After a full exploration of the cottage, complete with more museum-length stories about her favourite items and the interesting tales of their provenance, we sat down for tea and cake. Mrs Wheeler asked me to pass her bag, which she reached into and retrieved a thin leather folder. She laid out its contents on the table.
‘Now, onto our business for the day - the sale of Puffin Cottage. My offer still stands, if you are interested, and my terms are quite simple. All I ask is that you care for the property and maintain its original character, as much as that is possible. Besides,’ she said with a wink, ‘it’s not like I’m going to be around forever to enforce it.’
I glanced down at the papers – it was the deeds to Puffin Cottage, and a transfer document with spaces for two signatures. She was absolutely serious.
‘Mrs Wheeler, I am so grateful – I-I’m humbled, truly. You’ve always been so kind to me, and my sister, b-but shouldn’t we discuss this first?’ I was stuttering.
‘My dear girl,’ she said, in the same voice she’d used when I was fifteen years old. ‘We are discussing it now. I have made my position abundantly clear, but if you have any questions or concerns, now is the time to raise them.’
‘I guess I’m just worried…’ How to put this? ‘I am concerned… that your offer is too generous. And that it wouldn’t be fair on your daughter.’
‘Ha!’ Mrs Wheeler laughed. ‘You’re worried she will come after you!’ She leaned towards me, wagging a finger accusingly. ‘You’re afraid that she’ll say you took advantage of an old lady who had lost her marbles.’
She sat back and took a sip of tea, a smirk dancing on her lips. ‘My daughter will be well taken care of when I’m gone, don’t worry about that. As for anyone who thinks I’m no longer of sound mind, I’m quite prepared to have that debate with them in person. After all, I’m not going anywhere just yet.’ She cut herself another slice of cake.
I clasped my hands together, wondering what to do. It could all end up badly, but what did I have to lose? If Sandra Wheeler had any objections, she could take them up with her mother. And it was such a beautiful house. If losing Amy had taught me anything, it was that life is short. From now on, I was determined to be happy.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘if you are absolutely sure. But I want to add one clause in the contract: if you change your mind at any point, I will sell it back to you at the same price. That seems fair to me.’
‘It’s a deal!’ she laughed.
‘And one final thing. We must get a lawyer to look at this.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I know just the man.’
That evening, I microwaved some of Auntie Sue’s sausage casserole from the freezer and set the table for one, complete with a pretty tablecloth, fresh flowers, and candles. Rachel had declined my invitation, saying she needed some time on her own, which I understood. I just prayed she believed that I hadn’t known about the affair. Even though we had only known each other for a short time, we had been through so much together. I was angry that our friendship was now at risk because of what Amy had done.
I’d had an online order of wine delivered, so I opened a bottle of Tignanello and poured myself a large glass. My plan was to run a hot bath and spend the rest of the evening winding down in the bubbles with my Kindle. I had offered to do dinner with the kids tomorrow while Mike had to work late, and I wanted to make the most of my free night.
I’d been thinking about what I would do, if I was to start my own business. The break from work had helped me realise that I wanted to do something creative. Something that I could be good at, that I was passionate about. Something that I could do from home, and still be there for the kids, and Mum and Auntie Sue. Planning the redecoration of Puffin Cottage had given me an idea – I’d always loved interior design, but had never considered it seriously as a career option. An idea began to form in my mind.
The phone rang, snapping me out of my daydream. It was DCI Bell. I braced myself.
‘I’m calling to let you know that we’ve charged Philip Turner with your sister’s murder. Again, I just want to say how sorry I am for your loss.’
I held my breath.
‘Miss Morton? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ I said, the word coming out as a high-pitched choking sound. ‘I’ll let the rest of the family know.’
‘I’ve already spoken to your brother-in-law.’ She sounded weary. ‘It might be good for the two of you to tell Mrs Sanders’ children sooner rather than later. Word spreads fast around here.’
I thought again of Mum’s words. Of the message she’d claimed Amy had given her.
