by Rachel Hore
Kate didn’t know what to say, though her father’s ever-patient tending of her mother passed through her mind. There were so many quiet faithful acts to see in the world if you only looked. She gave him a smile and turned back to Agnes. The old lady had wrestled a small envelope out of the bottom of the shopping bag and put it on the tray in front of her.
‘Kate Hutchinson,’ Agnes said, fingering the envelope. ‘I’m telling you all this because I think you understand me. I don’t believe I’ve got much time left.’
Kate opened her mouth to object but Agnes waved her hand impatiently and went on. ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to get home again. It’s not because they’ve put me in here. I just feel it to be so.’
‘Agnes, don’t. I know it seems—’
Once again, Agnes shushed her. ‘I know we’ve only got to know each other a little time, dear, but we’re family and we see eye to eye. There are things that you’ve said about yourself that make my heart go out to you. We’re birds of a feather. I wish we had met before. However,’ she went on, ‘we’d better get on before my great-nephew turns up. You met him at the weekend, I hear. What d’you think of him?’ She didn’t wait for Kate’s answer. ‘Well, never mind, it’s not his fault he is who he is. This is the key,’ she handed the envelope to Kate, ‘of a cupboard in the library. It’s behind a set of the Domesday Book. I want you to read what’s inside – then you’ll know who we’re looking for. I want to find him, you see . . .’
Kate took the envelope wonderingly, but before she could ask who ‘he’ was, the young West Indian nurse Kate remembered from an earlier visit arrived with a vase and two mugs of tea. She and Agnes had clearly taken to one another, for Agnes didn’t seem to mind being mothered by a girl a quarter her age. After the roses had been arranged, the nurse tidied up the bed and left them once more. Agnes started to talk again, but then she looked past Kate to the nurses’ station. ‘Oh damn, he’s here. I can’t say any more now. Take the key and read, then we’ll talk.’
Kate rose from her seat and turned to see Max marching down the ward. He was wearing a grey suit and light blue tie today, his dark hair neatly slicked back, and was carrying a bunch of pink carnations. He nodded to Kate then bent and kissed his great-aunt on the cheek.
‘Nice to see you sitting up in your chair, Aunt,’ he said, speaking in the slightly too-jolly voice people use for young children and those in their second childhood. ‘You look well today. I expect Kate here has been cheering you up.’
‘I’m just off now, actually,’ said Kate. ‘I have to meet someone.’ They stood there awkwardly, as if unsure of the protocol around a hospital bedside. Max’s tall businesslike presence filled the little cubicle. His aunt, huddled in her chair, seemed diminished in comparison. Kate said, rather gushingly, ‘I must thank you so much again, Max, for saving poor Bobby.’
‘How is he now? That was quite an adventure he had.’
‘Back to his normal bouncy self, I’m glad to say. Joyce is so relieved.’ Kate gave her apologies to Max as charmingly as she could, then squeezed Agnes’s proffered hand and hurried off down the ward. Was it her imagination, or did Max’s gaze follow her all the way?
Downstairs, she walked into the car park to see whether Dan was waiting yet. She couldn’t see his van, but then it was still only twenty to four. She returned to the reception area and sat down to wait in the cool quietness.
Usually she was soothed by her visits to Agnes. The old lady was almost Kate’s grandmother’s generation, but this wasn’t quite like snapping back into the motherly relationship she had had with her grandmother – no, Agnes was more of an equal, a very good friend. Despite the gulf of experience between their generations, they had something important in common, more than the ties of blood. Perhaps it was the currency of grief? But today, Kate felt disturbed by her visit. It wasn’t just the mysterious task Agnes had entrusted her with – Kate felt for the envelope in her trouser pocket – though that was troubling enough. Nor was it Max’s slightly oppressive presence, or finding out that Dan didn’t fit into the handyman pigeonhole she’d made for him. No, it was that the grip of Agnes’s fingers on hers had seemed weaker, her normally upright pose slacker, her attention beginning to wander, as though the knot that tied her to life was gradually loosening.
