Christmas at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 3)

by Kate Hewitt

  “Ah,” Roger said, and with a nod of farewell, walked out of the kitchen.

  Despite his attempt to dismiss Chris’s well-meaning words, Roger found he couldn’t. What was the risk, exactly, of telling Lindy how he felt, or at least was starting to feel? If he could get over the embarrassment, he thought they might stay friends, although he suspected his confession would always be an unspoken awkwardness between them.

  But what was the alternative? Never saying anything at all? Feeling this painfully sweet longing every single time he saw her? It would either make him wither away—or combust.

  Roger continued to ruminate as he cycled back to the Park and Ride, and then drove back to Wychwood. After a quick check on his mum, who was flagging but still up for the class, he headed back to his house to change.

  “Wear your blue shirt,” Ellen had called after him, and Roger wondered if it would start to look weird, for him to wear the exact same clothes every week, simply because his mother thought he looked good in them. He decided to switch it up, and wear a pale green shirt today instead. Talk about living on the edge.

  He’d just given himself a very small spritz of bay rum—aftershave, not cologne—when he heard a surprisingly frantic knocking on the front door.

  Mum. Roger felt as if his heart had leapt right into his throat as he hurried downstairs and threw open the door, expecting to see his mum’s neighbour Tina who occasionally looked in on her, a look of sorrow on her face. She took a funny turn…

  Lindy stood there instead, Toby in her arms, her expression half-wild.

  “Lindy…” Roger was at a loss for words; he’d never seen her looking so distraught. “What—”

  “Can you take Toby?” she blurted, and he glanced at the dog, squirming in her arms.

  “Is he hurt?” he asked in some alarm, and Lindy shook her head.

  “No, he’s fine, but I—I have to go.” Her voice wobbled and she took a deep breath. “Immediately. I’m sorry, I have to cancel tonight’s class. I can’t take Toby with me, and he knows you. It will just be for a night or two.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Derbyshire.” Her voice splintered and a single tear slipped from her eye, like a drip from a leaky tap. “Home.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lindy was trying to hold herself together, and obviously failing. She dashed the tear from her eye and nearly lost her grasp of Toby in the process. Roger lunged forward to take the dog, and Lindy let him. She was falling to pieces, and she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.

  “Lindy, what’s happened?” Roger asked as he set Toby down on the ground and gave him a few soothing strokes. “You seem…traumatised.”

  That was probably a good word for it. She felt traumatised, far more than the situation surely merited, and yet even so she could not keep her emotions in check. They were running rampant, steamrollering over her sensibilities, making her gabble.

  “Something’s—something’s happened,” she said. “I need to take care of it.”

  “Let me help,” Roger said simply, and for a second Lindy stared, remembering their conversation. Her cry for help. Well, here it was, and Roger was answering, as she’d known he would, even if she was still reluctant to take it, or anyone’s.

  “You are helping,” she told him. “By taking Toby.”

  A pause, weighted with the unspoken yet felt. “More than that,” Roger said quietly, and Lindy’s splintered heart seemed to break. She wasn’t sure she could take much more—of anxiety, of kindness. It all felt like too much. “What’s going on, Lindy? What’s happened?”

  She shook her head helplessly, having no idea how to explain.

  “You said you were going…home?” His brow furrowed in concerned confusion.

  “Yes. The only home I’ve ever really had.” She forced her voice to be matter-of-fact, her tone level. She could do this. It was ridiculous to be so affected. To feel so much grief—and yet it was there, a wild surging inside of her that she’d been suppressing for far too long. Fifteen years, in fact, all bubbling up to the surface now, and all because of a simple phone call.

  Her old neighbour, Heloise, had rung her an hour ago. “Lindy, I’m so sorry, but something’s happened to the house.”

  Lindy’s heart had felt suspended in her chest; she’d had to tell herself to breathe. It had been a surprising reaction, because she didn’t actually think about the house all that often. She hadn’t been in over a year. But she’d always liked knowing it was there. She needed to know it was there. And she hadn’t realised quite how much until Heloise had rung.

