by Ann Cleeves
There had been talk of turning Ivy’s parlour into a bedroom for Dougie when he first came back from the hospital, but, as Bella said, the bathroom was upstairs and she was hardly going to wash him at the kitchen sink. In the end social services had provided a st airlift so they could keep the bedroom they’d shared since they were married, probably even before that. Bella had never been a great one for convention.
Someone must have been into the room since the night Bella died to collect Dougie’s suit for the funeral. Perhaps Neville had come when they were out on the hill. Rachael hadn’t heard a car. But he had taken the clothes and gone. That was all. The room still smelled of disinfectant and of Bella’s perfume. Rachael searched it as meticulously as elsewhere, but without expectation of finding anything.
If Bella had wanted to keep secrets from Dougie this would be the last place she’d choose.
The room which they called Neville’s, the room where she’d slept off Dougie’s whisky, had been stripped of everything except a single bed and a wardrobe. Her place at Edie’s was still full of schoolgirl clutter. Even if she got round to buying a flat of her own she thought it would still be her room, with the curtains she’d chosen, her stencils covering the wall. This was impersonal. Nothing belonging to Neville had been left behind.
That left a third bedroom, which Rachael had never seen before. It was reached by two steps down from the landing, at the back of the house.
It was small, with a sloping roof and a big cupboard containing the hot water tank. There was a narrow divan, covered with a cream quilt, still slightly crumpled as if someone had been sitting on it. By the divan was a desk, of the kind you would once have found in a schoolroom with a lift-up lid and an inkwell. Even though the surface had been sanded and painted with red gloss the scratched indentations of graffiti were still visible.
Inside the desk was a wooden box, inlaid with marquetry and mother of pearl. Once perhaps Bella had hidden it more carefully, but after Dougie’s stroke there had been no need. The two steps from the landing meant he would never visit this room. Rachael took the box to the bed and opened the lid.
At first she was disappointed. It seemed to contain the details of quite a different person, Isabella Rose Noble. There was a birth certificate in that name, dated 16 September 1942 giving the place of birth as Kimmerston, Northumberland. Next came a certificate of education dated 1963. Isabella Rose Noble had attended a teacher training college in Newcastle and was qualified to teach primary children. Only when Rachael shook a faded newspaper cutting from a brown envelope did she connect Isabella Noble with Bella Furness. At first the cutting meant nothing to her. There was an article about a child swept away by a flooded river. The body was never found. But the article was cut off in mid-sentence so she turned the paper over and read the other side.
There was an obituary taken from a local paper, dated 1970. There were two columns of print and a photograph. The man looking out at her was dark and full-faced. His name was Alfred Noble. He had died at the age of seventy, so the photograph, of a florid middle-aged man, must have been taken many years before his death.
All these details Rachael took in later. What she thought first, when she looked at the cutting, was that it was a picture of Bella. The square face, the thick dark eyebrows were the same. If the hair had been longer and if Alfred Noble had been wearing the chunky gold earrings which Bella loved, the two would have been identical. Was Alfred Noble Bella’s father? If so, why had she said her maiden name was Davison?
Rachael went on to read the smaller print. Alfred Noble had died in tragic circumstances after a long illness. This was not a news report but an eulogy.
Councillor Noble had served the town of Kimmerston well for thirty years before giving up his duties. HI health had also dictated his retirement from his position as postmaster. The funeral had taken place at the Kimmerston Methodist Church where he had served as steward. He would be much missed. He was described in the obituary as a widower but there was no mention of surviving children. Surely there would have been if Bella was his daughter, but how else could she explain the coincidence of the birth certificate, with a date which tallied with Bella’s age, and the startling resemblance?
Proof was provided by another photograph, a glossy coloured one in a presentation cardboard frame. It showed twelve children aged between five and seven in a school playground. Some sat on a wooden bench, others stood behind them. There were prim girls in pigtails, tousle-haired boys with gappy grins. Th one side, quite dashing in her short skirt and crocheted top, stood Bella. Written on the back in sloping handwriting was: “Corbin County Primary School 1966. Miss. Noble with Class One.”
Attached to the photo by a rusty paper clip was a handwritten letter.
The address was Corbin County Primary School, Corbin, Nr Wooler, Northumberland. It was dated April 1967 and it acknowledged, with regret, Miss. Noble’s resignation: “I understand you feel that family circumstances make this necessary, but trust that it will be possible for you to return to the profession in the future.”
It was signed Alicia Davison.
When Bella first met Dougie her name had been Davison. Perhaps Edie was right and Bella had been previously married. To a relative of the headmistress’s for whom she was working? A son or brother? Now there was more to work on it should be possible to find out. Why had Bella kept the marriage secret?
All that was left in the box was a letter inviting Miss. Noble to attend the Corbin Primary School Christmas Concert on 15 December 1969 at 7.00 p.m. Mince pies and tea would be provided. At that time then, Bella was still unmarried. There was nothing to show whether or not she attended the concert, or what had become of her between her resignation in 1967 and her appearance at the bus stop in Langholme in 1989.
