Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

by Liz Eeles

  CHAPTER 2

  At the edge of the village, where the lane became a rutted track, Rosie picked up her suitcase and started climbing up and up the steep path. It was wide enough for a car, though few drivers risked their suspension. That was why her mum had driven an ancient midnight-blue Mini.

  There’s no point in shelling out on a fancy car, Rosie. It’ll only get wrecked by the potholes or the salt spray when a storm’s blowing in.

  Rosie spotted the rusty car when she reached the end of the track. It was parked on the grass at an odd angle, as though the driver had leaped out, keen to get on with her day. That was Mum all over, always full of ideas and enthusiasms and never still. It was hard to take in that such a big personality could be snuffed out by such a tiny blood clot. It just didn’t seem possible.

  Abandoning her suitcase, Rosie walked to the edge of the cliff and looked back at the house which faced the green-grey sea.

  From the village, the house looked the same as it had for decades, with its bumpy whitewashed walls and dark tiled roof – too big to be described as a cottage, too small to be described as grand.

  But up close, Rosie could see that ocean winds and rain had taken their toll in the three years since she’d last been home. The bottom of the wooden front door was swollen as though it might burst, and paint on the walls had bubbled into huge blisters. Driftwood House looked sad, as if in mourning for her mother.

  Images suddenly cascaded through Rosie’s mind: her mum laughing during her last trip to Spain; the look on her face when Rosie said she wasn’t ever planning on coming home for good; her body at the funeral home. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum, if I let you down,’ whispered Rosie. But her words were whipped away by the wind and carried out over the white-tipped waves towards France.

  Rosie unlocked the front door and used her shoulder to shove the bloated timber across the hall tiles. The last time she’d been home, the house was filled with the smell of freshly baked biscuits and caramelised sugar. Mum was always on a mission to feed her up. But today only a musty aroma of damp and dust greeted her when she dragged her suitcase into the house and pushed the door closed behind her.

  ‘OK, I’m back, so what happens now?’ Was talking to herself a normal symptom of grief? Matt had googled ‘grief’ on his phone while she was desperately trying to book a flight, but she couldn’t remember what he’d said about it. He hadn’t been terribly helpful, actually.

  ‘When will you be back, Rosie? I need you,’ were his final words as she shoved her suitcase into the taxi. As though she was letting him down by going back to England.

  Rosie gave her head a shake to dislodge the memory and started walking around the house, almost expecting her mum to leap out from behind a door and give her a hug.

  See, love, it was all a big mistake after all. Of course I’m not dead. Now get yourself unpacked and we’ll have a walk to Sorrell Head before tea.

  But there was no Mum, no mistake – just an empty house that had become shabby and worn since she was last here. Rosie noticed damp patches on the walls and windows rattling in the sea breeze as she moved from room to room like a ghost. When did Driftwood House start to fall apart?

  After going back to the kitchen and making herself a cup of Earl Grey, she sat in the silent conservatory and gazed at the view. Built on the back of the house, this room lacked a sea vista. But the view was magnificent, nonetheless, overlooking acres of rural Devon that stretched in a soft green swathe towards Dartmoor in the west. People would pay, thought Rosie, to enjoy such an amazing panorama while sheltered from blustery clifftop winds.

  This was where she would play as a child when the weather was too poor for a walk. And when the sun finally came out, she’d sit here and watch her mother gardening. The tiny kitchen garden, with its pots of herbs and tubs of potato plants, was her mother’s sanctuary from the stresses of life, and was created in the months after Rosie’s father left. He’d moved to Milton Keynes when she was ten, and lived there with a succession of girlfriends until he died of cancer eight years ago. Their relationship had suffered after he left, but they’d still loved each other.

  Rosie picked up the framed photo of her mum and dad in the window sill and brushed her finger across their faces. She’d insisted on having a photo of her dad in the house after their divorce and her mum had never put it away, even after Rosie moved out. Maybe she’d still loved him too, just a little bit.

