Mandy Miller disappeared from Hallow’s End when she was just three years old. She was never found.

Thirty years on, Elaine Ellis is carrying her mother’s ashes back to Hallow’s End to scatter them in the place that she once called home. Elaine has never been there, but it’s the only place Jean talked about while she was growing up – so it seems as good a place as any.

As Elaine settles into her holiday cottage in the peaceful Devonshire village, she gets to know the locals; family she never knew she had; eccentric and old-fashioned gentry, and new friends where she would least expect them. But she is intrigued by the tale of the missing girl that the village still carries at its heart, and which somehow continues to overshadow them all. Little does she know how much more involved in the mystery she will become…

The Lost Child

Ann Troup

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Ann Troup 2015

Ann Troup asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474034968

Version date: 2018-09-20

ANN TROUP

tells tales and can always make something out of nothing (which means she writes books and can create unique things from stuff other people might not glance twice at). She was once awarded 11 out of 10 for a piece of poetry at school – and now holds that teacher entirely responsible for her inclination to write.

Her writing process is governed first by the fine art of procrastination, a field in which she is outstanding. Once that phase is complete, she knuckles down and writes, completely abandoning the careful plans made during the procrastination phase. At some point a story emerges and after a bit of tweaking and a re-acquaintance with the concepts of grammar, punctuation and the myriad glories of the English language, she is surprised to find that she has written a book!

Her writing space is known as ‘the empty nest’, having formerly been her daughter’s bedroom. She shares this space with ten tons of junk and an elderly West Highland Terrier who is her constant companion whether she likes it or not. He likes to contribute to the creative process by falling asleep on top of her paperwork and running away with crucial Post-it notes, which have inadvertently become stuck to his fur. She is thinking of renaming him Gremlin.

She lives by the sea in Devon with her husband and said dog. Two children have been known to remember the house which they call home, but mainly when they are in need of a decent roast dinner, it’s Christmas or when only Mum will do.

In a former incarnation she was psychiatric nurse, an experience that frequently informs her writing and which supplies a never-ending source of inspiration.

You can contact Ann on Facebook or at anntroup.wordpress.com

My thanks also go to Mike, Tom, Ellie and Naomi for keeping the faith and to Rooney, my constant companion and four-legged writing buddy. Without the five of you I might get a lot more books written! But with you, life is good.

Last but not least, Victoria Oundjian and the team at HQ Digital for picking me out of the slush pile and helping to bring this book to life. Thank you.

For Eddie and Ness, two of the very best.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter One

It all began with the dead badger. Elaine had spotted it on the road to Hallow’s End, lying stiff and cold near to the grass verge that edged the narrow lane.

Ordinarily she would have ignored it, just swerved past and put the sight out of her mind. However, faced with an oncoming tractor, she had no choice but to drive over the poor thing. As the rear wheels bumped over its now thrice crushed corpse, she gave absolution to its lingering spirit with an apology made insincere by the shudder of revulsion that accompanied it. Rural Devon seemed to be inordinately littered with roadkill.

Driving over the badger had caused a jolt to the suspension, which in turn dislodged the lid of an urn. The three events sent the contents of the urn, the ashes of Elaine’s recently cremated mother, skittering across the boot in a cloud of gritty detritus.

Remnants of the dead woman worked their way into every surface as the car rumbled over uneven tarmac. The tumbling, rolling motion helped to embed the very crumbs of Jean Ellis deep into shoes and coats and bags, where she could cling unseen.

Even in death Jean could cleave to the daughter she’d coveted. In this powdered state she could nestle against Elaine’s skin, work under her fingernails and linger in the air that she would breathe. Jean had become an ethereal cloud, which no one could escape.

When the car drew to a halt Jean settled for a moment, a dust storm in waiting. At the eye of that storm a burdened soul smouldered.

*

Elaine knew none of this as she negotiated the lanes, diligently following the signs to Hallow’s End and looking out for the fork in the road that would lead to the cottage she had rented. Just past the village she took the right fork, as instructed on the booking confirmation, and within a hundred yards saw a cottage which matched the photograph from the website. Sure enough, the sign on the gate read ‘Meadowfoot Cottage’ and Elaine knew she had found the right place. A gravelled pull-in formed the parking space and she pulled up there. Once out of the driving seat she stretched her stiffened limbs and walked to the back of the car. A girl had emerged from the cottage next door and was walking towards her. ‘Miriam says I’ve got to help you with your bags’ she said.

Elaine smiled at her and opened the boot. She was forced to watch, helpless and appalled, as a gust of wind seized the remains of her mother and delivered them into the unsuspecting face of the teenager who was waiting to her side.

‘What the hell was that?’ the girl demanded, spitting. She wiped at her dusty skin with the sleeve of her hoodie.

Elaine quickly pulled a coat over the urn, trying to ignore the grime that sugared the fabric, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been having some building work done, I had a bag of plaster in here and some must have spilled.’ She had to think quickly. The confabulation was in lieu of the truth; she could hardly tell the girl she’d just received a face full of cremains. Mortified, she told the girl to go inside and clean herself up, she would unload her own bags.

The girl scowled and sloped off towards the neighbouring cottage, unknowingly patting clouds of dead woman from her clothes.

‘If that had been anyone else but you, Mother, it might have had a funny side,’ Elaine muttered as she shook out her coat and dusted off her luggage. She wondered how appropriate it would be to sweep one’s parent into a dustpan?

‘I should have had you buried, even you couldn’t have got out of a coffin.’ She scooped what she could back into the green plastic urn and screwed on the lid.

She groped around the boot for a bag, which she could wrap round the urn to stop it disgorging its contents again. When she had finally enclosed Jean inside a Tesco’s carrier she felt a flush of guilt. ‘Sorry Mum, but you never could resist embarrassing me. That poor girl! And I know you hated Tesco, but this will have to do.’

To her continuing shame her muttering was interrupted by a small cough, forcing her to turn around and face a cheery looking, apple-cheeked woman who had been standing behind her for God knows how long. ‘Hi.’ Elaine said, acutely aware of the blush that had crept across her own cheeks.

The woman took a long appraising look at both Elaine and her car, ‘You must be Miss Ellis, welcome to Hallow’s End. Good journey?’

Elaine hastily checked the open boot. ‘Not too bad thanks, though the road up here is a mite bumpy,’ Thankfully the remains looked more like unused cat litter than anything else. ‘Is the girl OK? I think I might have upset her when she came to help me unload.’

‘You mean Brodie? Oh, don’t mind her, she’s always like that. Hasn’t stopped moping since she got here.’ The woman bent to pick up one of the bags. ‘Righto, follow me and I’ll show you into the cottage and let you know how everything works. I’m Miriam Davies by the way, I live next door, so any problems and I’m on the doorstep. I come in twice a week to clean and change the linen, but anything you need in the meantime – don’t hesitate to ask. I look after my sister you see, she’s had a stroke poor woman, can’t do a thing for herself, so I’m always in. And now we’ve got Brodie to worry about too; poor waif, got to feel for her really, what with her mum being poorly in the hospital.’ Miriam scrunched up her face as she pronounced the word ‘hospital’, making it sound like a profanity – and leaving Elaine in no doubt about which kind of hospital it was. ‘So all in all, I’ve got my hands full, but nothing’s too much trouble for guests.’

By the time Miriam had finished talking they were inside the holiday cottage and she was busy straightening cushions and twitching curtains. As if she hadn’t already made the place spotless. ‘So, what brings you to Hallow’s End then, Miss Ellis?’ she asked, pausing her activity. Her ruddy face was expectant and smiling.

Elaine took a quick glance around the room where she was to live for the next few weeks. She was looking for the clock – the source of the incessant ticking, which was already grating on her. There it was, on the dresser, its face taking on the essence of a Cheshire cat. She turned her back on it. ‘It’s Elaine by the way. Well, I’m having some building work done at home, so need to be out of the way for a couple of weeks, and Hallow’s End is where my mother was born – she died recently – so I thought I’d come and see where she grew up.’ She hated explaining Jean’s death, it felt as though she were asking for sympathy. The anticipation of the mawkish reaction, which most people heaped upon her, was beginning to turn into a feeling of mild dread. She braced herself for Miriam’s anticipated compassion.

‘I’m sorry to hear that Elaine, that must have been very difficult for you. Still, life goes on doesn’t it?’ Miriam said evenly.

The matter-of-fact response was oddly refreshing, ‘Yes, I suppose it does. You might have known her. Her maiden name was Jean Burroughs.’

Miriam gave the name a moment or two’s thought, ‘No, doesn’t ring a bell, and I’ve lived here all my life.’

Elaine was surprised, the village hadn’t seemed exactly extensive when she had driven through and she’d always imagined that there was an intimacy in rural communities that dictated everyone would know everyone else. But her mother had told her that the family had moved away when she was young, so perhaps it wasn’t so unusual after all. ‘I know the family moved to Bristol a long time ago, but I’m sure there was an aunt still here – Ruby I think.’

Miriam stiffened slightly, ‘Ruby Tyler.’ She stated the name with a tone of grim disapproval.

The unexpected change in Miriam’s efficiently cheerful persona was quite disconcerting.

‘I think so, I never knew her surname. She was just someone who was mentioned once or twice.’ It was true, Jean had never talked much about her family, or her childhood, but the never-met Aunt Ruby stood out in Elaine’s memory as the lady with the cottage garden where Jean had liked to play. It was one of the few things she had been able to imagine from the snippets of information her mother was always so unwilling to share. From Miriam’s reaction it seemed that Aunt Ruby might not be the warm and cosy woman that Elaine had always pictured.

‘Well, I’m ever so sorry to tell you, but Ruby’s been gone a long time. Must be twenty years at least now.’ Miriam had adopted a more conciliatory tone, as if she had consciously decided not to speak ill of the dead.

‘Oh well, never mind. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay anyway.’

‘I’m sure you will’ Miriam agreed with a degree of warmth that Elaine hadn’t been expecting after the mention of Ruby.

To her surprise Miriam leaned forward and patted her on the hand, ‘None of us can help our family, can we?’ she said. ‘But you seem like a nice girl. Anyway, I must get on, Esther will be wanting her tea and God knows what Brodie’s been up to since I’ve been gone. Well, here’s your key, and don’t forget I’m across the way if you need me.’

As the curious little woman waddled away, her floral apron flapping against her legs, Elaine was reminded of Jemima Puddle-Duck and found that she was smiling at the comparison.

*

Despite the fact that it really did have roses around the door, the cottage wasn’t quite the bucolic idyll she had imagined when she’d booked. It wasn’t so much how it looked; it was quaint enough, even twee in places, right down to the wood burning stove in the inglenook and the horse brasses over the mantel. Now that she was alone with the mismatched furniture, the chintz and the ticking clock it all felt slightly oppressive, as if the cottage was waiting for her to do something that would bring it to life. Though the wind buffeted the windows and forced the trees outside to look as if they had to bow and pay homage, it wasn’t cold enough to light a fire, so she cast around for another way to drive the shadows out.

The place needed light, it needed noise and it needed movement. She found a radio in the kitchen and tuned it in to Radio 4. Voices flooded the two rooms and she felt herself begin to relax. Having filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil she was happy to discover that Miriam had been kind enough to leave milk in the fridge and tea and coffee in the cupboard. She switched on a couple of lamps, letting puddles of light the colour of orange squash illuminate the gloom. Satisfied, she hauled her bags upstairs and into the whitewashed bedroom.

By the time she’d put her toiletries in the bathroom and had wedged that damned clock in a cupboard, she felt as though she had made a dent in the moribund atmosphere. Hiding the clock had established the fact that she would mark her own time in this place. It had felt like a small act of rebellion, and left Elaine feeling stupidly victorious at taking matters into her own hands. She laughed at herself for being so pathetic and settled herself onto the sofa where she toasted Jean with a cup of tea. ‘Cheers Mum, sorry about the rough journey, but we’re here now. I’ve brought you home.’

Jean lay still and quiet in the boot of the car, fortuitously unaware that she had been wrapped in a cheap plastic bag (a fact that would have offended her sensibilities no end) or that she had been returned to the last place on earth she would have chosen for her final resting place.

Chapter Two

Brodie Miller shivered, a movement that seemed to rattle the very bones of her small frame. Miriam asked her if someone had walked over her grave. Brodie replied that if that was true it felt as though they had decided to hang around and perform act one of Riverdance on it.