  “What…” Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow and start again. “What happened?”

  “I’ve been away,” Heloise said apologetically. “Only for a couple of weeks, and you know nothing has happened in all these years…”

  “I know.” Lindy paid Heloise to look after the little cottage; to keep it dust- and problem-free, to mow the small square of garden and check no windows had been broken, no roof tiles blown off. For fifteen years Lindy had kept the house running and gone only a handful of times, but that had been okay. That had been fine.

  “Someone broke in,” Heloise said. “I’m guessing a couple of rough sleepers, or perhaps just some teens. There were beer cans, cigarette butts…”

  “Okay.” Lindy had taken a deep breath. She could handle a little clean-up.

  “But I think they must have gone a bit crazy,” Heloise said. “Perhaps they were on drugs? Because they…they went on a bit of a rampage.”

  A rampage? Lindy’s stomach dipped. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m so sorry, Lindy. The place looks like they took a cricket bat or a golf club or something to it. They broke everything they could break, including most of the windows. It must have happened soon after I left, because it was clear the rain had blown in, and some animals must have come in, as well…”

  Lindy had closed her eyes, unable to speak.

  “I’m so sorry,” Heloise said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Secure it as best as you can,” Lindy said, her voice wooden, sounding as if it were coming outside of herself, for all she wanted to do was howl. “I’ll come up as soon as I can.”

  After the call she’d simply stood there in the centre of her cottage, her heart thudding hard, her palms going damp. She felt as if she were having a panic attack, but she hadn’t had one of those in fifteen years, when she’d put the lid on that wretched box and never dared to pry it open again.

  The house…oh, the house…

  “Do you mean your parents’ house?” Roger asked, and Lindy blinked him back into focus, wondering how long she’d been standing there, simply staring. “The house you grew up in?” he prompted.

  “Yes. I’ve kept it all these years, just as it was.” Exactly as it was, not a single curio out of place. She swallowed past the lump in her throat that was growing bigger by the second. “And now it’s been…” Ruined. Desecrated. “Some rough sleepers or someone came in and made a mess,” she said woodenly. “I need to go clean it up.”

  “Right now?” Roger looked startled. “It’s almost seven o’clock in the evening—”

  “I don’t care.” She sounded fierce, and he absorbed her emotion with a slow blink and a nod of his head.

  “All right. You’ll need to cancel the dancing class. Let me text my mum, and she can let everyone know.”

  “I don’t want to trouble her—”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “Can’t you just go and tell everyone?” Lindy asked a bit desperately.

  Roger gave her a steady look. “No, because I’m going with you.”

  “What—”

  “You’re in an emotional state, Lindy. You shouldn’t drive all that distance alone—”

  “But Toby—and your mum—”

  “Blue Cross will have Toby back. That’s what they’d prefer, anyway. And my mum will be fine for a night. I don’t live with her, after all.”

&nb
sp; Lindy stared at him helplessly, and then she made the mistake of blinking. Tears slipped down her cheeks, one after the other. “I don’t…” she began, and Roger frowned.

  “Do you not want me to go? I won’t, if you’d rather I didn’t, but I’d feel better, knowing you weren’t driving all that way alone.”

  “No,” Lindy whispered. “I do want you to go.” A lot. She’d been trying to be self-sufficient just as Harriet had said, but she didn’t know if she was strong enough to handle this alone.

  “Okay, then. Have you packed a bag?” She shook her head, realising how foolish and panicked she’d been. She didn’t even have Toby’s food or lead or bed. She’d just grabbed her dog and run out of her house like a madwoman.

  “All right then, let me pack something quickly, and then we’ll head back to yours. We can drop Toby off on the way to Derbyshire.”

  “But Blue Cross won’t be open…”

  “Marcia, one of the volunteers, lives in Burford and she takes them in when it’s not opening hours.”

  Slowly Lindy nodded. Roger’s steady manner, his utter unflappability, was calming her down. She felt her heart rate settle.

