“I should have been there,” said Mr Darlington, shaking his head. “I should have done more—”
“We all should have,” said Mary, putting her arm around him while looking at the photo of Max and Luke. “But none of us knew the whole story. Not until now.”
Everyone fell silent. Adrian knew only too well about parents failing their children.
“From what I’ve heard, from people in the area who remember him,” said Lenny, talking directly to Mr Darlington. “Luke seemed to be at his happiest here in this house. I only wish I’d known him. I bet we’d have been good friends.”
At this Mr Darlington smiled sadly but appeared to relax. At the same moment, Adrian heard the newly fitted front doorbell ring. As he went to see who had arrived, he overheard Mr Darlington’s words.
“I’m sure you would have been. And I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done here. Not sure if people might think it morbid to see photographs of my dead son on the walls, but for me, it’s an absolute joy.”
When Adrian opened the front door Freya stood there, a cloth shopping bag drooping from her arm, her hair newly styled, looking fresh-faced and happy. Before Adrian had a chance to say anything, she hugged him tightly around the waist, which surprised a breath out of him.
“I’m so glad you answered the door, Adrian. While I’ve got you here, I owe you an explanation. Pippa and her husband gave me a lift. They’re just parking up the car right now, so I’ll be quick,” she said before letting the embrace go. “I’m sure Mary will have told you by now, but just before I saw you at the supermarket, she’d called me up and told me her concerns. I told her not to worry, that you two were perfectly capable of looking after each other. But as soon as you told me Leonard was alone, well, I felt responsible, so headed over here. I didn’t want to panic you, so I didn’t say anything. Matthew has always been all bark and no bite. Then on my way to your place, I saw his motorcycle turn into the side road for the Hughes farm. Anyway, I hung back a while and then followed. I know the fields around the Hughes place like the rooms in my home. And there was his motorcycle, parked up next to the turnstile to the back path we used to get to Bryn Bach. I got Howie’s junior cricket bat from the back of my car and followed the path to the back of the house. And then, when I saw Matthew leading Leonard in my direction, I knew exactly where he was taking him, so I got there first and hid in a bush. But admittedly, when I overheard Matthew claiming responsibility for my father’s death and the vile things he said about him, well, I just saw red. I’m so sorry you had to see that and if I scared you or Leonard.”
“Don’t apologise, Freya. Honestly, we were glad to have you there. You seem a lot more cheerful today.”
As Adrian stood there, Pippa appeared along the driveway, arm in arm with a man he assumed to be her husband. She waved happily at Adrian and Freya.
“I finally agreed to visit Howie in Jakarta. Life’s too short, don’t you think? I also baked you a loaf of my favourite sourdough bread, fresh this morning. And you may not use this today, but I make my own apricot jam and marmalade. So I’ve brought jars of both.”
“You’re a woman of many talents. Let’s go and meet the others.”
* * * *
Adrian stood between the kitchen and the terrace, leaning against the sliding door, watching the revelry of a house-warming party in full swing. Around the verdant lawn, each of the trestle tables had been decorated with a simple white tablecloth and a small posy of colourful flowers picked from the garden. Guests sat around chatting with one another, people who either knew Lenny or Adrian or both, and now got along like old friends. How on earth Lenny had managed to drum up almost fifty people had been nothing short of a miracle, but not only was the driveway currently packed with cars, many had parked along the lane leading to Bryn Bach.
Luckily PC Morgan had made an appearance in the morning and given them the okay to park along one side, as long as they left space for others to enter and exit.
Finally meeting Lenny’s employees had been a hoot, hearing stories about his work life, little idiosyncrasies about the man. Everything was said light-heartedly, the people who worked for Lenny clearly adoring him. Lenny’s cousin Eric and his wife had brought Lenny’s mother and his Aunt Marcie from Drayton. They had also given Adrian’s mother a ride and, by some miracle, had all arrived not only intact but the best of friends.
