Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

by Liz Eeles

  Tap-tap-tap. She was certainly desperate to get out of this house. The sound of her impatience echoing through the house was both agitating and infuriating.

  At the top of the stairs, Rosie hurtled past the Eppings into the main bathroom and kicked her underwear behind the basin before they followed her in.

  ‘I suppose this is a decent-sized room at least,’ said Cecilia, frowning at the stain on the bath enamel that wouldn’t come off, however much Rosie scrubbed. She ran her hand across the shower curtain before pulling her hand back as though she was burned. ‘Is that mould?’

  It was mould – a spot of black fungus the size of a five pence piece where the curtain rested against the tub. Rosie forced herself to smile.

  ‘This room would certainly benefit from a new suite, including a walk-in shower, but that could be installed fairly inexpensively. The main thing is this room is a fabulous size and would make a wonderful master bathroom for the main bedroom that overlooks the sea. You could charge a premium for that sort of accommodation.’

  ‘The main bedroom is where?’ asked Cecilia, already bored with the bathroom and Rosie’s ideas.

  The bedroom caught her attention a little more, and she spent a couple of minutes looking around, before wandering off along the landing to investigate the other rooms by herself. Charles stayed put, gazing through the window across the cliffs to the sea. The wind that had sprung up was whipping at the waves and there were white horses as far as the eye could see.

  ‘The view from this room is rather magnificent,’ he said, after a few moments.

  ‘It really is,’ Rosie enthused. ‘Whatever the weather, sun or cloud. Watching a storm front roll in across the sea is amazing.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ He pushed a hand through his snow-white hair. ‘I also imagine that your mother liked living here.’

  ‘She loved it.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’ It was a statement, rather than a question.

  ‘Just because I live elsewhere, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love this house.’

  Charles raised an eyebrow. ‘I suppose not, otherwise why would you be trying so hard to save it?’ He picked up a silver-framed photo of Rosie from the chest of drawers. ‘Was this your mother’s bedroom?’

  ‘Why?’

  Now that did sound rude, but Rosie’s patience with her inconveniently early visitors was wearing thin. They owned the house, but it was still her home for the next few days. She took the photo from Charles and carefully placed it back exactly where it had been before.

  ‘I was merely interested to know what became of your mother, after Evelyn’s death.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever try to contact her yourself?’

  Charles regarded Rosie for a moment before turning his attention back to the ever-moving water. ‘I don’t deal directly with tenants.’

  ‘Even a tenant who was great friends with your sister? A tenant who you remembered had a sweet tooth?’

  Colour flooded Charles’s face and he opened his mouth to speak, but his wife beat him to it.

  ‘What are you two muttering about in here?’ she called from the doorway. When neither of them answered, she marched across the room and hooked her arm through her husband’s. She seemed pale under her carefully applied make-up, and jittery, as though she’d seen a ghost.

  Rosie’s antipathy towards this cold woman softened slightly. Living in the middle of Dartmoor, with the snow piling up in winter, must be rather lonely, however much money you had.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ she asked. Cecilia hesitated, suspicion etched across her face. ‘I promise it’s not a bribe to save the house. I think I’d have to do rather better than a cup of Earl Grey. You just look like you could do with catching your breath.’

  ‘We don’t have the time.’ Cecilia paused again and her voice was softer when she added: ‘But thank you.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to show us the other bedrooms and then we can leave you in peace.’

  Once Rosie had shown them the bedrooms – and suggested that the attic could be converted into an additional bedroom with en suite facilities at a relatively low cost – Cecilia declared she’d seen enough.

  ‘What’s your verdict on Driftwood House?’ asked Rosie, nervously, as the couple stood at the open front door. The weather had turned and clouds bunching over the sea promised showers by tea time.

  ‘My husband and I will discuss it and we’ll be in touch. Thank you for your time.’

