The Dream House (25 page)

‘You mean am I married, don’t you?’ Kate felt herself blushing, but Dan was smiling. ‘I was. For four years. We met at college. She came to London at the same time I did and we got married as soon as we could get a deposit together for a flat. But she changed – or I did. We were too young, really. Gabby loved London and she did well at her job, but she turned out to be a party animal. She started to say I was being boring – I probably was. I didn’t want to go to clubs, do cocaine and stay up half the night like her. In the end we just seemed to pass on the doorstep. Then she found someone else . . .’

‘Poor you,’ whispered Kate. ‘I know what that’s like now.’

‘Yes, but by then what we’d had was long gone. It was a bit of a relief, in a way, when she said we should split. She and her bloke bought me out of the flat and I rented somewhere else and tried to make a go of it. It didn’t work out. Now, here we are . . . Looks like Marie’s son Conrad is out.’ And Dan swung the van round in a shower of gravel in front of Seddington House.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said, reaching his hand across Kate to rummage in the glove compartment, which was a glorious mess of cassette tapes, bits of string and glucose sweets. What long, sensitive fingers he has for a practical man, Kate thought, intensely aware of him leaning across her, his shoulder briefly brushing hers. Then, as his hand closed over a bunch of keys, she noticed something else – bits of Polly Pocket toys. Did Dan have a child?

‘We’ll have to go through the back of the house, I’m afraid,’ he said now, winking at her. ‘No Lady Muck for you, sweeping through the front door, my dear.’

‘What do you mean, Lady Muck? When have I put on airs and graces?’

‘Ah, don’t think I haven’t seen you looking. You fancy this house, don’t you? Well, who wouldn’t?’

‘Where do you live, Dan?’

‘Down in the village. Cottage with the blue door, near the pub. Bit of a garage round the back to do my bikes and a shed for the painting. It was my dad’s house, but he got married again a few years ago and moved into his wife Sally’s bungalow in Wenhaston.’ He opened his door to get out. ‘My mum died, you see. When I was ten.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate softly. ‘That must have been shattering.’

‘It was the end of my childhood,’ said Dan. ‘She was so ill, but I never thought she’d die. You don’t believe your parents can die when you’re only ten. But she did. So then there was just me and Dad. And now Dad’s got Sally. I’m glad for him really. She’s OK. Organizes Dad, but he likes that. Mum used to organize him, you see, tidy up after him, get his meals on the table. Everything was a right muddle when it was just Dad and me.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, he gave me the house so I’m grateful for that.’

Kate listened to his footsteps as he went round to the back of the vehicle to get out his tools then she pushed open her door and jumped down. She stood looking up at the house. Pink-edged clouds were reflected like swans gliding on the diamond-hatched windows. The place looked even more shut up than it had on her first visit. The curtains of the library were closed now – was she just imagining the air of desolation? She turned and looked across the front gardens.

‘I’ve been keeping the hedges cut, and spraying the worst of the weeds,’ said Dan, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Marie checks on everything and dusts, and Conrad often stays. Otherwise, there’s not been much to do, apart from finishing the kitchen. Oh, and the library window. I’ll deal with that tomorrow.’

They walked to the left, round to the kitchen door. Dan picked out a large iron key and a smaller brass one for the mortice lock. The door opened easily; he hurried in to switch off the alarm, and Kate followed him through the kitchen to the hall beyond and the library.

The warmth, the muffling of their footsteps and the half-dark reminded Kate of going into a marquee on a hot summer’s day. The stuffy air smelled of soft furnishings and old books, which also deadened sound. A bluebottle buzzed tiredly somewhere in the room. Dan walked over to the windows and worked the cords of the burgundy velvet curtains one by one, then pushed the casements open. All at once, the room was flooded with light, fresh air and the twitterings of birds. Kate looked around. The chair in which Agnes had sat had been pulled back into line. Her personal alarm, its cord neatly coiled, lay on the table next to a pack of cards and the Wilkie Collins. It was as if the room was standing to attention, ready for Agnes to walk back in.