‘Can I just ask… Are you sure he did it?’
‘We don’t take these matters lightly, as I’m sure you can imagine. Not only had Mrs Sanders and Mr Turner been in a relationship, but he had access to her car before the accident. And during a search of his business premises, officers recovered medication that fits with what was found in Mrs Sanders’s blood samples. I don’t often say this, Isabelle, but this is pretty watertight.’
We said our goodbyes and I slumped down to the kitchen floor.
Chapter Eighteen
This is what grief is: it’s an elephant, sitting on your chest. The weight presses down, threatening to crush you. You can’t breathe properly, it is impossible to take a full breath, and so you panic. It’s having your limbs turn to lead. Just walking is exhausting, carrying the burden of all that extra weight. It is too much to stand, so you try to lie. The sheer weight of your own body, now strange to you, pushing down, pulling down.
It is back-breakingly tiring. You ache to sleep, every bone and sinew craving rest, your eyes stinging to close. But sleep does not come. It is growing ever wearier, ever more tired, and still being unable to sleep, until finally you crash, falling in to sweet, sweet slumber. It is wanting to sleep forever and ever, until you are cruelly crashed out of it with an electric shock, a bucket of ice water over the head, the full horror returning as you sit bolt upright in the dark, gasping for air and panting to catch your breath, drenched in cold sweat.
Grief is a black shadow in every corner of every room that never goes away, even when you shine a light on it. The shadow follows you outside, even on the happiest, sunniest days. You can almost forget it for a second, give it the slip, but it is right there again, still following you, always present, and you realise that you weren’t even close to escaping it.
It is knowing you have nothing, of seeing all you have and knowing it is worthless, of being ready to give everything up anyway, disbelieving everything you thought you knew, questioning what it was all for, why are we here, what is the point? It is your loudest scream, but you don’t make a sound. It is being hungry but having no appetite, eating without tasting, never satisfied and never satiated. It is being thirsty but being unable to swallow. It is hour by hour, day by day, watching the big hand on a clock inch painfully by, knowing it will never end.
Grief is survival, maintenance, keeping the wheels turning, doing the bare minimum. It is sorry for your loss, time is a great healer, stay strong, rest in peace, in sympathy, condolences, pity. It is people avoiding you lest the sadness be contagious, it is avoiding other people because you don’t want to see that life goes on, because how can they not see that sometimes, it doesn’t? It is moving on, working through it, getting past it, learning to live with it, and then having the pain come back suddenly in a searing shock that you never saw coming, and it is even worse than you could have imagined, let alone remembered. It is doing it all again, every hour just like the last, never getting easier.
It’s losing the person you loved above all others without knowing it until too late, your lifeboat, your anchor, your lighthouse. It’s learning what you had only after it’s gone. It’s the torment of being cast out onto a dark and unforgiving sea, tossed about on high waves, alone except for the searing agony of loss. The anguish of one Salt Sister who has lost her other.
We sat the kid
s down to explain what had happened and tried to give them some idea of what to expect. Mike had called and asked me to be there when he broke the news, saying he didn’t feel strong enough to do it alone. We could probably shield them from most of the proceedings, especially when it came to the trial, but DCI Bell was right – this was a tight-knit community and murders rarely happened. It would be the talk of the entire county.
Mike had wanted to take the lead in explaining everything to the children, and I was glad to let him. I still could not quite put together the right words to make sense of the situation. Mum and Auntie Sue had also come over, so that we could put on a united front and remind the kids just how much of a support network they had.
I had suggested that Rachel came too, but Mike wasn’t keen. It was unfair of him to cut her off because of what her husband had done, but with emotions running so high and the pain so fresh and raw, perhaps some breathing space wasn’t such a bad idea.
The police had warned Rachel to expect media interest, so she packed a bag and went to stay at her mum’s in Berwick for a few days. We’d promised to keep in touch and keep each other posted on developments. I hoped she and Mike could make up, in time.