Miriam speculated that Brodie might be coming down with something and foisted a mug of honey and lemon on her then sent her upstairs to bed with a hot water bottle, just in case. Neither remedy had arrested the strange feeling that had entered her bones, but both had provided a good excuse for her to remove herself from the unnerving presence of her Great-Aunt Esther.

Esther’s unrelenting beady-eyed stares, her wrinkled puckered lips and that thing she did – pinching and plucking at the arm of her chair with her spindly fingers – were all driving Brodie spare. So much so that she would have faked a cold long before if she’d thought it would get her off the hook so easily. Being in the same room as Esther was awful, it was like being eyed up by a hungry witch. Esther had a way of stripping you bare with her eyes, which bothered her no end. Especially because she suspected that Esther saw things which Brodie would prefer she didn’t.

Smug with relief at her easy escape she settled onto the creaking bed and peered out of the window. Her room was the only thing she had instantly liked about Hallow’s Cottage. The fact that she was up in the eaves and could see the world below from the comfort of a warm bed pleased her no end. Whoever had built the place, God knows how many hundreds of years ago, had been forced to put the window near the floor to fit it in so it felt like a vantage point, somewhere she could observe unseen.

Since arriving at the cottage she had spent many hours lying there watching the windswept trees perform their strange and urgent ballet, bowing this way and that, as if beckoning towards the big house beyond. Brodie had only glimpsed Hallow’s Court, too unsure of this place yet to want to venture further into something that already felt like a time-slip. It was unsettling enough to have been foisted on these unfamiliar relatives with no warning to either party. Miriam was nice enough, Esther downright scary – but the whole Downton Abbey set-up was frankly weird when you were fifteen and freaked out already. Exploring Hallow’s Court at close quarters wasn’t high on her list of priorities at that time, despite the urgency of the leafy invitation. She had to admit that the big house beyond the trees did intrigue her. It housed a family with such ancient origins that their centuries-long occupation of the land had given the place their name. Hallow’s End served Hallow’s Court and vice versa. Brodie felt quite proud that she had worked out the significance of the apostrophe in the village name. It meant that the place belonged, that it had sprung from some feudal right bestowed by an archaic ruler. It meant this place was really old and had been spawned by the presence of the Hallow family. Imagine that, owning the land and the people who lived on it? Of course it wasn’t like that any more, but it was still weird, the idea that a place could be born from someone’s name. The problem was that the whole concept made you feel like you had to be part of it, be encompassed by all the oldness and sucked into the history. Brodie had grown up on a council estate where the only things that made you belong were a lack of money and the lack of any ambition that might get you out. The concept of wanting to embrace the place you lived was entirely alien to her.

The thought of how freakish it all was provoked a gobbet of anxiety, which forced her to fumble for her mobile phone and scroll down the contacts list until she found her brother’s name. It was necessary to send a text asking him to call her; she didn’t have much credit. No one had thought to give her any money in the melee which had ensued when her mother had been taken to hospital. The memory of that day made her shiver again. She could imagine little worse than coming home from school to find her mother lying in a sea of spilled pills, vodka and vomit. Actually that was a lie, what was worse was having to come home and see it again, and again, and again.

She was relieved when a few minutes later the phone began to vibrate in her hand. ‘Tone, thanks for ringing back. I’ve got no credit.’

‘No probs Squidge, what’s up?’ Tony asked, his voice tinny and more distant than she would have liked. It felt like he was a million miles away.

‘Nothing really, just wanted to speak to someone, you know,’ she said, her voice cracking as the unbearable worm of misery wriggled, causing her lip to wobble and a tear to bulge ominously at the corner of her eye. She hated herself for being so weak.

‘Awwww, Squidge! Don’t cry, I know it’s crap, but it won’t be for long. As soon as I can get leave I’ll come and get you, OK?’

‘OK’ she said, sniffing.

‘How are the old bids? Treating you all right?’

‘Yeah, they’re OK. Miriam’s nice, but Esther’s a bit freaky. She looks at me like I’m something nasty someone brought in on their shoe. And I’m supposed to earn my keep by helping with the guests, Miriam had me lugging people’s bags today, and I had to change beds and vacuum,’ she said in a decidedly sulky tone.

Tony laughed, ‘Well a bit of work won’t kill you, and it’ll keep you out of trouble. Don’t worry about Esther, she’s always been like that – thinks hers doesn’t stink as I remember – but she’s relatively harmless, especially now. I can remember getting a few slapped arses when I was a kid though. Now she’s confined to a chair you should be safe enough. But remember to wipe your feet and mind your p’s and q’s. Anyway, I’ll put a few quid in your bank OK?’

‘Cheers Tone. Look, do I really have to stay here? I could cope on my own ‘til you get back, you know I could.’ She heard his weary sigh and could guess what face he would be pulling.

‘Look Squidge, you know the score. I’m sorry love but I had no choice, you can’t stay on your own, no way. Not that I don’t trust you, but those scumbags on the estate would take the piss no end if they thought you were on your own. Besides, your social worker would have you in care before we could blink. I know you don’t know the old bids, but they’re OK, and it’s got to be better than foster care hasn’t it? At least they’re family.’

Brodie snorted, ‘Yeah, family I never even knew existed we’re so bloody close! Speaking of family, have you heard from Fern?’ At the mere mention of their sister’s name she could sense Tony bristling with contempt.

‘Yeah I spoke to her, she’s not interested. She’s got a holiday booked and can’t get down to see Mum or you. She doesn’t care Brode, you know that.’

‘Yeah I know. Still…’

Tony changed the subject, ‘Anyway, I called the hospital earlier. Mum’s OK, she’ll probably end up having ECT sometime this week and hopefully that’ll sort her out, eh?’

Brodie rolled her eyes, it came to something when zapping people with electricity and turning them into dribbling simpletons was the only answer. ‘Maybe. Won’t bring Mandy back though will it?’

There was silence, and for a moment she thought Tony had gone and the connection had been broken. ‘You still there?’ It took a second longer, but finally he answered.

‘Yeah, still here, sorry. I wish she’d get over it, it was thirty years ago for Christ’s sake! Shit happens and we just have to live with it. I wish she’d just bloody get a grip and concentrate on the family she has got. Perhaps then Fern wouldn’t be a complete fuck up and you wouldn’t be shipped off to all and sundry every five minutes!’

And perhaps you wouldn’t have run off to the Navy and left me alone to deal with it, Brodie thought but didn’t say. ‘I suppose…’ was what she did say, reluctant to embark on a confusing and emotive debate about how a woman should deal with the abduction and probable murder of her child. ‘I just wish we didn’t have to live with it so much’ she said, picturing the council flat that she called home, which had become a shrine to the missing Mandy, the perpetual toddler who clung to Brodie’s existence like a hungry ghost. She didn’t want to think about it. ‘Anyway, when can you get leave?’

Tony sighed again, ‘I don’t know Brode, it’s difficult. I know it’s crap but no one died and it’s hard to make the Navy understand that I should be looking after you. But I’m doing my best, OK?’

‘OK’ she said, not entirely sure she believed him. Much as she adored her brother, he wasn’t always as honest as she’d like him to be. She knew for a fact he couldn’t handle Shirley, their mother. Besides, she was pretty sure that Tony’s girlfriend Kerry might have some influence on the situation. Brodie had only met her twice, and though she was nice enough she got the distinct impression that Kerry wasn’t a girl who embraced complexity. Their family was complex if it was nothing else. Brodie knew it by instinct, but had seen it confirmed on the referral to Young Carers that her social worker had recently made. ‘Complex family issues’ she had written. As far as Brodie was concerned, if it was written down in black and white, it was gospel.

‘OK Squidge, I’ve got to go, but I’ll put that money in for you all right? It’ll be all right Brode, I promise.’ He ended the call before she had chance to interject with an emotional reply.

Brodie stared at the screen for a few minutes, waiting for the light to fade from the display and blink out. She’d wanted to talk more, to ask him why he’d sent her to stay in the very place where Mandy went missing. Even though she already knew the answer – there hadn’t been anywhere else. Brodie Miller wasn’t wanted and never really had been. Which reminded her that there were other things she needed to say.

She’d wanted to ask him how he thought their mum would take it, knowing that he’d entrusted Miriam, the woman she still blamed for Mandy’s abduction, with the care of her youngest daughter? However – Brodie wasn’t three, she wasn’t a vulnerable baby. She’d been looking after herself for a long time. But beyond all that, beyond the past, she wanted to know why nobody told her anything and just expected her to work it out for herself and then suck it up. And why, all in all, she was worth less than a dead child. Especially one like Mandy. The child had been endowed with such saintly attributes in her long absence that she couldn’t possibly be real. Ok, Brodie was neither cute nor beguiling, but she was there, she was real, she existed.

There had been times, recent times, when Brodie would have been lucky to have found a tin of beans for her tea. Whereas complete strangers still lit candles for the missing Mandy.

*

Elaine emptied a tin of mushroom soup into saucepan and while she waited for it to heat through, buttered a few slices of bread. Her exploration of the village that afternoon had yielded the knowledge that if she wanted to eat well during her stay, she would have to drive into town to buy food. Hallow’s End wasn’t going to provide anything more than the absolute basics. The village store seemed to exist as a place to exchange gossip rather than as a shop. Other than the fast turnover stuff like bread, milk and butter, the other stock had been rimed with a film of dust suggesting that it was there for show and was only bought by those in abject desperation. Elaine had been both abject and desperate and had paid for her shopping under the curious and pitying stare of several village residents.

The walk back had been a hairy experience, it hadn’t occurred to her that rural areas weren’t overburdened with street lighting. The combination of descending darkness, rough terrain and inappropriate footwear had resulted in a sore ankle and not a little embarrassment. She hadn’t anticipated showing herself up as such a rube. Fortunately her only witnesses had been a herd of unimpressed cows. In falling she had managed to dent the tin of soup, which made the prospect of eating it even more unappealing.

The truth was that she hadn’t really thought this trip through. The whole thing had been motivated by a desperate need to get away and be anywhere else but at home surrounded by reminders of Jean. Dan, her philosophical builder, had suggested she might be having a delayed grief reaction. It was possible she supposed, but didn’t quite explain the sense of guilt-ridden relief she’d felt at her mother’s demise. Not that she hadn’t loved her mother – if the loyalty she had shown was love, she had. Jean had been a loving, attentive, caring, cloying, claustrophobic, hovering, demanding, frightened, needy…

‘STOP Elaine’ she told herself. ‘Just stop, it’s gone. Breathe.’ But the feelings clutched at her, forcing her to pull at the scarf around her neck to make room for more air. As she pulled, her fingers brushed against the ragged scar that ran halfway round her throat. Instinctively she left the garment in place, patting it down to make sure it hid the ugliness beneath.

‘Get a grip Elaine, for God’s sake!’ she chided out loud, deliberately turning her attention to the soup which had started to burble and slop in the pan.

It was a pretty disgusting meal, but she was hungry and ate the grey tinged soup for the sake of filling the hollow in her belly. Time was passing very slowly in the cottage, so much so that she was almost tempted to release the clock from its hidey-hole. But she knew that its insistent clamour would do nothing but transport her straight back where she didn’t want to be.

The first thing she had done after Jean’s funeral was to walk into the lounge and smash the mantel clock. Dropping it repeatedly onto the floor until it was nothing but a pile of steampunk paraphernalia and splintered wood. Yet even after that, at night particularly, she could hear it ticking in the background. As if the accursed thing had acquired a spirit and had come back to haunt her.

Dan had been shocked at the destruction and had told her that the clock was antique and worth a substantial amount of money. Elaine had responded by telling him that it was a shame it had fallen off the mantel the way it had, but never mind, it was probably insured… As if any intrinsic value could offset its role as her warder. It had been that single point of reference which drew long suffering and disappointed glances from her mother each time Elaine was late, or wanted to go out. Or wanted to just be alone.

