by Emlyn Rees
‘Are you OK?’ Jimmy asked, crouching down to help.
As Verity struggled with the heel of the shoe, she could see that there was a space below the rotten floorboard. There was something beneath it, just a few inches away. ‘Look,’ she said, their chase forgotten as she showed Jimmy the floorboard. ‘I think there’s something under there.’
Jimmy knelt down and put his hand into the hole. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, his eyes connecting with Verity’s as he pulled out a folded letter.
Verity got up hastily, brushing her dress down. Jimmy stood close, as he laid out the sealed letter on the altar. Verity blew away a small cloud of dust from the paper. It was brittle, with a brown wax seal keeping it closed. The imprint of a coat of arms was pressed into the wax. ‘I wonder what it is?’ she said, running her fingers over the seal. ‘Shall we open it?’
Jimmy looked at her, then carefully eased up the seal. It made a crackling sound as it opened. Jimmy’s eyes were wide with anticipation as he looked at Verity and back to the letter. Together they carefully smoothed it out. Dense ink handwriting covered the paper.
‘Wow,’ Jimmy said, his hand brushing lightly over the writing. ‘We should show this to Ellen.’
‘What do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jimmy traced his forefinger along the first line of writing.
Verity leant over, following his finger, but she couldn’t read the words. All she could feel was Jimmy’s face close to hers. She put her hand over his.
For a long moment neither of them moved, as they both watched their fingers clasped together on the dry parchment.
‘I know they were filming,’ she whispered. ‘But our kiss was real. It was to me.’
Jimmy stayed still, their hands bathed in sunlight over the altar, and she felt a profound connection with him. As if some sort of unspoken promise had been made between them.
They both jumped as the door opened, springing apart as Ned came in.
‘Morning,’ he said, looking at them both. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here.’
‘We’ve nearly finished clearing everything out,’ Jimmy said, hastily leaving Verity and walking round the altar.
‘Don’t worry. There’s no hurry.’ Ned smiled, as a dog wandered in behind him and started manically sniffing along the bottom of the wall. ‘Don’t mind Wobbles,’ he said.
‘We found something,’ Verity said, holding up the letter.
‘Oh?’ Ned enquired, coming forward.
‘Under the floorboard.’
Ned rolled the paper out on the altar. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, drawing away and staring at it. ‘Like father, like daughter.’
‘What?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ned answered. ‘Just that the Walpoles seem to have a habit of hiding stuff for us to find.’
‘Is it important?’ Verity asked.
Ned looked at her over the top of his glasses and then back down at the paper. ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to take a closer look.’
‘Yes, well, we’ll be off now,’ Jimmy said.
‘Hm?’ Ned looked up, clearly distracted.
‘I’ve cleared all the stuff outside,’ Jimmy said, shrugging on his jacket. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want any of it after all.’
Ned smiled. ‘OK. I’ll get the boys to come and put it in the skip.’
Outside, the sun had risen and the sky was now a clear bright blue. Verity looked at the pile of belongings by the door. The old mattress was slumped against the wall, as if surveying the view. Bottles, an old wheel, a bin bag of rubbish and old clothes were piled high next to it. ‘You don’t want any of it?’ she asked Jimmy.
‘It’s all memories. I think I’ll feel better if it’s gone.’
‘Let’s keep the kite.’ Verity said, picking it up.
‘It’s yours.’
Verity held the kite as they walked away.
‘What now?’ she asked after a while, smiling shyly at him. She meant ‘about us’, but she didn’t want to say it, in case it ruined the moment.
But Jimmy took her literally. ‘I’ve got gran’s funeral to arrange with Rachel, and I guess I’ll go and see Ryan’s mum and dad. If they want to go to the police, then that’s up to them.’ Verity took his hand and Jimmy looked down at her, his eyes bluer than ever. ‘And what about us?’ he asked, his voice soft, and she loved him for mentioning the one thing that was on her mind.