Amy was right: Mike was a good dad. He had immediately cancelled all his work commitments so that he could be there for the children. He seemed to know exactly how to pitch this, striking just the right tone in his child-friendly assessment of what was likely to happen now. He was so reassuring that even I was convinced everything would work out.
Still, just knowing that there was now a charge sheet made the murder feel very real. It was one thing to lose someone in an accident, but quite another to have them deliberately taken from you. I could feel an anger creeping in whenever I thought about how Amy had died, and I wanted to protect my memories of her, to insulate her life from her death. Most importantly, I wanted to shield the kids from that.
Betsy was clamped to my side as usual and sucking her thumb. I kissed the top of her head, which still smelled fresh from yesterday’s bath, and admired the thick fringe of her eyelashes. She was listening intently to her dad.
Lucas was sandwiched between Mum and Auntie Sue, his eyebrows knitted together in a worried frown. He looked permanently anxious these days, only relaxing when he was cooking and could lose his thoughts in the dish in front of him. I made a mental note to get him working on some new recipes in the coming week.
I explored Hannah’s face for any sign of emotion, anything to tell me that she was listening, but she was expressionless and unflinching. Her mouth was set into a tight line and she had locked her gaze onto a point on the floor. Only the quick rise and fall of her chest gave anything away. When Mike started to explain that Phil was denying the charge, and that meant the case would go to court, Hannah fled the kitchen. We all listened to the patter of her footsteps running up the stairs, then her bedroom door slamming behind her. Auntie Sue started to rise from her seat to follow her.
‘Leave her,’ said Mike, pinching the top of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. ‘She just needs some space.’
We sat like that in silence, each of us digesting the news, giving each other time for it to sink in.
‘Will Uncle Phil go to prison?’ Lucas eventually asked.
‘Yes,’ said Mike. I went to interject, but he got there first. ‘If he did it.’
‘And it’s up to the jury to decide?’ Betsy explored the sound of this new, foreign word.
‘Yes,’ said Mike. ‘The jury is a group of normal people who listen to all of the evidence, all the facts from the police, and then they decide if someone is guilty or not.’
Betsy considered this for a moment. ‘But why did he do it? Why did he want to hurt Mummy on purpose?’
I looked away, leaving Mike to answer.
‘We don’t know, love. We might never know.’
‘What if the jury decide he didn’t do it?’ Lucas looked from me to Mike and back again. ‘What if they think it was someone else?’
‘Let’s just take this one step at a time, eh pal?’ Mike ruffled Lucas’s hair. It was getting so long that he had to keep flicking it out of his face. I wondered when he’d last had it cut.
‘Anyway, that’s not for us to worry about just yet,’ said Auntie Sue. ‘Who fancies a walk down to the church yard?’
It seemed a fitting way to focus our attention back on Amy and get the kids out of the house. I was ready for a change of scene and some fresh air, and it was a beautiful evening for a stroll. Hannah didn’t put up an argument when she was called down from her room, but stayed silent and stuck at the back of the group with Mum and Auntie Sue while the younger ones raced ahead.
Mike was quiet. It had been a tough few days, but he was holding it together so well. How had I got him so completely wrong? I resolved to be a better sister-in-law from now on.
The shock of Phil’s arrest was already starting to subside, like a punch to the arm, leaving only a dull ache where there had once been searing hot pain. I could picture him in his blue overalls, working in the garage, the way he had been while I’d watched from across the street, and even the thought of him made my anger start to rise.
I took a deep breath and pushed the image away. I didn’t want to think of him, to have him invade my thoughts and dreams of Amy. I wanted to keep my mind and my memories pure, leaving only my sister, untainted, preserved. My beautiful, kind, smart sister. The other half of me.
I felt her at that moment, as if she was walking with us. I even glanced around to check that she hadn’t stopped back along the path. It was fleeting, as tangible as a wisp of cloud and little more than the whisper of a songbird, but her presence was unmistakable. I smiled up at the sky and sensed Amy smile back at me.