  Rosie wasn’t an idiot. Cecilia clearly hated Driftwood House and would be pushing for it to be demolished. And Charles would agree, if his apparent indifference to the house was anything to go by. He’d hardly said a word since their tetchy exchange in the bedroom.

  Cecilia walked towards the Range Rover but Charles hesitated in the doorway. ‘Was your mother happy here at Driftwood House?’

  Rosie frowned, caught out by such an unexpected question. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘I understand she was divorced.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is your father still alive?’

  ‘He died a few years ago.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘Whatever we decide, there are obviously still things here in the house that need to be resolved. Your mother’s possessions will have to be moved elsewhere for a start. So you can ignore when you were expected to vacate the property and stay until your flight back to Spain, as long as we’re only talking about an additional few days.’

  ‘That would be helpful. Thank you.’ The tension in Rosie’s shoulders eased slightly because at least she wouldn’t be homeless before heading back to Málaga.

  Cecilia suddenly leaned out of the car window. ‘For goodness’ sake, Jay, do hurry up or we’ll be late.’

  Rosie’s breath caught in her throat, as Charles put his hands to his neck. ‘I do believe I’ve left my scarf upstairs. Do you mind?’

  Rosie stepped back silently, to allow him back into the house, and the moment he started climbing the stairs she hurried to the car.

  ‘Yes?’ said Cecilia, making no effort to disguise her irritation.

  ‘When will you make a decision about Driftwood House?’

  ‘As I said, my husband and I will discuss the situation.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rosie glanced through the open front door. Charles was coming down the stairs with his scarf around his neck, so it was now or never. ‘Sorry for asking, but did you just call your husband Jay? I thought his name was Charles.’

  Cecilia frowned. She must think that Rosie was mad. ‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business but my husband’s middle name is James and close friends and family often call him Jay. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s perfectly fine. Thank you,’ said Rosie, brightly, as Charles arrived at the car and slid into the driving seat. ‘Thank you for coming, have a good day and I hope you won’t be late, wherever you’re going.’

  Rosie sat down heavily on the grass and watched the car pick its bumpy way down the potholed track. She’d just burbled at the end there and couldn’t even remember what she’d said.

  There was no way Cecilia was going to give up her plan to demolish Driftwood House, but that wasn’t uppermost in Rosie’s mind right now. Charles Epping was known to those close to him as Jay, and though he claimed he’d never known her mother, people lied – the last month had taught her that if nothing else. Could he be the author of the hidden love letter?

  Cold, unfeeling Charles Epping and her warm vibrant mother. That was hard enough to get her head around but the next notion almost blew her mind. If he was Saffy’s long-lost lover, could he also be her father?

  CHAPTER 20

  This is not a good idea, insisted Rosie’s inner voice as she pushed open the door to the café. But she ignored it, as she usually did, sat at a table next to the window with her laptop and logged on to the free Wi-Fi. The signal in here was far more reliable than at Driftwood House, and better for snooping o
n the Eppings.

  The past was often best left in the past. Her mother had obviously thought so. Why else would she have guarded her secrets so zealously? But then she went and died and her secrets were now floating to the surface, like flotsam on the beach after a storm. And Rosie was feeling rather storm-battered.

  Grief felt flat. It had settled on her like a suffocating blanket, draining her energy and dulling her thoughts. But this latest shock was different. It fizzed and made her fingers tingle. She’d hardly slept last night and, when she did at last fall into an exhausted slumber, her dreams were full of her mother embracing Charles Epping in a cliff-top hotel while Belinda took notes.

  Rosie looked through the window, past the striped bunting, at the shops and whitewashed cottages lining the cobbled High Street. Front doors opened directly onto the street, with doorsteps worn down by centuries of footsteps, and the blue sea sparkled nearby. Villagers had enjoyed the same view for hundreds of years. Everything in Heaven’s Cove was solid and permanent. But her own history, her roots, were shaky and unclear.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ Pauline, owner of the Heavenly Tea Shop for donkey’s years, was standing by the table. She was wearing a pretty floral apron and smelled of vanilla and coffee beans. ‘It’s good to see you in here. How are you doing after what happened to your mother? Such a terrible tragedy.’

