by Linda Huber
‘I’ll have a look and then decide,’ she said, turning back to the admission form. John Moore’s date of birth was the 15th of October. Her father had been born in October too, but in the stress of the moment she couldn’t remember the date. How shameful, her own father – and unnerving to realise how little she knew about him.
Nina thought about this during the short drive to Bedford. Why had Claire spoken so little about her husband? Was there some kind of family secret about Robert Moore? Of course Claire been in other relationships over the years; she had moved on. But even so, that was no excuse for her own ignorance now. She’d never been interested enough to probe into her father’s family, and the thought didn’t make her feel proud today.
On the other hand, if this John Moore had left her all his money, it was difficult to see why he hadn’t been in touch with them before. And surely if Claire’d had a bust-up with a rich relation in the past she would at least have mentioned it at some point? Think as she might, Nina could find no explanation.
Chapter Two
Friday14th July
The smell in the hospice took Nina straight back to the day of Claire’s death, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to banish the dizziness swirling round her head. After the accident both Claire and the motorcyclist were helicoptered to Glasgow, leaving Nina to make the agonisingly slow ferry-crossing and then drive to the hospital, well over an hour away. That day she’d felt as if she was standing outside her own body, watching the terrible events unfold. Claire’s poor battered face… and her pitiful attempts to talk that first hour, and then the slide into coma from which she had never awakened. The memory still took Nina’s breath away.
Pushing the thoughts aside, she followed Sam into the hospice reception area. The building was an unattractive seventies concrete cube on the outside but quite homey and cheerful inside, with blue-uniformed nurses rustling along the corridor, and floral prints on the walls. John Moore had suffered and died here, and she – apparently his only relative – had never met him and didn’t know who he was. Poor John Moore. But it was preferable to dying the way Claire had. Nobody knows their future, thought Nina soberly. Carpe Diem; how true that was.
A middle-aged nurse handed over John Moore’s suitcase and a black plastic bag of soiled clothing and Nina, feeling more and more like an imposter, signed for them.
‘I gather you didn’t know John,’ the nurse said. ‘But we put him in the chapel in case you wanted to see him anyway.’
Nina blinked at the woman, consciously preventing her mouth from falling open. The thought would never have crossed her mind. Apart from Claire’s she had never seen a dead body, but that had been enough for her to know there was nothing frightening about a corpse. Like the cliché said, the body was a shell, and when life had gone there was nothing of the person left inside. That hadn’t stopped Nina shedding horrified, disbelieving tears over dead Claire on her hospital bed, but she wouldn’t do that for John Moore.
‘I won’t recognise him, but I guess to make sure I should see him,’ she said, noticing the look of respect Sam gave her.
The nurse led her to a dim little chapel, where a vase of red roses on the altar perfumed otherwise musty air and provided the only real colour. A solitary coffin was set on a wrought iron stand, and Nina followed the nurse across the room. In spite of the brave words apprehension wormed its way through her gut as the older woman slid back a wooden panel to reveal the face of John Moore and his right hand, resting below his neck.
Nina winced, leaning on the coffin to steady herself. He wasn’t an old man, but his face was deeply lined as well as being yellow and emaciated, and his greying hair was sparse. The cancer had marked him. What a horrible way to go. But not as horrible as…
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, her voice echoing round the bare little room. ‘Was he – a nice person?’
The nurse closed the coffin, nodding. ‘He was very brave,’ she said, putting a hand on Nina’s shoulder as they left the chapel. ‘He had a lot of pain, but we helped him with that and fortunately he didn’t linger long. He’d only been here ten days when he died.’
Sam was waiting outside, and Nina went into the ladies’ to recover. She hadn’t expected the sight of John Moore to shake her, but it had. Dear God, this was all so impersonal. She pressed wet hands to her face, feeling her cheeks hot under the coolness of her palms. She was this person’s nearest relation, but she still felt – empty.