  That reminded her. Pulling her mobile phone from her bag, Rosie checked for calls from Matt but there hadn’t been any. She had missed a text, however, that had arrived unnoticed in all the flurry of airports and funeral homes and train journeys. Glad you’re there safe. Missing you already. Hope being home isn’t too tedious. I’ll call you. M x. It was the sort of message you’d send if your girlfriend had been summoned home for a family birthday, rather than a family bereavement.

  If only he could have got time off work too and come back with her for the funeral. Matt wasn’t always the most empathetic of boyfriends, but he was loving and full of fun. The two of them had hit it off immediately when he’d joined the property agency she worked for a few months ago.

  Sighing, Rosie put away her phone then climbed the stairs to her mother’s bedroom, with its lilac walls and heavy cream curtains she’d loved to hide behind as a child. A thin layer of dust had settled on the dressing table and she wiped it away with her hand before sitting on the bed. What had her mother been reading? Rosie tilted her head to read the title of a book splayed open on the duvet. Myths and Legends of Old Devon. That was just the sort of book her mum loved, with fantastical stories and ancient secrets. Rosie could imagine her reading it on the clifftop, all bohemian in a long dress with her blonde hair tied back with a scarf. Belinda’s gossip was often founded on half-truth and rumour, but she was right about one thing – Sofia was a bit of a hippy.

  Leaving the book where it was, Rosie climbed fully clothed under the covers and breathed in a familiar smell of lavender. Mum swore by herbal remedies to help her nod off when the weather-blown house creaked and groaned. She must have been so lonely here, all on her own.

  At last, the tight knot inside Rosie began to unravel and she cried great heaving sobs that echoed through the empty rooms. Tears soaked into the pillow as she begged, ‘Please come back,’ even though she knew that was impossible. It was just her now. Just her and Driftwood House.

  CHAPTER 3

  Liam Satterley carefully picked his way up the track that had been turned into a mudslide by the latest downpour, and turned up his collar against the persistent drizzle. He hoped this wasn’t going to be a wasted journey, but there were signs that she’d arrived. A light was on in one of the bedrooms at Driftwood House, and Claude in the village reckoned he’d caught a glimpse of her this afternoon.

  ‘Blondish hair, tanned face, big suitcase,’ was Claude’s description. A man of few words, he could usually be found in the pub when he wasn’t at sea. But big, bearded Claude was rarely wrong, so Liam had decided to take a chance and deliver the letter, even though it was inconvenient. It was a busy time on the farm and he was behind with so many tasks. Fenella, one of his prize ewes, wasn’t herself, and might need a visit from the vet. That could prove expensive and money was in short supply right now.

  But the letter in his pocket might be urgent – he suspected from the envelope that it might even mean trouble. And though he didn’t like to admit it, he was curious to see peculiar Rosie Merchant again.

  He’d been on a course at the agricultural college the last time she’d made it home, ages ago. Although, thinking back to how she’d once described him at school, that was probably just as well. Full of himself and tedious. Ouch. It had rankled at the time, when his mate Kieran passed on what he’d overheard. And it still did now, to be honest. He’d always had a way with women but Rosie was apparently immune to his charms. Not that he’d been interested in her, with her long plait and funny glasses that made her look like an owl. Plus, she always had her head in a b
ook.

  He pushed the letter further into the pocket of his wax jacket and cursed himself for not wearing his bigger boots. Although it was spring, as a farmer he should understand the vagaries of Devon weather and have chosen more appropriate footwear. Billy, trotting along beside him, had a glistening wet coat and looked totally fed up with this unexpected walk.

  ‘Hey, boy, come here.’ When Liam whistled softly, the black and white border collie slithered closer to his side. ‘This won’t take long, thank goodness, and then we can go home. OK? Good boy.’

  Billy leaned into his master’s pat, smearing mud across the tall man’s faded jeans.

  At the top of the cliff, the two of them made for the back door of Driftwood House, which faced away from the sea. It was more sheltered here and clumps of spring squill lined the path, their violet-blue petals deceptively delicate.

  How had Sofia described these flowers? ‘Hardy little buggers’; that was it. More hardy, it turned out, than she was in the end.

