He was frowning a little, but there was none of that awful distant pity that people get when they stop thinking you’re as much of a person as they are. Well, he’d hinted at boarding schools and paternal disdain. Plenty of broken kids came from wealthy homes. I didn’t think he was one of them, but he could well have known a few.
“But not all?” he asked.
“They actually taught me, rather than putting me in a room with a worksheet until I calmed down. Turned out I liked learning. I could succeed there, and I’d pretty much given up on that.” I took a deep breath and delivered the difficult bit. It was odd. I’d given talks at conferences on this—been interviewed for a newspaper profile on the school once—but it was harder to say it face-to-face to a man I’d started to like. “Then I got the shit beaten out of me halfway through the summer holidays. Didn’t hide the fact I was gay quite well enough, mouthed off to the wrong kid, and got what they thought I had coming.”
“At school?” He sounded horrified.
“No. I went back to whatever home had space in the holidays. We tend to have three or four kids in that boat in every year group, so I know now I was already on Felix’s radar, but no one saw this coming. Christ, Section 28 was still in play, so no one even had the courage to ask me if I was okay.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran to the only place I thought was safe.”
“Your school?”
“Yeah. Turned up on Felix’s doorstep babbling nonsense. Turned out I had a minor concussion as well as a few cracked ribs. It was the nineties. All the cool kids wore combat boots. Turns out they do a lot of damage when—”
He reached out and grabbed my hands, closing his own around them. It was only then I realised I was shaking.
I stopped talking and stared at him. His eyes looked overly bright again. Well, he was a father, a good father. Was he imagining his Katie in a similar mess?
“And he adopted you?” he asked, his voice soft.
“More or less. We’ve never done the formal paperwork, but he pulled all the right strings. I spent my holidays at school after that.”
“A good man.”
“He’s a great man,” I told him. I would never be able to repay that debt.
“And that’s why you went back.”
“Pretty much.”
He looked away from me, gazing out over the river. There were kids playing on the edge of the cathedral green, shrieking and chasing each other along the low wall. A teenage couple, intent on one another, meandered along the cobbled lane. At last he said, “I still think it’s a bad place for a school.”
“I need to give it a chance, though. We can only cater for about a hundred kids, and there’s more than that who deserve… who need….”
“I get it. I don’t like this bullshit of the old man’s, though. He was a nasty old git, but I don’t see why he’d go out of his way to make you miserable. He didn’t know you. There’s something dodgy about the whole thing.”
I nodded. “I think part of the assessment I do of the place will be trying to find out what he was up to. I don’t want anything coming out of the woodwork later.”
“Aye.” He drained his glass. “I suggest we start by figuring out why he put us both in that damn album, then.”
“We?”
“He dragged my family into it too. You’ve got yourself a Watson, Mr Holmes.”
“I get to be Holmes?”
He grinned at me, using that slightly savage smirk that I was beginning to understand was amusement. “He was the gentleman dabbler, wasn’t he? Faffing around analysing shit. At least Watson had a proper job.”
“Teaching is a proper job,” I reminded him.
“What, even when you’re on a six-week holiday?”
“Fuck off,” I said mildly, and he laughed aloud.
“You about done? I’ve got a shoeing in an hour out in the arse-end of nowhere, and I need to change out of this fucking penguin suit.”
“The arse-end of nowhere where we live or a different one?” I pushed my empty plate to the middle of the table and rose to my feet.
“Bit further south. You good to drop me at the van?”
And with that my self-proclaimed Watson and I headed out of the pub and back to work.
Chapter Thirteen
WHEN I got back, Vainguard looked more benign than it ever had, just a time-battered old house slumbering in the shadow of the hills. I’d obviously got too caught up in the atmosphere and let my imagination run wild.
I’d been thinking about Martyn Armstrong on the drive back, trying to guess his motivations for this twisted game he had dragged Niall and me into. Was it coincidence that he had placed both news clippings in the same album as the record of his brother’s brief life?
We are more than our childhoods—I believe that with all my heart. We can overcome the scars of our past and, of course, be broken by traumatic events that hit us as adults. That said, it’s the wounds of our childhoods that shape us most profoundly. It had taken a lot of skilled and patient people to put me back together again. While I had faith that the Eilbeck homes of the 1940s had been well-meaning places, the knowledge and expertise needed to nurse a child through the sort of loss Armstrong had known simply hadn’t been available then. If his motives for bequeathing Vainguard to us had been anything less than benign, I needed to know before it blew up in our faces.
In my first decade of teaching, I’d enjoyed a mild flirtation with a bloke in our finance office. Jem had long since moved to work in the charity’s head office in London and was now happily married. We were still friends on Facebook, and I messaged him now to ask him to have a quiet look at the Armstrongs’ records.
He sent me back what little he could find on the database but warned me the full records were archived, and it would take him a while to go through the microfiches.
The sky was beginning to turn a darker shade of grey, so I headed back to the bungalow, shoved another heap of papers into a sack, and hurried back into the main hall with them. I’d set up a system in the big room for sorting through the heaps of junk.
