The Attic Room: A psychological thriller

by Linda Huber

  Number fifteen was near the top of the lane, and Sam pulled up at the gateway. A long, rhododendron-lined driveway led down to the house, a low bungalow with an obvious garage conversion at the side. It was freshly painted in crisp white and had a swing set on the front lawn.

  Leaving Sam and Naomi in the car, Nina went to ring the bell. The front room window had no net curtain, and she looked in on a large collection of cacti and an orange cat sleeping in the middle of them. No one was home, however, and she turned back to the lane.

  ‘I’ll try the neighbours,’ she said, leaning in the passenger seat window.

  Naomi gave another theatrical sigh, and Nina handed over her mobile. ‘Naomi. We’ll have a look round here first and then go for lunch. Why don’t you use the time to find us a nice restaurant or pub in the village?’

  Naomi brightened considerably and sat up straight to do her research.

  A young woman answered the door at the next house, a toddler on her hip and about three-year-old twins crowding round her feet to see what was going on. She shook her head when Nina asked about Emily Moore.

  ‘Sorry, can’t help. I’m the nanny here. There’s a young family at number fifteen, I do know that much. You should ask old Mrs Peters at number twenty. She’s a terrible gossip; if anyone around here knows, she will.’

  Nina laughed and thanked her. Number twenty was diagonally opposite, and she waved to Sam and Naomi as she crossed the lane. Fortunately Mrs Peters was at home, though mid-sixties would have been a better label than ‘old’. The ‘terrible gossip’ part of the nanny’s description fitted well enough, though.

  ‘Emily Moore? Yes, that was quite a while ago mind you; she was here for years and I don’t think she was ever married, either, lived alone, she did, she was a nice lady but rather withdrawn if you know what I mean, not the sort to pop round for a cup of coffee and a chat, though she did come to the Woman’s Institute when they built the community hall. Are you a relative?’

  ‘I think I might be. I’m researching my family at the moment and I found her name. Do you know where she is now?’

  ‘I don’t even know if she’s still alive. She went to live in an old people’s place near Luton, oh, about ten years ago now. If she is alive she’ll be about eighty, but she was always very fit, I must say. She went into the home, or maybe it was sheltered housing, you know, the kind of place where you can be quite independent but there’s someone to call if you ever need help, anyway she went there because she broke her hip and though it healed all right it was never as strong as it had been, and she had become very short-sighted too and she thought it was risky living alone as she did, which is quite sensible, though it must have been a blow to leave her house after all that time.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you very much, that’s very helpful,’ said Nina breathlessly. She made her escape and jogged back to the car, wondering if there was a Mr Peters or if Mrs Peters was so loquacious because there was nobody to talk to most of the time.

  ‘Right. So Emily Moore must be a generation older than John Moore,’ said Sam when Nina reported back. ‘And if she wasn’t married then she’s a genuine Moore and not a connection by marriage. That’s important too.’

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Naomi. ‘I found a pub with a garden restaurant up at the top of the lane. There’s a children’s menu but I’d like scampi if they have it.’

  They had lunch in the garden of Naomi’s pub, then Nina and Sam sat with the laptop trying to find out about accommodation for the elderly near Luton while Naomi sat picking at the rubber band bracelet she was wearing, the bored expression back on her face.

  ‘Do you think if we start phoning round they would even tell us if she was a patient or resident or whatever?’ said Nina, staring at the depressingly long list of care homes they’d compiled. ‘They might have confidentiality rules or something.’

  ‘Very possibly. I think you should engage me as your lawyer. You are trying to trace family after learning that your father was alive till recently – perfectly true – and I’m helping you. People often give more info to a lawyer than they would to any old Joe Plumber.’

  ‘Okay. At least John Moore’s estate can afford to pay your bill,’ said Nina, and he pulled out his mobile.

  Naomi sat with her chin propped on both hands while Sam called the first home.

  ‘Can’t we go back to the house now? At least I can watch telly there,’ she said in a low voice, her lower lip trembling.