  “Okay,” she said, and tried to smile. She didn’t quite make it.

  Everything happened quite quickly after that. Roger went upstairs and came back down just a few minutes later with a small bag; Lindy had barely had time to look around the tidy downstairs of his cottage, all brown leather and masculine-looking tartans, exactly what she would have expected from someone like him. She’d only known to come to his house because he’d written his address on the registration form. She was glad she’d followed that reckless impulse.

  Back in Lindy’s car, they stopped by Ellen’s to apprise her of the class cancellation, and then went on to Willoughby Close where Lindy threw a bunch of random clothes into a bag. By the time she came downstairs, Roger had heard back from Marcia, and she was ready and waiting for Toby.

  Just twenty minutes later, they’d dropped her dog off and were heading up the M40 towards Derbyshire. Roger had asked if she’d rather he drive, and Lindy realised she would. She felt too overwhelmed to focus on the motorway on a dark, windswept night, and yet without something to concentrate on, she found her thoughts roaming relentlessly back to the cottage and the damage that had been done. How bad was it? Could anything be salvaged? Surely something…

  “You should ring the police at some point,” Roger said after they’d driven in silence for some time. “Breaking and entering…destruction of property…these are crimes, serious ones. They should be notified, and perhaps they can discover who did it.”

  “Perhaps,” Lindy replied rather listlessly. “I don’t much care who did it, though, or even bringing them to justice. I just…I just want it back the way it was.”

  “How was it?” Roger asked gently, and once again Lindy’s eyes filled with tears.

  “The most magical place. Filled with treasures from all our travels…I kept it exactly as it always was, after my parents died. I didn’t change even one tiny thing.” A little sob escaped her and she drew her breath in sharply. “I’m sorry. I’m falling apart and I’m not even sure why. It’s just a house. Possessions, not people. I know it shouldn’t matter so much…”

  “Perhaps the possessions matter, because the people aren’t here any longer,” Roger said quietly, and Lindy nodded.

  “Yes…it’s all I have left of them, and it may be gone. Wrecked.” She scrunched her eyes closed as if she could will the thought away.

  “Perhaps it’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Perhaps it’s worse.”

  He gave her that lovely little quirk of a smile. “I thought you were a glass half-full type of person.”

  “I was,” Lindy replied, but now she wondered whether that had just been a façade she’d adopted to survive. Cheerful Lindy, always happy, always smiling. She certainly wasn’t smiling now.

  “Sometimes,” Roger said after a moment, “the glass is half empty. You have to acknowledge that, whether you want to or not.”

  She glanced at him, noticing his serious look, and wondering if he was thinking about his mother. “That’s a rather deep thought.”

  “Sometimes I can be quite thought-provoking,” Roger returned with a smile. “Other times…not so much.”

  She laughed, at least a little, and then impulsively reached for his hand resting on the gear shift. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. Roger glanced at her, a little startled.

  “So am I,” he said.

  *

  Roger didn’t know what had possessed him to volunteer to accompany Lindy up to Derbyshire—and not even volunteer, but practically insist. Perhaps it had been the shock at seeing her look so distraught. Or maybe it had been a moment of recklessness born of his desire to help, as well as the affection he held for her, but as they drove northward he knew, with a soul-deep certainty, that coming with her had been the right thing to do.

  Out of character, yes, and impulsive, certainly. But right. Definitely right. She’d cried for help and he’d come.

  Not that it had been quite as easy as he’d assured her it was—he’d had to email his boss, asking for unpaid leave, which he suspected wouldn’t go down well since he’d already taken all of his annual holiday, looking after his mother. Marcia had needed a bit of convincing to take Toby, as she’d been out at her knitting club, but she’d agreed in the end.

  Still, he hadn’t wanted to bother Lindy with those concerns. For her, he knew it needed to be simple. He just hoped whatever awaited them in Derbyshire wouldn’t be as much of the disaster as Lindy seemed to think it was.