She couldn’t lose Agnes now. She needed her, her strength of will, her links with her family’s past, with Seddington House. She wanted to find out the rest of Agnes’s story. Talking to the old lady was like immersing herself in a different reality to her everyday life, one from which she herself gained strength. She could forget her anxieties about Simon when she was with Agnes, but now that she had a moment of peace, all this morning’s misery came flooding back. She sat there, the tears rolling down her cheeks, uncaring of the curious looks she was getting from passers-by – weren’t people used to tears in a hospital, for goodness sake? – when someone sat down on the banquette beside her. It was Dan.
‘What’s happened?’ he whispered, the expression in his blue eyes both tense and tender. She looked away, not able to bear his sympathy. ‘It’s not Agnes, is it?’
Kate shook her bowed head quickly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘No. Agnes is . . . as you said. And Max is there, so I came down early.’
‘What’s the matter then?’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go and find somewhere to have a cup of tea.’
They drove into town and found a little café and Kate sat and told him about Simon having an affair, and how he was pushing her away, about how lost she sometimes felt down here, how she missed her work and her friends, about the threat hanging over the school and how she just felt so muddled and angry and didn’t know what to do. Dan listened. He didn’t try to comfort her or to make bright suggestions or to volunteer his own experiences. It was a relief to lay it all out like this. Eventually, they sat there, comfortably silent. Kate had told him how relieved she was that Joyce wanted them to stay, and now she had run out of words.
‘So here you are,’ Dan sighed, his eyes fixed on her face, ‘like Ruth amid the alien corn, if I remember my scripture lessons right.’
Kate thought about the implications of that. In the Old Testament story, Ruth had gone with her husband to live in his country, as was the custom. Then her husband died. She was supposed to return to her own people but instead she chose to stay with her lonely mother-in-law, Naomi. ‘Your country will be my country, your people, my people,’ Ruth had told Naomi. Well, she wasn’t sure she could feel like that about Joyce, but the two of them had certainly been thrown together. And at least Kate’s husband wasn’t dead. And she had her darling Daisy and Sam. Ruth’s story had a happy ending – she had married a wealthy farmer and was able to look after Naomi in her turn.
But what does Dan mean? We haven’t got to that stage yet, Kate told herself fiercely. It’s going to be all right with Simon – isn’t it?
The waitress appeared with the bill, which Dan paid, and Kate’s mind snapped back to the present. The key! She decided to confide in Dan, whom she instinctively trusted.
When she told him all about Agnes’s strange request he seemed quite animated.
‘It’s nearly five. Do you have to get back right away?’ he said. ‘We could go to the house now.’
Kate rang Paradise Cottage but heard only the answerphone. The family must still be at Hazel’s. She left a message to say she’d be back in an hour and then they walked back to the van.
‘Thank you, Dan,’ she said simply. ‘You’re a good listener.’
‘That’s got me into trouble plenty of times,’ he said mournfully, and she laughed.
‘Agnes said you used to work in London.’
‘Yes, in advertising – Jones Kline. I was a designer there.’
‘What sort of thing did you work on?’
‘Toothpaste, toilet cleaner, weedkiller . . . yes, I got all the glamorous accounts. Stuck it out for nine years then I just lost the urge to get up in the morning. The design bit was all r
ight. I just hated London, hated the office politics, missed Suffolk, my home ground.’
‘Where did you study design?’
‘Norwich. That was all right, I could still live at home, get in on my bike every day. But London turned out to be where the jobs were.’
‘Couldn’t you have gone freelance once you got back here, or worked somewhere local?’
‘Could have. I just felt I had other things I wanted to do. The painting mostly. I did a part-time fine art course a couple of years ago. That’s what I should have done in the first place, but everyone was telling me I needed to train for a proper job.’
‘I remember what that feels like. And haven’t you ever . . . I don’t know, settled down? I mean, didn’t you need to pay for things?’
‘You mean am I married, don’t you?’ Kate felt herself blushing, but Dan was smiling. ‘I was. For four years. We met at college. She came to London at the same time I did and we got married as soon as we could get a deposit together for a flat. But she changed – or I did. We were too young, really. Gabby loved London and she did well at her job, but she turned out to be a party animal. She started to say I was being boring – I probably was. I didn’t want to go to clubs, do cocaine and stay up half the night like her. In the end we just seemed to pass on the doorstep. Then she found someone else . . .’