  Nina nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Naomi. You’re being very good. Extra Brownie points, you can think what you want to spend them on.’

  ‘Yay!’ Naomi beamed. ‘Brownie points’ was an old family tradition, awarded for particularly good behaviour and used for more expensive treats.

  They adjourned to the house in Bedford, where Naomi commandeered the living room with the TV. Nina and Sam went on with their search in the study, Nina accessing contact details while Sam made the calls. All the homes were cooperative enough to reply that no, there had never been an Emily Moore from Biddenham in their facility.

  After the eighth negative call Nina went to make coffee. She was organising mugs on a tray when Sam strode in.

  ‘Nina, I’ve found her! At The Elms, on the outskirts of Shefford. Emily Mary Moore, she’s seventy-nine, been there for ten years, from Biddenham. I told them you’d be in touch about going to visit her. They said she’s a nice old lady, quite fit and very bright.’

  Nina inhaled sharply, clasping both hands under her chin. She’d found a relative who was a ‘nice old lady’. Tears came into her eyes.

  ‘That’s – amazing,’ she said slowly. ‘Thanks, Sam. I’ll see if I can visit her this weekend. But – a seventy-nine year old lady – can I really start a conversation about John Moore’s paedophilic tendencies and his death and by the way my mother was killed by a manic motorcyclist last month?’

  He sipped his coffee. ‘Maybe in the first place you should simply introduce yourself as John Moore’s lost daughter. I imagine she’ll know who you are and you can take things from there. She could turn out to be a very distant cousin who doesn’t know much about your father.’

  ‘You’re right. But she might know if the other names on the list are relations too. And I could show her the photos. Sam – she might be my great-aunt. Oh, I hope she’ll agree to a visit.’

  Tears were still pricking in her eyes, and Nina tossed her head impatiently. Getting emotional about it wouldn’t help anyone. But oh, she hadn’t known how good it would feel to find someone who was actually related to her.

  And what would Naomi think about a visit to Emily Moore, she wondered, putting the phone down later after arranging with one of the staff to be at The Elms at half past two the following afternoon. Emily was out on a trip with some of the other residents that afternoon but had left instructions when she heard about Sam’s call, so wow – they were going to meet a relative tomorrow.

  Naomi’s face fell a mile and a half at the mention of an afternoon in a sheltered housing complex, and Nina was racking her brains to think of something that would make the idea attractive to a ten-year-old when Sam beat her to it.

  ‘Tell you what, Naomi – and Nina. We’ll go and have lunch with my parents in Allerton tomorrow. Then Naomi can stay there while we visit Emily. Mum and Dad always have a crowd of grand-kids round at the weekend, Naomi, and one of them’s about the same age as you. I know my dad’s hoping that Amy’ll help him paint the garden fence and I’m sure he’d be very pleased to have another pair of hands too.’

  ‘O – kay,’ said Naomi, and to Nina’s surprise she smiled at Sam.

  ‘Won’t your parents mind?’ said Nina, when Naomi had gone back to the television.

  ‘My mum’s Italian. It’s family, bambinos all the way. And like I said, my sisters usually deposit their kids at Mum’s on Saturdays and go into town. I’ll phone her from the office – which reminds me I should get back there and do some proper work.’

  Nina waved as he drove off. Sam wa
s turning into a bit of a rock here and she wasn’t sure what she thought about it. Part of her wanted to banish her connection to Bedford and John Moore to the dim and distant past, but with Emily Moore nearby that was unlikely to happen now. And there were other cousins, too… And now nice-guy Sam was becoming someone she might – might – want in her life. In some capacity. Nina sighed, and went to join Naomi shooting bubbles on the internet. Her mind wasn’t going to be clear about this till she’d won some certainty about what had happened, and some distance, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Claire’s story – The Isle of Arran

  Claire stood at the farmhouse door looking across the Firth of Clyde. The mainland was invisible today; it looked as if the sea went on and on, almost forever until it merged into the cloudy sky. For the first time since they’d moved here, the view failed to inspire a sense of achievement. The family dream of opening a B&B on the Isle of Arran where Lily had grown up was a dream no longer. Robert’s criminal cash had made the venture possible, but how little that meant today.