  ‘Are you ready, boy?’ asked Liam, his voice suddenly gruff with emotion. Honestly, he was getting soft as he slid into his thirties. Sofia Merchant was a nice enough woman, but she kept herself to herself so he hadn’t really known her. Just as he’d never really known her daughter with the striking, russet-brown eyes who’d escaped from Heaven’s Cove as soon as she could.

  Liam placed the carrier bag of provisions his mum had insisted he bring with him on the ground and knocked on the back door. There was no light on in the kitchen or in the ramshackle conservatory with its salt-streaked panes of glass, some of them chipped by small stones swept from the beach by the relentless wind.

  When no one came to the door, he knocked again, but the house remained silent as rain drizzled down the kitchen window. Perhaps Claude had mistaken a tourist for Rosie, and Sofia had left the bedroom light on when she was last home. This miserable wet walk had been for nothing. He knocked again for luck, more loudly this time, as Billy waited with his ears pricked.

  What a total waste of time! Liam had already turned to go when the back door was wrenched open, and there was Rosie Merchant, looking dreadful.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’ Rosie knew she sounded unwelcoming but she was too exhausted to care. Her mother was dead, her childhood home appeared to be falling down, and the last thing she needed was a nosy villager turning up to tell her what a rubbish daughter she’d been.

  Plus, she must look a sight. She glanced at herself in the mirror propped up on the kitchen dresser. Her sun-streaked hair was all over the place and even a golden tan couldn’t disguise the bags under her swollen eyes. Was it shallow to care what she looked like in the circumstances? Belinda would certainly think so.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said the man on the doorstep. He brushed a hand through his dripping wet fringe. ‘And I’m so sorry about your mum. This arrived for Sofia and I thought it might be urgent.’ He delved into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a large white envelope which he thrust towards her.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Rosie took the letter and turned it over in her hands. There was a return address stamped high on the back of the envelope: Sent on behalf of: Mr Charles Epping, Esq, High Tor House, Granite’s Edge, near Kellsteignton, Dartmoor.

  That was strange. Charles Epping, rich local landowner and absentee landlord, was infamous in Heaven’s Cove for both his irritable temper and his total lack of interest in the village. Why was a well-known Dartmoor recluse, and possibly the most disliked man in Devon, sending a letter to – she turned the envelope over – The Family of Mrs S. Merchant?

  Rosie slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope. ‘How come this letter came to you?’

  ‘The local postman, Pat.’ The man shrugged. ‘That’s his real name. Anyway, Pat can’t make it up the cliff to deliver post to Driftwood House any more. He reckons the potholes play havoc with his sciatica. So he’d started leaving Sofia’s post at my place and I’ve been nipping up to deliver it a few times a week.’

  ‘That’s kind of you.’

  ‘Not really. I live at Meadowsweet Farm so it’s not far, and Billy can do with the exercise. He’s not as young as he used to be.’

  Billy. That was a nice name for a dog. Rosie looked up from the letter she’d pulled from the envelope and studied the man properly for the first time. Young, thick black hair, a scattering of stubble across his square jaw. She knew him, she realised, though they’d hardly ever spoken. He wasn’t the sort of man to bother with her. Yet here he was, on her doorstep. What a strange, surreal day this was turning out to be.

  ‘It’s Liam, isn’t it?’ she asked, brushing hair from her eyes.

  ‘That’s right.’ He stepped closer, out of the gloom cast by the stone porch. ‘It’s been a long time. I’m surprised you recognised me.’

  Rosie raised an eyebrow at that because Liam had the kind of face it was hard to forget. Back in school, he’d been the good-looking golden boy who was popular with students and teachers alike. And he knew it. He’d had a confident swagger that both infuriated and intrigued Rosie, who could only dream of such self-belief. He was a clever boy with the world at his feet. But the tragedy, in Rosie’s eyes, was that he didn’t want to leave Heaven’s Cove because he was earmarked to take over the family farm.

  He hadn’t looked like a farmer when they were teenagers. He’d been tall and slim with pale skin and a thick sweep of dark hair that flopped across his forehead. To her fury back then, his handsome face had made her heart beat faster, though at school he’d never looked twice at her – the weird girl who didn’t fit in.