  Pauline had a foghorn voice and a couple of tourists on the next table gave Rosie a sympathetic smile.

  ‘I’m OK, thanks, Pauline.’

  ‘What’s happening at Driftwood House?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘Those Eppings are a nightmare.’ Pauline glanced nervously over her shoulder and dropped her voice to a loud whisper. ‘None of us around here can stand them. They’re absolutely loaded but I bet they won’t contribute to the village hall fund at all. They don’t give a monkey’s about Heaven’s Cove.’ She straightened up and took a small spiral notebook from her pocket. ‘Anyway, enough about those two. What can I get you?’

  ‘I’ll have a coffee please, an espresso.’

  ‘Nothing else? I’ve got carrot cake and eclairs and home-baked scones. You could have a lovely cream tea. Your mum always enjoyed one of those.’

  ‘I’m not very hungry at the moment so just a coffee, please.’

  Pauline snapped her notebook shut. ‘Coming up.’

  Rosie went back to her laptop and typed in a search for Charles Epping, Dartmoor. Dozens of entries scrolled up on the screen, including a link to Wikipedia. She clicked and started reading.

  Charles Epping is a businessman and landowner. His ancestor George Epping was knighted by King Henry VII for providing support during The Wars of the Roses and granted several hundreds of acres of land in the county of Devon.

  His family was given the land. They didn’t even have to work for it. Rosie frowned and continued reading the brief entry. There was an Epping family tree which stretched back to William the Conqueror.

  High Tor House had its own section, which told her that it was built in the late fifteenth century and had been extended during the centuries that followed. It was reputedly haunted by the ghost of a white lady who walked the building. Rosie shivered, remembering the chill she’d felt in the hallway when she first went inside.

  She scrolled to the end of the entry for personal information. Charles and Cecilia were married in London on 5 May 1989, a month before she was born. There was no mention of Charles Epping having any children, and a separate Google search brought up nothing relevant. What was Rosie expecting? An entry about his missing love child?

  ‘Here you go.’ Pauline placed a steaming coffee on the table and a plate next to it. ‘I know you said you weren’t hungry but you’re looking a bit peaky so this is on the house. With you living in Spain and all, I chose the most exotic European item we have on the menu.’

  She nodded at the golden pain au chocolat on the plate and Rosie’s stomach growled when its sweet smell hit her nose. She hadn’t been able to face breakfast after such a disturbed night but she was hungrier than she’d thought.

  ‘Thanks, Pauline. That’s really kind of you.’

  ‘You’re most welcome. Are you still trying to persuade the Eppings not to knock down Driftwood House?’

  Rosie nonchalantly nudged her laptop screen out of Pauline’s line of sight. ‘Kind of. I’ve spruced up the house in the hope that he’ll change his mind about the hotel.’

  ‘Hmm. He doesn’t come across as the kind of man who changes his mind, and his wife’s a piece of work by all accounts. They don’t let anything stand in their way – what the Eppings want, the Eppings get.’ Pauline sniffed. ‘But good luck with it.’

  Pauline really wasn’t a fan. No one in Heaven’s Cove seemed to be, so what would they think of her if it turned out that she and Charles Epping were so closely related? Rosie shook her head. It was a crazy idea. There was no way that her mum would have taken up with such a cold fish.

  When Pauline went off to serve a young woman who’d just come in with her baby, Rosie went back to her screen. She nibbled at the soft pastry and scrolled through more information about Charles Epping’s life, pausing when she got to his sister.

  Evelyn Amelia Epping, Charles’s younger sister, died at the age of 27 in August 1988 after being involved in a traffic collision near Bayeux in Normandy. She was engaged to Viscount Pelham at the time and due to marry before the end of the year. Before her death, she was patron of a number of charities in Devon.