Sam took one look at her and guided her towards the car, his right hand under her elbow. ‘Come on. The sooner we find out what relation John Moore was to you, the better you’ll feel.’
Nina nodded. It was true. Everything would seem more organised when she could file her newly-found deceased relative into a box in her head labelled ‘42nd cousin John’. There was no reason for her to feel guilty about this man; it wasn’t her fault she hadn’t known of his existence until Wednesday.
John Moore’s house wasn’t far from the town centre. Nina was silent as the car passed through the usual kind of urban sprawl; streets lined by chain stores and supermarkets, anonymous in their normality. She was beginning to regret her decision to come here; the thought of Naomi, who was probably still on a pony, sent heavy waves of homesickness all the way through her. But then, Naomi was so thrilled about her trekking weekend she would barely notice her mother’s absence, and they could phone soon and have a long chat. Even so, real life on the island felt very far away right now and it wasn’t a good feeling.
Sam drove down a wide road where the shops were smaller, their fronts making a colourful patchwork on both sides, then crossed a bridge and turned into a narrower street beside the river. They were in a residential area now, tall houses on the left facing a wide strip of grass stretching down to the river on the right. Nina gazed out at well-kept flower beds, shady trees, and people on benches enjoying the sunshine. It was nothing like Arran, but it was nice here.
‘This is it,’ said Sam, negotiating a narrow iron gateway and pulling up in front of a large, square house.
Nina craned her neck to get a better view, amazement robbing her of speech. Had John Moore really lived alone in such a huge place? It was detached, a well-proportioned building made of red brick, with generous – and dirty – windows, and a lot of them, too; there were three storeys here. Dormer windows on the top floor indicated that the attic space had been renovated at some point. A wilderness of green ivy ran up the walls, almost obliterating the downstairs half of the house and stretching up to the roof in places. The front garden was a weed-infested patch of gravel, and high wooden fences separated the plot from the properties on either side. It was obviously an expensive, solid house, but the outside at least was in need of a huge makeover.
‘Is it flats?’ she asked as Sam pulled out the front door key.
‘No, it’s all one house. Remember John Moore was wealthy. I gather he was big in property but he sold his business when he was diagnosed with cancer,’ he said, unlocking the door.
Nina pulled out her mobile to see the time. Hell, it was nearly five o’clock. Unlikely now they’d uncover the secret of John Moore’s identity today; Sam would want to go home soon.
‘Why don’t I leave you to search for documents while I have a quick look round to see if I should stay here,’ she suggested, stepping over a pile of newspapers jostling for place behind the front door.
Inside, the house looked exactly like what it was – the home of a single man who was no longer young and who hadn’t cared enough to make it a pleasant place to live. Nina’s heart sank. The hallway was dim in spite of the glass door separating it from the entrance porch, and the maroon carpet extending up the stairs and stretching towards the back of the house did nothing to brighten the place up. A grandfather clock was tick-tocking in the darkness further down the hallway, and Nina felt her shoulders creeping up.
She opened the nearest door and wandered into a generously-proportioned room, furnished with old-fashioned and possibly va
luable pieces. A sombre air of genteel shabbiness hung over the place. Nina sank down on a cracked leather sofa – bloody hell, what was she doing here? She should be in the farmhouse, waiting for her girl to come home, not sitting in semi-darkness – these were the windows with ivy growing over them – in a house that had come straight out of the nineteen forties. On the other side of the hallway she could see Sam searching through a desk in the study where the lighting was even murkier. The dusty smell of old books wafted towards her.
Dismayed, Nina trailed further down the hallway. There was a loo here, so the bathroom proper must be upstairs, and it was all so dingy. They probably filmed the last Frankenstein movie in here, she thought, pushing the kitchen door open and giggling nervously when it creaked. Sound effects and everything, and the very smell seemed to come from the first half of the previous century too. A hotel was beginning to sound like a very good idea.