‘Poor you,’ whispered Kate. ‘I know what that’s like now.’
‘Yes, but by then what we’d had was long gone. It was a bit of a relief, in a way, when she said we should split. She and her bloke bought me out of the flat and I rented somewhere else and tried to make a go of it. It didn’t work out. Now, here we are . . . Looks like Marie’s son Conrad is out.’ And Dan swung the van round in a shower of gravel in front of Seddington House.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said, reaching his hand across Kate to rummage in the glove compartment, which was a glorious mess of cassette tapes, bits of string and glucose sweets. What long, sensitive fingers he has for a practical man, Kate thought, intensely aware of him leaning across her, his shoulder briefly brushing hers. Then, as his hand closed over a bunch of keys, she noticed something else – bits of Polly Pocket toys. Did Dan have a child?
‘We’ll have to go through the back of the house, I’m afraid,’ he said now, winking at her. ‘No Lady Muck for you, sweeping through the front door, my dear.’
‘What do you mean, Lady Muck? When have I put on airs and graces?’
‘Ah, don’t think I haven’t seen you looking. You fancy this house, don’t you? Well, who wouldn’t?’
‘Where do you live, Dan?’
‘Down in the village. Cottage with the blue door, near the pub. Bit of a garage round the back to do my bikes and a shed for the painting. It was my dad’s house, but he got married again a few years ago and moved into his wife Sally’s bungalow in Wenhaston.’ He opened his door to get out. ‘My mum died, you see. When I was ten.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate softly. ‘That must have been shattering.’
‘It was the end of my childhood,’ said Dan. ‘She was so ill, but I never thought she’d die. You don’t believe your parents can die when you’re only ten. But she did. So then there was just me and Dad. And now Dad’s got Sally. I’m glad for him really. She’s OK. Organizes Dad, but he likes that. Mum used to organize him, you see, tidy up after him, get his meals on the table. Everything was a right muddle when it was just Dad and me.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, he gave me the house so I’m grateful for that.’
Kate listened to his footsteps as he went round to the back of the vehicle to get out his tools then she pushed open her door and jumped down. She stood looking up at the house. Pink-edged clouds were reflected like swans gliding on the diamond-hatched windows. The place looked even more shut up than it had on her first visit. The curtains of the library were closed now – was she just imagining the air of desolation? She turned and looked across the front gardens.
‘I’ve been keeping the hedges cut, and spraying the worst of the weeds,’ said Dan, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Marie checks on everything and dusts, and Conrad often stays. Otherwise, there’s not been much to do, apart from finishing the kitchen. Oh, and the library window. I’ll deal with that tomorrow.’
They walked to the left, round to the kitchen door. Dan picked out a large iron key and a smaller brass one for the mortice lock. The door opened easily; he hurried in to switch off the alarm, and Kate followed him through the kitchen to the hall beyond and the library.
The warmth, the muffling of their footsteps and the half-dark reminded Kate of going into a marquee on a hot summer’s day. The stuffy air smelled of soft furnishings and old books, which also deadened sound. A bluebottle buzzed tiredly somewhere in the room. Dan walked over to the windows and worked the cords of the burgundy velvet curtains one by one, then pushed the casements open. All at once, the room was flooded with light, fresh air and the twitterings of birds. Kate looked around. The chair in which Agnes had sat had been pulled back into line. Her personal alarm, its cord neatly coiled, lay on the table next to a pack of cards and the Wilkie Collins. It was as if the room was standing to attention, ready for Agnes to walk back in.
Kate started to scan the shelves. Eventually, at waist-level, half-hidden by a chair to the left of the fireplace, she saw what she was looking for: a row of slim leatherbound volumes. Each spine bore the name of a different English county in gilt lettering, and the series title, the Domesday Book. She began to take the books off the shelf, but all that was revealed was the wallpaper behind. Puzzled, she persevered. Perhaps there would be some lever or handle – but no. She replaced the books and started feeling up and down the sides of the shelves. Still nothing. She walked over to the fireplace and examined that closely. Again, no clue.