Dan had offered to source a replacement for her, saying he had a friend in the antique trade. Elaine had been hard pressed to keep the look of horror off her face at the suggestion. Thinking of the incident now reminded her that she needed to ring him, check on progress. The new kitchen and bathroom he was installing were intended to make the house a lot easier to sell, something she was eager to accomplish as soon as she could. Checking her phone she was relieved to find it had almost full signal. A pleasant surprise in a location that didn’t believe in protecting pedestrian safety by having street lights. She hesitated before making the call. She had known Dan for a long time, since school. Since he had been one of the cool lads who had hung around outside the gate of the Girls’ High School waiting for the cool girls to come out. Elaine had not been a cool girl. She had been shy and awkward, and usually the butt of jokes and bullying. Most of it centred on the scar, her nickname had been Scaramouche (she still couldn’t listen to Bohemian Rhapsody without cringing). She had always been too intimidated to tell her tormentors that Scaramouche didn’t mean ‘scar face’. Had she decided to tell them that Scaramouche meant ‘skirmisher’ and that he was a character from Punch and Judy and was portrayed as a cowardly clown, she might have compounded her reputation as a snooty little know-it-all. Or worse, found out that they knew already and were being deliberate in endowing her with the epithet. The rest of the animosity focused on the fact that she had been a complete dork with her regulation uniform and knee high socks. Not to mention having a mother who insisted on picking her up from school until the age of fifteen. Childhood had not been a joy for Elaine. Dan, however, had been the single bright spot in her non-existent teenage social life. She’d had a crush on him since she was thirteen when he had smiled at her as she’d waited for her mother. That any boy had noticed her was a bonus, that it was Dan – who’d she’d thought of as an Adonis – was unbelievable to her shy, adolescent mind. When she was fifteen she’d been allowed to go to a school disco, where the staff had played chaperone and the only drinks available had been weak orange squash and flat coke. Had Jean known it was a joint affair with the boys’ school she would never have allowed it, but Elaine had lied. She’d felt awkward in her unfashionable clothes and flat, sensible shoes and had wished she hadn’t agreed to go, especially when a group of girls from her year had requested Bohemian Rhapsody three times in a row from the DJ and were busy singing it at her with great emphasis. She had been about to make a run for it and take herself home when Dan had appeared like a knight in shining armour (actually on seeing him she had tripped over a chair in her rush to leave, launched a cup of orange squash all down his shirt and had run from the school hall in tears of humiliation). He’d chased after her and she had hidden in an alley, snivelling with shame. He’d found her, told her she owed him a new shirt and had walked her home. Halfway, he’d held her hand and she remembered feeling as though her heart would burst out of her chest at the excitement. It hadn’t, but she had felt sick with anticipation. When they reached the end of the drive where she lived he had kissed her (she had been so shocked she had forgotten to breath and almost passed out). He’d asked her out, and she had nearly died of happiness – until Jean stormed out of the front door yelling and screaming at him, calling him a pervert and a stalker. Elaine didn’t think there was a moment when she had hated her mother more. What she had liked about Dan most after that was that he hadn’t given up, he had been the one person who had defied Jean. Their relationship had been a tentative and furtive thing, squeezed into lunch hours and walks home where she’d had to say her goodbyes in an alleyway away from the sight of neighbours. They had dated for a year, if dating was the correct term for a bunch of clandestine fumblings. It had ended for two reasons – a girl who disliked Elaine but liked Dan had taken it upon herself to tell Jean what her daughter had been up to, which resulted in Jean grounding Elaine and picking her up from school at lunchtimes and at the end of the day just to add insult to the injury. Then Dan’s father had died and Elaine hadn’t seen much of him after that, not until after Jean had died and the solicitor had recommended him as a decent builder. Stupidly she hadn’t connected the name on the card with her teenage crush and had suffered a great degree of mortification when she had opened the door to find ‘D. Collier, Builder’ was that D. Collier. Oh how they’d laughed…

Elaine wasn’t sure she would ever get past the abject humiliation of that puppy love. A frisson of vintage embarrassment rippled through her every time she thought of Dan. It was difficult to equate the memory of the louche teenage Dan with the contained, mature man who was currently tearing her house apart. He’d kept his looks, though his features had been fine-tuned by time. A neighbour, who had been loitering at the end of the drive when Elaine had shown Dan out, had commented as they had watched him pull away ‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed in a hurry’. Mrs Cooper had to be seventy if she was a day and Elaine hadn’t been sure who the comment had embarrassed more, the elderly Mrs Cooper, or herself for silently agreeing.

Back in the moment Elaine looked down at her phone and dialled Dan’s number, squashing down the shy teenager and forcing herself to be the confident, mature woman she ought to be. It was a constant struggle.

He answered on the third ring.

‘Dan? It’s Elaine, just checking the tiles arrived today,’ she said in response to his cheerful hello.

‘Yep, no problem, arrived this morning. Old ones are off but we won’t be able to start tiling until everything else is in. We hit a snag though, I don’t suppose you knew that you still had lead piping, did you?’

Elaine wasn’t sure that she would recognise a lead pipe if she were hit over the head with one. Pipes were pipes. But lead didn’t sound good. ‘No, I didn’t, is it dangerous?’

‘Not as such, not in the bathroom anyway, the lime scale build-up makes it mostly safe, but we’re obliged to replace it with copper. I kind of went ahead, I hope that’s OK?’

Elaine sighed, it would be extra money, but the job couldn’t be done otherwise. ‘That’s OK Dan, do what you’ve got to do, hang the expense!’ She was rather enjoying the warm chuckle that her words had elicited from him, but was glad that he couldn’t see the flush on her cheeks.

‘Well, it is going to be expensive, there’s a lot to strip out, and it looks like you might need a re-wiring job too. Most of the electrics are pre-war by the look of them.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me, she never did like spending money, it was like living in the basement of the science museum, living history and all that. Good job she stuffed it in the bank instead. Do what you’ve got to do, I can’t sell it as it is.’

‘Righto, will do. I’ll get the sparky in tomorrow to give it a once over. By the way, when Bob was in the loft clearing out he found a box of stuff, it looks like personal stuff, papers and that, so we didn’t skip it. I’ve left it in the garage.’

‘OK, I’ll go through it when I get back. Thanks Dan.’ More junk to dispose of, and she’d thought she’d got rid of it all. Jean had hoarded junk like a squirrel hoards its winter meals.

‘So’ he said, his tone softer, ‘you coming out for that drink with me when you get home or what?’

Elaine could feel the blush creeping up her neck and flooding her cheeks. ‘Do you ask all the old maids that employ you out on dates?’

‘Only the good looking rich ones’ he quipped. She could hear his smile in his voice.

‘Well, it looks like I’m going to be penniless by the time you lot are finished, but you’ll be rich. Perhaps you could spend some of your ill-gotten gains on a decent pair of specs.’ she parried in return.

‘Ha ha very funny, I mean it though, we’re going out.’

‘We’ll see, I’m going now.’

‘I mean it – you and me, dinner, wine…’

‘Bye Dan.’

‘Candlelight, music…’

‘Goodbye Dan,’ she said less firmly than she should have. Even then she hung on, waiting to hear that comforting chuckle before finally ending the call. She was too embarrassed to admit to herself how much she was enjoying the light-hearted flirtation. And much too frightened to admit how much his invitation terrified her. The gawky, frightened teenager was still inside, holding on with a grip of iron.

*

Elaine woke abruptly from a tangled and tormented dream. Blessedly brought to wakefulness by a rapid hammering on the cottage door. Bleary and harassed she fought the cloying sheets and once free stumbled across the bedroom to the window. Below her stood the sulky kid, Brodie. Elaine squinted at her phone, which lay on the bedside table. It was only nine. She wondered, with ill temper, if all the guests were so rudely awoken here.

The hammering started again. By the time she had reached the bottom of the narrow stairs, her feet squirming on the cold wood, the girl had started her third demand for attention. She was persistent, Elaine would give her that. Almost on the point of shouting, she hauled the heavy door open. The terse response she had planned stifled by the fact that the girl was holding something out to her. A basket, lined with gingham and containing homemade bread and fresh eggs. So fresh that they were still feathery and warm.

‘Miriam said to bring you this for your breakfast, sorry if I got you up’ the girl said. She ran her eyes over Elaine, appraising her from her tousled head and crumpled pyjamas to her cold, bare feet. Her eyes rose and settled just below Elaine’s chin.

Instinctively Elaine reached for her neck, covering the naked scar with her hand. ‘Brodie, isn’t it? Come in.’ she said, swallowing down her embarrassment. As the girl passed her, Elaine grabbed a woollen scarf from the coat pegs and covered her neck quickly, despite the fact that the day promised to be lush and warm with fat yellow sunshine. She would rather be uncomfortable than show off the scar.

Brodie hovered in the kitchen doorway, ‘Should I put this in here?’ she asked, holding up the basket and appearing nonchalant. She was clearly pretending not to notice the incongruous addition of the scarf. It made Elaine look like a woebegone snowman.

‘Yeah, anywhere.’ Elaine said, waving her hand. ‘Look, I’m just going to go and find my dressing gown, why don’t you put the kettle on?’ She felt bad that she’d been so offhand. The child clearly felt awkward.

Back in the kitchen, more comfortable now that she was swathed in thick fabric that covered her modesty, Elaine contemplated her young guest. Brodie was busily making coffee unaware that she was being observed so closely.

A thick curtain of dyed black hair swung out from underneath a black hoodie – both, Elaine assumed, intended to shade the pale, intense little face. There was a thinness about the girl, despite the bulk of baggy clothes that hung as a sullen statement from her small frame. Rapid hands with red rimmed, bitten nails moved deftly as she filled the cups with instant coffee before presenting the finished article for approval. With her pale skin and dark hair she looked like a shy geisha compelled to please her host. Her efforts made Elaine feel like smiling. An urge that was rare.

‘Thank you, that looks perfect.’

‘I always make the drinks at home, I’m used to it. Miriam and Esther only drink tea, I’m lousy at tea and they use that bitty stuff, not teabags, so I leave them to it.’ Brodie said it with a shudder that implied that loose-leaf tea was the stuff of the devil.

This time Elaine did smile. She pointed to the basket. ‘It’s really kind of you to bring breakfast, would you like to stay and share it?’

Elaine watched a flicker of eagerness flit across Brodie’s face before it was quickly replaced by a look of resignation. ‘Better not, Miriam will think I’m bugging you.’

‘Well, it didn’t seem to bother her when she sent you across to bring it. Besides, I want you to stay, it will make it worth cooking.’

Brodie’s response was to give an acquiescent shrug. It made Elaine think that the girl wasn’t used to experiencing her presence as something desirable. It was a concept that caused her to experience a sensation of inexplicable sadness, far out of proportion to anything she would have expected to feel for someone she had only just met. She recalled the incident with the ashes and felt a flush of shame.

Over breakfast she learned that Brodie was fifteen, that her birthday was soon, that she had a brother who she adored and a sister who she despised and a mother who worried her in the same visceral way that Jean had worried Elaine.

Not that Brodie had stated any of this. It was just there, like an oil slick, sitting toxic and ominous on the surface of Brodie’s story. It bothered Elaine so much that she felt compelled to ply the girl with more toast in a vain attempt to mop up the almost tangible misery. When finally they had finished, and Elaine was wiping the last streak of liquid butter from her chin, Brodie surprised her with a question.

‘Elaine, do you believe in ghosts?’

She had to consider it for a moment, both because it had come out of the blue and because she didn’t have a concrete answer.

Eventually, with a pensive frown, she said, ‘If you mean the kind that go bump in the night and waft about in the form of “orbs” throwing things at gullible people on dodgy satellite TV channels, then no, I don’t. But if you mean the kind of ghosts that sit on the edge of your reality like something unrequited, the kind that you will never see and will never hear. The kind that suck at your life like greedy tadpoles, getting fat at your expense, then yes, I believe in those.’

Brodie nodded sagely, ‘Yeah, those kind. Do you think they’re dead people, the tadpoles?’

Elaine fought a smile as she thought of Jean as an embryonic frog, ‘Sometimes, maybe. Not always. I think living people can be ghosts too.’

Brodie pulled a face, ‘Yeah, I reckon Esther’s one of those. She sits there like that witch in the gingerbread house, picking and poking at her chair with her witchy fingers like she wants to eat the lot of us,’ she accompanied her words with a shudder. ‘She creeps me out.’

Elaine laughed, ‘Yeah, old ladies can do that. Is that why you asked, because of Esther?’ Elaine hadn’t met Esther, but she had formed a mental picture from Brodie’s description that didn’t incline her to want to.

Brodie looked down at her plate and prodded at a congealing lump of scrambled egg with the tines of her fork, ‘No, because of Mandy.’