  But if it was, and he suspected it might be, then at least he was here with her. Roger just hoped he was up to the job of caring and supporting her. It was definitely outside his comfort zone, even as part of him craved it. He wanted to be needed. He wanted to help. He just hoped he wasn’t going to let Lindy down.

  “Take the next exit,” Lindy said after they’d been driving for two hours. “And then a left. It’s just outside the village of Hathersage.”

  For the next twenty minutes Roger followed her directions; it took all his focus to navigate the single track road on a moonless night that was as dark as pitch. Even with the main beam headlights on, he could only see a few metres of road in front of him.

  Another few turnings and a few hundred metres down the narrowest lane Roger had ever driven on, with hedgerows brushing both wing mirrors, and finally they were there.

  From the gleam of the headlights he made out a quaint-looking cottage, all topsy-turvy, clearly sixteenth century or earlier, with its wonky beams and windows that had settled in crooked lines with age. Windows, he saw, that were broken; the shattered glass making them look like jagged teeth.

  Lindy started out of the car as soon as he cut the engine, and Roger called after her.

  “Wait…I’ve got a torch.”

  He withdrew the heavy-duty torch from his bag and Lindy took it with a whispered thanks. Her face was pale, her eyes huge. Roger followed her to the front door; she unlocked it and then stepped into the tiny entry hall, letting out a soft gasp of dismay at all she saw.

  Roger stayed silent as Lindy swung the torch around to reveal the devastation. Nearly every picture frame was broken, and the floor of the sitting room was scattered with broken pottery and glass. Roger could see that the place must have once been chock-a-block with curios and mementoes; every single one was now, as far as he could see, destroyed. Chairs and sofas had been tipped over, and in some cases the fabric had been slashed by a knife. Someone had clearly done something disgusting on top of the table in the dining room adjoining.

  Lindy slowly moved through the rooms, leaving Roger no choice but to follow. The broken pottery and glass crunched under their feet. In the kitchen, the dishes had been hurled out of the cupboards and lay on the floor in broken heaps; Roger recognised a Willow Ware pattern similar to the one his mother had.

  In the study off t
he sitting room, the beautiful mahogany desk, inlaid with hand-tooled leather, had been slashed at with a knife, and the heads had been lopped off all the pieces of a chessboard that was, Roger thought, meant to show the Battle of Waterloo.

  The extent of the carnage was so severe, and so very vicious, that it took his breath away even as it made him burn with anger. What kind of person committed this wanton, craven destruction? It was more than merely reprehensible; it was truly evil.

  Lindy hadn’t said a word or even made a sound through this whole, terrible inspection. Now she merely turned from the study and headed up the narrow stairs to the bedrooms above. Roger had to duck his head to avoid a low beam as he followed Lindy to the first bedroom—the master, judging from the size of the bed; the sheets were rumpled and stank of something vile. Clearly someone had slept there, and more than once. The drawers had been pulled out and clothing tossed about, and the mirror above the bureau was shattered, but otherwise the room was whole, making Roger thankful for very small mercies.

  The bathroom was unscathed, thankfully, and the second bedroom—Lindy’s—was untouched. Perhaps the vile intruders had simply run out of steam. It looked as if they hadn’t even gone into the small bedroom with its single bed, the sheets still drawn up, everything quietly pristine.

  Roger glanced around the room, looking for some clues as to the girl Lindy had once been. Besides the single bed, there was a matching bureau and desk, and a bookshelf full of slightly old-fashioned childhood books—Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome, LM Montgomery. They all looked as if they’d been well read. A few childhood trophies lined the windowsill, and some ribbons decorated the mirror. A ballroom dancing poster was stuck to one wall, peeling at the corners.

  “At least this room is untouched,” he said, and Lindy let out a trembling sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob.

  “I don’t care about this room. This room is just me. It was the rest of the house that I cared about—that was Mum and Dad, not this.” She swept one arm to gesture to the bedroom and all its time capsule contents. Her shoulders started to shake.