Life Less Lived Ch. 06

Around the back of the house they could see the vista of fields stretching away up the rising hill, to where there were thick stands of snow-topped trees. In the fields, pigs and sheep were enjoying the brief sunshine before the twilight and no doubt more frost took hold and drove them back to cover.

What an idyllic place to spend one's time on this earth, thought Lauren, it was both invigorating and relaxing at the same time.

'Yes, I could live here,' she thought, 'I could care for this landscape, in the way the Medcalfs of this world have been privileged to do, probably for centuries. Only I am really here as an accessory to criminal intent.'

"Right," Andy said, "what do we do to burst this bugger's bubble then?"

"We could have a bonfire and hog-roast one of those piggies." Jimbo suggested, having pulled up the corner of a snow covered tarpaulin, revealing a large stack of sawn timber.

"Mmm, looks like he's planning some renovations, or extending the place, as if it ain't big enough already, the bloody toffs," sneered Andy.

"This'll be a Grade II listed building, possibly Grade I if this end is as mediaeval as it looks," Lauren suggested, "you can't actually see the origins from the front, because of the Georgian brick façade, probably dating from the early 1800s. At the back here, though, those cruck timbers look 12th or 13th century on this side and over there in the 'newer' part of the building, well, that looks like Tudor brick. This new timber under the tarpaulin is definitely oak, they look like new floorboards."

"'Ow come you know so much about all this stuff, then, little Miss Know-it-all?" Andy cocked a sneering eye at Lauren.

"I used to do volunteering work in an owl sanctuary and we would visit lots of old barns, some of them were built like this. We'd set up nesting sites, and the old guy who installed the boxes understood all this history and how the ventilation holes of old barns were blocked up denying the owls' entry and then turned them into houses. They built barns exactly the same way as they built houses in the Middle Ages."

"Well, if this 'ere ferkin' timber went up in smoke, that would give old meddlin' Medders, summink ta fink about, uver than the mo'erway!" Andy spat his words out, full of venom, losing any attempt at vocabulary.

"Yeah!" chorused Timbo and Jimbo, with Mark joining them. Just like sheep, Lauren thought.

Both Mark and Lauren were thinking different thoughts standing there behind the Medcalf residence. Mark was re-evaluating how smart he thought Lauren was, and Lauren was thinking how stupid this lot were and wondering how she could possibly stop them on her own.

To be continued