The Hidden Legacy: A Dark and Shocking Psychological Drama

by GJ Minett

  Ducking back inside, she went upstairs and rummaged around for a blanket which might suit her purposes. Then, leaving Kate to make a start on the meal, she slipped outside and tiptoed her way down the garden path and through the gate, which was swinging to and fro in the stiff breeze. She fastened it behind her, then slithered her way over to Kate’s car and draped the blanket across the windscreen and bonnet, securing it beneath the wipers. Then she let herself into the Toyota, which was so cold and damp as to be almost sepulchral by now. Here she was able to get two bars on her mobile and spent ten minutes talking to Megan and Harry about their day. Harry burbled enthusiastically about some zombie film he’d been allowed to watch, which would probably give him nightmares for the next few weeks. At least he remembered to say he was missing her, unlike Megan, who clearly couldn’t wait to get back to her make-up session with Shannon which the phone call had interrupted. Ellen told her she loved her and managed to extract a perfunctory you too before letting her go. It felt like meagre reward for freezing her backside off for the past ten minutes. She wished like mad that she’d thought to keep the blanket with her until after the call.

  As she ended it, she noticed that the signal had brought with it a number of messages and several missed calls. She toyed with the idea of listening to them but for one thing it was too cold to think about staying out there any longer than she needed to. More significantly, she could see that they were from Sam and she didn’t feel too inclined to jump just because he’d whistled, especially if all he was doing was trying to keep tabs on her and steer her away from Eudora. She turned her phone off and slipped it inside the pocket of her jeans. He could damn well wait.

  Back in the kitchen, Kate had put the pizzas in the oven and was well under way with the salad. Ellen put her freezing cold hands on her friend’s cheeks and asked what she could do to help, only to be told to keep out of it. If she wanted to make herself useful, she could see to the drinks. She rooted around in the cupboards until she found two rather cloudy wine glasses and opened the second bottle of Sauvignon. Kate asked her to check whether the TV set in the dank and decidedly uninviting front room could be moved into the conservatory, where they’d decided to eat, as there was some variety show she wanted to watch. Ellen had a look but, in the absence of either an indoor aerial or an external socket in the conservatory, the reception was so appalling they decided to give it a miss. Ellen for one wasn’t too disappointed. There was plenty for her and Kate to discuss over dinner.

  But they barely had time to raise their glasses and take a first bite out of the pizzas before the sharp rat-a-tat-tat of the front-door knocker resounded once more. Kate groaned and shook her head. ‘Don’t answer it,’ she said. ‘Ten quid says it’s Rose.’

  Ellen smiled and got to her feet. She was pretty sure who it would be.

  The most surprising thing about Reverend Williams (please, call me Rowan) was his appearance. Her only experience of the clergy had come from primary school, where the local vicar would turn up every year, just before the Christmas break, make a few waspish comments about how few of the children seated in front of him had crossed the threshold of his church in the preceding twelve months, and then mumble his way through the same passage from the Bible, starting with the decree from Caesar Augustus and culminating in the visiting shepherds. He’d been a frail, elderly man with a wispy grey beard, so unsteady on his feet that he surely could not have been long for this world.

  Reverend Williams, by way of contrast, was young – or not much older than she was, at any rate. He was also tall and broad-shouldered, more likely to be mistaken for a rugby player than a member of the clergy. He smiled as he introduced himself and held on to Ellen’s hand long enough to wrap his other one around it as well. She invited him in, insisting he wasn’t interrupting anything, and took his hooded jacket before ushering him into the conservatory, where he shook hands with Kate, switching his canvas bag to his left hand.

  He was mortified when he realised he’d disturbed their meal and had to be almost manhandled into a seat. He told them he wasn’t planning to stay, he’d only popped in to make sure they were alright.

  ‘I don’t know if Rose explained, but I’ve arranged to call in and see one of my parishioners this evening,’ he said. ‘She’s not been well, bless her, and her family seem to think a visit from me might help cheer her up a little. But then I was aware you didn’t know when to expect me, so rather than interfere with any plans you might have for the evening, I thought I’d just pop in beforehand and make sure you’ve got everything you need.’

  Ellen thanked him and offered a share of the pizza and a glass of wine, both of which he politely declined. He checked his watch and said he had ten minutes at most.

  ‘It’s really just to show my face,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk for longer some other time.’

  His glance fell on the desk with the broken drawers, which had been removed and stacked in a corner of the room.

  ‘I heard about the break-in, of course,’ he said, with a sorrowful shake of the head. ‘Such an awful start for you. If it’s any consolation, it’s really not that sort of village. I don’t think anything like that’s happened in all the time I’ve been in the area.’ He smiled as the irony of his words dawned on him. ‘I don’t suppose that is much of a consolation, is it?’

  Ellen returned the smile.

  ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘I understand from Rose you had the laptop with you the whole time, so that’s a bonus. It’s a good thing you thought to take it with you.’

  ‘I’m not sure Mr Wilmot sees it that way,’ said Ellen.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can imagine he wouldn’t.’ The discreet smile playing at the corner of his mouth suggested he’d seen enough of Eudora’s solicitor to understand the point she was making.

  ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘what really matters is that whoever broke in didn’t get his hands on it. I’m sure, in his way, Mr Wilmot’s as relieved about that as I am. You must be desperate to have a look through it. I suppose you want to know the password?’

  ‘Primrose82?’ said Ellen, enjoying the look of surprise that flashed across his face.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ he said, after a brief pause. ‘You know a thing or two about computers, I take it?’

  ‘No, but I know a man who does.’

  ‘Handy. So . . . you’ll have already read the documents, then? Only when I was talking with Rose just a while ago, she was under the impression you were still very confused about a number of things.’

  ‘I am . . . we both are. Which documents are you referring to exactly?’

  He frowned at this. ‘Well, there are two Word documents in particular. I know they’re there – I’ve seen them a few times when they were still a work in progress. You can’t miss them, they’re named after you. Ellen 1 and Ellen 2.’

  Ellen looked at Kate, who shrugged her shoulders. Then she turned her attention back to her visitor.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘There’s nothing there with my name on it. It’s all church business and day-to-day things. We’ve been through it several times – trust me, if it was there, we’d have found it.’

  There was a lengthy pause while he took this in. Then he looked again at the broken drawers in the corner of the room and sighed.

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, it looks as if I owe Eudora an apology. I’m afraid I thought she was being a little paranoid but it looks as if she was right after all.’

  ‘She was expecting a break-in?’

  ‘I’m not sure expecting’s the right word,’ he said, pursing his lips, ‘but she was definitely a bit anxious about losing everything she’d typed. It was such an effort for her, you see. It took her several days, so she really didn’t like the idea that it could all disappear if anything happened to the laptop, which is why she ran off a hard copy. I imagine that’s what our friend was looking for, don’t you?’ He nodded again at the drawers.

  ‘She kept
it in the desk?’ asked Ellen, her heart sinking yet again.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, a broad smile spreading across his features, as he reached into the canvas bag. ‘She left it with me.’ He was now holding two envelopes in his hand. The smaller one looked as if it might contain a letter, the larger one was much thicker. From where she was sitting Ellen could see the labels Ellen 1 and Ellen 2, inscribed in a precise, elegant script.

  ‘I only brought it with me as an afterthought, to be honest,’ he continued. ‘I was going to tell you the password then let you get on with reading the documents. It’s only as I was coming out of the house I thought it might be easier for you to read it all from the hard copy instead. Lucky I thought of it.’

  He reached across and handed the two envelopes to Ellen, who handled them oh so carefully as if fearing that, even now, they might suddenly crumble away to nothing. The possibility that all of a sudden, as if out of nowhere, the answers she’d been pursuing for the past few days might actually be within her grasp was almost too much for her to take in.

  ‘You need to read the smaller one first: Ellen 1,’ he continued. ‘Eudora was absolutely adamant about that. It seemed to matter greatly to her.’

  ‘Ellen 1 first,’ she repeated automatically, turning it over as if looking for clues.

  ‘And I’d better let you have my phone number,’ he said, reaching into the bag once more and retrieving a ballpoint pen. ‘Just in case there are things you want to ask me later – when you’ve read it all. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be with Josie but this is for my mobile and you’re welcome to ring any time, OK?’ He took the larger envelope back from her for a moment and scribbled the number on the reverse side. Then he looked at his watch and decided his time was up. If it was OK with them, he’d leave his car outside the cottage and walk up to Josie’s place – it wasn’t far and it might be easier to walk up to the farm than drive there in these conditions.

  Ellen thanked him for everything and walked him to the door. As she opened it, a sharp gust of wind sent a flurry of snow into the hallway. The sudden change in temperature seemed to wake her out of the trance she’d been in since learning about the envelopes.

  ‘Do you mind me asking,’ she said, clutching his sleeve as he made to leave, ‘have you read this?’

  ‘No.’ He sketched a brief, self-deprecating smile. ‘ Not the finished version, at any rate. I’d like to be able to claim some sort of credit for that but the honest truth is, Eudora and I have talked so often over the past few years, I’m fairly sure I know most of what’s in there, so the temptation was never really that great. And anything she didn’t tell me . . . well, maybe it’s because she didn’t want me to know.’

  ‘But you do know why she left me this place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are we related in some way to each other?’

  ‘Related? No.’

  Ellen paused before continuing.

  ‘Was she related to my mother?’ she asked eventually.

  This time he was the one who seemed hesitant. He reached behind his head and flipped up the hood of his coat. Then he wrapped his scarf firmly around the lower part of his face before he answered.

  ‘I really think you should read the documents,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘You have my number. You’re more than welcome to call if there are other things I can help you with later, but Eudora went to a lot of trouble to get these documents to you. I’m not sure she’d have been happy to have me feeding you pieces at random.’

  He reached out and grasped her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze before stepping out into the cold night air. The snow was already several inches thick by now and his feet left clear prints that seemed unlikely to be there in an hour or so. She watched him trudge his way up the hill until the cold drove her back indoors, where Kate was reheating the pizzas in the microwave. When she’d finished she brought them back through to the conservatory and sat down next to Ellen.

