by Lynda Stacey
‘Yes, Carol, she’s Michael’s niece. She emptied the place. Even took one of the damn carpets, only to throw it outside to get drenched in the storm,’ Molly said, tried to make excuses. Thought about the text she’d received, about Charlie. Could he have already been there?
‘Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re brave. House does have a bit of a history. Not sure I’d have been plucky enough to buy it.’
Giving Niall a puzzled look, Molly watched as he once again rolled his eyes, defensively held his hands up, palms out in apology. ‘Sorry… I shouldn’t have said that. It’s a great house.’
‘Oh, I didn’t buy it. I inherited it and as for Michael falling from the roof, that was hardly the house’s fault, was it?’
Looking uncomfortable, he shrugged his shoulders, gave her a sidewards glance and began to walk towards the sea. ‘Look, forget I said anything, you’re right, can’t be the house’s fault, just a bit sad that the guy didn’t have much luck in his life.’
The wind began to whip up as though on cue, clouds accumulated, turning dark and rolling together into one huge black mass. The atmosphere turned hot and humid, making every breath feel like an effort.
‘What do you mean? What else happened?’
‘Look, I’ve said too much…’ He began to shake his head, ran across to Dillon, picked up the ball and threw it as far up the beach as he could.
‘Oh no you don’t…’ Molly shouted, running after him. ‘You can’t say that much and not the rest.’
Looking up at the sky, Niall appeared to be nervously pondering his thoughts. ‘Okay, there were two women, both died suspiciously. Although by the time his most recent wife was murdered, he’d died himself. So at least he didn’t know about it and was spared the grief.’
Molly blew the air from her lungs and took a moment to respond. ‘He wasn’t married to the last one. She was my mum. And – you’re right, she was murdered. But it didn’t happen here. Not at this house.’ She paused. ‘Although by then, I guess she did own it. She just hadn’t got around to moving in. So, I don’t think it counts… does it?’
Niall stopped in his tracks, closed his eyes for a beat. ‘Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m so sorry. I – well, I didn’t know it was your mum, obviously.’
Molly pressed her lips together, gave a half smile and, thankful for the distraction, she tentatively reached out to Dillon who’d now positioned himself by her feet, looking up. Concentrating on the dog, she began to process the new information. She’d had no idea what Michael had been through previously, neither he or her mum had ever mentioned it, and knowing they’d kept the information from her left her feeling sick.
Allowing the breeze to blow in her face, Molly waited for the nausea to pass. Continually looked over her shoulder, at the house, at the roof from where Michael had fallen. Wished she knew what he’d been doing, why he’d been up there. ‘Did you know him, Michael?’ she eventually asked, desperate to glean even a tiny piece of information about the man whose house she now owned.
He paused, smiled. ‘Sure. First time I came here was when Michael rang me. He wanted a quote. Needed his garden landscaping, spent a little time with him and while I was there, I looked at his garden. I spotted the property next door, fell in love with the place. Ended up moving here myself. So, in answer to your question, yes, I knew him. A little.’ His hand swept outwards. ‘The house is still a bit of a wreck, but… I guess I’ll get it done, eventually, money permitting.’ Pausing, he circled around. Looked up at the house. ‘For the last year, I’ve been concentrating on the conversion. Turning the living space at the garden centre into self-contained flats, for the lads.’
‘Oh,’ Molly gasped. ‘You have children?’
‘Sure, twenty-two of them,’ he quickly replied, laughed. ‘Not mine, but they feel like they’re mine some days. It’s a community project. I employ former prisoners, give them a place to be. The flats will be somewhere for them to stay, you know, until they get sorted.’ He pointed up to his house. ‘I’ve got them starting work on my place later in the week, got a lot of jobs that need doing, both inside and out. There’s nothing else in the diary and seeing as I’m paying them anyhow, I might as well do the place up a bit.’ Niall glanced over his shoulder, looked her up and down with an appreciative glance, then turned his attention back to the dog, who ran excitedly between them, waiting for one of them to throw him the ball. ‘And now that Dillon’s your new best friend, you won’t be worried about him any more. Will you?’ He stood up, grabbed at the ball, gave it another long throw along the beach.
