*
Then she began to explain to them about Aunt Freda, and the mystery surrounding her. She told them she wanted to know about this person who had so mysteriously left her a house, when she had never even met her in the whole of her life.
'You're right,' Anna said speculatively. 'It is a mystery. No wonder you wanted to find out about her.'
'What about the house?' Kim asked. 'What are you going to do with it?'
'Nothing for the moment. I want to know more about Aunt Freda before I do anything with it. The house won't come to any harm, sitting there. It's been there a couple of hundred years already.'
'And this man – Gregor? – who you met on the ferry, is helping you?' Kim asked suspiciously. 'How is he doing that?'
'Well, he knew Freda, and he knows a bit about her. She was quite a local celebrity, apparently. She wrote books and was on the radio, gave talks. That sort of thing. Then I found some old photographs, and Gregor knew where some of them were taken. So he took me there.'
'And you've met his mother? Was she on the ferry, as well?'
'Well, yes, she was actually. And please don't start giggling again! She's a very nice woman. His sister is, too.'
'His sister!' the others chorused.
'But his brother, Alaister, isn't very pleasant. In fact, he's a bit of a nuisance.'
'Well, that's something, I suppose,' Anna said philosophically. 'I'd hate to think the whole family was absolutely adorable.'
'It would destroy my faith in human nature,' Kim contributed.
'And mine,' Anna agreed. 'Now let us tell you more about Greece. Rhodes is a wonderful island that ....'
Emma sat back with relief, prepared to listen.
*
Later, it was Kim who came up with a question that Gregor had also asked.
'Just how does – or did – this Aunt Freda relate to you, Emma?'
'You mean, what's the family connection?'
Kim nodded.
'Well, she's my great aunt.'
But your mother's actual aunt?'
Emma smiled agreement.
'Then how come the house was left to you, instead of your mum? That's what I don't understand.'
'Everyone seems to want to know that, Kim,' Emma said evenly, 'including me.'
Chapter Nineteen
When she next saw her parents, Emma asked them again about Freda. Again, they had nothing to add to the very little they had previously been able to tell her.
'There are some old photographs Freda took of a PoW camp in Orkney. I was wondering if she was in the army, or one of the other services. Did you ever hear anything about that?'
Mum shook her head. 'Nothing at all. Why would she have been in the army?'
'Well, because of her age, I suppose. This must have been in the war, the Second World War. A lot of women were in uniform then, weren't they?'
'I really don't know. I don't remember Gran ever talking about those times much either.' Mum shrugged and smiled. 'It was before my time, dear. I'm not that old, you know.'
'Of course you're not!' Emma laughed and shook her head. 'I never suggested you were. It is strange, though – about Aunt Freda, I mean.'
'What is?' Dad asked.
'Well, the photos of all these people in uniform, as if Aunt Freda was one of them. She was ninety-one when she died. That means she must have been twenty-two, or twenty-three, when the war ended. So she could have been in uniform, couldn't she?'
'A lot of women were,' Dad agreed, even if it was just the Land Army.'
'What was that?'
'Farm work. Women replaced the men from the farms who had gone off to war.'
'Oh, yes. I've heard of that, now I think about it. Wasn't there a film about the Land Army?'
'Probably.' Dad shrugged. Then he grinned and added, 'I find it hard to keep up with these things. Maybe you should ask your grandmother about those times? She might know more about your Aunt Freda, as well.'
'Oh, dear!' Mum said with a weary sigh. 'Please don't encourage her. Couldn't we change the subject? I'm getting awfully tired of hearing about Aunt Freda. I'm beginning to wish she'd never left you her house, Emma.'
'Sorry, Mum. At least I didn't bring you lots of old photos to wade through. Lots of new photos, either. Did I tell you about all the holiday photos of Greece I had to sit through with Anna and Kim?'
'I don't think you did, no. But I wouldn't mind seeing some of Greece, actually. What a pity you didn't go with them.'