Verity smiled and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I suppose you could ask me out. Isn’t that what people normally do?’
‘OK,’ Jimmy said, then he laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
Jimmy shook his head, but he was still smiling. ‘OK. Verity Driver, will you go out with me?’
‘Yes, I will,’ she said decisively. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’ she asked, putting her arm round Jimmy.
‘You have no idea,’ he said, kissing the top of her head, as they walked down the path together.
Chapter XXIV
NED STOOD IN the doorway of the chapel, watching the two of them walking away from him until they disappeared through a gap in the bushes. He wondered if he should be feeling guilty for turfing them out like this, but was quick to dismiss the thought. They looked happy enough and besides, that’s what growing up was all about, wasn’t it, letting go of your past and moving on? Everyone had to do it sooner or later. That was life. He glanced down at the pile of junk they’d dumped up against the wall: broken CDs, empty bottles, torn posters and – bizarrely, he observed – an unopened packet of Orkney Island smoked salmon. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t anything of any worth.
He weighed the letter they’d given him in his hand. He’d seen the date at the top, the day, the month and the year: all of them matching the week Appleforth House had been burnt down. And he’d seen the signature, too – undoubtedly that of Alexander Walpole.
He remembered Ellen quoting him the last words Caroline Walpole had written in her secret diary. He remembered how her eyes had shone with interest, and how she’d spoken of Caroline as someone who’d been truly alive and not simply lived. She’d be thrilled by this latest discovery as well, Ned knew. And even though it was too late in the house’s restoration for any new historical evidence to be of any practical use, Ned felt a flame of anticipation flicker inside him. It was as though Ellen’s own enthusiasm over the human story behind the house had rubbed off on him. Unfurling the letter, he wondered if its contents would finally explain why Alexander Walpole had taken his own life and burnt down his beautiful home.
But before he’d read so much as a word, he was distracted by a sudden snapping noise. Careful not to crease it, he slid the letter safely into his jacket pocket and stepped back inside the chapel. The cause of the noise was immediately apparent. Wobbles was hurling himself up against a marble plaque on the wall, attempting to devour a large spider, which clung tight to its web just beyond his reach. Ned walked over and pulled the dog firmly out of the way before he injured himself. Leaning forward and adjusting his glasses, Ned then drew the cobweb clear of the plaque and let it drift to the floor by his side. He traced his fingers across the plaque’s neatly engraved lettering. Each line bore the name of one of the people buried here, as well as their dates of birth and death.
There were only nine names here, which made sense to Ned, since the chapel had been built in 1804 (if the mark he’d noticed on the lintel above the door was to be believed) and the house had been destroyed by Alexander Walpole in 1871. The last three members of the Appleforth family were listed first, but then the name of the estate’s founding family halted, its male lineage at an end, and the Walpole branch of the family took over. The last name on the plaque was that of Caroline Walpole, although Ned knew full well that her body had never been found, and any implication of its being here had been little more than wishful thinking on the engraver’s behalf – or that of his likely employer, Alexander Walpole, at any rate.
Alexander Walpole’s name wasn�
��t listed here. Given the manner of his demise, this came as no surprise to Ned. Alexander’s youngest daughter and heiress, Henrietta, had been in no fit state to oversee such a memorial. Alexander had sent Henrietta into the town along with the servants the night he’d set fire to Appleforth House, and the news of her father’s death had so traumatised the fifteen-year-old girl that she’d never set foot on the family estate again, emigrating almost immediately to America to be with her uncle and temporary guardian.
But Ned knew of a further reason – other than trauma – which accounted for Henrietta’s willingness at the time to abandon what little had remained of her family home: guilt. Jonathan Arthur (who was Henrietta’s grandson, as well as being Ned’s employer) had shown Ned a letter, which explained how it was that Alexander had been able to intercept Caroline’s lover, Leon Jacobson, and pay him off. Caroline, so the letter detailed, had confided in her younger sister, Henrietta, about her plans to elope. But Henrietta, rather than keeping this secret, had been so frightened of what might have become of Caroline once she left the family home that she’d told her father everything. She’d gone on, of course, to regret this decision, knowing that, if she’d only kept quiet, both her sister and her father might have gone on to live long and happy lives.