Molly smiled, appreciated the effort he’d just made to lighten the mood. ‘Well, he certainly isn’t the maneater I took him for.’ Kneeling down, she waited for Dillon to run back towards her, rubbed his ears. Laughed as he rolled on the sand, exposed his stomach, waited for her to rub that too.
‘Damn it.’ Niall tapped his watch, turned to face the cliff, kicked at the sand, with annoyance. ‘Sorry, late for work and if I don’t get there soon and unlock the tool sheds, the men can’t get on.’ He laughed. ‘They are ex-criminals, we lock the tools away at night,’ he tried to explain, held her gaze, looked directly into her eyes, gave her a captivating smile. ‘Maybe I’ll catch you later,’ he said softly. Then, as quickly as he arrived, he turned, jogged towards the steps and disappeared out of view.
11
With a hand on each knee, Molly stared at the sand, took deep steady breaths. She hadn’t run for a long time; her stamina wasn’t as good as she’d have liked, and annoyingly, her poor level of fitness was already beginning to show.
Her mind spun with a million questions. Niall’s words had blown her mind; he’d told her things she hadn’t known and now paranoia had begun to dominate her thoughts and she tried her best not to connect the coincidence of deaths, apart from the fact that they were all unusual. She wasn’t sure she could link them all to the house. The thought that they were even remotely connected to the actual owning of a house was just stupid and illogical, wasn’t it? Yet somehow a sense of anguish spun around her mind like a washing machine on its spin cycle. One that went faster and faster, each turn bringing a new thought, fear or memory.
Taking a breath, she watched the tide. It was becoming more and more volatile. Even the early morning surfer had climbed out of the water and retreated back to his car, where he’d pulled his wetsuit down to his waist and shrouded his upper body in a towel and a woolly hat.
In an attempt to change her mood, Molly continued her jog, found herself jumping over waves as they were systematically whipped up by the breeze and tossed themselves towards her where they crashed, one after the other, along the water’s edge before receding back into the sea, where they belonged. They left the beach rippled and uneven, making every step feel like a dozen and, for a while, she enjoyed the simplicity of the game, dodging the waves, running a little closer to the water each time in the hope that the wet firmer sand would give her a more stable terrain. But the unpredictability of the rollers meant that her feet had quickly become sodden, her trainers uncomfortable and grainy with sand. All of which caused her to dramatically slow her pace, concentrate on her footing, and start to feel the burn that began in her lungs and moved to her legs.
Taking a deep, determined breath inward, she felt a sudden kick of adrenaline as it coursed through every part of her body giving her a strange pleasure with a fiery familiar sensation. The feeling made her think of Dan. Of the daily running routine they used to have. Their hope to run in a local marathon, a whole twenty-six miles. A hope that had ended the moment his Achilles had ruptured, followed by the disappointment they’d both felt at pulling out of the race.
‘Go on, Molly, do it. Do it for both of us. I’ll watch and cheer from the side lines,’ he’d tried to insist, but running the marathon, along with scuba diving and climbing Mount Everest, were the things they were supposed to do together. All before they were thirty. All before everything changed.
Lost in t
hought, Molly spun around to see what had become an almost deserted beach, with the sky above turning from grey to black. The clouds had all mulled together and now appeared as one large dark mass, rather than the smaller individual clouds they’d been before.
‘Time to go back,’ she whispered, scanning the topography. She could just about make out the position of the house. The spot where it perched, high up on the cliff side. A place beyond the caravan site but not quite as far as Flamborough. A place she now got to call home. Smiling, she knew that right now, right at this moment, she got to live in what looked like the most perfect property on earth. She just wished it was perfect. That all the strange happenings could be forgotten, along with the new information she’d only just learned.