If Elaine hadn’t consciously decided to be the grown-up in this conversation she would have sworn that a cold chill had swept over her at Brodie’s words. As it was she explained to herself that the creeping sensation was a reaction to sitting around in her nightwear in a north facing kitchen. Certainly not because anything sinister had just happened. ‘Who’s Mandy?’

‘My dead sister.’ Brodie said baldly. ‘She disappeared when she was three, and they never found her body, but they did find some clothes with blood on them so they think she died. My mum never got over it, it’s why she’s ill and keeps taking overdoses.’

Elaine really didn’t know what to say.

‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s really sad and that, like she was really little and it was really awful, but it was thirty years ago. Don’t you think people should get over it by then?’

‘Probably, but maybe things got stuck because she was never found. Is that why it feels like she’s a ghost?’

Brodie shook her head, ‘No, she is a ghost. She’s there all the time, everywhere. Mum has pictures of her all over the house. You can’t even have a wee in our house without Mandy watching you. She sits on top of the telly, on every windowsill – even if you open a drawer she’s there, lurking next to Mum’s hand cream and the paracetamol. I know I shouldn’t but sometimes I hate her. I hate her cute face and her pigtails and her bloody pink cardigan!’ She said it so vehemently that the force of it brought tears to her eyes. She swept them away with the sleeve of her black hoodie.

Elaine wanted to stretch out her hand, to touch Brodie and soothe her, to take her under her wing and wrap her in feathers that would keep out all ills. She even started to reach out but thought better of it as her fingers sensed the ethereal spines of misery that had sprung out to shroud the unhappy girl. ‘Perhaps…’ she faltered, ‘perhaps being here will help, give you a break from it. Step back a bit.’ she said, knowing that it sounded trite and insipid.

‘Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice.’ Brodie scoffed. ‘Let’s send Brodie for a break, I know let’s send her to the exact place where Mandy went missing, that’ll help!’ She spat the words out as if they tasted of angostura bitters.

The words smacked into Elaine like a brick dropped onto concrete. She didn’t know where to begin with all that hurt and anger. ‘I’m so sorry Brodie, I’m not really very good at this.’ She wondered if she looked as feeble as she sounded, sitting there clutching her dressing gown up around her neck like a timid rabbit caught in the trap of Brodie’s unhappiness.

Brodie stood up and sniffed, dragging her sleeve across her nose as she spoke. ‘S’all right, not your problem is it? Anyway, ta for breakfast.’ She turned and made for the door.

‘Whoa there, where are you off to? You don’t need to leave – I’m sorry, I’m a just a bit useless at this. Don’t go.’ Elaine had no idea what in the hell was drawing her to this abrasive, unhappy teenager, but she couldn’t just let her walk away.

The girl paused at the door, her hand resting on the latch ready to secure her escape. Elaine watched patiently as Brodie’s black clad shoulders sagged, the tension of the previous few minutes ebbing out of them like a soft sigh. Eventually she turned.

‘I’m sorry Elaine, you’re a really nice lady, and you cook mean scrambled eggs and I know I can be a right bitch sometimes.’ Brodie mumbled it in a typical adolescent approximation of an apology.

Elaine pulled her dressing gown around her, tightening it where it had fallen open during her bid to get Brodie to stay. ‘Don’t worry about it, no need to be sorry. I can’t imagine anyone being ecstatic about what you’ve just told me, and you’re not a bitch. You are allowed to be upset about this, you know.’

‘You sound like my social worker.’ Brodie accompanied her words with a smirk that reassured Elaine that the ice was beginning to thaw.

‘Well, she sounds like a sensible woman then.’ Elaine said with a smile of relief. Wrangling recalcitrant teenagers was not exactly her area of expertise. She had always been rather compliant herself, not that she’d been given a choice. Jean hadn’t entertained anything less than full compliance from anyone.

Brodie shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and scuffed the toe of her trainer against the floor. ‘Let’s not go there, or you really will think I’m a bitch,’ she said, her mouth twisting into cheeky smile.

Elaine laughed. ‘OK, I’ll promise not to talk like a social worker if you wash up while I get dressed. Then I’m going to go into town to find a supermarket so I can buy some decent food, why don’t you ask Miriam if you can come with me?’

Brodie’s eyes seems to light up at this prospect, as if she scented the whiff of freedom on the air. ‘Cool, I can go to the cashpoint.’

She said it with such glee that Elaine couldn’t help finding the contradictions in the girl both funny and beguiling.

Chapter Three

Miriam squeezed her bulk between the chair and the stove to reach the squealing kettle. Steam lingered above her head. Wraith-like, it reached down with misty fingers and curled the ends of Brodie’s hair like a trickster might, much to the girl’s frustration. Miriam impatiently flapped it away with her tea towel and filled the giant teapot.

‘Well, someone’s in a good mood this morning,’ she said, giving Brodie a knowing look.

Brodie picked up her phone, ‘Tony gave me some money, I got credit for my phone yesterday so I’m back in touch with civilisation.’ She was unaware of the hidden judgement in her words.

Miriam bristled, ‘You can use the phone here if you want to.’

‘I know, it’s not that. I can get on to the internet now, and I can log on to the school’s website and get my results when they come out.’

Miriam’s mouth formed a round O of understanding. ‘Well, that’s important. I don’t suppose they will post them here. Anyway,’ she said, cramming herself onto a chair with a sigh that told of aching joints and weariness, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Miss Ellis.’

Brodie looked up from the screen that had not been showing the school’s website at all, but her Facebook feed. ‘What about her?’

Miriam didn’t meet her gaze and instead delayed her response by sloshing milk into mugs. ‘Well, it’s just that I don’t want her to think you’re taking advantage by hanging around too much, that’s all. She is a guest you know, and it’s my job to make sure she has a good stay.’

Brodie felt her face flush, ‘I’m not bothering her, she asked me to go yesterday, and she wants me to go round there today too. She’s going to show me how to draw. She’s an artist.’ She was bridling at the inference that she wasn’t wanted.

Miriam poured the tea, ‘An artist? Well, that’s nice. As long as you’re sure she’s happy to have you around. Will you take this in to Esther and tell her I’ll be there with her breakfast in a minute?’

Brodie scraped her chair backwards along the hard floor and stood slowly, hoping that both the noise and the gesture would demonstrate her reluctance. It was lost on Miriam who just passed her the sippy cup that Esther drank from. Brodie took it, her lip curling with distaste as she ventured into the sitting room.

Esther sat as she always did in her chintz-covered chair, plucking and pinching at the arm cap as if something upon it profoundly offended her. Brodie found this incessant habit both repellent and irritating. The gesture suggested a contained malevolence, tempered only by the impotence of Esther’s condition. As Brodie approached, the old lady’s eyes flicked away from the cottage door, which she watched almost constantly. She appraised the black clad cuckoo with a withering look.

Brodie skirted the chair with extreme caution and placed the tea on a side table. She whipped her hand away with whistle stop speed lest the old woman should reach out and grab her with her one functional, claw-like hand. It was hard work for her to suppress the shudder that threatened to reveal her fear of the woman.

‘Miriam says she’ll be in with your breakfast in a minute.’ It was statement for which she received a curt nod before Esther resumed her vigil of the door.

Brodie struggled to imagine who would want to willingly visit the old lady. She had a fleeting mental image of the grim reaper, complete with scythe, popping in for tea. ‘We can live in hope’ she muttered cruelly under her breath.

Once free of Miriam’s fussy ministrations she escaped into the garden. Breathing in the prospect of her few hours of freedom like a condemned man might relish his last meal, she walked towards the holiday let and tried to push away the niggling worries that begged her to contemplate her burgeoning attraction to Elaine. Perhaps she was looking for a mother figure? It wasn’t weird, she told herself, it really wasn’t. She just really liked her and she needed a friend, especially now. Elaine seemed like the first adult she had met who had time for her, who wasn’t more concerned with something – or someone – else. Even the social worker was always looking at her watch and willing Brodie’s time away

She thought Elaine was pretty. She had merry eyes and dimples when she smiled. It made Brodie want to copy her and smile back, and that didn’t happen very often. If she were honest, the vast majority of people irritated the hell out of her, but she was drawn to Elaine and she had no real idea why.

*

Elaine lay on the grass, propped up on her elbows, watching the fascinating, prickly girl who sat cross-legged and diligent, quietly struggling to capture the essence of a tree with pencil and paper.

‘Relax, just let your mind guide your hand’ Elaine said, as the girl scowled and scrubbed at the paper yet again with her dwindling eraser.

Brodie rolled her eyes, ‘It’s easy for you to say, you can do it.’ She pointed at the delicate drawing of a beech tree that Elaine had completed with a few strokes of her pencil.

Elaine laughed, ‘Yes, but I couldn’t draw like that when I was fifteen. I had to go to college and learn. You’ll get there.’

‘Where did you go to college?’ Brodie asked, as if it was something she had been giving some thought to for herself.

‘Bristol, where I live.’

Brodie flung the sketchpad aside, frustrated with her feeble efforts. ‘How come you didn’t move away? I’d have gone to London.’

‘I wanted to,’ Elaine was picking at a blade of rye grass and stripping it with her nails, ‘but my mum didn’t really want me to be away from home. I think the thought of me in a big city on my own frightened her. She was a bit clingy.’ It was a massive understatement and Elaine knew it, but this girl didn’t need to be burdened with that kind of information.

‘Huh, I reckon if I wanted to go to London my mum would have my suitcase packed and by the door before I’d finished the sentence. She can’t wait to be rid of me.’ Brodie’s voice was loaded with dull resignation.

‘Mothers eh? Bloody hard work. Anyway, tell me about you, what do you like? Tell me about your friends.’ Elaine was eager to change the subject. It was bad enough that Jean’s continued presence in the boot of the car was weighing on her conscience, without having to go into territory fraught with mother issues.

Brodie shrugged, ‘There’s a few people I hang out with at school I suppose. But no one likes coming round to our house, Mum freaks them out.’

This was going to be hard work. ‘What about boys, do you have a boyfriend?’ Elaine imagined a sullen, silent goth loping around in Brodie’s abrasive wake.

It was Brodie’s turn to tear at the grass; she did it fiercely, grasping a great handful and brushing it from her hands into an untidy, wilting pile. ‘Nah, all the boys I meet are complete twats. If I ever find one with a brain I might think about it. Have you got a boyfriend?’

Elaine’s hand drifted to her throat unconsciously, once her fingers found that her muslin scarf was still in place she spoke. ‘No, I tend to meet that kind too. But I must admit, I do quite fancy my builder.’ Her cheeks were flushing red with the admission while her brain demanded to know why on earth she had felt the need to confess such thing to a fifteen-year-old girl.

‘Really? Cool. Is he good looking?’ Brodie was intrigued, the sniff of romance making her all ears.

Elaine blushed again, ‘Well, I wouldn’t say he’s Brad Pitt, but yeah, he’s nice in a craggy, rugged sort of way. And he’s funny, which always helps, makes him less of a twat.’ she said with a wry smile, the word didn’t roll as easily from her own tongue.

‘So are you going to go out with him?’ Brodie asked eagerly.

The hand fluttered to the throat again. ‘I don’t know, maybe. I think he’s just being nice because I’m paying him a truckload of money to do up the house. So maybe I’m just being daft.’

Brodie shook her head. ‘Nah, he likes you. Blokes don’t mess about when they’re older. Tony says they haven’t got time to muck about. You should go out with him, see what happens.’

Elaine laughed, amused at the receipt of dating advice from a teenager. Perhaps she should take it. After all, normal relationships weren’t exactly her forte and maybe she needed the practice, the last time she had tangled with Dan it had ended miserably because Jean and life had got in the way. She looked at Brodie; it felt like they were heading into uncomfortable territory again. ‘Hey, why don’t we go and explore the estate? I fancy having a look around the folly, I can see it from my bedroom window and it looks like it might be interesting.’

‘Are we allowed? Miriam told me not to go wandering about on my own.’

Elaine got to her feet, brushing slivers of grass from her clothes. ‘Yeah, why not? The bumf I got about the cottage says that guests are welcome to explore the estate. As long as we stay away from the house we should be fine.’

Brodie shrugged, seemingly indifferent. ‘Might as well.’

