An extract from The Charm, Chapter One

George unloaded the mower from the trailer that he towed from the rear of his battered old Land Rover and wheeled it down the side passageway, through the gate and into the garden. The grass was lush and long and green, but within ten minutes it resembled a miniature football pitch, resplendent in alternating pale and dark green stripes. He fetched his trowel and started turning over the earth in the borders, fishing out weeds and stray stones as he worked.

‘What the devil is that?’ he muttered as he forked over a clod of earth, revealing a pink, waxy, coin-shaped object from the soil.

He picked it up, wiped it on his trousers and studied it closely.

‘God only knows what that is,’ he said to himself, tossing the charm into the garden refuse sack, along with a pile of rotten leaves, grass cuttings and wilted flowers from a spring now past.

For a fleeting moment, a lonesome cloud drifted in front of the sun and the garden fell into shade. A gentle breeze whispered through the newly-emerged leaves of the ancient rowan trees that stood guard, like soldiers, around the perimeter of the garden. And precisely one mile away – across the fields of flourishing wheat, peas and barley – a certain Joseph Edward Hardy breathed in a long, deep lungful of sweet, fresh air. It felt good to be alive.