‘Come on, you,’ Ned told Wobbles, eager now to discover if Alexander Walpole had left a different version of events in his letter. He led the dog outside into the stark early-morning sunshine. Across the clearing he spotted a huge grey tree stump, black as tar around the top from where it must have been struck by lightening. He slipped Wobbles’s lead on before the dog had had time to think about pulling a vanishing act, then walked over to the trunk and sat down. The instant Ned had finished knotting the dog’s lead over a protruding shard of burnt bark, Wobbles started to whine.
‘All right, all right,’ Ned said impatiently, digging deep into his coat pocket and feeling his way through the sweet wrappers, tiddlywinks counters, playing cards, lollypop sticks and other juvenile detritus that had accumulated in there for no reason other than he was a dad, until he finally located what he was after. ‘This is a bribe,’ he told Wobbles as he unwrapped the biscuit. ‘I’ll give you a chocolate biscuit if you give me some peace and quiet. Do we have a deal?’
Wobbles stared unblinkingly at the biscuit in Ned’s hand.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Ned said, dropping the biscuit and watching Wobbles snap it out of the air and swallow it without even tasting it.
Ned took the letter Jimmy and Verity had found from his other pocket and rested it on his lap. Here, in the daylight, repositioning the letter’s broken wax seal so that it became whole again, he saw that the initials stamped into it – A. S. W. – were indeed Alexander Walpole’s, as were the remains of his signet ring’s design beneath them, which consisted of the Walpole family crest. There was no doubt in Ned’s mind, then: the letter was genuine.
He began to read and, as he did so, his eyes grew wider with every second that passed.
‘Thank you, Ned. I’ve got a meeting in Chicago on Tuesday, but I’ll be on the next available flight after that.’ The phone went dead. Jonathan Arthur wasn’t one for protracted goodbyes. Nor was he one for overt shows of emotion, which left Ned clueless as to how he felt about what Ned had just told him. And what he’d just told him was this: Jonathan Arthur’s great-grandfather, Alexander Walpole, had committed not only arson and suicide, but murder as well.
Ned stared out of the Portakabin window at the east wing of Appleforth House. Its sandblasted stone looked as ancient and immovable as the pyramids. It was impossible to imagine it on fire, with flames leaping outwards from its windows and its timbers collapsing into ash. But that’s what Alexander Walpole had been the catalyst of. With one great and deliberate effort of will, he’d brought that roof crashing down on his own head – and, finally, Ned knew why. The letter on the desk before him, which he’d just read aloud to his boss, was a confession. Alexander Walpole had written it the night before he’d burnt himself to death, and he’d then hidden it from all but the eyes of God in the cliff-side family chapel. It had been his mortal explanation for what he’d thought he would have to answer for in eternity.
In contrast, what he’d told the earthly authorities (in the shape of the local magistrate) concerning the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death had been a lie.
What had actually happened had been that, on hearing from Henrietta of Caroline’s plan to elope with Leon Jacobson, Alexander Walpole had gone to the clifftop rendezvous to intercept them. Walpole hadn’t succeeded in paying Jacobson off, as he’d later told the magistrate. Rather, he’d discovered Jacobson already with his daughter at the clifftop, about to leave. He’d told them the game was up, but they’d refused to obey him, remaining adamant about their love for one another and their intention to marry. Alexander Walpole had then flown into a rage, first pistol-whipping his secretary, then shooting him dead when he’d still refused to yield.
That was why Caroline Walpole had thrown herself off the part of the cliff which later became known as Lost Soul’s Point: not because she had been betrayed by her lover; and not because, as Ned had thought, of her naïve notions concerning love. Caroline Walpole had thrown herself off Lost Soul’s Point because she’d watched her father shoot her lover dead and she had chosen to die with him.