*

The folly turned out not to be a folly at all, but the ruined shell of an old chapel. Undone as much by the scrambling ravages of wild ivy and brambles as it had been by the desolation of time. Like all such places it had a melancholy, eerie feel. A set of characteristics compounded by Brodie’s insistence that there would be bats roosting in the crumbling tower. The thought of that wasn’t the only thing that made Elaine shiver and wrap her arms about her body. For someone who claimed not to believe in things that went bump in the night she was experiencing a sense of profound fear as she contemplated the structure’s wounded state. With mounting apprehension she watched Brodie gleefully scramble through the green clad arches and jump between the slippery, moss encrusted stones. She had visions of broken ankles and skull fractures.

‘Come away Brodie, it’s dangerous,’ she called, unable to propel herself to move closer. The aversion she felt for the place was far out of proportion to any real risk that might exist.

‘Don’t be a knob, it’s fine. Anything that’s going to fall down has fallen down by now. Come on in, it’s really creepy in here.’ Brodie’s voice mutated to an echo as she moved deeper into the ruin.

Elaine’s discomfort was growing. ‘Brodie, please come out of there. I really don’t think it’s safe.’

Her fear was compounded by the bloodcurdling interjection of a screeching bird, which swooped out of the nearby trees in a fury of feather and claw. Elaine’s heart nearly burst out of her chest with the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the creature’s sudden appearance. She flung herself to the ground as the feathered fiend passed, her own voice emitting a squeal of anguish sharp enough to match the bird’s terrified screech.

Brodie hurtled out of the chapel, ‘Oh my God, are you all right?’ She bolted towards where the trembling, tearful (and ashamed) Elaine knelt. ‘What was that, what happened?’ she demanded, her hands fluttering and hesitant in the face of Elaine’s distress.

Elaine let out a tremulous laugh, ‘Bloody bird shot out of the bushes and damned near made me crap myself!’ she said as her body released a final visceral shudder.

‘Bloody hell,’ Brodie’s eyes cast about for the offending avian, which was now long gone. Her gaze settled on a figure in the trees, its countenance made grotesque by shadows cast by the overhanging branches.

Fettered by the sun she squinted, peering deeper into the glade ‘Oi! You!’ she called, as if demanding that the shaded figure make itself known. Instead it turned and loped off into the trees, leaving nothing in its wake but swaying boughs and rustling leaves to betray that it had ever been there.

‘What is it?’ Elaine followed Brodie’s gaze.

‘Nothing, some weirdo spying on us I reckon.’ she said, grasping Elaine’s arm protectively. ‘Freak!’ she yelled, as if hoping that whoever lurked in the woods would hear her, and would be afraid.

‘Come on’ Elaine said, gathering herself, ‘Let’s go and drink hot chocolate and eat cake, we’ll go to that cafe on the village green. This place gives me the creeps.’ She was determined to shake off the uneasy feeling the place had induced. ‘I hear sugar is good for shock’.

As they walked away, even knowing the chapel was at her back, ripples of tension coursed up Elaine’s spine. She didn’t relax until they had left the grounds of Hallow’s Court and were well on their way to the village.

*

It was clear from the whispered conversations and evasive looks that everyone in the village knew who Brodie was. Elaine was acutely aware that Brodie was being stoic and defiant as she ate her cake under the curious stares of the cafe regulars.

The previous evening, Elaine had spent some time Googling Brodie’s missing sister, and she had to acknowledge that such an event could not have left the village unscathed. Even so, it appeared to her that the locals were being niggardly in their scrutiny of Brodie. Perhaps they felt her presence had prodded at old wounds. Regardless of that, Elaine felt an intrinsic defensiveness on Brodie’s behalf. ‘Do you want to go?’ she asked, as yet another person gave them a pointed look and bent to whisper into the ear of a companion.

Brodie looked around, ‘Nope. I’m fine. If you’re worried about what people will think, don’t. I’m used to it.’ With that she turned to the room and stood up. ‘Yes, I’m that girl. Brodie Miller, sister of Mandy Miller. Sorry if that offends you and all, but, well, tough.’

Her words caused an initial flush of embarrassment, swiftly followed by a susurration of indignation as the shame of being caught out impacted the room. Two people even walked out, causing the proprietor to shake her head and roll her eyes.

When she came over to the table to clear it she had the grace to say, ‘Sorry ladies, welcome to village life. Put it this way, you’re the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in a long time.’ She nodded at Brodie. ‘Oh and your cake is on the house. I can’t apologise for the customers, but I can let you know that we aren’t all suffering from small minds.’

Elaine protested, more than willing to pay for what they’d had, but the woman waved her away, insistent that they accept her gesture.

It was a shame that her bonhomie didn’t redeem the rest of the village populace. Their stares and whispers continued as Elaine and Brodie made their way along the green and onto the road that led towards the cottages. Elaine had to confess to a sneaking admiration for Brodie’s ability to speak out and stand up for herself; it wasn’t something she would have had the confidence to do at the age of fifteen. Even now she would have been more likely to just quietly slip away nursing her mortification. The thought of her inadequacy shamed her.

Despite her bravado, the experience in the cafe seemed to leave Brodie subdued. A state of affairs that ruffled Elaine’s sensibilities and brought out her propensity to mend things.

‘How about we shake the country dirt off tomorrow and go into town?’ she suggested, hoping that the offer of a change of scene would brighten the girl’s morose mood. The black clothes and the bleak countenance were starting to become unnerving.

Brodie gave a sullen shrug, ‘S’pose.’ She paused to kick at a stone that was wedged in the sun-baked earth.

Elaine paused too, and watched as the girl used the sole of her trainer to work the stone loose and liberate it from the mud. Brodie worried at it, like a dentist determined to pull a recalcitrant tooth. ‘You can’t let people get to you like this. What they think doesn’t matter.’ Elaine said, aware of the ineptitude of her wisdom. Who was she trying to kid? She had grown up on a diet of ‘What will people think Elaine?’ and would no doubt spend the rest of her years trying to take the advice she had just given to Brodie.

Brodie paused in her labours and regarded the stubborn stone, then she turned to Elaine. ‘But you do, you worry,’ she said, pointing to the printed muslin scarf that adorned Elaine’s throat.

Instantly Elaine’s hand moved to touch the fabric, the scar beneath radiating a fire that flushed her cheeks and made her grit her jaw. ‘That’s different.’

Brodie tilted her head to one side and stared at the scarf as if looking straight through it to what lay beneath. ‘How? How is it different? It isn’t only the things people can see that make them judge you.’

Elaine felt herself bristle, her indignation fed by long-held defences. ‘I just don’t enjoy people staring at me, that’s all.’

‘Neither do I. But they do anyway.’ Brodie parted her hands to illustrate the uniform of black, which she routinely wore. ‘I used to think that if I dressed like this – boring, black and baggy – that people wouldn’t see me. I’d just blend in, be invisible. But it doesn’t work like that. It makes them notice you. I’m a hoodie, I scare people. If you want to hide something, you have to put it in plain sight. If you’re not bothered by it, other people won’t be either.’

Elaine had to stifle an indignant laugh, ‘When did you get to be so wise, kiddo?’

Brodie shrugged again. ‘When I realised that all these shenanigans are a bit fucking pointless.’

Elaine raised her eyebrows, ‘Nice language,’ she said censoriously.

‘Well, sorry but it’s true.’ Brodie raised a hand and pointed a grubby finger at Elaine’s neck. ‘You wear that scarf thinking that people won’t notice your scar, but the fact that you keep touching the bloody thing every two seconds gives it away. We’re all wondering what’s underneath.’

‘Do I?’ Elaine asked. Her hand reached up again as if it had received a curtain call.

‘All the bloody time! Look at you.’

Suddenly self-conscious, Elaine rammed her hands into her pockets. The urge to check the scarf was immense.

This girl was right. Elaine knew it, she had always known it, but didn’t know how else to be. ‘So why do you keep dressing like that if you know why you’re doing it and it doesn’t work?’ she said in a desperate attempt to flip the attention elsewhere.

Brodie mirrored her by putting her own hands in her baggy pockets. ‘Because my mum’s on benefits and we can’t afford new ones.’ she said bluntly.

‘Right, then we’ll go into town tomorrow and I’ll buy you a whole new wardrobe.’ Elaine slapped the gauntlet down, challenging the girl to beat her and assuming that age would trump gumption. It didn’t work.

Brodie rolled her eyes. ‘Nice one, lovely. That’ll work. Perhaps we can buy a few new scarves while we’re at it.’

Elaine folded her arms, ‘Oh, I see, like that is it?’ She leaned her weight on one hip and regarded Brodie with a mixture of amusement, affront and a tiny bit of admiration.

Brodie’s thin face broke into a sly smirk. ‘Yep. It is,’ she said. Her tongue was literally in her cheek. ‘Anyway, I like being scary. What’s your excuse?’

Elaine sighed, her indignation deflating like a tired balloon. ‘I’m a creature of habit, warts and all. Come on, Miriam will be wondering where you are and I’ve got things to do.’

They walked on, Brodie skipping ahead and kicking at loose stones. She danced around like a drunken football fan, reeling and rolling as she played in the dirt. Elaine envied her the freedom and her youth. Sometimes Elaine felt that she had been born old, like Benjamin Button, except she didn’t get to do the getting younger thing.

At Miriam’s gate they paused and Brodie turned to Elaine, ‘Are you really going to buy me something tomorrow?’ she asked with a sly smile, ‘Only there’s a really nice hoodie in the Animal shop. They do scarves too.’ she added, her tone turning hopeful.

Elaine laughed and slowly shook her head from side to side, a look of wry amusement on her face. ‘We’ll see, you cheeky little mare’.

Brodie beamed at her, and like lightning planted a feathery kiss on her cheek before vaulting over the gate and disappearing into the cottage.

Elaine stared after her for a moment. The infinitesimal weight of the kiss tingled on her cheek like the sting of a tiny, invisible tattoo. She reached up and touched the place where it sat and realised that she was smiling.

*

Alone in the cottage, all thoughts of the tasks Elaine had in mind disintegrated. Burned by unimportance, they fluttered away like ashes on the wind and she was left wondering what to do with herself. Brodie’s observations had made her brave and she took the decision to go upstairs and establish what all the fuss was about.

In front of a black pocked mirror in the bathroom she unwound the scarf and looked, for the first time in a long time, at the ragged scar that punctuated her skin like a Rubicon of angry lava. It ran from the left side of her neck along her collarbone and terminated at the top of her left breast. It was her brand, the mark that divided her from the concept of normal and set her apart from others. Jean had hated it and had forced the habit of keeping it covered. When she’d been a child it had been polo neck sweaters and stiff lace collars and she’d had the constant sense that she was being slowly suffocated. Her face twisted with anguish at the memory and she reached once more for her scarf. Concluding that she was better off with the devil she knew, she carefully wound the fabric around her neck and patted it into place. The motion dislodged a few grains of Jean, which had collected in the folds of fabric. They fell, seeding the room with smouldering discontent.

Chapter Four

Rosemary Tyler looked up from her washing up and peered out of the window. She could see Derry bouncing about at the end of the garden like an overexcited puppy. He was with someone. Ire rising, she strained up to see who was goading her brother now. She saw a woman talking to him. A young woman, who Rosemary didn’t recognise. At first.

Grabbing up a tea towel she strode to the door and marched down the overgrown path, grinding her wet hands into the fabric as she went. ‘Oi, Derry. Inside, now!’

Derry straightened at the sound of his sister’s voice and like a well trained dog he immediately scuttled inside the house. He shied away from Rosemary as he passed, as if expecting a vicious flick from the wet fabric that she held in her hands.

Rosemary saw, with a glimmer of satisfaction, that the stranger was wrong-footed by this. She planted herself behind the gate, folded her arms and said, ‘Can I help you?’ in a tone that conveyed that she had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, I’m looking for the house where Ruby Tyler used to live. The lady in the post office told me it was along here, but I can’t seem to find it.’

Rosemary appraised the woman before her. She seemed the timid type, the type that apologised for breathing. ‘This is it, I’m Ruby’s daughter. What’s your business here?’

The woman swallowed, ‘I’m Elaine Ellis, Joan’s daughter?’

‘Am I supposed to know who you’re talking about?’ Rosemary was already impatient with this wilting violet, she had made up her mind to be the minute she had clapped eyes on her.

‘Ruby was my mother’s aunt.’ Elaine explained feebly. She took a step back.

Rosemary wrinkled her brow, the gears of her memory engaging and grinding back the years – she needed to play this cautiously, you never knew what people might be after. ‘Do you mean Jean Burroughs? Jean that moved away?’