Right now, the serving staff negotiated the back garden with fresh platters of food, while artfully dodging Kieran and Kennedy’s two kids and their ball of ginger lightning that passed for a dog, snapping at their heels. Megan and her husband Dave had been invited as guests and enjoyed the fun, although Megan couldn’t stop herself from helping out in the kitchen now and then, or pointing out things that needed to be done—much to the annoyance of her daughter.
Had the house ever known such merriment?
Adrian hoped so. If not, it would have been a tragedy, because Adrian could not help smiling and chuckling just hearing the walls echo with lively chatter and laughter, the squeals of children giggling coming from the garden, the occasional jangle of a wind chime on the balcony and the yapping of the pooch. Mid-June and they couldn’t have picked a more glorious day, sunshine streaming in through the open patio doors, the smell of gardenias and jasmine from the balcony boxes wrestling with the aroma of sausage rolls and quiches baking in the oven.
If a house could breathe a sigh of contentment, he thought as he looked on, then that’s precisely what Bryn Bach would be doing right now.
But at one point, two weeks before, everything had hung in the balance.
Thank goodness for PC Morgan’s experience and quick thinking, because within half an hour Adrian had been temporarily patched up by one of the emergency services professionals and carried off to a waiting ambulance with an ashen-faced Lenny glued to his side. Another hour later—and with pain medication dulling his senses—Adrian had been wheeled into the accident and emergency ward of a nearby public hospital.
Fortunately he had been standing some way off when Darlington fired the shot, and the shell had hit the left side of his chest, knocking him over. As he’d fallen, he’d hit his head on an errant log, knocking him unconscious. Despite losing blood and having pellets lodged in his shoulder, he had not been seriously injured. More concerned about him having a concussion, the doctors had kept him in a hospital bed for two nights for observation.
Matthew Darlington had landed in chest-high water but being unconscious had almost drowned—which under the circumstances might have been poetic justice. In fact, the chill water had brought him back to consciousness, before the police had descended into the hole and hauled him out. Apart from a mild concussion—no fracture or more severe injury—he had been kept in hospital for a couple of days. Right now he was being held in custody on charges of carrying an unlicensed firearm, threatening behaviour, threat to kill and a whole list of other misdemeanours, including a potential charge of manslaughter.
Lenny’s new state-of-the-art security system did indeed record both image and sound, much to everyone’s relief.
Both police constables wrote up Freya’s actions officially as self-defence, and privately as an act of bravery. And Adrian and Lenny concurred while also vowing never to get on her wrong side.
“What’s the average sentence for manslaughter?” Lenny asked PC Morgan. Although both had been on duty, he and PC Lewis had popped along that morning for a quick glass of orange juice and to wish them well.
“Depends on the severity of the offence. In Darlington’s case with Max Williams, nothing was premeditated, everything done in the heat of the moment, so it’s really hard to say. Sometimes a judge will take a more lenient approach to first offenders, but your cousin has a string of previous minor misdemeanours. Already having a record together with subsequently threatening your life and admitting to trying to torch your premises isn’t exactly going to work in his favour. At a guess, I reckon he’s looking at three to five years, maybe more.”
>
“And what about Lenny’s dear Auntie Malevolent?” asked Adrian, making Lenny chuckle.
“Not sure what will happen there, son,” said MC Morgan. “She’s bound to get called to testify, but a lot will depend on the son’s confession. They could charge her with failure to act on her son’s crime on the grounds of omission. But I doubt that will stick.”
Adrian knew Lenny didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, she had already built a prison around herself. They had chatted a little more about the day in question, with PC Morgan telling them some of the things they didn’t know, like how Freya had punctured both tyres on Matthew’s motorcycle before coming to find Leonard, and how incredibly clear the security footage—both audio and video—in the house had been.
“I would normally ask people throwing a party to keep an eye on the noise,” said PC Morgan as they had both readied to leave. “But the beauty of this location is there’s nobody to hear you for miles around.”