  Her father was dead. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to Claire, much worse than the breakdown of her marriage or the suspicion that Robert might have been violent towards their child. That was all well in the past; Nina was at school now and was thriving. This would never go away.

  Claire stared up at white clouds chasing briskly across the sky. It was almost beyond comprehension. Her father had been one of those tall, wiry people who could eat anything and never put on an ounce, he was fit – he played tennis and went hill-walking almost every weekend; he was a happy, easy-going kind of person, not even a whiff of a problem with his blood pressure – yet now he was gone. An infection, they said after the post-mortem, and it had attacked his heart.

  Claire knew she had to hold things together for Nina. At six, her daughter was well able to understand what was going on and of course she was grieving too; she’d loved her Grandpa. And Claire knew helping Nina was the best way to help herself. Having little rituals – lighting Grandpa’s candle when it got dark, looking at a star for Grandpa, taking care of Grandpa’s garden – it all helped create a sense of continuity.

  The awkward part was that losing her grandfather so unexpectedly prompted Nina to ask a whole lot of questions about her supposedly dead father, and Claire was hard put to find answers. How she wished she’d never started this; she should have told Nina from the beginning that Daddy had been bad to them and that was why they never saw him now. It was dreadful, lying to her child like this. Worse still, Nina soon noticed that her mother didn’t enjoy these ‘Daddy’ conversations and stopped asking about him, which only increased Claire’s guilt. Fortunately Lily, who had never approved of the lie and was now the only other person in Scotland who knew that Robert was alive, refused to speak about him to Nina, saying ‘I don’t remember, ask your mum,’ when Nina tried to talk about the Bedford years.

  Claire turned back into the kitchen, crossing the room to touch the photo stuck on the fridge with a magnet. Mum, Dad and Nina on the top of Goatfell, the highest peak on the island; she’d taken it the day Nina walked up for the first time. Pride was shining from her father’s face as he stood there with ‘his girls’. Claire turned away before Nina noticed what she was doing. Fathers were an awkward subject. Of course Robert himself had wanted the break to be complete, which said everything about the kind of father he was, but still… Nina had never had the opportunity to love her father. It wasn’t fair. Look at Bethany down the road, with a Dad and two Grandpas and several strapping uncles all living close by on the island. Claire rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Mummy? Are you okay?’

  Nina was standing behind her, a sweet, concerned expression on her face. A lump rose in Claire’s throat and she kissed the wrinkled little brow. ‘I’m fine, lovey. I was remembering your Grandpa. It’s good to remember, you know, even if it makes you sad. Come on, let’s make some scones for teatime.’

  Nina allowed herself to be distracted, but Claire’s thoughts were in turmoil as she measured out flour and butter. Remembering Robert and his wealth brought home their own financial situation. Her parents’ Edinburgh semi hadn’t sold well; it was in need of what the estate agent had called ‘some modernisation’, and the market was sluggish. They’d wanted a good ten thousand more than they eventually accepted. Claire didn’t want to put all Robert’s cash into the farmhouse in case she needed it later for Nina, so the renovation was on hold in the meantime, which meant the B&B venture wasn’t bringing in as much cash as it could.

  But it was Robert more than the money that was the real worry. Claire hated the stupid, false situation she was in. Nina thought her father was dead, and that was just – wrong, and now the child was old enough to understand more it might be time to put things right. It had been three years now, Robert could have changed. Maybe she should find out what he was doing these days. It was something to consider, anyway.

  Claire put the tray of scones into the oven and was setting the timer when a new, terrible thought struck her so hard she actually staggered. Dear Lord – what if she died as suddenly as her father? What would happen to Nina then? Lily with her arthritis would be pushed to cope with a six-year-old… It wouldn’t take much investigation for anyone concerned to find out that Nina’s father was alive and well – the poor child could end up living in that awful old house with the father she believed was dead.