Kate started to scan the shelves. Eventually, at waist-level, half-hidden by a chair to the left of the fireplace, she saw what she was looking for: a row of slim leatherbound volumes. Each spine bore the name of a different English county in gilt lettering, and the series title, the
Domesday Book
. She began to take the books off the shelf, but all that was revealed was the wallpaper behind. Puzzled, she persevered. Perhaps there would be some lever or handle – but no. She replaced the books and started feeling up and down the sides of the shelves. Still nothing. She walked over to the fireplace and examined that closely. Again, no clue.

‘Here,’ said Dan, coming up to stand behind her. ‘Let’s look at that key.’

She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and extracted a golden key two inches long. Strangely, it had no tines – the operational end was octagonal in shape, and hollow.

‘Let’s take the books out again.’ They piled the volumes one by one next to the fireplace.

The tiny keyhole was behind the volume entitled
Surrey
. It could have been an imperfection in the elderly Strawberry Thief design to anyone not looking closely. A false wall! Kate pushed in the key and turned it. The whole shelf swung open. There behind was a low rectangular safe about the size of two stacked box-files. It had a combination lock. ‘Oh no,’ cried Kate. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Look at the envelope,’ said Dan.

Kate turned it over and over, then realized that where she had torn it open, she’d ripped through a number. 1910.

‘I think that’s when Miss Agnes was born,’ whispered Dan, close but not touching, his breath warm against her cheek. Kate felt an urge to lean back against him, to feel safe in his enfolding arms, and resisted it. ‘Try it,’ Dan said, meaning the code.

Kate turned the dial back and forth with care. Something clicked. She pulled open the safe door.

To one end inside was a pile of flat, velvet-covered boxes. Kate picked up one and opened it. She gasped. It contained an exquisite diamond necklace and matching earings – Edwardian, she guessed, from the design.

‘Why doesn’t she keep it in the bank?’ said Dan, shaking his head. ‘Must be worth thousands.’

Kate closed the box. ‘I don’t think it’s this she wanted us to look at,’ she said, and replaced the jewel-case with the others. ‘It’s these.’

On the right-hand side of the safe was a pile of notebooks, five in all. Two were child’s exercise books, the others were covered in patterned cardboard. Kate opened one at random.
December 1943
, ran the top line in classic dark blue italic.
Father still very ill. The doctor says it’s his lungs, the mustard gas. He coughs horribly, on and on and on, though there’s nothing . . .

‘Her diaries.’ Kate pulled the rest out. There was something else in the safe, half-tucked behind the pile of jewel-cases, a thick manila envelope sealed with sticky tape. Kate turned it over. It was addressed:
To my son from his mother, Agnes Lavender Melton.
Her son! Agnes had a son! Was it this that Agnes wanted her to know?

Just then they heard wheels crunching over gravel. They turned to see through the window a silver Range Rover roll to a halt next to Dan’s van. A smartly dressed figure got out.

Max surveyed the frontage of the house as he slammed the driver’s door and locked it. In a moment a key rattled in the front-door.

Kate and Dan looked at one another.

‘Quick. He mustn’t see all this,’ Kate said, worried. She stuffed everything back in the safe, shut the door and the bookshelf and dropped the key into her handbag.

‘Hello?’ called Max from the hall.

When he opened the library door and peered round, the two of them were piling the volumes of the
Domesday Book
back on the shelves. A palpable air of guilt hung in the air, and Kate felt as if she and Dan had been caught in some terrible kind of
flagrante delictum
.

How on earth were they to talk themselves out of
this
?

‘What the hell?’ Max started. ‘What are you doing in here? Who’s given you permission to touch things?’ He stared at Kate, then at Dan. Dislike snapped through the air between the two men.

‘I work here, Mr Jordan,
if
you remember. I have a key,’ said Dan, deliberately.

Max looked him up and down. ‘I wasn’t aware that your duties included thumbing through my aunt’s private collections, Mr Peace.’ Dan Peace – Kate hadn’t known his surname before. The glares he was giving Max now were anything but peaceful. ‘We really need to improve the security here,’ Max said, as if to himself. ‘Until everything’s sorted out . . .’

‘Max, your aunt asked me to look for something for her here, some papers,’ Kate said, trying to sound firm but merely seeming defensive. The scene must, indeed, look very suspicious to Max. The handyman and an unknown woman claiming to be her cousin who’d wormed her way into Miss Melton’s affections, going through her possessions in her deserted house. In his place she’d be annoyed, too, though his air of arrogance wasn’t necessary.

