Lymestoppers: A Lyme Regis Women’s Swimming Club Novella by Rachel McLean, book 0.5 in the Jurassic Coast Mysteries series - Chapter 1

It was a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Bournemouth to Lyme Regis. Usually more than enough time for Annie Abbott to convince either of her girls of pretty much anything.

Annie had raised Tina and Naomi to be strong and independent women. But there was a difference between strong and independent, and just bloody pig-headed.

The current disagreement, and the whole reason Annie was driving Tina back with her to Lyme Regis, was Tina’s living situation. And her physical condition: more than eight months pregnant and one unexpected pothole away from giving birth to Annie’s third grandchild.

“I don’t see why you can’t move in with me until the birth,” said Annie, for the tenth time since they’d left Bournemouth.

“Because Naomi has offered to put me up, Mum,” replied Tina. Again.

Annie indicated at the roundabout to come off the A35 and down the Charmouth Road into town.

The fact that Tina had to come to Lyme Regis in the first place was down to her husband Mike’s DIY skills, or rather, his lack of them. Mike had insisted that putting up new shelves in little Louis’s bedroom would be a piece of cake. An over-baked piece of cake with a soggy bottom, as it turned out.

Tina had argued that he couldn’t have known about the ancient and crumbling plaster under that wallpaper. According to her, it wasn’t Mike’s fault the plaster had not only cascaded off the wall in Louis’s room, but had caused a similar disaster in his parents’ room on the other side.

Annie reckoned Mike Legg should stick to police work and leave the DIY to professionals.

Either way, Tina and two-year-old Louis had been forced to decamp to Lyme while the house was being fixed. Tina had started her maternity leave from Dorset Police and could move away from the mess Mike had made. Mike, on the other hand, would be stuck fixing things up while continuing with whatever it was he did in the Major Crimes Investigation Team.

He had two or three weeks to get the house in order before Tina gave birth – if the baby decided to be accommodating.

In the back, little Louis sang a wordless tune to himself.

“All I’m saying,” said Annie, “is that we’re five minutes from my house. Your room is ready and all made up.”

Tina laughed. “My old room? I think there’s still some JLS and One Direction posters on the wall.”

“Don’t forget David Tennant.”

“God, yes.” Tina had gone through a short but intense Dr Who phase at fifteen. “That’s the bedroom of teenage Tina. Not mum-of-almost-two Tina.”

“Comforting memories of home. Just what you need.”

Tina shook her head. “What I need, Mum, is space.”

Annie knew what that meant. Space away from Annie. She pursed her lips; it wouldn’t help to show how much that hurt.

“I like to be a hands-on granny,” she said, instead. Surely Tina couldn’t take offence at that.

“Ha!”

“What’s ‘ha!’? Mike’s mum is right there in Bournemouth and she’s never volunteered for babysitting or anything. Your dad would’ve wanted us to be involved with the kids.”

“You can’t bring Dad in to help win your arguments.”

“The departed are allowed to have opinions.”

Tina raised an eyebrow. “And I can hear him telling me I can do whatever I like. He’s the one who supported me joining the police when you were worried I’d be beaten up by, and I quote, ‘the worst kind of ruffians’.”

“I think I said ‘yobs and hooligans’.”

“You’re making my point for me.”

The turning for Anning Road and Annie’s three-bedroomed ex-council house was coming up.

“Last chance,” she said, hand hovering over the indicator.

“Naomi’s is fine,” replied Tina.

Annie sighed and drove on. “I wouldn’t have been in your hair.”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I’ve got a busy life of my own. Down at the beach first thing swimming with the ladies. I’d be out of your way all morning.”

“And that’s great. It’s good to be active at your time of life.”

“Time of life? How old d’you think I am?”

“Everyone is at a certain time in their life.”

You’re not getting away with that. “But people only say it about old people. Fifty-eight is not old.”

She took the steep hill to the seafront and looped round Church Street, with its shops on one side and the Lyme Regis Museum and pubs on the other. As they approached Cobb Gate, late afternoon sun bathed the sea beyond in gold.

A part of Annie knew there was no changing Tina’s mind. Her daughter had inherited her own stubbornness.

Time to break out the big guns.

“It’s not safe at Naomi’s,” she said.

“What?” Tina sounded exasperated.

Annie dropped a gear as they drove up Pound Street. Early summer tourists thronged the narrow pavements on either side.

“It’s not safe. There’s been people seen about.”

“People? What kind of people?”

“Unsavoury sorts. Wrong ’uns.”

Tina snorted out a laugh. “Ruffians?”

“It was yobs and hooligans, you cheeky monkey. And, maybe, I don’t know. The house next door is a drug den.”

Another snort. “The house next door to Naomi’s is a drug den?”

“That’s what they say.”

“I don’t know who you think says that, Mum. Naomi’s Dougie is a police officer. I’m a police officer. What makes you think, first up, that Naomi wouldn’t know about it, and secondly, that any drug dealer, even a stupid one, would set up their ‘den’ next door to a copper’s house?”

Annie felt a muscle twitch in her cheek. “It was Naomi who told me.”

“Bu—” Tina bit down on the swear word and looked back at Louis in his car seat. “Balderdash,” she said with a smirk.

“You can ask her yourself, since that’s where we’re going.”

They were now climbing the steep slope back up along the Sidmouth Road. Trees lined the road on both sides, with hardy palm trees in some front gardens, thriving in the town’s pleasant microclimate.

Naomi, Dougie and their daughter, Poppy, lived in a small end-of-terrace house in a cul-de-sac just off Sidmouth Road. It was sufficiently out of town to feel like it was just on the edge of the countryside. The five or six houses had neatly ordered lawns, frequently washed cars and reeked of suburban peace and quiet. The kind of place people might move to when they retired.

Naomi and Dougie Anderson hadn’t moved here in search of peace and quiet, but because it was all they could afford in Lyme Regis. And even then, they’d mortgaged themselves to the hilt to pay for the place.

Even Annie thought it unlikely that their neighbour was a drug dealer. But Naomi had given her the facts and there wasn’t room for any other conclusion.

Annie parked on the driveway and went to get Louis out of his car seat. He reached up to her with pink, sticky hands. Tina, cradling her bump as she pushed herself out of the passenger seat, walked up the drive to Naomi’s house.

Naomi stood in the doorway. Annie’s older daughter had lighter skin and hair than her sister, and as far as Annie reckoned, was more laid-back. She was a primary school teacher, so she probably needed plenty of calm and patience.

“So what’s this about you having a drug den next door?” said Tina.

Naomi raised an eyebrow. “Is that how people are greeting each other over your way these days?”

A little girl appeared in the doorway, clutching Naomi’s leg as she squeezed past.

“Nanny!” Poppy squealed.

“Poppy!” Annie squealed back, grinning.

Poppy dashed forward and tried to leap up to take hold of Louis. Louis giggled and wriggled to be let down.