Bay Tree Cottage

by Anna Jacobs

  Emil had arranged to take Abbie, her sister and the children to see the secret room the following Sunday. When he went to pick her up, he found that Keziah couldn’t come because little Susie was running a temperature and Louis had gone to play at his friend’s house for the afternoon.

  ‘We can go another time, if you prefer it,’ Abbie said in her usual abrupt manner.

  ‘Why wait? It’s you who’s truly interested in history, you I’d be offering a job to. It’ll probably be better with just the two of us the first time. We won’t be boring other people with what we consider to be interesting historical information, which they might not care about. And I can take the time to answer your questions about what my father is planning as fully as you wish.’

  ‘Oh. Right. I must say, I’d been looking forward to seeing it. I’ll have to pick Louis up at four-thirty, though.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Just outside the town. His friend’s parents are taking them to a lake which has recently had a children’s play area created at one end and there’s a little bay that’s very shallow. There are barriers between the play area and the deeper water, and they have someone on duty to keep everything safe at weekends. They charge an entrance fee but it’s very reasonable and my Louis loves it there.’

  He could hear how her voice softened when she spoke of her son. She was a strange mixture of affection and stiffness. ‘I’ll drive you to see the secret room and then we’ll go and pick up Louis. No need for us to trail to and fro when we’re partway to the lake at Saffron Lane.’

  She studied her feet carefully. ‘Um … all right.’

  Once again, he wondered whether it was him she was cautious of or whether it was men in general. And he didn’t know why he found her so interesting, but every now and then, like when they talked about history, she seemed to come alive and almost sparkle with intelligence. That was so attractive, lighting up her whole face.

  On the way to Saffron Lane he told her that the tenant of the flat below the hidden room had had a little trouble from someone, so he’d have to lock the door of the art gallery carefully behind them.

  ‘I’d prefer that, anyway.’

  He nodded and waited for her to say why but she didn’t. She was, as usual, sparing with both words and information.

  As he was letting them in, a man hurried along the street, one of the artists, if Emil remembered correctly.

  ‘Don’t lock it! I need to get in.’

  Emil frowned. ‘Don’t you have a key of your own?’

  ‘I left it upstairs and saw you going in so didn’t bother to get it.’

  The door at the far end of the big space opened suddenly and Ginger came through from the café area.

  ‘Is it all right if I let this—’ Emil began, but when he turned the artist had gone.

  ‘Was Cutler trying to get in?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. If that’s his name.’

  ‘Don’t let him in. He’s not—’ She broke off and didn’t finish what she’d started to say. ‘Um … I mean, if Nell had wanted him to be able to get in and out, she’d have given him a key.’

  ‘He’s creepy,’ Abbie said suddenly. ‘I’d not want him prowling around on his own in our building.’

  Emil realised he hadn’t introduced them and did so, then locked the front door and took Abbie up to the first floor, where he showed her how to get into the hidden communications room.

  She lost her inhibitions almost at once and followed him around, asking questions, even explaining a couple of items she recognised and he didn’t. She looked vibrant and alive.

  ‘Is it me?’ he asked suddenly, unable to bear it any longer.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is it being with me that makes you go stiff and uncommunicative? You’ve been a different person up here.’

  ‘Oh.’ She hesitated, and looked down at the display. ‘It’s not you. It’s – I don’t want to get involved with a man again, so I keep my distance. Keziah says it’s a bad habit and I’ve got stuck in a rut, just because my partner was difficult. She may be right, but it’s helped keep me going for the past eight years.’

  ‘What did he do? Hurt you?’

  ‘No. Well, not physically. But he was unfaithful and when I got pregnant by mistake, he hated being a father, being tied to a “brat”, as he called Louis. And then he left one day while I was out, taking some of my things with him, and I haven’t been able to trace him to get them back, let alone get maintenance out of him. I was told he’s gone somewhere in the EU, Spain or wherever. They’re welcome to him. Only it’s been … hard going – financially, I mean. I don’t miss him.’

  ‘Didn’t your father help you?’

  ‘Yes. But I wouldn’t take more than the bare minimum from him. I’d vowed not to be dependent on anyone ever again, you see. And then we quarrelled, because my father kept letting Louis down, promising to attend something like a sports day, then not turning up.’

  ‘I see. That must have been hard for the lad.’

  ‘Yes. But at least I’d never married Louis’ father, so I’ve not had the hassles of getting a divorce. Have you ever been married?’

  ‘No. I’ve been in relationships that lasted a while, but I’ve never wanted to settle down until now. I think I’ve got the wanderlust out of my system and I’m really enjoying being back in England. What I want more than anything now is a proper home of my own. I’ll start looking at houses to buy next year, when I’ve got a little more time.’

  Silence fell and it was a more comfortable one as they moved on round the exhibits.

  ‘It must be this place,’ he said suddenly.

  She didn’t pretend not to understand. ‘Us talking like this, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t usually confide in people.’

  ‘Nor do I. But I’d like to make a few friends now I’m back.’

  She looked at him warily.

  He held up his hands in a surrender gesture. ‘Is that too much to ask? I like you. I like your son and he even seems to share my interest in tin toys. Most people stare at me as if I’m mad, a grown man collecting them.’

  ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t collect anything you can afford. You’re not doing any harm. We haven’t had enough money to collect anything for the past few years, or space to put it in, but we might be able to now.’