“Not always a good thing,” said Lenny, raising an eyebrow.
“Point taken, son. Luckily for you, on that particular day we were already on the pathway when we heard Darlington mouthing off. Otherwise we’d have carried on down to the Hughes farm.”
“Freya knew,” said Lenny. “Not sure how things might have turned out if you hadn’t been there as a distraction. Matthew thought he was being clever, taking me to the secret spot. But apparently they all knew about the sinkhole.”
“Is she coming?” asked PC Morgan.
“She said she would. I’m glad, because I want her to see the house.”
“I must say,” said PC Lewis, at the front door, “you’ve done amazing work on the place since we were last here. Even the little touches, like the pictures and the new nameplate above the front door.”
* * * *
Throughout the afternoon, as people came into the house and wandered around, nosing around the bedrooms and bathrooms, Adrian felt pride that he had been part of the team to put the house back together again. A couple of times he even acted as a tour guide, showing the nice, minimalist bedrooms with the antique wardrobes and chest of drawers. He enjoyed pointing out the lack of radiators because of the underfloor heating Lenny had agreed to install and the huge family bathroom with a free-standing cast-iron tub and separate shower stall, all done with modern fixtures and fittings.
Megan Llewellyn even sidled up to Adrian during the afternoon to ask if Lenny might consider selling. Adrian already knew the answer without having to consult Lenny. The house would be staying in the Day family for now.
While most of the guests were polite to one another, Lenny’s mother was, perhaps not unexpectedly, the exception to the rule.
“Mum. This is Mary, your niece. Mary, this is my mother.”
“Lovely to meet you, Aunt Geraldine. My own mother won’t be coming,” said Mary, shaking Mrs Day’s hand.
“I should hope she wasn’t invited,” said Mrs Day.
“Mum,” said Lenny, with a gentle reprimand.
“What, Leonard?” said Mrs Day, more than a little hostile. “The woman deserves to be locked up and the key thrown away. Trying to get my son killed. If your cousin Matthew were here with her right now, I’d make them both a nice pot of tea with some of your father’s more exotic mushrooms. They’d never know what hit them.”
“I’m sorry, Mary,” Lenny began.
“Please don’t be. I would happily help you pour the brew into their cups, Aunt Geraldine,” said Mary.
After that, the two of them chatted like old friends.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Lenny to Adrian, looking mortified as they moved away. “Apparently homicidal tendencies run in the family. Are you sure you want to associate with me, Mr Lamperton?”
Adrian pulled him around and kissed him full on the lips.
“I’ll take my chances.”
* * * *
At one point later in the afternoon, Lenny managed to steal Mary, Freya and Pippa away. He sat them down in the front of the room on the leather settees, talking about the oil painting and handing around some small Polaroids Luke had taken, the ones that hadn’t made the walls. Between them, the three ladies talked happily about the times they’d spent together. Mary had fewer recollections, having spent most of her time with her mother and Matthew. When Lenny passed around the letter from Max to Luke and the extra photos that hadn’t made the walls, Pippa read the letter first but then Mary and Freya read together, both teary by the time they refolded the paper and handed the letter back. Eventually Lenny told them the whole story of him and Adrian finding the dresser behind the wall, of the day Matthew arrived at the house with the shotgun, and how he had only just found the photos and read the letter from Max when Matthew had appeared. The police had told them each very little during their interviews.
“Now things make more sense,” said Mary. “The last summer we ever came here was the year Mr Williams drowned. Luke had done some decorations around the house, including painting the walls and covering those alcoves. Honestly, I didn’t even notice the dresser had gone. My mother had arranged with Matthew to have the house furniture sold off earlier in the year, and they would have collected everything after we’d left.”
“That’s right,” said Freya. “After Dad’s funeral. I let the clearance men in, before my grandmother and I came in and gave the place a good clean. And then you didn’t come back the next summer.”
Everyone fell silent again, processing this information.