Emma grinned. 'Oh, Orkney was far more interesting than where they went. All their photos were of the hotel pool and the local beach. I would soon have got tired of that, however welcome some warm sunshine might have been.'
They spoke then of holidays, holidays past and holidays still to come. Mum and Dad were booked to go somewhere in southern Spain once again. Mum, in particular, cherished fond memories of the place. Emma's brain glazed over as she heard about it for the umpteenth time. She was happy for them, but she had no feelings of envy at all. She was just thankful she was too old now to have to go with them.
*
Before she left, she did manage to question Mum again about Aunt Freda.
'Anna and Kim were asking me how Aunt Freda was related to me, Mum. We've been calling her Aunt Freda, but was she really a relative? The name Freda Nicholson didn't mean anything at all to me when I started getting those letters from the solicitor about her.'
'Well ....' Mum hesitated.
'And wasn't she your aunt, rather than mine?' Emma added.
Mum sighed, as if to say : Here we go again!
'She was Gran's sister, I believe,' Mum admitted reluctantly. 'So, yes, she was actually your great-aunt.'
'On your mother's side,' Dad contributed helpfully, doing his best not to grin. 'My lot never had any money. Not enough to buy big houses anyway.'
'Oh, keep quiet, Dad!' Emma said, laughing.
Turning back to Mum, she said, 'Gran must have talked about her, if they were sisters?'
'Well, I don't recall her doing so,' Mum said vaguely.
'And another thing,' Emma pressed, 'if she was your aunt, rather than mine, why didn't she leave her house to you, Mum, instead of to me?'
'I have no idea,' Mum said wearily. 'I have no idea at all. What's more, I don't care! I just wish you were done with the whole thing. I'm sick of hearing about it.'
'Easy!' Dad said. 'That house will be worth a lot of money, I daresay. You can't be looking a gift horse in the mouth. At least, Emma can't.'
'Gift horse?' Mum said dismissively before flouncing out of the room.
'Don't ask me,' Dad said, when Emma looked at him in the hope of getting an explanation. 'I never did understand your mother's family, or your mother either, for that matter.'
'Thanks, Dad. That makes me feel a whole lot better about things,' Emma said with a grimace. 'I'd better go and see if I can calm her down.'
'That's a good idea. She's been like a cat on a hot tin roof for a few weeks now. Ever since you heard about that house, in fact.'
Emma nodded. So there was a mystery here, as well as one on Orkney, she thought wearily. A person could have too much of that sort of thing.
Chapter Twenty
Emma found it hard to accept that her mother was so uninterested in Aunt Freda. Fair enough, she had never been to Orkney, and didn't seem to have ever met Freda, but still .... She would have expected Mum to show more enthusiasm about this strange inheritance. Perhaps it was simply too much to comprehend if you were on the outside, looking in. Dad wasn't much better either, although he did appreciate the value of the gift, in financial terms at least.
As for herself, well, she was more interested than ever. Trying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious Freda seemed to be occupying a big part of her life right now. That and Gregor, of course. They seemed to fit together somehow. There weren't many moments of the day, or the night, when thoughts of Freda, Gregor and Orkney
were far more from her mind.
What a lovely man Gregor was! she thought happily once again, as she did some ironing. Really, he had made that week on the island for her. If it hadn't been for him she wouldn't have seen so many of the sights Orkney had to offer. She wouldn't even have known they existed.
Skara Brae, for example. What an amazing place that Neolithic village was, and how extraordinary that neither she nor anyone else she knew back here had even heard of it. Archaeological sites were not exactly a pivotal interest for her family or her friends, of course. So perhaps their – our! – ignorance, she corrected herself, was understandable. At least Anna and Kim had both looked suitably astonished when she told them about the Neolithic village by the sea that was five thousand years' old.