The next morning, I set off for Alnwick. I was already at the end of the street when I remembered that the Mini I was driving belonged to Phil. The thought of him caught me off-guard. I sat there with trembling hands, gripping the wheel as a new hatred rippled through my body. I tried to shake it off. Only when a car came up behind, beeping at me for blocking the narrow lane, was I able to slowly pull onto the main road.
Diana Wheeler was ready by the time I got to her house, even though I was five minutes early. I hadn’t even knocked on the door when she appeared in a dress, boots and felt hat, looking like quite the country lady. I went to open the car door for her and she batted my hand away.
‘No need for that, Isabelle, I’m quite capable.’
She rolled her eyes as she climbed in and I suppressed a giggle.
Jake’s assistant welcomed us into his office. She had already prepared tea, the tray on the desk heavy with an old-fashioned silver set, china cups and biscuits. I’d called ahead, explaining the special proposition that Mrs Wheeler had made and forewarning Jake about her unique approach to… well, everything. He had assured me that all walks of life passed through his office, and it would take a true eccentric to surpass the quirks he’d seen. He had also promised to give her the VIP treatment he usually reserved for judges on the county circuit.
He breezed into his office, dapper in a three-piece tweed suit. As he flashed me a broad smile, a familiar knot twisted in my stomach. I cast my gaze down and willed myself to stop blushing.
‘You must be Mrs Wheeler. What a joy to finally meet you, I’ve heard so many wonderful things.’ Jake smiled warmly as he shook her hand. Mrs Wheeler didn’t even try to hide her pleasure.
Jake poured tea and his assistant brought in a plate of home-made shortbread. He seemed in no rush to get down to business.
‘Now, I know you don’t have all day, dear,’ Mrs Wheeler addressed Jake. ‘I already had my solicitor draw up a draft contract of sale, I have completed the particulars, and here are the deeds to the property which Miss Morton intends to purchase from me’ – she smiled at me – ‘if that remains her intention. I think you’ll find everything is covered, so perhaps you would be so kind as to give this a once-over and check it is legally sound?’
&n
bsp; Jake took the paper from her and quickly read it, his lips moving silently to the words. ‘Well, Mrs Wheeler, you seem to have done my work for me.’ He looked at her over the tops of the glasses. ‘I take it you have some background in the legal profession?’
‘Heavens, that would be quite a stretch!’ Mrs Wheeler beamed. ‘Nothing beyond a passion for detective fiction.’
Jake’s face lit up, and I had to interrupt before this turned into a day-long tea-party Agatha Christie convention.
‘My main concern…’ They both looked at me, clearly having forgotten I was still there. ‘My main concern is that Mrs Wheeler has offered me the property at a very good price, well below the true value—’
Mrs Wheeler raised a hand to cut me off and turned to Jake.
‘Isabelle wants to make sure that I am in my right mind.’ She placed her hand over mine and gripped it with a surprising strength. ‘I have always been incredibly fond of Isabelle and her sister, Amy. Besides, Isabelle loves Puffin Cottage and has promised to preserve it. Unlike my daughter Sandra, who wishes to install an en suite.’ She shuddered. ‘Or worse, knock it down and start again.’
Jake shrugged at me. ‘I see no issue with this. I’m confident that Mrs Wheeler knows exactly what she is doing and is more than capable of making such a decision. If you could provide your solicitor’s details, we can arrange the payment and get these transferred.’ He waved the deeds to Puffin Cottage in his hand.
‘Wonderful news!’ Mrs Wheeler clapped her hands, beaming at me.
Jake’s assistant brought in a fresh pot of tea.
‘I feel like we should be drinking champagne!’ I was giddy with excitement – this was really happening. I would be the new owner of the most beautiful cottage in Seahouses.
‘Not until you’ve driven me home, young lady.’ Mrs Wheeler gave me a sideways glance as she sipped from her cup.
Salt Sisters Page 19