“You said there were two letters,” said Mary. “What was in the remaining one?”
“Kind of a goodbye note,” said Lenny, going over to the dresser and pulling open the top drawer. “Meant for whoever found the dresser. In case Luke never could retrieve the furniture himself.”
Lenny settled himself back down and began to read aloud.
To Whom It May Concern. If for any reason I am prevented from following my dream, if I am unable to restore this beautiful piece of furniture to its rightful place in this beautiful house and this letter remains unopened, then I am lost. I have been kept from living out my life as I want with my love (and I know there’s a member of my family who will try to stop this from happening). If that is the case, then I bid you all Ty Adar, which in Welsh means farewell. Luke.
Everyone except Freya fell silent.
“That’s not right,” said Freya, surprising them all. “Ty Adar doesn’t mean farewell. And Luke would never get something like that wrong. Ty Adar means birdhouse or aviary in Welsh. Don’t you have a bird box in the garden?”
“Yes, you do,” said Adrian. “In the apple tree. But I don’t know if it’s the original or if it was replaced with a new one. Any idea, Pippa? It certainly looks old enough.”
“It’s the original. We only cleaned the thing up a little.”
“Let me go have a look,” said Adrian.
Adrian went out to the apple tree at the end of the garden. A couple of the guests smiled as he went past but soon went back to their conversations. The old bird box sat towards the back fence, within easy reach, fixed by wire from a thick branch of the tree. Made entirely out of sheets of beech, the bird house had a couple of large holes drilled into the front and a single perch installed inside. At the back, Adrian found a panel which could be lifted up and used to clear the mess from the interior.
He found nothing out of the ordinary but then thought about how Luke had hidden the photographs and letters in the dresser. Using his fingers, he reached into the box—which was thankfully relatively clean—pressed the floor inside and pulled, which also slid open a panel. Inside he found a tiny pack wrapped in thick plastic. After a second, he replaced the other parts of the bird box and returned to the room.
Everyone fell silent as he unwrapped the package. Inside he found a single TDK cassette tape with nothing written on the label, just left blank. He handed the item to Lenny.
“How will we know what’s on there? Does anyone even have a cassette player these days?” asked Pippa
.
“We have one,” answered Lenny, standing. “At least, Luke left one in the cupboard. I didn’t throw it away, but then I’m not sure if it actually works.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Adrian.
They brought out the old machine and placed it in the middle of the coffee table. Adrian found a mains socket and plugged in the device. On the display, a small green light illuminated, so he pressed a button to flip open the lid while Lenny slipped in the cassette tape and snapped the top down.
Everyone around took a breath and glanced nervously at one another.
“Are we ready?” asked Lenny.
Rather than reply, everyone gave a simple nod, and Adrian pressed the play button.
“Hello. This is Luke Darlington.”
The recording sounded loud and tinny, Luke’s voice too young, too vulnerable. Adrian adjusted the volume, and when he looked across at Pippa and Freya, he noticed their eyes had watered up.
“If anyone ever hears this, you have found my grandfather’s beautiful dresser and the photographs I hid there, and I hope they make sense to you. You also need to know that what I am doing, I am doing of my own free will. I know some of you who remember me will be sad, although my mother will likely call it a sin, but I cannot think of any other way out. I don’t really want to go on living, not without the one person who made everything make sense, who made everything feel good and right. I am finally of an age where I can be who I want to be, but the love I have been waiting for has been taken from me, and I cannot imagine—do not want to imagine—a future without him. Everything was bearable knowing he was out there, and especially when we were together. I was going to use this recording to name people who wronged us, but all I feel right now is a calmness I have not felt in over a year, so I am going to let things go and forgive anyone who did not have our best intentions at heart. I just hope this house that was supposed to be mine ends up with good people, who find as much joy here as I found during my short life. And who knows? Maybe we will meet one day, in another life, under different circumstances. Until then, I bid you farewell, and urge you to stay true to yourself—and keep the faith.”
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