To think that people not so very different from us had lived there all that time ago! She liked thinking about how they might have lived back then, in their little stone-built homes under the ground, where they had found protection from the elements. Neolithic eco-homes, Gregor had called them. Built underground for warmth and shelter. A family living in each one, and each home connected to the others by underground passages, allowing people to avoid the wind and rain as much as possible.
Gregor knew so much about those times, even though he wasn't actually an archaeologist. Well, he knew so much about everything on the islands! That's what came from being born there, she supposed – or from living there a long time, like Freda.
She paused and rested the iron for a moment, thinking about Freda now. She had obviously been enthralled by Orkney's history. Perhaps that was why she had lived there most of her life. Once there, she had never wanted to leave?
But why had she gone there in the first place? She would love to know that. In fact, she knew she wasn't going to dispose of Broch House until she did know that.
Something Dad had suggested came back to mind. Ask Gran, he had said. She might know.
Know what, though? At the time, they had been talking generally about women in the armed forces in wartime. Might she know why Freda, her sister, had gone there? Perhaps Freda hadn't had a choice? Things happened to people in wartime. Ships sank, planes crashed, people lost their homes or were moved around a lot. Could Freda have been caught up in events over which she had had no control? It seemed quite possible.
For a moment, she wondered if Freda could have been a child evacuee, taken away from Newcastle, say, to a safer place. It was an idea she soon dismissed. That didn't work. For a start, with Scapa Flow the home of the Home Fleet, or whatever it was called, Mainland probably hadn't been all that safe. Plus it was a long way to go. Plus again – the clincher – Freda would no longer have been a schoolgirl when war broke out. She would have been ... what?
A quick calculation told her Freda would have been sixteen or seventeen in 1939. She might still have been at school, but she didn't think sixth-formers had been evacuated from the cities. It had been much younger children. Still, that was something she could research on the internet, just in case she was mistaken. There were bound to be websites with information about things like that.
In the meantime, perhaps at the weekend, she might visit Gran to see what she could recall about her sister in those days. Not much, probably, she thought with a sigh. Poor Gran. Her memory wasn't great now. She would have to try to catch her on one of her good days.
*
As she was hanging up her freshly-ironed blouses and sweaters, the phone rang.
'How's Geordieland?' a voice asked in the accent she was coming to know so well.
'Gregor!' she cried with delight. 'I was just wondering about you. What are you up to? Geordieland is fine, by the way, thank you very much.'
'That's good. I've been pretty busy lately myself. The bird migrations are well under way. So there's plenty for me to be filming.'
'Are the birds coming in or going out?'
'They're the inward migrants, the birds that come here to nest and breed, or to rest before heading further south. The residents are at it, as well, of course, in places like Birsay Brough. Remember the cliffs there?'
'Of course. It was wonderful.'
'Well, those cliffs are gradually being covered by nesting birds.'
It was lovely to hear him, and to hear him talking so enthusiastically about his work. She was quite envious. Most of all, though, she was quietly thrilled that he had made the effort to get in touch with her. Perhaps it meant something?
'Any progress with Freda?' Gregor asked, calling a halt to the bird conversation.
'No, not really. Mum and Dad still say they know nothing about her. Anyway, I'm going to visit my gran at the weekend, to see what she can tell me about her sister, Freda.'
'She's still alive? She must be a good age.'
'Yes, she's still with us, happily. She lives in a residential home in Newcastle. Her memory isn't very good these days, unfortunately, and she sleeps a lot. I'll just have to hope I can catch her on one of her good days.'
'She ought to be able to tell you something about her own sister, don't you think?'
'I hope so.'
'Well, good luck with that. It could be interesting.' Gregor paused and then said, 'That reminds me of something I was thinking about. You remember those old photos of Freda's?'
'With the PoWs?'
'Yes. I was wondering if Freda herself was in uniform at the time. Like I said before, I wouldn't have thought she would have been allowed anywhere near a PoW camp if she was just a civilian.'