As she got close, the image of the house became clearer. It was no longer a dot on the horizon, and now she could make out both hers and Niall’s homes, both surrounded by trees and bushes so overgrown that if you didn’t know they were there, the houses would almost be hidden.
Squinting, she could just about make out a figure, someone standing by one of the trees, close to the cliff edge, looking out to sea, but from her position on the beach, she couldn’t make out whether they were in her garden or Niall’s.
‘Is that…’ She immediately thought of Beth. That something could be wrong, and without further thought she picked up her pace, felt the wind surround her like a mini tornado as the weather worsened and whipped itself up and into her face, making her blink repeatedly. Finally, when she glanced back up, the figure was gone.
12
Even though he was late for work, Niall found himself leaning against one of the trees, watching. The early morning surfer had now given up on the waves and had reluctantly taken refuge by the cliff, where he stood, debating the weather.
Catching sight of Molly, he watched her run, leap and laugh at the waves in a playful and almost childlike action. Meeting her had been fun, albeit a little planned and he thoughtfully sipped at the remnants of coffee. It had been made earlier, and was now only just drinkable, lukewarm at best, but the cup in his hands gave him something to hold onto, while silently chastising himself for saying too much. Shaking his head, he pushed himself away from the tree, threw the last remaining dregs of coffee on the grass and turned as a sudden blast of a car’s horn disturbed his thoughts.
Looking towards the drive, he noticed the Audi, a distinctive sports car, one he’d seen before, but couldn’t remember where. Debating the options, he realised that it could only really have been here or at the centre and he strode down his path towards it. Shrouded by trees, he took a closer look at the driver who, after catching the horn, now sat back in his seat with his chin angrily jutting forward, his frustration more than clear to see.
‘I just knew she’d have a boyfriend, hidden away somewhere.’ Niall took in the man’s large, muscle-bound frame. The short, almost military haircut. The hands as big as shovels and, after a few minutes’ indecision, he nodded, remembered the parole meetings, the prison officer with the sharp and uncompromising attitude and knew immediately that whether he was a neighbour or not, they wouldn’t get along.
Turning his attention back to the beach and to Molly, he followed her path, saw her pull at her hair, watched how she tied it up on top of her head, before leaning over with her hands on her knees. Walking closer to the edge of the cliff, he pressed his lips tightly together, glanced between Molly and the Audi, which was still there, still parked, the boyfriend still sitting inside.
‘Two is company, three is definitely a crowd,’ he whispered to the boyfriend as he walked down the side of his house, towards his van. Climbing inside, he left the door open, started the engine. ‘Dillon, here boy.’ Watching Dillon jump into the seat beside him, he slammed the door and with one final look at the beach, he gave an appreciative smile. ‘And you, I’ll see you later,’ he whispered to Molly.
13
Getting out of his car and walking through the garden, Dan stood and gazed at the sea, at the view, and then, through narrowed eyes, he looked up at the house that Molly now called home.
He knew she had fond memories of visiting this beach, had spoken of nothing else for months, and had told him repeatedly how much moving here had meant to her. It had been an excitement that had flown off the scale, especially during the past few days, and he’d become tired and restless as she’d explained continually that this house, this view, this beach would be her new beginning, a fresh start for both her and for Beth. She’d said it without a thought of what it would do to him. Of how lonely he would be and how every day he felt as though he were losing her just a little bit more.
Climbing back into the car, he held tightly to the Audi’s steering wheel, stared down at the footwell, felt the frustration take over his mind and, in his temper, he slammed his hands hard against the wheel, inadvertently catching the horn. The sudden blast of noise made him jump and he sat forward, nervously looking at the sports car’s bonnet as though willing it to be quiet, and for a moment he wished he hadn’t come, didn’t know what he’d achieve.
‘You knew she was always going to leave.’ He gritted his teeth, shook his head, picked up his phone, flicked back through the twenty plus texts they’d exchanged the previous night. ‘But she still likes you, she wouldn’t send the texts if she didn’t. Would she?’
