Our new three-part short story As Time Goes By… part one

Hidden in the hills, Home Farm has witnessed many human dramas through the years

Alifetime ago, a man hid in terror of his life. Men in uniform were looking for him. He could hear their shouts in the distance. Peering through the leaves, he was calculating if he could make a dash for it when a dog barked angrily. Dismayed, he crouched back down. He could hear the handler’s voice raised in encouragement. A man he could deal with. A man and a dog trained to attack people was a different matter.

He tried to slide back into the undergrowth as the beam of a torch, bright as a searchlight, swept across the bushes. With a rattle that made his heart almost leap from his chest, three grey birds rocketed out of the branches above his head and vanished into the darkness.

He heard the dog-handler’s startled curse, then a snort of mingled exasperation and laughter. “Pigeons, you stupid dog. You’re not here to chase pigeons. Pay attention!” The man in hiding heard the dog’s eager panting close at hand. It gave a small whine, but the handler was getting impatient. “The birds have flown. And so has he, I’ll bet.”

The fugitive heard the scrape of a match and smelt cigarette smoke. He clamped his mouth shut and shielded his nose to suppress a cough. He guessed the man wouldn’t move away until he’d finished his smoke. The strain of not moving made his muscles ache unbearably. It felt like forever, but at last a small glowing point arched into the bushes beside him, the dog was called to heel and the footsteps crunched away.

He crept out from his hiding place. It was a good job he was familiar with the route he had to take, he thought, feeling his way along paths that looked very different in moonlight. He was glad when the shifting clouds allowed him to see better, although it would help the men who were searching for him. Just as he was beginning to fear he’d missed the turning that led to the farmhouse, he glimpsed the outline of its roof against the sky. No light escaped from the blacked-out windows. Then a tiny pinprick of gold showed for an instant, as clear as a beacon to him. She must be waiting, and getting worried by now. The urge to dash across the yard, to fling himself into the sanctuary behind the door, almost overcame his caution, but he hadn’t come this far to lose it at the very last moment.

The man stared into the darkness, making certain that no-one was lurking in the

The man sitting at the table twitched his gun in a beckoning movement

shadow of the outhouses or crouched by the empty cart. Nothing moved. He tiptoed to the door and turned the handle. The glow of a paraffin lamp showed beyond the curtain that hung behind it. Pulling the curtain aside, he stepped into the kitchen – then froze. Pressed close against the wall as though she would have liked to dissolve into it, the girl met his silent, accusing stare with a brief, vehement shake of her head. In front of her, the man sitting at the scrubbed wooden table twitched his gun in a beckoning movement.

“Come in. We have been expecting you. What took you so long?”

Seventy years later, the door of Home

Farm was flung open suddenly. Greta hastily pushed the letter she’d been reading under a pile of bills and junk mail and said: “Libby! Where did you spring from?”

“Sorry, Nanna!” Libby dropped her large rucksack on the floor with a thud. “I got away earlier than expected. My poor back’s killing me! Is the kettle on?” She swept across the kitchen to give Greta a bear hug which the older woman returned warmly before flicking the switch on the kettle. “All ready, love. Some apple strudel, or I could make you a sandwich?” “Apple strudel! I dream about your apple strudel, you know. Especially in Prof Bream’s lectures. He could make an invasion of man-eating slugs sound boring.”

Greta smiled and busied herself with warming the teapot. Libby’s eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. “What’s up, Nanna?” “Nothing, love. Why should anything be up?” “You tell me.” She took the plate from Greta’s hand, but set it down on the table and put an arm around her grandmother’s shoulder. “I know you, and there’s something bugging you.” “Nothing is the matter. I think

I might be starting a bit of a cold, that’s all.” She set a mug of tea down in front of Libby. “Now tell me all about your field trip. Did you find any good specimens?”

“Oh, yes. You’d have laughed if you’d seen me sliding down the hillside on my bum, holding a perfect Phareodus above my head.”

She grinned at her grandmother’s baffled look. “It’s a fossil fish, Nan, and I didn’t want the rock sample to get broken.”

Greta reflected that she would have been more worried about her granddaughter’s safety than a lump of old rock, but she smiled obligingly. Once started, it was hard to stop Libby talking about her passion for fossils and now she was in full flow. Describing how hard it had been to reach the prized specimen, she put her mug down a little too hard and splashed the pile of correspondence on the table. As she mopped up the spill, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Greta stooped quickly to pick it up, but Libby was before her. She stared at the writing for a moment, then held it out accusingly. “Nanna, please tell me that you’ve been to the police about this?”

A piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Greta stooped quickly to pick it up

In the next issue