  But he looked like a farmer now, in his boots and wax jacket, with broad shoulders and colour in his cheeks that brought out the cornflower blue of his eyes. He bent down and picked up a dripping carrier bag.

  ‘You might as well have this, too.’

  Rosie peeked into the bag that Liam handed over. Muddy potatoes and dark-green spinach leaves were inside, with a clingfilm-wrapped chicken breast balanced on the top. Liam Satterley, Heaven’s Cove heart-throb, was bringing her food, though he’d never had a reputation for being kind.

  ‘That’s really… well, I mean, it’s good of you,’ she stammered, annoyed with herself for sounding rattled and even more annoyed for caring.

  He shrugged again. ‘My mother insisted I bring them.’

  ‘That’s good of her, then. Are they from your farm?’

  ‘The veg is. Not the chicken, though. That came from Tesco.’

  His words were deadpan but Rosie almost chuckled before catching herself. The bereaved didn’t laugh, did they? To be honest, she really had no idea how she should be behaving right now. Bereavement was like a foreign country and she was lost without a map.

  ‘Anyway.’ Liam gave her a straight look before pulling up the collar of his jacket. ‘I’ll leave you in peace to read your letter. And I am sorry about Sofia. It’s a shame you weren’t here when it happened.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  That came out more sharply than Rosie had intended, and Liam frowned before shaking his head.

  ‘Meaning nothing more than I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to see your mother before she was taken ill. Come on, Billy. I think it’s time to go.’

  He leaned over to grab his dog’s collar but the animal, having none of it, bolted past Rosie into the kitchen.

  ‘Billy, come back!’

  The dog blinked at his master but didn’t move. Liam might be a hit with the ladies but he was absolutely rubbish with animals. Rosie moved towards Billy with a sigh but caught her breath when the animal tensed. Surely he wouldn’t…

  Liam had noticed too and yelled, ‘Billy, don’t you dare!’ But it was too late. Mud flew in all directions as the dog shook himself, vigorously.

  It would be funny, thought Rosie, watching wet earth splatter everywhere, if this were a television sitcom. She would laugh and Liam would apologise and, while cleaning up the mess together, their hands would t
ouch and they would share an awkward moment of sexual tension.

  Rosie bit down hard on her bottom lip. Why was she having such an inappropriate thought about a full-of-himself old school acquaintance when her mother was dead? Grief was making her mad.

  Still on the doorstep, Liam shifted from foot to foot. ‘Billy never normally misbehaves like that. Can I…?’

  When he hesitated, irritation shuddered through Rosie. Did he need permission to cross the threshold, like a vampire? The Liam Satterley of old would have laughed and marched in to take charge. But standing in shadow on the doorstep, with a glowering grey sky above him, he seemed unsure of himself.

  Rosie stepped aside. ‘You’d better come in and sort out your dog.’

  Liam brushed past, his wet boots slapping on the tiles, and grabbed the dog’s collar but Billy had his own thoughts on the matter. He plonked his backside down on the floor, resisting all efforts to make him stand up. Uttering a string of swear words under his breath, Liam pushed the animal across the tiles and into the garden before wheeling around on the kitchen doorstep, his cheeks flushed.

  Comedy gold, thought Rosie, before another wave of guilt washed over her. She steadied herself against the kitchen counter, almost knocking over a yellow jug that her mum had picked up at Heaven’s Cove Market. Chuffed with her bargain, she’d FaceTimed Rosie specifically to show it off. Rosie picked up the jug and ran her fingers gently across the china.

  ‘Sorry about all that,’ said Liam, not meeting her eye. ‘Have you got a cloth?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Rosie, wearily, but she passed him a cloth when Liam held out his hand and watched while he started mopping up the splashes. He was making a good job of it. Much better than Matt would have managed. In Spain, the kitchen was Rosie’s domain, purely because Matt always made such a mess when he cooked a meal, and was pretty slapdash when cleaning up afterwards. She’d started to wonder if he did it on purpose so he could sit and sip wine while she got hot and bothered over the cooking.