  ‘How d’you want to play this?’ she asked. ‘You want to read these on your own first?’

  Ellen looked at the envelopes on the sofa next to her. She took the plate that Kate was holding out to her and rested it on a cushion on her lap.

  ‘I can go and freeze my backside off upstairs if you want a bit of privacy,’ Kate continued. ‘Of course, I may never talk to you again but . . .’

  Ellen looked across at the drawers and frowned.

  ‘O’Halloran was the one who broke in here, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So do we assume this was what he was looking for?’

  ‘Makes sense to me. ‘

  ‘So how did he know about it?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘What made him think there was a hard copy? In fact, how did he know Eudora had typed these documents in the first place?’

  Kate shrugged her shoulders. ‘I dunno. Maybe she let something slip. Who knows? He’s a reporter.’

  ‘And who got rid of the file on the laptop?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When he broke in and . . .’ Kate’s voice faltered.

  ‘Exactly. The laptop wasn’t here. So what are we saying? He wiped it some other time?’

  ‘He must have.’

  ‘But when? I mean, if it was after Eudora died, he’d have had to break in, wouldn’t he? But no one’s said anything about a previous burglary. And anyway, if he’d already broken in once, why would he need to come back last week and do it again? And why wouldn’t he just take the laptop with him the first time instead of deleting the documents? Come to that, how the hell did he know the password to get into it in the first place?’

  Kate took a sip from her wine glass and waved a slice of pizza at the envelopes.

  ‘Well, maybe it’ll make a bit more sense once you’ve opened those,’ she said.

  Ellen picked them up and put the larger one on the arm of the sofa. She held the one labelled Ellen 1 in the palm of her hand as if weighing it, then patted the space next to her.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You ready for this?’

  PART THREE:

  THE DISCOVERY

  9

  August 2007: Ellen 1

  Dearest Ellen,

  I hope you don’t think I’m being too presumptuous in addressing you in such a familiar way. I’m sure it must seem odd coming from someone you’ve never met but, in truth, you’ve been anything but a stranger to me for some time now. I could hardly blame you if you found it unsettling to learn that someone has gone to such lengths to track you down but, for what it’s worth, I promise I have only your best interests at heart. If the choice lay solely with me, we wouldn’t be strangers at all. Far from it.

  It’s so difficult to write this letter in the dark, so to speak. I’d feel much more comfortable speaking to you in person but if you’re reading this you will know by now that’s no longer an option. I have no way of knowing how much you’ve already managed to work out for yourself. I’m hoping against hope that the answer is not very much because, a touch selfishly perhaps, I’d like you to hear things from my point of view, before you make up your mind about everything that’s happened. I wouldn’t want you to pick up just a few fragments that might colour your view of things.

  You’ll see that I’ve called this document Ellen 1. If everything has gone to plan, that should mean you have its sequel in your possession. Whether you choose to open it is up to you. If you’re still completely in the dark as to who I am and why I’ve decided to leave Primrose Cottage to you, Ellen 2 should answer any questions you have. It’s as comprehensive an account of events as my memory will allow me to compile. If it seems a little long, forgive me. I’ve erred on the side of inclusion, in the hope that you’ll find it easier to make sense of everything. There is however a but . . . and a very large one at that.

  I mentioned earlier that it’s for you to decide whether or not you want to read it. It’s only fair to mention here that there a
re those very close to you who don’t think you should. It was never my intention for you to learn about me this way but when I first spoke with your mother, she was absolutely clear about the fact that she didn’t want me to have any contact with you whatsoever. I did my best to change her mind. I even travelled by coach to see her a few years ago but she wouldn’t be persuaded. I didn’t agree with her stance on this but felt obliged to respect it. I gave her my word I’d keep my distance and I’ve done so.

  I’m aware that her illness has worsened in recent months, which puts me in a difficult position. I don’t want to feel that I’ve somehow taken advantage of her situation. Nevertheless I’m sure you’ve always suspected that there are whole areas of your past of which you know very little. Your mother has done a wonderful job of shielding you until now and believes that the less you know, the safer you’ll be. I cannot agree. If this life has taught me anything at all, it is that innocence offers very little protection against the harsh realities of this world. I know I shan’t be part of it for very much longer and when I leave I want to be able to say that I did the best I could.

  Ellen, I have committed the unpardonable sin of living for far too long. I’ve outlived everyone who really mattered to me and until that happens to you (and heaven forbid that it should!) you won’t really be in a position to understand how desperately I’ve sought some reason to carry on. You’ve provided me with that reason.

  I confess that the interest I’ve taken in you might be viewed by some as unhealthy. There’s no better illustration of this than that some poor souls in this village are under the misapprehension you’re my daughter, a mistake I confess I’ve done nothing to discourage. I can only apologise for this simple act of deception but it has helped me to deflect awkward and painful questions. As a result you’ve become very dear to me and I want to do everything in my power to make sure you’re safe and happy. It’s my genuine belief that the chances of this happening are significantly improved if you are allowed to hear what I have to say. It’s always so much easier to deal with a situation if you know what it is.