wrenching. I liked her and she seemed knowledgeable and competent, but I didn’t want to make any major decisions this early on.
‘I agreed to the handover because Anna hadn’t provided me with all the information she promised and I was hoping you’d be able to fill in the blanks, but I have been really impressed with you this morning. I know it’s a big ask, but can you give us a few days to settle in and process everything and I’ll come back to you on that?’
‘Okay.’ Willow nodded vigorously. ‘So, there’s a reason Anna didn’t give you any info – she doesn’t know it. She liked the goats but she wasn’t interested in the horses.’
‘What about Doug? You said he was a farmer.’
‘Was. Shelley said he managed one month then decided that lottery millionaires don’t work. He got a manager to run the farm and spent every day fishing or playing golf.’
‘Oh! Anna never told me that.’
Willow started poo-picking and I followed suit with an increasing feeling of unease that Anna had painted a verydifferent picture of the farm to the one I was hearing from Willow.
‘What happened to the manager?’ I asked.
‘He walked out. There used to be other animals – sheep and pigs – and the farm could have done well but Doug refused to invest any money to make it self-sustaining. There wasn’t enough money coming in from visitors either cos there weren’t enough of them. Shelley had loads of brilliant ideas but she needed help and they wouldn’t let her have any staff so she did what she could but it wasn’t enough.’
‘When did she leave?’
‘Around Christmas. Her fiancé, Adam, was worried about the hours she was working and thought her parents were taking advantage. She begged them to let her take on some help so she could turn the business around and that’s when…’
My stomach lurched as she hung her head and focused on her work.
‘You can’t leave it there, Willow,’ I said, gently. ‘What happened next?’
‘They admitted the money had run out and they were going to have to sell the farm before they went into administration.’
This was bad. As I continued to help Willow to clear the field, my heart pounded as I replayed in my head what she’d revealed and compared it to what Anna had said when she showed Mam and me around. Although she hadn’t said that much, had she? Claiming she was cold, she’d returned to the farmhouse and we’d wandered round the farm on our own.
‘Have I said too much?’ Willow asked after she’d tipped out the second pile of manure. ‘Mam’s always saying I’m too honest for my own good.’
‘I like people to be honest,’ I said. ‘Keep being you. But as you’ve probably sussed from my silence, it’s not exactly what I expected. Can I ask for a bit more of that honesty?’
‘Sure.’
‘How many visitors come here each week?’
Willow’s cheeks reddened again. ‘Not many. Sometimes none.’
A wave of panic crashed over me and I had to grab onto a nearby pillar to steady myself.
‘None? You can’t be serious.’
‘Without Shelley here, there was nobody to talk to visitors about the horses. And after Anna stopped baking, there was no café either and?—’
‘What? Wait! The café closed too? When?’
‘She never reopened after winter. Are you okay? You don’t look so good.’
I didn’t feel it. I sank down the pillar and dipped my head between my legs. They’d made it all up. The visitor numbers, the turnover, the projected figures for the summer were all fake. What had I done?
‘Grace? Mrs Coates? Are you okay? Do you want some water?’