  What a terrible tragedy for Charles and his whole family. It showed that however rich and grand your family might be, death still cast its shadow. Rosie felt a sudden stab of sympathy for cold, austere Charles Epping in his haunted house on the wild moors.

  She was about to close down the computer when a link to the Epping family crest caught her eye. She double-clicked and leaned in closer to the screen. The crest was an intricate mixture of green and blue curlicues, with golden lions on either side of a large shield. And at the centre of the shield, picked out in bright red and dominating the crest, was a flower – a rose.

  What was it that Morag had told her? Rose was your mother’s choice of name. She was most insistent about it.

  Rosie slammed the laptop lid shut and smiled shakily at the tourist couple who glanced up in alarm. It had to be a coincidence. Her mother had called her child Rose because she liked the name, that was all, not to drop another breadcrumb that would one day lead that child to her father.

  ‘Is everything all right over there, Rosie?’ called Pauline across the café. ‘You’ve gone awful pale under that tan of yours.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Pauline. I’ve left money under the cup.’

  Then, she stuffed her laptop into her bag and fled the café, leaving her half-eaten pastry on the table.

  ‘Pick up, pick up,’ Rosie pleaded, rushing along the High Street towards home with her mobile pressed to her ear.

  Matt was never parted from his phone. It was virtually welded to his hand – he even took it into the toilet. But getting him to answer his phone these days was another matter. When she’d called him last night he hadn’t answered at all, though he’d texted later to say he was working late.

  She rang off when her call again clicked through to Matt’s voicemail and hit the redial button for the third time because she really needed to speak to him right now.

  Her breathing was too short, too shallow, and her fingers had started to prickle with pins and needles. Rosie deliberately slowed everything down but kept walking as Matt’s phone started ringing once more. Finally, he picked up.

  ‘Can’t speak. It’s ridiculously manic here for a Thursday. I’ll ring you back later, babe.’

  ‘No, please wait, Matt. I really need to speak to you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ He lowered his voice. ‘A couple from Manchester are about to sign on the dotted line for that dodgy apartment near the car wash. The one with the broken air-conditioning system.’

  She paused,
confused. ‘I thought we’d agreed that one shouldn’t be on the market?’

  ‘What can I say?’ He raised his voice again. ‘Mr Jimson absolutely loves it, don’t you, sir?’

  ‘Can you spare me two minutes? I need to talk because I think’ – Rosie looked around to make sure Belinda wasn’t about to leap out from a side alley – ‘I think that Charles Epping might be my biological father.’

  ‘What, that bloke who owns your old house?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘And you think he’s your dad because…?’

  ‘I found out yesterday that people close to him call him Jay. Remember the love letter to Mum that I told you about?’

  ‘Of course I do. The letter and the house are all you talk about these days.’

  ‘Well, it was signed with a J so he might have written it.’ She stopped speaking but Matt said nothing. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m thinking. Why didn’t you ring and tell me?’

  ‘I tried but you didn’t pick up and I didn’t want to explain it over text.’

  ‘You should have told me straight away.’

  ‘You should have answered my calls.’

  ‘I’m a busy man, Rosie.’

  Urgh, this wasn’t the time to rehash old disagreements. Rosie ploughed on.

  ‘So his family call him Jay and he let my mum live at Driftwood House for years. He claims it was because she was friends with his sister but she died ages ago and he doesn’t seem the sort of man to honour an old agreement. Plus, my mum was insistent that I be called Rose and I’ve just found out that his family crest has a rose at its centre. He and Mum obviously had a falling out, and she never told me about him because everyone around here hates him. It all makes sense.’

  Or it had until she’d said it out loud. Matt’s silence down the line spoke volumes. It was all circumstantial evidence that would never stand up in the police procedural documentaries that her mum loved to watch.