Sitting back in his seat, Dan studied the sky along with the looming dark clouds which were growing ever darker and moodier and from his position, he could just about see the tide rolling in. It was becoming more and more erratic by the minute and while watching it, he sat there, questioning his life, his happiness, Molly’s happiness and what their future might or might not hold. How they’d been dramatically pulled together, and then drifted apart. It was something he had to put right. It was important that he kept her close.
Reaching across to the passenger seat, he picked up the new brass locks he’d just bought in town. She’d mentioned the doors the night before. How she’d been thinking of Charlie getting out, of her dread that he might turn up.
Turning the locks over and over in his hands, he punctured the packet. Pulled out the three keys. Took one for himself. ‘There could be an emergency. She might need you to get in.’ He tried to rationalise his thoughts, placed the key on his keyring.
Climbing out of the car, he saw the front door burst open. A nervous Beth peered around it, like a wild animal, cornered and afraid. Catching his eye, an immediate smile flashed across her face and enthusiastically, she beckoned to him, swinging the door open wide and jumping up and down on the old, tattered doormat, still wearing her pyjamas.
‘Dan, what… what are you doing here?’ Eagerly, she stepped off the mat and onto the path. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you. I didn’t know you were coming.’
She was smiling, but the tear-filled eyes told him a very different story and feeling concerned, he slammed the car door and practically ran towards her. ‘Hey, kiddo.’ Pulling her into a brotherly hug, Dan kissed her on the cheek and noted that her whole body was trembling. ‘Thought I’d surprise you both,’ he said. ‘What’s going on, are you okay?’
‘I’m better now you’re here and it’s not much of a surprise when you go round blasting the damned horn, is it?’ She poked him in the ribs, tried to look over his shoulder. ‘Hey, what you got in your hands? Are they doughnuts? Let me see.’
Playfully, he ducked out of her way. ‘Nope, not doughnuts, sorry. And you, young lady, you should stay indoors. You know, dressed like that.’ Dan gave her a strict look, pointed to her pyjamas and quickly ushered her back over the doorstep and into the house. ‘Go on. Inside. Any perv could be watching.’
Beth pulled a face, arched an eyebrow. ‘For God’s sake, Dan, who can see me, we’re a million miles away from anyone. Not as though we have any real neighbours, is it?’ She padded across the hallway, gestured for him to follow and watched as he closed the door behind them both.
‘The beach is only down there; anyone could be walking along
it.’ He pointed through the window. ‘They could look up and, well, you’re growing up far too fast. Not everyone knows you like I do… so…’ He waved a stern finger in her direction and looked over her shoulder, noticed the random carving knife that lay on the counter. ‘Are you making breakfast?’ He smiled. ‘’Cause I’m starving. Toast would be good, oh, and some bacon if there is any. In fact, I’ll tell you what, a bacon butty would go down well. I’m sure it’s your turn.’ He thought of all the breakfasts he’d made her, how he’d practically had to force her to eat after her mother’s death. How she’d loved his cooking.
Beth cockily rocked her head from side to side. ‘Actually, I was just going to…’ as though noticing the knife for the first time, she grabbed it, opened a drawer and pushed it inside, ‘make toast. So, if you’re nice, I might make you some too, but if you want bacon, you’ll have to go to the shops.’ Picking up the kettle she turned on the tap, allowed the water to run. ‘Or we’ve got cereal. Cereal’s easy.’ She pointed to the cupboard above his head.
‘Where’s your sister?’ Dan’s eyes darted from kitchen to hall, even though he knew she was on the beach, running; it was as though he was half waiting for her to pop out, to greet him.
‘Moll, she’s down there. Went for a run, left me all by myself.’ She pointed to the beach. ‘And seeing as you’re not dressed for running, I’ll make you some coffee. I doubt she’ll be long.’
Dan smiled, rested his hand on the worktop. ‘Thanks.’ Raising both eyebrows, he stared directly at her. ‘So, you gonna tell me what’s up?’