‘Here,’ said Dan, coming up to stand behind her. ‘Let’s look at that key.’
She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and extracted a golden key two inches long. Strangely, it had no tines – the operational end was octagonal in shape, and hollow.
‘Let’s take the books out again.’ They piled the volumes one by one next to the fireplace.
The tiny keyhole was behind the volume entitled Surrey. It could have been an imperfection in the elderly Strawberry Thief design to anyone not looking closely. A false wall! Kate pushed in the key and turned it. The whole shelf swung open. There behind was a low rectangular safe about the size of two stacked box-files. It had a combination lock. ‘Oh no,’ cried Kate. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Look at the envelope,’ said Dan.
Kate turned it over and over, then realized that where she had torn it open, she’d ripped through a number. 1910.
‘I think that’s when Miss Agnes was born,’ whispered Dan, close but not touching, his breath warm against her cheek. Kate felt an urge to lean back against him, to feel safe in his enfolding arms, and resisted it. ‘Try it,’ Dan said, meaning the code.
Kate turned the dial back and forth with care. Something clicked. She pulled open the safe door.
To one end inside was a pile of flat, velvet-covered boxes. Kate picked up one and opened it. She gasped. It contained an exquisite diamond necklace and matching earings – Edwardian, she guessed, from the design.
‘Why doesn’t she keep it in the bank?’ said Dan, shaking his head. ‘Must be worth thousands.’
Kate closed the box. ‘I don’t think it’s this she wanted us to look at,’ she said, and replaced the jewel-case with the others. ‘It’s these.’
On the right-hand side of the safe was a pile of notebooks, five in all. Two were child’s exercise books, the others were covered in patterned cardboard. Kate opened one at random. December 1943, ran the top line in classic dark blue italic. Father still very ill. The doctor says it’s his lungs, the mustard gas. He coughs horribly, on and on and on, though there’s nothing . . .
‘Her diaries.’ Kate pulled the rest out. There was something else in the safe, half-tucked behind the pile of jewel-cases, a thick
manila envelope sealed with sticky tape. Kate turned it over. It was addressed: To my son from his mother, Agnes Lavender Melton. Her son! Agnes had a son! Was it this that Agnes wanted her to know?
Just then they heard wheels crunching over gravel. They turned to see through the window a silver Range Rover roll to a halt next to Dan’s van. A smartly dressed figure got out.
Max surveyed the frontage of the house as he slammed the driver’s door and locked it. In a moment a key rattled in the front-door.
Kate and Dan looked at one another.
‘Quick. He mustn’t see all this,’ Kate said, worried. She stuffed everything back in the safe, shut the door and the bookshelf and dropped the key into her handbag.
‘Hello?’ called Max from the hall.
When he opened the library door and peered round, the two of them were piling the volumes of the Domesday Book back on the shelves. A palpable air of guilt hung in the air, and Kate felt as if she and Dan had been caught in some terrible kind of flagrante delictum.
How on earth were they to talk themselves out of this?
Chapter 19
‘What the hell?’ Max started. ‘What are you doing in here? Who’s given you permission to touch things?’ He stared at Kate, then at Dan. Dislike snapped through the air between the two men.
‘I work here, Mr Jordan, if you remember. I have a key,’ said Dan, deliberately.
Max looked him up and down. ‘I wasn’t aware that your duties included thumbing through my aunt’s private collections, Mr Peace.’ Dan Peace – Kate hadn’t known his surname before. The glares he was giving Max now were anything but peaceful. ‘We really need to improve the security here,’ Max said, as if to himself. ‘Until everything’s sorted out . . .’
‘Max, your aunt asked me to look for something for her here, some papers,’ Kate said, trying to sound firm but merely seeming defensive. The scene must, indeed, look very suspicious to Max. The handyman and an unknown woman claiming to be her cousin who’d wormed her way into Miss Melton’s affections, going through her possessions in her deserted house. In his place she’d be annoyed, too, though his air of arrogance wasn’t necessary.