As I lugged my sack into the barmkin, I noticed the chapel door was open.
I ignored it, but each time I walked past it, my uneasiness grew, the hairs rising on the back of my neck. At last, I gave in and went over to push it shut. It clunked into place with a dull, heavy thud, and I shuddered, suddenly cold.
“I’m going to buy you a new lock,” I said, trying to lighten my mood, and wished I hadn’t. Addressing it directly made it seem all the more malevolent. Turns out personifying creepy old houses is a bad idea.
The rain came down a few minutes later. I switched the lights on, put the radio on loud, and went back to sorting through the detritus of Martyn Armstrong’s life. I couldn’t help wondering who, if anyone, would do this for me. Would it be one of Kasia’s boys or a stranger appointed by a lawyer? Or would I have found someone by then, made some sort of makeshift family of my own?
I couldn’t imagine it.
At the end of the first sack, I made myself a cup of tea and switched to the computer to read the files Jem had pulled from the database for me. They didn’t offer much new information—birth and death dates and the homes the two boys had been in, with the dates of their time there. They had been lucky to stay together.
Then almost identical lines. For Martyn:
1941 Evac. Vainguard House, Blacklynefoot (Eilbeck Newcastle).
1944 Released for war work.
But for Francis:
1941 Evac. Vainguard House, Blacklynefoot (Eilbeck Newcastle)
1944 Deceased. Misadventure. Death in situ, see files BLF00032-BLF00041.
He’d died here, in the orphanage itself. I’m not sure why that surprised me. I’d been assuming he was another casualty of war, caught in a raid visiting family back in Newcastle. But he had died here, in this building.
The gloom of the rain suddenly felt less comforting. What had happened? Why were there nine files
related to it? I really hoped that Jem could get to the microfiches soon.
Had Francis fallen on a narrow stairway? Cut himself or hit his head? Or had it been one of those bitter tragedies that even the most meticulous health-and-safety planning couldn’t prevent—the otherwise healthy child struck down by sudden heart failure or aneurysm?
Dear God, why the hell had his brother wanted to come back here? What sane man would choose to live with those memories?
Assuming Martyn Armstrong had been sane.
“And now you’re just being needlessly melodramatic, Leon,” I said aloud.
The words echoed a bit, and I was reminded again how empty Vainguard was. Had little Francis Armstrong stood here once, run through these halls, slept in the rooms above me? Had his brother been here when he died, or had he already been carted off to serve his country? Had he witnessed it?
I permitted myself one last shiver before going back to work. It’s hard to spin Gothic notions about a man when you’re busy recycling his dirty old takeaway menus.
It was hard to stop my mind wandering. I kept thinking of those pictures of young Martyn and Francis. The clothes and hairstyles might have been old-fashioned, but their faces could have belonged to kids I taught. What had their three years here been like? How different had Vainguard been, packed with kids? Even in those stricter days, their energy would have spilled over, filling the halls with laughter and shouting, the thump of running footsteps and careless slamming of doors. Had they enjoyed the open land, these city kids dropped down in this remote outpost? Vainguard was bleak and lonely in the summer now, though part of that was the emptiness. What had winter been like when fuel and food were all rationed?
Someone knocked on the door.
I leapt out of my seat with a yelp.
Niall let out a snort of laughter and said quickly, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
I tried to regain some dignity. “Give a man some warning, please.”
“Who else were you expecting?”
“I was wondering what the place was like back when the Armstrongs were kids. I half thought you were little Francis, come back from the dead.”
“Francis?”
“The younger brother. He died here in 1944.”
The hint of amusement faded from his face. “Old Armstrong told us when we first came here that it was no place for a child. That’ll be why, I suppose.”
I said slowly, trying to puzzle it through, “But if he truly thought that, why would he leave it to us? He knew Felix wanted to open another school.”
“I doubt we’ll find any logic in the old bastard’s scheming.”
“That’s the thing, though. People always have reasons to justify their actions, even if it’s warped by something within them.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Did you look at the rest of his album?”
“There were family photos at the front. His parents. His brother. I didn’t get any further.”
“I only saw one page. Katie—” He swallowed hard. “Katie was at the back.”
“So were my parents.” I met his gaze. “You’re wondering what else is in there?”
He held out his hand. “Want to find out?”
I took it, letting him pull me out of my seat. “You got it with you?”
“It’s in the lodge. You about done for the day?”
I glanced at the piles of papers on the table. “Nothing that can’t wait for tomorrow.”
“In that case, grab your stuff. I left the kettle on.”
“Man after my own heart,” I joked and realised I hadn’t let go of his hand. I dropped it quickly and turned around to stuff the album, my tablet, and my phone into my bag. The windows were fogged except where thin lines of rain crept down to reveal the grey world beyond, and I regretted not going back to the guesthouse to change out of my suit and grab a waterproof jacket.
Niall must have seen where I was looking for he said dryly, “Reckon we’ve had our summer, then.”
“Good long one this year,” I replied. “Three days, was it? Four?”
He was watching me, not angrily, but intently, but his voice was still light as he said, “These heatwaves will be the death of us.”