  The thought almost took Claire’s breath away. Definitely, they would have to change things. If Nina got to know Robert a little, she would be prepared if anything did happen to her mother.

  ‘You’re being daft, lass. You’re not going to die anytime soon.’ Claire could almost hear her father’s voice, and oh, how she wanted to believe that, how very much she wanted to think she’d be there for her girl until Nina was a grown woman and could take care of herself. Fear swirled round Claire’s head; she could land under a car next time she went down the Bay for the shopping. No one knew what the future held.

  That evening Claire wrote a letter to Robert, asking if he would consider seeing Nina if they went down to London for a weekend.

  In the morning she tore it up.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Saturday 22nd July

  Nina could have guessed Sam’s mother was Italian even if she hadn’t been told. Cascata Harrison was small and plump with dark hair piled on top of her head, and shiny brown eyes that lit up when she saw Naomi. Surrounded by grandchildren, she looked like a typical Italian Mamma and Nonna, and she obviously revelled in her role. For a moment Nina felt as if she’d landed in one of those Hollywood perfect-happy-family rainy-Sunday-afternoon kind of films. No sooner had she thought this than the youngest child, a toddler of about eighteen months, brought reality right back to centre stage by being sick on the kitchen floor.

  ‘Welcome to the madhouse,’ Sam said to Nina as a younger woman rushed to help the child.

  Sam’s mother rolled her eyes, shut the door on the clean-up operation and squeezed both Nina’s hands before turning to Naomi.

  ‘So this is Naomi. What gorgeous hair. You’ll break a few hearts before you’re too much older,’ she said in faultless English, kissing Naomi on both cheeks.

  ‘You don’t sound Italian,’ said Naomi, and Glen Harrison clapped the little girl’s shoulder.

  ‘Well spotted. She hasn’t actually lived there since she was five,’ he said.

  ‘But I go back every year for a holiday,’ said his wife, taking Nina’s jacket. ‘Call me Cassie, Nina, everyone does. Sam told us you have a lot of business – we can take care of Naomi as much as you need us to. All you have to do is ask.’

  It was impossible not to like Sam’s parents, thought Nina, watching them fuss over their son and joke with each other. This was what she’d never been part of, a big normal family having fun with each other. And yet they weren’t quite a normal family, with dark-skinned Sam and his white adoptive parents. But the love was there; she could see it shining out of Sam�
�s face when he spoke to his mother. And the pride in Glen Harrison’s eyes when he listened to Sam talking about last week’s court case was unmistakable. You didn’t need to share blood to be a family.

  Sam’s two sisters, their husbands, and five children ranging in age from one to nine were all in the garden, running around, helping to lay the table and arguing good-naturedly.

  Cassie took Nina’s arm. ‘Come and help me with the salads. We’ll leave Sam to sort out the drinks with his Dad.’

  Nina looked outside where Naomi was playing with Sam’s oldest niece, throwing balls for Cassie’s dog, a Westie named Kira. A dog had been top of Naomi’s wish-list for ages, and Nina smiled ruefully as she followed Cassie into the kitchen. ‘Let’s get a dog’ would be topic of the week now.

  ‘Sam said you’re having problems getting your father’s estate settled. I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Cassie, removing plastic containers from the fridge and transferring their contents into a series of bowls.

  Nina leaned on the worktop, sighing inwardly. Cassie’s motherly presence and her words brought back exactly what she’d lost, and it wasn’t John Moore. Sam had been discreet, so Cassie presumably didn’t know about Claire’s death. Nina straightened up and gave Cassie a smile. Sympathetic as Sam’s mum was, this just wasn’t the time. The realisation that she had no one in Bedford to confide in struck anew.

  ‘I didn’t know him. My mother left him when I was very small and we had no contact after that, so the loss feels a bit unreal, somehow.’

  Cassie patted her shoulder. ‘I didn’t know. Sam didn’t go into details. Then I’m doubly glad you’ve found another relative to visit – family’s important. And you mustn’t worry about Naomi, she’ll be fine here.’