‘Really, it is all right,’ she tried to assure Max. ‘Ask your aunt.’ She was reluctant to show Max the little key. Her instinct was that Agnes wouldn’t want him to see the diaries, and if he knew the existence of the jewellery he would surely be even more accusing. Damn! How were they going to get the diaries out of the safe now that Max was on to them?

‘I
will
ask her,’ he said shortly. ‘And advise her against letting near-strangers into the house. I don’t mean to sound churlish, but I must ask you both to go . . . immediately.’ He went round the room closing the windows and dragging the curtains across any old how. Dan and Kate heaped the last books back onto the shelf and he ushered them out of the room. Dan reset the alarm and secured the back door while Max stood over him – Kate could sense Dan’s humiliation. Then Max showed them out of the front door before locking that. They all stood outside, at a loss as to what to say next. It was Dan who eventually spoke.

‘Well, I’ll be back in the morning to mend the windowsill. I hope that’s all right by you, Mr Jordan.’ Max appeared to examine Dan’s tone for sarcasm but didn’t seem sure.

‘Do you need to go into the house for that?’ he asked. Dan stiffened and shrugged then turned away.

‘I—‘Max stopped then. He took off his glasses and regarded Kate and Dan gravely for a moment, before returning them to his nose. ‘I think you should know I spent some time talking with my aunt today. I believe I’ve persuaded her that it would be sensible to give up this house. Clear it out. Sell it or rent it out. She doesn’t seem totally against the idea.’

‘But Max,’ Kate gasped, ‘surely the hope of coming home to this house is what is keeping her going! It’s where she’s lived all her life. Her treasures are here! She might lose the will to live if we take this away from her and give her . . . some modern bungalow.’

‘A residential home, is what I was recommending. There’s a suitable one I’ve visited quite near the hospital. The Lawns. They’ve a place available.’

‘I know it, Kate,’ said Dan quietly. ‘It’s a new building, but attractive. Classical style. And there’s a big front garden, lots of trees.’

‘But it won’t be here, will it?’ cried Kate in passion. ‘It won’t be Seddington House with all her beautiful things and her memories. You’ll be uprooting her.’

‘It would be for the best,’ Max said, his voice stern in response to her emotion. ‘I talked to the doctor. Her walking isn’t good now and there’s a shakiness that wasn’t there before. It’s possible she’s had a very small stroke. She can’t come back here with all these stairs. She’d need full-time care. What if she fell again?’

‘I didn’t know about the stroke,’ said Kate humbly. She realized that the doctors wouldn’t tell her. Max was the next-of-kin. ‘She seemed a bit frail today, I admit. Does the doctor say she can come out soon?’

‘The doctor won’t commit herself at the moment. They’re running tests. But if the damage is contained . . .’

‘Max. I . . .’ It would be stupid to alienate this man any more. She must speak calmly. ‘I know you’re Agnes’s nearest relative, and that you have her best interests at heart, but I don’t think you really understand about her. I mean . . .’ She watched Max take in a sharp breath, then blow it out through pursed lips before he spoke.

‘I can see that you’ve got to know her well in a short time, and I know she’s very attached to this place. But somebody has to make some tough decisions here. The Lawns have a place for her, and as soon as the doctor gives the go-ahead . . . I’m sure I’ll be able to talk my aunt round. Then we’ll get the valuers in here and try and sort the old pile out.’

‘I just think you’re wrong, that’s all,’ said Kate in a low voice. ‘She’s unhappy enough being in a hospital. She’d rather have someone come in here to help Mrs Summers, I know she would.’

‘Well, I think it’s just too risky. Sorry.’ And with that, Max smiled and patted Kate’s shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’ll be all right. It’s what happens when people get old. They need to be where they can be looked after properly. Now, I need to be getting back and I think you should too.’ He nodded at Dan and they went to their separate vehicles without saying another word.

‘Oh Dan,’ said Kate, slumped in her seat as the van bumped its way down the drive. ‘Perhaps he’s right. But I think Agnes would go straight downhill if she knew she couldn’t come home.’ She stopped. ‘You don’t reckon this is Max being greedy, do you? That he thinks it’s all already his?’

‘I think he is genuinely concerned about her, even if he doesn’t understand her. As for the rest, well, he could hardly ignore the fact that he’s likely to get all the dosh at some point.’