‘Yes, sorry, Burroughs was her maiden name.’ Elaine nodded with relief.

‘Bloody hell, I haven’t seen Jean in thirty odd years. No great loss, we weren’t close.’ Rosemary delivered the words with the addition of a dismissive flick of her tea towel. ‘Anyway, what brings you here? If she’s hoping my mum left her any money she’s barking up the wrong tree, all we got was this shit hole and a pile of debts,’ she laughed and indicated the ramshackle building that stood behind her.

‘Oh no, nothing like that. It’s just that she died not long ago, and she sometimes talked about Ruby and here and I was hoping to scatter her ashes in Ruby’s garden…’ Elaine trailed off as both women surveyed the scrubby land that had been used for years as a laissez faire scrapyard. The rusted hulk of an old car nestled among the weeds whilst scrawny chickens pecked and scratched in the dirt. A pair of ageing German Shepherds eyed them lazily from where they lay chained to a post.

Rosemary raised an eyebrow and stared at Elaine with amused scorn. Then she laughed, so much that she had to bend down and brace her hands on her knees in order to catch her next wheezing breath. Rising, she flapped the tea towel at Elaine, ‘Sorry love, but you really do have to see the funny side.’

Elaine looked down at the plastic wrapped urn she carried in her hands then back up at the wasteland of the garden. It certainly wasn’t the bluebell and foxglove paradise she had envisioned. The thought of those grizzled bantams pecking at her mother’s grainy remains and pooping them out amongst the weeds struck a chord within her too, and much to her shame she found it hilarious.

The sudden outburst of shared laughter softened Rosemary’s judgement and she found herself extending a hand, ‘Rosemary Tyler, come on in and have a cuppa. You can leave your mother on the doorstep,’ she added with a wink.

Elaine took the warm, work-hardened hand and shook it, basking in the relief that Rosemary had seemed to cease hostilities. Following her into the cottage she spied Derry peering at her from the gloom of the sitting room. She smiled at him, which had the effect of sending him scurrying into the shadows.

‘That’s our Derry, you mustn’t mind him, he’s a bit simple but he’s harmless – despite what you might have been told.’ Rosemary explained with a sour note.

‘I can’t say anyone’s mentioned him’ Elaine said.

Rosemary shook the kettle and, satisfied that it was full enough, switched it on. ‘You surprise me, round here you’d think Derry was responsible for bloody global warming. Anything goes wrong and they point the finger. Poor sod, wouldn’t harm a fly. You know that kid that went missing? They blamed him, as if a bloke like him would hurt a kid! All these years later and there’s still some that think it. I know, I see the way they look at him,’ she plonked tea bags into mugs with bristling high dudgeon. ‘Oi, Derry, come in here and say hello to Elaine – she’s your cousin.’

Elaine waited patiently as the coy giant of a man lumbered to the kitchen doorway and gave her a cautious smile.

‘Look at the size of him, you wouldn’t think he was starved of oxygen as a baby would you?’ Rosemary quipped. ‘Fetch me the milk out of the fridge, you great lump.’ She belied her words with a fond smile.

‘Nice to meet you properly, Derry’ Elaine said, noting the blush that saturated the big man’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t know I had family here, so you’re a nice surprise,’ she added. The compliment caused him to giggle and turn away from her.

‘You didn’t? Well, I must say it’s news to me that we have too. I never knew Jean had kids. Like I said she moved away when we were young. I know she came back to see Mum from time to time, but I didn’t see much of her, she was a bit up herself to be honest.’ Rosemary said, checking for Elaine’s reaction ‘Sorry, but I always call a spade a spade,’ she added by way of explanation for her blunt judgement.

Elaine was inclined to agree, but didn’t really feel able to say so.

‘So, are there more of you, brothers, sisters? Are you all going to turn up on the doorstep?’ Rosemary asked.

‘No, just me. My father died not long after I was born, so I was the only one.’ Elaine accepted a chipped and grubby mug of tea from Rosemary.

‘Hmmm, I remember him. Funny little bloke, bit like you, a bit too milky and weak for my liking. No match for Jean anyway.’

Elaine wasn’t sure how to take that, so sipped at the hot tea, which was a bit too milky and weak for her liking. ‘I never knew him, I don’t know what he was like. She didn’t talk about him much.’

‘No love lost there then eh? So what did she die of?’

Elaine placed the mug down, hoping she would have a chance to surreptitiously dump it if Rosemary left the room. ‘Cancer. She had breast cancer. But she hid it for a long time. She didn’t like doctors, or hospitals, so by the time we found out it was too late.’ Elaine tried not to recall the image of her mother’s suppurating, stinking breast – so rotten by the time she had admitted something was wrong that there wasn’t a doctor in the world who could have intervened. It had been appalling. ‘She was a great believer that all ills could be treated at home with a bit of Germolene and a stiff upper lip.’ Elaine explained, her hand going to her neck and hovering over the lumpy scar. Though she couldn’t remember how she’d got the injury, she still remembered the abject terror she had felt every time the antiseptic cream came out. Even now the thought made the scar tingle with remembered pain.

Rosemary snorted. ‘Sounds like Jean, once she was set on something that was it. Wild horses couldn’t shift her from a stupid idea. God knows why Mum had such a soft spot for her, couldn’t stand her myself. Still, I’m sorry she’s gone, for your sake.’ There was a nonchalant resignation in her choice of words. ‘Anyway, as for the ashes, you might want to find somewhere else, I can’t see Jean resting in peace around here,’ she waved her arm at the garden, which could be glimpsed through the dingy kitchen window. ‘Mum kept it nice, but I don’t have the time or the inclination. Takes me half my time to run around after that daft bugger,’ she said, pointing at Derry with her mug. ‘It would help if I could keep him off the estate, if I get one more phone call from that old bitch up there I will swing for someone! Apparently he frightens the guests.’

Elaine was reminded of her experience the day before at the ruined chapel, and Brodie’s assertion that someone was lurking in the trees. Now that she had met Derry she could see that there was no harm in him, but having recently experienced the shock of her life it was hard not to see both sides. ‘I haven’t met them yet.’

Rosemary scoffed, ‘Well there’s a bonus for you. If you think your mother was a snob just wait until you meet Miss high-and-mighty Gardiner-Hallow. Put it this way, she thinks hers smells of roses if you get my drift,’ she added with a knowing nod.

Elaine allowed herself a small smile to acknowledge the comparison. ‘I kind of feel sorry for people like that.’

Rosemary gave a derisive snort, ‘I bloody don’t! Rich as Croesus and still they’re not happy, carping about this that and the other like they’re still the lords and we’re the riff raff. Bitch-face Gardner would have us all back in serfdom if she could, grubbing about in the soil to feed her table. Look at the way she treats that Miriam, that woman must be seventy if she’s a day and she’s still at their beck and call. Still, Esther hung on madam’s coat tails like a bad smell, and what did she get? A crummy cottage and a few quid. You know she started work in that house when she was fourteen, never married, never had a life. Madness if you ask me.’

‘I thought she’d had a stroke.’ Elaine was surprised at the vehemence of Rosemary’s observations.

‘She did, couple of years back.’ Rosemary said as a sly grin stole over her face. ‘That shut her up all right, never one for holding back was Esther. Cor, I’d hate to be a fly on the wall in that woman’s head, the things she must be bottling up! If you think I’m blunt, Esther would have wiped the floor with you.’

Elaine was inclined to think that she was glad that she hadn’t met Esther. Someone more abrasive than Rosemary would be hard to contemplate.

‘Did you know they’ve got that kid there now, her and Miriam? As if either of them know how to look after a kid, especially one with troubles. I was told that the mother went loopy and is in the funny farm. Still, not surprising after what happened I suppose – though you’d think she would have got past it by now wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s been a long time. Still people don’t forget do they, they still think Derry took her. Found her cardigan in his den. Mind you, I think the police took one look at him and knew they couldn’t make it stick, but they were still bastards. Do you know they kept him locked up for weeks? Not sure he ever got over it really. And who was left to pick up the pieces, eh? Muggins of course. Anyway, like I was saying – they’ve got that kid there, staying with them bold as brass. I wonder what she makes of it all eh? Being dumped off here after everything that happened. That mother should be ashamed of herself, ought to have pulled herself together and got over it by now. If she’d been looking after the kid properly it would never have happened. Anyway, it’s ancient history now, leave it dead and buried, that’s what I say.’

Elaine patiently withstood this tirade, buoyed by the irony of Rosemary’s convictions. However, she felt a need to defend Brodie. ‘I’ve met the girl, she’s a nice kid. I feel for her. After all, the past isn’t her fault and it’s a shame some people can’t see that.’ Her words were pointed, but missed their target by a mile.

‘Well, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Those who are innocent carry the burden, don’t they?’ Rosemary stated sagely.

Elaine felt defeated, Rosemary was a wearing woman. It seemed as if the trait had run in the family, a thought that reminded her of Jean languishing on the doorstep. ‘True enough. Anyway, I ought to get going, it’s been lovely to meet you both. I’ll um, think of somewhere else for Mum.’

Rosemary gave her a look that said she doubted it had been lovely at all. She followed Elaine down the hallway to the door, ‘Well, nice to meet you I suppose, but don’t be expecting a Christmas card or anything, I’m not the type,’ she said as she leaned in the doorway, arms folded across her chest – looking like the archetype of a battle-axe landlady.

Elaine looked around for Derry, eager to say goodbye to the shy giant, but he was nowhere to be seen.

It was only when she got back to the cottage that she realised that she had left Jean on the Tylers’ doorstep as if she was as unimportant as an umbrella on a sunny day. Her intention to go back immediately and retrieve the urn was interrupted by Miriam, who arrived at the cottage bearing fresh sheets and towels. ‘Just popping in to do your change.’ she said, bustling past breathlessly.

‘That’s OK Miriam, leave it there, I can do it. You’ve got enough to do already.’ Elaine erroneously thought that she would be doing the woman a favour.

Miriam bristled, ‘Certainly not, you are a paying guest and will have the same service as everyone else. Besides, you’ve been very good to Brodie and I don’t want you to think we don’t appreciate it.’

Elaine conceded and made room for Miriam to move past her towards the stairs, ‘It’s not a problem, I’m very fond of Brodie.’

Miriam paused, ‘Well, you’re a brave one I must say, she’s such a prickly little thing usually, but she certainly likes you. All I hear is “Elaine this, Elaine that”.’

Elaine felt uncommonly pleased by this and rewarded the compliment with one of her rare smiles.

‘She tells me you’re an artist.’ Miriam said as she trundled up the stairs on heavy, swollen feet. Elaine suspected that she was a martyr to those feet.

In order to answer she was forced to follow. Trailing in Miriam’s wake awkwardly, as people do when they’re not used to being waited on. ‘Well, yes. I’m an illustrator – books, posters that kind of thing.’

‘Oh, how lovely.’ Miriam was clearly none the wiser. ‘Can’t draw a pair of legs with a ruler myself, still, God finds a use for all of us I suppose,’ she added, hauling the quilt off the bed and fighting with the cover. It was a laborious thing to watch, the quilt was twice the size of the woman and Elaine had no choice but to wade in and help. As they wrestled with the quilt Elaine pondered what God’s plan was for her, if her only purpose was to concoct twee pictures for children’s books. Not that that was the only thing she did, but it was her bread-and-butter work.

‘I met Rosemary Tyler today,’ she said as they were fitting the sheet, Miriam huffing with effort as she manhandled the fitted corners around the mattress.

‘Really? And how was that? Did she set the dogs on you?’ Miriam’s questions were delivered without humour.

‘No, she didn’t, but she’s so fierce herself I doubt she’d need the dogs.’

Miriam chortled at this, ‘Ha, you’re not wrong there. Not known for her warm welcome is our Rosemary. Every village has a termagant, and she’s ours. Ruby was the same, an absolute bitch of a woman. I don’t think there was a person in the village that didn’t feel the sharp edge of her tongue at least once. Still, I suppose they both had their cross to bear what with Derry,’ she said, beating a pillow into smooth submission.

‘I met him too, he seems harmless enough though.’