The kitchen wasn’t bad, though, about the same vintage as their own on Arran, with a big gas cooker and a microwave. Whatever his taste in furniture had been, John Moore had liked his kitchen functional.
The last door was beside the kitchen, and Nina put her head in, expecting to see a pantry, but found herself looking into a slip of a room with a single bed, a wooden chair, and a small table. The old ‘kitchen maid’s room’? The window faced the back garden, and she saw another patch of gravel. John Moore hadn’t been a gardener, then.
She could hear Sam’s feet thudding on wooden floors upstairs now. What a massive old place this was, and how unbelievable that it was hers.
‘Four big bedrooms, all chock-full of furniture,’ he said, running down to join her in the hallway. ‘The attic room’s almost empty and very dusty; I would leave it alone in the meantime. Nina, I have to go. What do you want to do?’
Nina glanced back at the small bedroom and came to a decision. ‘If I can find sheets etcetera for this bed I’ll stay here. Sam, thanks a million. Was there anything helpful in the study?’
‘‘Fraid not. I found some documents and a couple of photos in the desk; I left them on top for you to look through.’ He leaned against the kitchen doorway, brown eyes fixed on hers. ‘I might still hear from the GRO today, but I’ll come back in the morning anyway if that’s all right. Give you a hand to search the rest of the place.’
‘Well – if you’re sure,’ said Nina, relieved. With a bit of luck it wouldn’t take long to get things sorted out. A speedy return to the island was the aim of the game here.
He rummaged in his briefcase and handed her a business card. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get this cleared up. Here are the keys for this place. I’ll come back about ten tomorrow. Oh, and there’s a hotel with a good restaurant about two hundred yards further along this road, in case you need it.’
Nina waved as he backed out of the driveway, then locked the front door against the world. Apart from the clock, the house was deathly silent. Her courage sagged briefly before she pulled herself together. This was her house now and there was nothing scary about that. She had plenty to do, not least of which was going to Sam’s hotel to see if they could provide dinner. Nina pulled her case towards her new bedroom, chin in the air. Maybe by the time Sam came back in the morning, she’d have solved the entire mystery.
Chapter Three
Claire’s Story – Bedford
The flat door banged shut behind Robert, and Claire leapt up, balling her fists in frustration as Nina’s small voice wailed from the bedroom. Typical – she’d been sitting down for exactly five minutes after spending an exhausting day with a teething toddler, and now Robert was off God knows where with George Wright, leaving her babysitting like a good little wife. Well, she wasn’t. She was trying her best to be a good mother, but the good wife bit might be over.
‘Hush, baby. It’s all right. Go back to sleep,’ she whispered, smoothing the sparse blonde hair from Nina’s forehead and kissing the damp little brow. She hummed softly, The Skye Boat Song followed by The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen, smiling in relief as Nina’s eyes closed again.
Back in the living room of their tiny Fulham flat, Claire lifted the phone to call her mother. These early-evening chats with Lily in Edinburgh had become her lifeline. Robert was so cold these days, so hurtful when he spoke to her – it was unbelievably restful to talk to Lily, who loved her. Claire punched out the number, blinking back tears. Yes, her mother loved her, but that didn’t stop Lily constantly advocating ‘making a go of your marriage’, like she and Dad had.
But Rob’s latest escapade was something that even Lily couldn’t just smooth over.
‘He’s bought a house, Mum!’ Claire blurted it out before Lily had finished saying hello. ‘I didn’t know a thing about it until he announced it over dinner as if he was telling me he’d bought a new pullover!’
‘Oh my goodness. What kind of house?’
‘An old one, apparently. It’s in Bedford, by the river, and we’re moving next month. Two reception rooms, four bedrooms plus an attic. And I can only sound like a catalogue because I haven’t even bloody seen it!’