We made our way out, turning the lights off behind us as we went. With every switch I flicked, the place seemed quieter and more cavernous. The emptiness of Vainguard always had a strange weight, as if someone were waiting for me to leave so they could take possession of the silent dorms and corridors. Again I imagined little Francis running through the rooms above, but this time I was sure he was alone in the dim rainlit evening, all his playfellows long gone to other lives or slower deaths.
The chapel door was open again.
“I need to buy a new lock for that thing,” I said, and swerved off course to pull it closed again.
“I can make you one,” Niall offered. “Cold iron should seal the place up nicely.”
“You’re as bad as young Mac and his horror stories,” I grumbled as a gust of wind sent rain spitting through the empty window frames to lash at my face. “I locked the bungalow up already. Shall we brave the elements?”
We headed out into the rain, which was coming down in thin streaks every gust of wind turned into buffeting splatters. We moved at a quick stride, but as we passed the gates, the sky crunched and rumbled, and the rain turned from steady and unpleasant to torrential.
Niall threw back his head, laughing into the storm. Then he grabbed my hand and ran, pulling me after him as the thunder roared and bellowed down the valley. Laughter bubbled out of me as well, as breathless and incredulous, I leapt over puddles with him, hurtling through the downpour in my best suit, hand in hand with a beautiful man who seemed to have lost his mind the moment the storm broke.
We made it back to the lodge in a mad scramble along the pitted lane. We were almost there when the first flash of lightning lit the sky from end to end. A few moments later, thunder ripped across the sky again. Niall pulled me across the drive to the wall around the lodge, and we scrambled over the rain-slick stones together, sliding clumsily, our hands meeting as we dragged each other closer to the whitewashed wall of the building. In three more steps, we were at the side door, and he tugged me into the dim, cluttered porch, both of us breathless and laughing.
The door slammed, separating us from the storm. I gasped out, “Why the fuck are you laughing, you nutter?”
“You should always laugh at a storm!” he shouted back, still grinning.
Lightning flashed again, lighting up the inside of the cottage, and thunder followed it almost immediately, making me jump.
Niall’s hands landed on my shoulders, steadying me. He grimaced and, as the thunder faded, half shouted, “You’re soaked through!”
“Some madman made me run through the rain in a suit!” I retorted, but I was still giddy from the storm, and the words came out tangled with laughter.
“Get that wet thing off!” He slid his hands under my suit jacket, pushing it off my shoulders.
And the moment his hands pressed against the thin clinging cotton of my shirt, I caught fire.
I threw my head back, gasping, and met his gaze. His eyes were as wide as mine felt, his lips parted and his chest heaving.
Then, in the same heartbeat, we both lunged forward, our mouths meeting in a clumsy, desperate kiss.
Chapter Fourteen
AT SOME point, my jacket slipped off my shoulders to drop to the floor behind us.
The storm must have faded too, rolling away down the valley.
I didn’t notice either—only the hot, hungry press of Niall’s mouth on mine, the strength of his shoulders under my clawing hands as I pulled myself up to meet him kiss for kiss, gasp for gasp, the strength of his arms pulling me tight against his chest, demanding a closeness I was desperate to give.
It was clumsy—crude, even. He bit my lip. I pulled his hair. He locked his big hand on my arse and tried to lift me even as I was doing my best to climb him, and we went staggering,
knocking over a pile of something—brooms, maybe—that clattered down around us. He kicked them aside with a snarl of frustration and dove in again.
Lack of breath stopped us in the end, and we pulled back to cling to each other, our chests heaving. My heart was pounding, my whole body alert and alive, as if I’d won a race or hit a perfect six.
“That was….” Niall started, then trailed off.
“Yeah,” I murmured before pulling myself out of it a little. “No. Um, well, shit—I have no idea what that was. Fuck.”
He took another quick breath at that but said, “Unexpected. That was unexpected.”
“Okay,” I said, unable to look away from him—his flushed cheeks, his wide eyes, his wet mouth. “Yeah, I’ll give you unexpected.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been kissed like that. Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d ever been kissed like that. I didn’t usually get an adrenaline kick off a kiss, after all.
I wanted to kiss him again—wanted him to pick me up and carry me to bed and fucking ravish me.
Instead we stood there and stared at each other like a couple of teenage fools. Was he as shell-shocked as I was?
Slowly, reality came back into focus. The thunder had faded to an occasional distant rumble, but the rain was still lashing down. My wet clothes were cold now, clinging to my skin, and I was beginning to shiver. My shoes were full of water.
Niall was still looking at me as if he didn’t know what to do with me.
Someone had to break the silence, so I cleared my throat and said awkwardly, “So about that cup of tea?”
He blinked twice before letting out a crack of incredulous laughter. “Yeah, okay. Tea. Yes.”
I made a wild grab at the tatters of normality. “I wouldn’t say no to a towel as well, if that’s okay.”
He frowned and grabbed my wrist, pulling me into the sitting room. I could feel water squelching out of my shoes with every step.
“I can find you a change of clothes. Bathroom’s upstairs on the left. Towels are in the airing cupboard opposite.”
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