Miriam paused in what she was doing and regarded Elaine as if debating how much she should say. ‘Well, I’d agree. I don’t think there’s much harm in him, but he can be a handful. He’s a bit obsessive, he can get fixated on things and I think that scares people. He loves little kids see, I suppose they don’t treat him any different. That’s why he got into so much trouble when the little one went missing – people knew he liked kids and when they found the poor little mite’s cardigan in his hut, all covered in blood, well you can imagine. Two and two got put together and that was that. Even though there was no proof and no other evidence, and they had to let him go, people said there was no smoke without fire and the poor sod has been hounded ever since. So I suppose I don’t blame Rosemary for being the way she is, she’s had her cross to bear.’

‘That whole incident still seems very fresh for people, doesn’t it? Yet I’m told it happened thirty years ago.’ Elaine said, glad that Miriam had brought the subject up.

Miriam sighed, and eased her padded frame onto the bed. She perched on the corner like a roosting hen. ‘Sorry love, got to take the weight off for a minute, my bloody feet will be the death of me.’ She gave Elaine a tired smile. ‘As for the other, I think if her body had ever been found it would have been different. Everyone would have moved on, even our Shirley – she’s Brodie’s mum. She might have come to terms and had a life. As it is I don’t think there’s a farmer in the district that doesn’t think that one day he’ll be digging a ditch or ploughing a field and a pile of little bones will turn up. Doesn’t bear thinking about really.’

Elaine sat down on the opposite corner of the bed, ‘What actually happened? People have mentioned the story but I’m not clear on the details.’

Miriam closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. ‘I blame myself really, and so does Shirley if the truth be told. She left the kids with me that day. She had an appointment at the hospital and didn’t want the kids fussing around her, so I said I would keep an eye on them – she often left them with me back then. It was the summer holidays and they all loved it here, plenty of room to play I suppose. They weren’t bad kids, Fern was a typical teenager, it was all boys and girls’ magazines for her. Tony was a decent lad, still is – he’s the only one who keeps in touch. Shirley hasn’t spoken a word to me from that day to this…’ Miriam tailed off wistfully. ‘Anyway, they were all here – Fern, Tony and little Mandy – only I got called up to the house to help with Mr Gardiner-Hallow. He’d had one of his funny turns and for some reason he would always respond to me, so off I went. Course I had to take the kids with me, I couldn’t leave them on their own could I? I mean Fern was fourteen, but she was a feckless sort even then. Well, young Alex was home for the summer, he’s the Gardiner-Hallow’s nephew, quite famous now, you might even get to meet him while you’re here. Anyway me and Esther, she was the housekeeper then, we packed the kids off into the gardens and tried to sort Albert out. And that was that, next thing we knew Mandy was gone, disappeared into thin air. We searched the garden, we searched the house, we looked everywhere. When the police came we had the whole village and half the town out looking but we never found a thing. Except the cardigan, that was all that was left of her. It was a terrible, terrible thing, tore poor Shirley apart. See, Mandy was her only one, –Tony and Fern are her step-kids. I got the shock of my life when I found out she had Brodie, she must have been forty if she was a day, and her on her own by then too! Course I wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with them by then because she blamed me, I was in charge.’

Elaine didn’t know what to say to make the old woman feel better, ‘You can’t watch kids all the time, you mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said gently.

Miriam sighed and shook her head, ‘It’s a good job I never had any of my own, lord knows what would have happened. I’d have liked to though, still… it wasn’t to be.’

‘Did you ever marry?’ Elaine seized the chance to steer the conversation into more comfortable waters.

Miriam hauled herself up, groaning with the effort, ‘Nearly, once. I was engaged, lovely chap he was. Peter Handley’ she said, a beatific smile smoothing the creases of her face, making her look almost young again. ‘But he broke it off the week before the wedding.’

Elaine was saddened by this. Miriam struck her as a woman who would have thrived on a diet of marriage and motherhood. ‘That’s terrible, did you ever find out why?’

Miriam paused, a single snow-white towel in her hand, which she stroked thoughtfully. ‘I did. Esther decided that it was her Christian duty to tell him that I wasn’t pure – he was getting damaged goods.’

Elaine was profoundly shocked, she was aware that all this had happened a long time ago but surely that kind of Victorian high morality had waned by then. ‘That’s awful, why would she do such a thing?’

Miriam looked away, busily picking up the rest of the towels. ‘It was different back then, people were different back then, especially here in the country. Esther was a very proud woman, a good woman… but she didn’t understand too much about how people tick.’ Miriam paused and let out a weary sigh, ‘I suppose she thought she was doing the right thing’

Elaine couldn’t accept that, surely ruining another’s prospects was never the right thing. She thought about making a case for Esther’s guilt but the look on Miriam’s face told her that she would be better off holding her tongue.

They stood in silence for a moment, all actions interrupted, all movement suspended by their thoughts.

Miriam shook her head, snapping herself out of her reverie. ‘Anyway, I must get on. By the way, what happened to the mantel clock? I came in to dust earlier and it’s gone.’

Elaine felt a sudden flush of embarrassment, ‘Oh, sorry, don’t worry I haven’t broken it. It’s just that the ticking and the chimes get on my nerves so I put it in the cupboard under the stairs. Sorry.’

‘Oh, I like a loud tick on a clock, very soothing I find, oh well never mind. I’ll put it back when you’ve gone otherwise her ladyship will think you stole it!’ she laughed.

Elaine lingered in the bedroom long after Miriam had gone, her hand resting on the crisp white linen that adorned the bed. She inhaled, drawing in the aroma of wind, sun and good fresh air that mingled with the soap that Miriam had diligently sealed into the fabric with a hot iron. It was the smell of hard work and pride, of devotion to duty, of living a small life and finding satisfaction in the little things.

*

Miriam made her way back to her own cottage, carrying in her arms the linen from Elaine’s bed and trailing the dirty linen of the past in her wake. The girl’s questions had stirred old and painful memories. It had never been Miriam’s fault that lads had preferred her to Esther, and it hadn’t been her fault that she’d failed to grasp the facts of life. Even at the age she was now she had never quite grasped what birds and bees had to with it and why no one had told her at sixteen that babies didn’t come by stork. They came by fear, pain and shame. She didn’t want to dwell on that, there were some rocks that were better never turned, and what crawled beneath that one didn’t bear thinking about.

The pain of Peter’s rejection had never left her but had become a familiar ache. Sometimes it was almost comforting, an indication that she had once been loved. Esther had said that she did what she did as an act of love, that truth was love. Miriam had never quite believed it. Esther’s idea of love had always been such a strident thing and too black and white for the real world. Miriam had often wondered if Esther’s sensibilities were founded more in jealousy and possession than in love.

Esther could never have married; she would have seen the expectation of intimacy, the mutual need, as an affront. Even now, trapped in her dysfunctional body, she resented need. Miriam could see it and feel it, coming off her sister in waves of discontent. Esther had always done the right thing, as she saw it, and was bitter that God had seen fit to reward her by incarcerating her in a flesh and bone prison. She had never said that, but it was what Miriam saw every time she looked into Esther’s eyes – fear and resentment.

When she looked back, Miriam was sure that’s what had made Esther send Peter away, that and an over-entitled sense of morality. Fear that she would have to relinquish control over her sister in favour of a man, and resentment that she would never have a similar choice. Miriam had enduring faith in the premise that the mills of God would grind slow, but they would grind sure. There was no room for bitterness, only duty. Miriam’s duty to care for her sister was a cold dish, served with every bit of sisterly love she could muster. It was Miriam’s pleasure to offer her care, and Esther’s detestation to receive it.

*

At six o’clock Elaine heard a noise outside the door, a slight shuffling as if someone was hovering and hesitating. Knowing it couldn’t be Brodie or Miriam – who would both have just knocked and walked in – she waited a moment, reluctant to open the door to someone unknown. When she was certain that no one was lurking, she opened the door and discovered to her revulsion that her stealthy visitor had left a dead rabbit on her doorstep. Had Jean’s ashes not accompanied the corpse she would have felt deeply afraid. An anonymous gift of carrion was hardly likely to be a good thing, but the presence of the urn reassured her that this was Derry’s idea of a favour.

‘The gift of death’ she said aloud as she put Jean on a shelf in the porch.

Using a carrier bag turned inside out as a glove, she bent to retrieve the rabbit. Her lip curled at the feel of its cold flesh through the plastic and with a shudder of revulsion she picked it up. Holding it before her, the bag swinging from the very tips of her fingers, she walked over to Miriam’s cottage and knocked on the kitchen door. Miriam struck her as a woman who would know exactly what to do with the thing.

*

Miriam seemed pleased with the donation, even offering to demonstrate how the animal could be skinned and prepared for cooking. An offer which Elaine emphatically declined on the grounds that it would be knowledge that she would never use. She much preferred to receive her meat already butchered into nice, neat anonymous chunks. While Miriam busied herself hanging the rabbit in the shed ready for the next day, Elaine was left alone in the quiet, cluttered kitchen.

It was a room that told its history in the paraphernalia which it held. Copper jelly moulds adorned the walls and heavy pans hung on butcher’s hooks from a rickety laundry rack suspended from the ceiling by a system of ropes and pulleys.

Miriam had left her sitting at a scrubbed pine table from which a faint tang of carbolic soap rose to tingle in her nose. It was a smell that conjured images of childhood and Jean’s obsession that cleanliness was next to Godliness; it wasn’t an aroma which brokered happy memories for Elaine. The kitchen formed a tableau that interior designers would have died for and purveyors of retro chic would have drooled over – it was a haven of vintage style that had cost Miriam nothing but a lifetime of utility and frugality. Yet it resonated the warmth of her personality in a way that no designer could replicate and no money could buy. Everything about the room smacked of Miriam’s matronly country charm, with just enough chaos to make it interesting. Elaine tried to picture a black clad, brooding Brodie at the table and had to smile at the incongruity of the image. She was still smiling when Miriam returned.

‘Well, that’s that then.’ Miriam said wiping her hands on her ever-present apron. ‘Would you like a cuppa now that you’re here? I’ve just made one.’

‘Thanks, that would be lovely. Where’s Brodie? I thought she would have been round this afternoon.’ Elaine watched Miriam wield the enormous brown teapot in one capable hand whilst balancing a delicate silver tea strainer in the other.

‘Oh she took herself off a couple of hours ago, said she had something she wanted to look at. As long as she’s out from under my feet and not causing any trouble!’ Miriam said with a laugh. ‘Come on through, you can meet Esther, she likes a bit of company.’

Elaine followed her through towards the lounge, hovering in the doorway whilst Miriam prepared Esther for company.

‘We’ve got a visitor.’ Miriam plumped cushions behind the figure of Esther who Elaine was unable to see, obscured as she was by her sister’s bulk. ‘It’s Elaine. You know, I told you about her, she’s staying in the rental cottage for a couple of weeks.’

Elaine could hear a guttural, grunting sound emanating from the chair; it felt like her cue to enter. ‘Hello Esther, it’s very nice to meet you at last.’ She said it with a pleasantry that she didn’t quite feel. With all that she had heard about Esther this wasn’t a meeting she’d been relishing. As Miriam moved away she got her first look at the woman in the chair. With a fixed smile she took in the spare, pinched features of the woman whose eyes bore into her with malignant curiosity. Esther’s one good hand clenched briefly then resumed poking and scratching at the arm of her chair as she looked away from her visitor.

Elaine suppressed a shudder and swallowed down the rising anxiety that was threatening to make her flee from the room. There was a terrifying familiarity about Esther’s demeanour, which was reminiscent of a hundred childish nightmares. The sensation of fear forced her to look away and focus on the rest of the room, as if by doing so she could pretend that the hostile, ravaged presence wasn’t there. Despite her best efforts to make small talk about the lovely painting above the mantel, or the charming Staffordshire dogs that adorned the hearth, she couldn’t escape her reaction to the old woman. The need to get out of the room became more pronounced with every minute.

Mutual dislike crackled through the air in the room completely escaping Miriam, who chattered on, oblivious to the sidelong glances which Elaine was compelled to give to the crone in the corner just to be sure. Sure of what she didn’t know, perhaps to check that the woman really wasn’t capable of independent movement and could not get out of the chair. The mounting anxiety made her feel like a child full of ridiculous worries about monsters under the bed and bogey men in the wardrobe. She was forced to abandon her tea, lest the cup should rattle in the saucer and betray her nerves. The visceral response bore no relation to reason and Elaine felt hard pressed to make sense of it.