For once, Lily didn’t immediately launch into a variation of ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’, and Claire was grateful for this much at least. She knew the whirlwind courtship hadn’t been time for her to get to know Robert properly, but he’d been the man of her dreams back then, all chat and charm. Not to mention good-looking. He was a walking cliché – tall, dark and handsome. Three years and a baby later, her feelings had changed and so had his; he hardly spoke to her now. Face it, Claire, she thought, blinking miserably. He’s not the man you thought you married.
‘Oh darling. But maybe it’ll be a chance to get yourselves back on track? A fresh start in a new place? When do you move?’
Claire cast her eyes heavenwards. Lily was back on her ‘work at your marriage’ pedestal, but maybe she was right. Giving up on the relationship when she had a two-year-old daughter wasn’t something to be done lightly.
Claire was astonished when she did see the house. Where had Robert found the money to put down a deposit on a place this size? He barely gave her enough to cover the housekeeping and Nina’s clothes. She wandered round the upstairs rooms, planning in spite of herself. This largest one would be a great master bedroom, and Nina could have the one opposite, a lovely big room with a bay window. She sighed. If only she could turn the clock back to the first weeks of her marriage, those heady days of being in love. Rob was twelve years older and came across as worldly-wise and sophisticated. He’d made her feel special, and although even then he’d been a little… reticent, it had only added to the attraction. Claire squared her shoulders. In spite of their recent problems, Robert was planning a shared future in this house. She would do likewise.
‘Mummy’s,’ said Nina, holding up a handful of Jelly Tots. Claire bent and allowed her daughter to feed her the hot, sticky mess. Nina beamed, and Claire kissed her, licking the sugar from her lips afterwards. She stood up to see Robert in the doorway, hands on hips and a sneer on his face. As usual he looked immaculate, the crisp white shirt contrasting with the blackness of his hair.
‘For God’s sake, look at you. Stuffing your face as usual. No wonder your figure’s gone to pot. Where’s your self-respect – you can’t blame having the baby after all this time.’
Claire didn’t reply, because hell, he was right. Before her pregnancy she’d been a small size ten and now she struggled to get into a fourteen. She allowed herself too many little treats these days because they made her feel better, but Robert cared about her appearance. He’d loved her old skinny-as-a-rake figure, and while he’d said nothing when she was pregnant, this past year or so he’d been – rude. Distant. Putting her down, humiliating her in front of other people. It was horrible.
Robert stamped downstairs to speak to the plumber, and Claire took Nina’s hand and went up to the attic room. Wow, she thought, staring round. A huge floor space, lovely sloping ceiling, cute little windows – this would be a fantastic room for Nina
in a few years. The little girl was running up and down, her face one big beam, and Claire laughed too, pretending to chase her. Nina shrieked, and Claire scooped her up and hugged her, looking round with sudden determination. The way forward was clear in her mind now.
With a lick of paint and some nice modern furniture, this house would be an amazing home for the three of them. It was time to do something about her marriage. She had a child. A happy family life was worth fighting for.
Chapter Four
Friday 14th - Saturday 15th July
A search round the first floor of the house revealed a good-sized bathroom with an electric shower, an airing cupboard with all the bed things she would need, and a couple more wooden chairs. Nina settled into the downstairs bedroom quite comfortably. The upstairs rooms, though larger, didn’t appeal to her. Apart from John Moore’s own room – and no way could she sleep there – they were poorly lit and smelled musty. Nina spread her things about the little ‘maid’s room’, then grimaced. Quarter past six, oh, golly – Naomi would be back at the farmhouse by now, chattering away to Beth about the day’s ride, or maybe having a bath to get rid of the aches and pains after four hours in the saddle… if only she were there to see the pleasure and excitement on her child’s face. Unhappiness washed over Nina. It was years since she’d been away by herself like this. She wasn’t used to her own company, that was the problem, and this wasn’t a good time to phone home, either. They’d be busy with the guests’ evening meal in the farmhouse.
Stop being a wimp, woman, she thought, grabbing her handbag. Go for dinner, you’re hungry. Things’ll look different when you have a good meal inside you.