It took some time for Rachael to decide what to do with the information. She felt that the box and its contents belonged to Black Law. If Neville had been inclined to snoop he’d already had the chance when he came to collect Dougie’s clothes. But this was the only connection she had with Bella’s past. In the end she found a circular in a brown envelope in the kitchen. She slipped the papers and photos between its pages, and returned it to the envelope. She would keep it at Baikie’s until she had a chance to take it home.
She was just leaving the house when the telephone began to ring. For a while she left it, but it continued, insistent and nerve-shattering. At last she gave in and picked it up. It was a feed rep, used in these hard times to being persistent. She said Bella had left the farm without giving details. After replacing the receiver in the middle of his sales patter she phoned Edie. At first Edie pretended to be hurt, because she hadn’t been included in the search of the house. Then she was gleeful. It seemed she had been right about Bella’s previous marriage. And it shouldn’t be hard to trace Alicia Davison, who’d once been headmistress of Corbin Primary School. Not with her contacts in County Hall. If, of course, she was still alive.
Chapter Ten.
“You do realize,” Anne said, ‘ she’s barking.”
They were in the pub in Langholme. It had been Rachael’s idea. The three of them should get away from Baime’s, have a few drinks, relax.
She felt it was her responsibility that they weren’t getting on. Since the funeral there had been an undercurrent of tension, a tetchiness which expressed itself in trivial gripes, explosions of bad temper. Now it had come to a head. Anne was proposing moving into the box room at the back of the cottage. It was tiny, freezing, hardly room for the bed. Because the big room with its view of the burn and the crags beyond was so much more pleasant, it had been assumed at the start of the contract that Anne and Grace would share. Rachael had a small room to herself. There was nowhere else. In the pub Anne had waited until Grace went to the phone before making her announcement. For some reason the room was very crowded and noisy. Rachael picked up that there had been a family event a birth or an engagement. There was an air of hysterical celebration. She felt awkward conducting such a se
nsitive conversation in a yell.
“I thought she was getting on better. She seems happier. And at least she’s been eating.”
“She’s also awake for most of the night, prowling around.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ll have a word.”
“Where did you get her from anyway?”
“She did a contract in Dumfries last year for a friend of Peter’s. He said she was brilliant. A real find.”
Anne gave a snort of contempt. Grace returned, stared into her empty glass, didn’t answer when Rachael spoke to her. They left the pub early.
Back in the cottage Anne went upstairs to move her things. They could hear her banging about. Grace went to the table in the living room which she used as a desk and began immediately to work. From the kitchen Rachael could hear her punch the buttons of a calculator. She went in. It had been a mild day and they’d not bothered to light the fire. A film of wood ash had settled on everything.
“Isn’t it a bit late to start now?” Rachael said.
Grace jumped round with a start. The calculator clattered to the floor. Rachael stooped to pick it up.
“The idea was that we should all take a break. There’s still a bottle of wine left from my trip into town. Shall we open it?”
“Why not?” The reply was unnaturally loud, artificially bright.
“I’ll just get it. Pack that away. It’ll wait until tomorrow.” My God, she thought, I sound just like Edie telling me to take it easy before A levels. There was something about Grace’s passion for her subject, her intense desire for privacy which Rachael recognized. She poured the wine into the tumblers which were the only glasses to have survived a season of student washing-up, then waited for Grace to move into an easy chair before handing one to her.
“How’s it going?”
“Very well.” Grace, drinking deeply, looked warily over her glass.
“The data much as you expected?”
“Pretty much.”
“I’ve been looking at the information you passed on last week. Was that typical?” Rachael, waiting for an answer, felt ridiculously anxious.
“I don’t know. Too small a sample yet.” Grace was casual, apparently unperturbed.
“I see.” Knowing how irritated she felt when pestered about ongoing work, Rachael let that go, though the anxiety remained. “Anne says you’re not sleeping very well.”
Carefully, Grace set down the glass by her chair. “I don’t think Anne has the best interests of the project at heart,” she said seriously.
“What do you mean?”
But Grace wouldn’t say.
“Are you sleeping?”
The wine which she’d drunk very quickly must have taken effect because she was almost truculent. “As much as I need to.”
“You do know you can take the weekend off. Why don’t you go home for a while? You’re the only one who hasn’t had a break from this place.”
“I don’t need a break. I take my work seriously.” Unlike Anne Preece, she implied. “Besides, I haven’t got much of a home to go back to.”
She stood up and went defiantly back to the table and her calculator.
The next day Rachael had to go into Kimmerston. A meeting had been arranged sometime before with Peter and a representative from Slateburn Quarries, to inform them of the progress of the project so far. She was reluctant to leave Anne and Grace together. They were like quarrelling children who needed an adult as peacemaker, to stop things from coming to blows.
Please be good, she wanted to say as she drove up the track.
She was surprised to find that Neville Furness was the Slateburn representative. Although she was early he was at the office before her. He and Peter were already deep in conversation. They both looked very smart, very professional in their suits. She had expected an informal meeting and was wearing her field clothes. Nothing of consequence was decided at the encounter but it seemed to drag on. She had the impression that Peter was prolonging the explanation of the methodology, making it more complicated than necessary in an attempt to impress. Afterwards he made her stay for tea. Again she felt he was building up to some confidence, and when he suggested going for a drink, she insisted on leaving. All afternoon she had been uneasy about the two women left behind in Baikie’s.