The ordeal was ended by the arrival of another visitor, to whom Elaine couldn’t have been more grateful as his unexpected visit gave her the perfect excuse to escape. The appearance of the tall, impeccably dressed and handsome man at the cottage door caused both Miriam and Esther to cry out in surprise and delight. From Esther there was a tortured, keening squeal followed by her raddled face breaking out into a rapture of delight and longing. An image that was almost as frightening to Elaine as the tortuous brooding that had gone before.

From Miriam there was an explosion of pleasure as she cried ‘Alex! Where did you spring from, we weren’t expecting you!’

Elaine couldn’t help but feel wryly amused by the Austen-esque mood that had taken over the women. She rose to her feet and watched as Miriam fluttered and flustered over the visitor while Esther grimaced and fawned.

Alex lapped it up like the prodigal son, ‘Just a flying visit I’m afraid, popping in on my way back to London. Thought I’d better call in and see my two favourite ladies.’ He oozed charm as he bent to kiss the now effervescent Esther.

‘Where are my manners?’ Miriam gushed with a flap of her apron. ‘Alex, this is Elaine, she’s staying next door for a while. Elaine, I’d like you to meet Alex Gardiner-Hallow.’ Her face beamed with pride as she made the introductions.

Alex extended his hand while making a long lingering appraisal of Elaine, which made her feel as though he was imagining her naked. ‘Elaine, pleased to make your acquaintance.’ A lascivious smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Elaine took his hand and received a warm, dry squeezing of her fingers. The gesture was undertaken with the use of both hands. He let his touch linger a fraction too long and she was forced to extract herself.

‘You’re the aspiring MP, aren’t you? Are you home for a bit of impromptu campaigning?’ She was fighting the urge to wipe her hand on her jeans, uninvited intimacy had never made her comfortable.

Alex guffawed, the sound as fake as his snake oil charm. ‘Quite! Though I’m sure I can count on the votes of these two lovely ladies. They brought me up you know, I would be nothing without these two, would I – Esther, Miriam?’ He beamed at the adoring women.

Miriam blushed and flapped her hand at him, while Esther’s lip trembled with pride. Her prior menace completely replaced by humble, sycophantic devotion.

For Elaine this was equally creepy. ‘Well, it’s very nice to meet you, but I ought to be going. Thank you for the tea Miriam, tell Brodie I said hello,’ she said, her words barely registering with the giddy Miriam.

At the door Alex took her hand again, ‘I hope we meet again, Elaine.’ He appraised her once more. There was a shard of menace in the glimmer of his eye, which she took to denote his hard-nosed political acumen. He struck her as a man in no doubt of his own appeal. He was appealing, in a purely physical sense, and represented an almost perfect specimen of manliness. She found him both extremely attractive and quite unnerving. She had never been comfortable around attractive men and always searched for flaws that would match her own. In Alex she could find none.

Extracting herself, she gave him a tight smile. ‘I’m sure you’ll be far too busy.’ She hastily made her escape, beginning to wish she had just buried that damned rabbit. The whole visit had left her feeling quite unsettled. She was aware of Alex watching her as she made her way down the path. ‘Weird’ she muttered under her breath as she reached the gate. Pausing, she smiled, entertained by the thought of what Brodie would make of the visitor. She doubted that the abrasive girl would have much time for Alex’s charm. Satisfied that he would soon be introduced to the tiny teenaged nemesis, she opened her own door and once inside shut it gratefully on the strange and unpleasant evening.

The draught from the closing of the door disturbed the plastic that enclosed Jean’s urn. It shifted and shed a little of the fine dust that still clung to its interior. An evening breeze picked up the specks and sent them whirling and reeling across the gardens and in through the open window of Miriam’s cottage. Alex had been laughing but was interrupted by an unanticipated sneeze, caused unbeknownst to him, by his sudden introduction to Jean.

Chapter Five

Brodie stood in the entrance to the ruined chapel. It looked baleful and forbidding in the low afternoon sun, which cast creeping shadows within its crumbling walls. Inside it was dank and silent, the smell of sweating, musty stone assaulted her senses and she struggled to see clearly into the gloom. She had brought a torch, which she checked for the second time, making sure that the batteries were functioning. Then she checked her pocket for the spares, her hand closing over them in quiet relief. Steeling herself, she made to venture further but was startled by a voice behind her.

‘Hard to believe that this hasn’t been like this for hundreds of years, isn’t it?’

Reeling round, torch gripped in her hand like a baton she came face to face with a plump, ruddy-faced man dressed in black. Unlike her he was wearing a dog collar. ‘Oh, did I startle you? I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘S’all right’ Brodie relaxed her grip on the torch and wondered what the protocol was for talking to vicars.

He placed his hands behind his back and looked up, squinting at the remains of the squat tower. ‘Yes, a hundred years ago this was still a functioning church, maintained by the Gardiner-Hallows. Mostly for family use I should imagine. But neglect takes its toll and now we’re left with just this ruin. Did you know that the land was given to the family by William the Conqueror and that they have owned it ever since? The current house doesn’t date back that far, most of it is Georgian, but the chapel has to be hundreds of years old. Fascinating isn’t it?’ he mused.

Brodie climbed down from the fallen lintel she had been standing on and stood beside him, following his gaze, ‘Why do you think they let it fall down?’

‘Oh, lack of interest and lack of money I should think. These places aren’t cheap to look after. I should know, I’ve been fighting the locals for years to raise money for a new roof on the village church,’ he said, laughing. ‘Besides I don’t think the current incumbents are a terribly faithful lot,’ he added with a conspiratorial wink. ‘Anyway, nice to have met you – do be careful if you’re going to explore won’t you?’ he nodded at the torch.

Brodie watched him wander off, hands still behind his back. Her prior experience of men of the cloth had been the occasional tussle with the hospital chaplain who frequently made it his business to advise her mother of the error of her ways. Shirley had constant battles with God, railing against him for her misfortunes one day and seeking his forgiveness the next. It hadn’t exactly given Brodie an enthusiasm for faith, or those who brokered it. Yet she had felt quite comfortable with this brief meeting, the vicar’s appearance having served to buoy her up for the task ahead. Taking her torch she re-entered the chapel and made her way to what she assumed had once been the front of the church. She was pretty sure it was called the chancel, and the side bits that formed the cross were the transepts. The part where people sat was the nave. Two minutes on Google and she was an expert in ecclesiastical architecture, or enough of one to work out what she was looking for anyway. She had spotted it the day before and had intended to explore it then, if she hadn’t had to deal with Elaine freaking out over a dumb bird.

Picking her way over the rubble she went back to where she had spied an opening the day before. It was overgrown and half hidden, but it was there nonetheless. A rotting, woodlouse-ridden trapdoor lay over it, slimy with lichen. She managed to find a stick and used it to lever up the cover, revealing in its totality what she had glimpsed through the missing lathes in the door. A staircase of roughhewn stone led down into the darkness of what she was sure had to be a crypt. Switching on the torch she shone it down, leaning back lest a flurry of bats should emerge in a furious glut to tangle her hair and scare her witless. Just to be sure, she banged the stick on the stonework hoping to disturb anything that might be lurking. Years of watching horror films had made her cautious (and people said you didn’t learn anything from TV) and even though she knew it would take little effort to break through the rotten wood of the door, she wedged a stone against the hinge just in case. Ready to face whatever was below, she began to descend, one slippery step at a time – the stick held in one hand, the torch in the other.

At the bottom of the steps she played the beam of her torch across the walls, gratified to find that she was indeed in a small crypt. A room of about twenty feet square with a low vaulted ceiling. She was disappointed to find a distinct lack of sarcophagi, and even more dismayed to find that she was not the first to have discovered the hidden chamber.

Several beer cans lay around her feet, and someone had spray painted a crude pentagram on the floor. The room had a distinctive smell of stale urine mingled with mould; an acrid combination, which stung her nose and made her want to sneeze. Pulling her T-shirt up to cover the lower part of her face, so that the smell of washing powder would mask the other stench, she explored further, quickly realising that there were bodies in the walls.

Heart beating with excitement, she moved closer and tried to read the inscriptions. Various dead Gardiner-Hallows had been entombed beneath the chapel, the duration of their often brief lives had been engraved on slabs of marble which were mortared into place.

‘Cool,’ she whispered. The sound set off an eerie echo around the room, as if the dead were mimicking her voice. Her fascination with the deceased gentry was brought to an abrupt end when she heard something above.

Whirling round, torch beam swinging wildly and her heart seeming to leap into her throat, she screamed, just as a torrent of small stones tumbled down the steps. A moment later she got a grip, there was no way she was getting stuck in that place without a fight.

With arms that shook like branches in a high wind, she took a better grip on the stick and raised the torch to illuminate the steps. ‘Who’s there?’ she yelled, ‘you’d better get back because I’m coming up swinging!’ She thwacked the stick against the stonework for good measure. Mustering up her battle cry she flung herself at the steps, howling and yelling like a thing demented. Taking them two at a time, she leaped out at the top like a demonic jack-in-the-box, whirling the stick above her head in a dervish-like frenzy. It met nothing, and her arm sagged as the movement ebbed away along with her adrenaline.

It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the sudden influx of light, so initially the grizzling heap hadn’t appeared to be human. For a split-second she had been half convinced that she was about to be attacked by a huge bear, or more likely a wild boar as she had read somewhere that Britain was full of them. Breathing heavily and braced to use the stick if she had to, she squinted at the now whimpering thing.

It was a man, a giant one, crouching on the floor with one hand over his head and the other waving wildly to ward her off. ‘Whoa! What the fuck…?’ she said, all the fight seeping out of her. ‘You scared the bloody bejaysus out of me!’

She recognised the man as Derry, the village idiot as Miriam called him. She knew that Elaine had met him and had said that he was a gentle, sweet thing even if he was a few biscuits short of a barrel. ‘What are you doing scaring me like that?’ she demanded, righteously indignant. She stared at him angrily then started feeling quite ashamed of herself because he was clearly far more terrified than she was.

All he could manage was a frightened whimper as he rocked backward and forward with his hands over his head. His great feet were sticking out either side of his squatting body, making him look like a gigantic egg perched precariously on a pair of clown shoes. Brodie felt like the vilest person in the world. ‘Look it’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you, see I’m putting the stick down. OK?’ She bent down and placed the stick on the ground, then put her hands up to shoulder height. It was like some scene out of an American gangster film wherein she was declaring her surrender. ‘I’m going to sit down now, all right?’ She lowered herself onto a giant slab of masonry that formed a convenient and impromptu bench. ‘See, everything’s all right. Yeah?’

Slowly the rocking ceased and the whimpering diminished until, still crouched, he bravely decided to take a look at her through the cage of his parted fingers.

Brodie smiled at him, aware that a smile from her wasn’t always a good thing; no matter how much she practised, it often looked more menacing than the sulky look she had perfected. ‘Hey, you’re Derry aren’t you? I’m Brodie. My friend Elaine told me about you, you remember Elaine don’t you?’

Derry nodded from behind the protective fan of his fingers.

‘Sorry if I scared you mate, but I reckon you scared me more. I thought I had a bunch of pissed up devil worshippers on my hands!’ She laughed at her own joke and hoped the humour would calm him down. ‘Anyway, what are you doing lurking around here?’

Finally he pulled his hands away from his face and scrabbled on the ground behind him grasping at something and dangling it in front of her by its ears. ‘R-r-rr-r-r-abits.’ he stuttered, waving at the woods that lay beyond the chapel.

Brodie felt a wave of revulsion as the poor dead thing dangled in front of her; she tried hard not to pull a face as she said. ‘Cool. You going to have that for your tea?’

Derry gave her a vigorous nod.

‘Lovely, sooner you than me mate, I prefer a burger myself,’ she quipped.

Derry grinned and gave out a snort of laughter. He started to rummage inside his coat, pulling something out which was lost to Brodie’s view, concealed as it was within in his big hand. ‘F-f-f-f-fffor you.’ He threw the object.

Brodie saw something small and grey come hurtling towards her. On instinct she scuffled back, expecting to be confronted by something else that was small, furry and dead.

At her feet lay a grubby child’s toy. She picked it up and turned it in her hands, recognition and horror dawning as she examined the little furry dog. It was filthy, rimed with age and it was missing one of its glass eyes. ‘Where did you get this, Derry?’ Her voice came out in a tentative whisper as the thing she held in her hands inserted its significance into her mind.

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