The remainder of Alexander Walpole’s confession and the reason Ned (with Jonathan Arthur’s complete agreement) was about to call the police gave the details of where Leon Jacobson’s body lay.
Walpole had been too frightened to risk simply throwing the body off the cliff, in case it had washed ashore and the bullet wound had been identified. Instead, he’d buried Jacobson along with his belongings (already in the leather travelling case Leon had planned on taking with him). Walpole had then returned to Appleforth House and concocted the story concerning Jacobson’s betrayal, so that no questions about his actual whereabouts would ever be asked.
Ned folded the letter closed. So there it was. He’d been wrong about Caroline Walpole all this time, as everybody had been wrong about her. She hadn’t been a victim of her belief in love so much as a victim of her father’s belief in hate. Something about this realisation filled Ned with confusion. Ellen had been right to say there’d been nobility as well as stupidity to Caroline’s death. But the real stupidity had been her father’s, in his determination to tear her and her lover apart. That was the true evil at the heart of the story. And that was its moral, too: passion was rare; love even more so; and neither should ever be wasted or destroyed.
He heard the sound of the Portakabin door clicking open behind him. ‘Ned?’
Ned turned in his chair and saw Debs standing in the open door. Her auburn hair was tied up, held in place with a black lacquered Japanese comb. She wore sharply creased fawn trousers, an ironed black shirt and black shoes. But all her immaculate appearance served to do was to highlight the look of concern on her face.
‘Where’s Clara?’ Ned asked, suddenly fearful of the power of the nearby cliffs.
‘Outside with Scott.’ Debs stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She stared at him awkwardly.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘There’s something I need to say to you.’ Debs studied her fingernails. ‘This isn’t going to be easy for me to say, Ned …’
‘Which means it won’t be easy for me to hear, I suppose?’ Ned guessed.
‘You lied to her, didn’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘Ellen Morris. You lied to her about how Mary died. You told her it was because of a brain haemorrhage.’
That afternoon in the Hope and Anchor when he’d spoken to Ellen about Mary … Two weeks had gone by and he remembered it now as though only seconds had passed. He remembered everything they’d spoken of, every expression on her face. He even remembered the way she’d sipped at her drink. ‘A brain disease, actually,’ he said, keeping his voice deliberately flat and emotionless, because he
wasn’t about to go losing control, not here in front of Debs. ‘I was never any more specific than that.’
Debs’s brow creased into a frown. ‘A brain disease, then …’
‘What of it?’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Why did I choose brain disease and not, say, cancer, or a road accident?’ he asked, disingenuous now, angry over having been put on the spot.
But Debs wasn’t being drawn. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean why lie at all?’
‘I just did,’ Ned answered.
Turning round, he pressed the space bar on his laptop, which had been idling on sleep mode since he’d forgotten to shut it down on Friday afternoon when he’d slipped off into town for a drink. The blue sky screensaver disintegrated, revealing the spreadsheet he’d been working on last. He glanced back at Debs, who hadn’t moved a muscle. ‘If there’s nothing else,’ he said, ‘there’s some accounting I need to be getting on with …’
‘I don’t believe you just did anything,’ she said, a note of challenge in her voice, which he’d only ever heard her use with Clara.
He swivelled fully round in his chair to face her. ‘What?’
‘You lied to protect yourself.’
Ned bristled. ‘Oh, really’ he began, ‘and since when did –’
‘Ellen’s not a kid, Ned,’ she interrupted. ‘Not like Clara. She’s not someone you need to tell fairy tales and fibs to because they’re too young to be able to understand the truth.’
‘I don’t see what Clara’s got to do with any of –’
But Debs wasn’t listening. ‘So you can’t have been lying to Ellen for Ellen’s sake,’ she reasoned. ‘You can’t have been doing it to protect her. Which means you can only have been doing it to protect yourself.’