She drove back in the dusk. Now the track was so familiar she could take it more quickly. She knew the best line to take so the exhaust wouldn’t catch on the ruts and how to swing the car through the ford to stop the engine getting wet. On the dry stone wall by the wooden gate there was a ring ouzel, its collar crescent startlingly white against the gloom.
From the top of the bank she looked down on Black Law and Baikie’s. Black Law was still and empty. All the animals had gone, even the dogs. Without a function the buildings seemed ramshackle and pitiful. In the garden at Baikie’s there was a line of washing left out, though it looked as if it might rain. Although from this angle she couldn’t see the windows a square of orange light spilt onto the grass. It should have been reassuringly domestic but she realized she was driving more slowly, putting off the moment when she’d have to face the hostility between the women inside, remembering, as she always did approaching the barn, Bella’s body in the torchlight.
When she went into the house she was struck first by the smell of cooking. There was nothing usually organized about meals, no cosy gathering every evening to compare notes. Rachael had suggested a rota for washing up but even that was impractical. They ate at different times. Anne seemed to survive on scrambled egg and smoked salmon. It seemed she had a friend in the Craster smokery who kept her well supplied. And Belgian chocolates which appeared from nowhere. She was always generous about sharing them. Rachael occasionally indulged.
Grace seemed suspicious of the gesture.
Wandering through the living room Rachael saw that the table had been cleared of books and papers and was laid for dinner. For three. There was no sign of life. She called up the stairs, “Hello! I’m back,” trying to keep her voice normal, unworried.
Anne appeared. She was wearing black jeans and a sleeveless top. When the fire had been lit for a while the cottage could get very warm but the top, cream silk, ANN CLEEVES seemed a strange choice. It was too dressy. Rachael wondered if she’d been entertaining a guest.
“I cooked a casserole,” Anne said. “It’s all right. There’s veggie for you. There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge.”
So either someone had been there, or Anne had been out for supplies.
She went on, “I thought, well, we’ve got to live here together, haven’t we? We might as well make an effort to be chums.”
“Where is Grace?”
Anne pulled a face. “Inconsiderate cow’s not back yet. I told her I’d be cooking.”
Rachael went to the window. It was almost dark. “She did leave her route and her ETA?”
“I suppose so. On the kitchen notice board Like a good girl.”
This was a dig at Rachael who had been forced to nag her again about not leaving the details of her count. And there was a note in Grace’s tiny, angular writing, giving the map reference of an area beyond the burn and her expected time of return at 8.30. It was about that time now.
Rachael relaxed a little. It was too early to panic. She went back to the window expecting to see Grace’s pale form emerge from the long bracken, like a swimmer from the sea.
“Oh well,” Anne said. “I suppose the food will keep. But I’m going to open the wine. Do you want one?”
“Not yet.” It seemed important to keep a clear head.
At nine o’clock she went out with a torch and followed the footpath as far as the burn. She crossed it by the footbridge and began to shout Grace’s name, cupping her hands, then pausing to listen. A breeze had come up. She heard the burn, and the rustling of cotton grass and of small mammals. A hare froze, dazzled by the beam of the torch. There was no human sound, no echoing flicker of torchlight. Thick clouds had covered the moo
n and if it hadn’t been for the water noise she would have lost her bearings completely. It would be impossible to search the area properly, even if Anne were prepared to help.
When she returned to Baikie’s Anne was on her second glass of wine.
She’d torn a chunk from a French loaf and was eating it hungrily to make a point. Her stockinged feet were stretched onto the hearth. “You realize she’s doing this on purpose,” she said. “To get at me, because I said I’d cook. Well, I’ll not wait much longer. I’m starving.”
“It’s pitch black out there now.” Rachael couldn’t keep still. She moved from the window to the kitchen door, listening, peering into the darkness.
“Don’t panic, for Christ’s sake. She’s not that late. I bet you wouldn’t worry about me. She’s not a kid, you know. She’s older than she looks. Nearly twenty-eight.”
For a moment Rachael was distracted. “How do you know?”
“She’d left her passport on the dressing table upstairs. So I looked.”
Anticipating Rachael’s disapproval she added, “Well, I was curious.
Aren’t you? We don’t know anything about her except she seems a bloody miracle worker when it comes to finding otters. If you accept her results.”
At ten o’clock Rachael went to Black Law to phone Peter Kemp.
“I didn’t know you had the keys,” Anne said.
“Dougie gave me a set after the funeral. In case of an emergency.”
She reached Peter on his mobile. He seemed to be in a busy restaurant.
There were shrill women’s voices, the clatter of plates. At least he took the call seriously. She had been afraid he would laugh at her concern.
“Just a minute,” he said. “I’ll phone you back from somewhere quieter.”
Five minutes later the phone rang, sounding very loud in the empty house. He was brisk, assertive. He had been in touch with the mountain rescue team though he didn’t think they’d do much before first light. It wasn’t as if Grace had been anywhere dangerous. Not like rock-climbing or pot-holing.