'I see what you mean. I was thinking about that time myself, but from a different perspective. A lot of women in those days seem to have been in the Land Army, or something similar, and Freda would have been the right age to be in uniform amongst them.'
'How old was she?'
'Ninety-one when she died. So when war broke out she'd have been sixteen or seventeen.'
'A bit young, perhaps, to have been in uniform in those days.'
'Yes, but you have to remember that by the time the war finished she would have been twenty-two, or twenty-three.'
'That's true. Well, I think you've got some good questions there to put to your grandmother, haven't you? She ought to be able to answer some of them.'
'I hope so.'
'Something else I wanted to ask you, Emma. When do you think you might be coming back here? Any idea?'
Her heart jumped, and possibly missed a beat or two.
'Soon, I hope.'
'I hope so, too,' he said gravely. 'Make sure you let me know in good time. I don't want to be away when you come.'
She promised she would. After the phone call ended, she sat and thought about the implications, and what it all meant. For the moment, at least, she wasn't even thinking about Aunt Freda. She was thinking only of Gregor.
I'll go back soon, she promised herself. I will.
Despite the warnings she'd received from Gregor's sister, as well as his brother, she knew she couldn't wait to see him again.
Chapter Twenty-One
On Saturday afternoon Emma visited her grandmother, who lived in a residential home in Gosforth. It was a pleasant, friendly place, and Gran seemed happy there. As she had once confided to Emma, she didn't have to bother with cooking and cleaning any more. That had all become too much for her towards the end of her ninth decade, and there had been much relief in the family when somewhere nice had been found for her not far from where Emma's parents lived.
It was quiet and relaxed that afternoon, and Gran was pleased that she had a visitor. Emma tried to get to see her every couple of weeks, but that hadn't been happening lately, as she felt she needed to explain.
'I've been on holiday, Gran. And there's just been one thing after another to see to and sort out since then. Anyway, how are you?'
The old lady smiled from the depths of the chair she occupied in the residents' lounge and said, 'Well, I haven't been playing football for a while, or anything like that, but I'm quite well, thank you, Emma.'
'That's good,' Emma said with a chuckle. 'You're still in good form, I see, Gran! It's lovely to see you again.'
Smiling still, the old lady said, 'Have you just come from work?'
'No, not today, Gran. It's Saturday today.'
'Oh, is it? I didn't know. They don't tell you anything, in here, you know.'
'They'll be too busy, I expect.'
'Yes, that's right. So where did you go on your holiday?'
Emma was relieved. She knew by now that she had come on a day when Gran was feeling well enough to talk to her. That wasn't always the case, sadly.
'Well, I was going to go to Greece, with my friends, Kim and Anna, but something happened and I had to change my plans.'
She started to tell her about inheriting Great-Aunt Freda's house in Orkney. But it wasn't long before she realised Gran had switched off.
'Gran, you know about Aunt Freda passing away, don't you?'
'Do I? Yes, I suppose I do. Somebody must have told me. Was it your mother, or the doctor? I can't remember now.'
'I'm sure Mum will have told you. Anyway, that was a while ago. What I learned just a couple of months' ago was that she had left me her house, in her will.'
'Who? Freda?'
'Yes. It's in Orkney, where I went recently to see it.'
Gran shook her head. 'I didn't know Freda had a house. She never had a lot of money, you know.'
'Well, she did. It's a lovely big house, too. I'll have to sell it, I suppose. But before I do, I want to know more about Freda. I also want to know why she left the house to me. Nobody else seems to have a clue, and I hoped you might be able to help me find out.'
'Me? Oh, no! I know nothing about it.'
'Not about the house, perhaps, but you do know something about Freda, don't you?'
'No, nothing,' Gran said stubbornly.
'Gran, she was your sister! You must know something. At least you know what she was like when you were both young.'
The old lady shook her head, and a crafty look came into her eyes. 'I don't remember now. It's such a long time since I last saw her.
'What did you say her name was again? Freda?'
Orkney Mystery Page 8