  ‘The prospect of being financially independent must take a lot of the strain off you.’

  She smiled at him, really smiled. ‘Yes. And I’d like to be friends with you, but only friends. Let’s be clear about that from the start. Not friends “with benefits”, as they call it these days.’

  ‘I’m recovering from an operation. I’m not in a highly active mode sexually yet.’ He pretended to twirl an imaginary moustache. ‘So you’re safe from me, my proud beauty.’

  She ignored his joke, frowning at him. ‘I thought I saw you wince once or twice when you were crawling around showing Louis how the toys worked.’

  She waited but when he didn’t volunteer any more information, she turned back to the displays.

  He stole a glance at her. Should he have told her? No. He didn’t even want to think about the problem himself, let alone face other people bringing it into a conversation.

  Before they had to leave to pick up Louis, Emil took her down the secret staircase and into the tunnels, which she seemed to enjoy in her usual quiet way. It was nice to be with a woman who didn’t go in for idle gossip.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d show Louis round here sometime?’ she asked as they came out of the house and he locked the door.

  ‘I’d be happy to.’

  ‘Thank you. He’ll be thrilled, and I’d like to come again too, if you don’t mind. This place fascinates me.’

  ‘Then you’ll consider taking a job here?’

  She nodded. ‘It might be interesting. Only part-time, though. I need to be there for Louis after school. I think I’d enjoy it. I’m normal enough to need and enjoy so
me contact with other people, even if I don’t want … more.’

  ‘I couldn’t just stay at home on my own, either.’

  He kept it to himself, but this afternoon had gone well enough to give him hope that one day he might pursue more than a mere friendship with her. The better he got to know her, the more he liked her quiet steadiness, as well as finding her physically attractive. He’d been thinking seriously about marriage recently, even before he met Abbie. He didn’t want to marry a ‘show pony’ of a woman who needed attention, clothes and possessions to be happy. He wanted a friend, lover, soulmate.

  Could he find that sort of relationship with Abbie? He was thinking it might be worth giving it a try.

  Was he tilting at the moon, expecting women to fall into his arms?

  Abbie’s ex seemed to have made her mistrust men. Would she continue to refuse to consider any long-term relationship? That would be such a waste.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When the shopfitters started work, the whole building was filled with the buzzing of saws and the whirring of drills. The noise echoed round the empty rooms and through the nearby flat, too, and nearly drove Ginger mad.

  At first she kept the front door of her flat closed and looked out regularly to keep an eye on things, strolling past the storeroom that divided the area so that she could see the gallery at the front properly. Then she noticed a man peering into the window.

  When she looked out a few minutes later, he was still there and had edged right into the shop. What was he doing? The place was clearly not open for business.

  He didn’t notice her watching him till she went out and accosted him.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just watching them work. I’m thinking of hiring that company to do a job for me. You pleased with them?’

  ‘They haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘I’d better come back another day, then.’ He walked out quickly, got into a little van and drove off.

  Automatically she memorised the registration number and noted it down when she went back into her flat. You couldn’t be too careful with strangers who loitered for no obvious reason.

  After that she stayed in the gallery, taking out a chair, sitting to one side and doing some patchwork while the men worked.

  The van came back but drove away again, presumably because the driver had seen her. So she was right to keep watch. Hmm. She arranged for Stacy to come and sit in there while she nipped to the shops the second afternoon. She was running out of tea and instant coffee. Those fitters were always thirsty.

  The three people working on the shop and café fittings seemed a pleasant trio but she’d seen Cutler talking to one of them a couple of times when he went out into the back garden, and was wondering why.

  In the end curiosity got the better of her. ‘Did my neighbour want something?’ she asked the young guy.

  ‘He wanted to know how long we’d be. Said the noise was disturbing him.’

  ‘He said that both times?’

  The guy shrugged. ‘No. The second time he wanted a piece of wood we’d thrown away. I didn’t see any harm. He says he’s a woodcarver.’

  ‘He is.’ But Nell said Cutler was very particular about the type of wood he used. Throwaway pieces of pine didn’t sound right for him.

  Ginger didn’t know why him poking his nose in worried her, but it did. And if she was being paranoid, too bad. That young fitter could have given away a lot during even a short chat. Cutler was cunning enough to wangle information without the person realising it.

  Well, he still didn’t have a key and Nell had told him very firmly to stay out of Number 1, so Ginger would have to rely on that and keep her eyes open where he was concerned. She couldn’t trust him. Not one bit.

  When the shopfitters finished after three days of hard work, Ginger walked round the gallery and café, really pleased with how well they had done things.

  She swept up more carefully than they had and gave the floor a quick mopping over before Nell came to check.

  The rear part was starting to look like a café now. It’d look even better the next day, because the various electrical gadgets were supposed to be delivered.

  After they were installed, she’d be able to set out the furniture, stock the café with crockery and food basics, and open for business.

  She was looking forward to that, nearly always enjoyed her interactions with customers.

  Iain was as busy as ever during the daytime, but he slept at Ginger’s flat every night except for the one where he was going to visit an old uncle who lived down in Cornwall. It was too far to do the journey there and back in one day, and besides, his uncle loved to be taken out to a restaurant and treated to whatever he fancied on his birthday.

  The trouble was, on the night Iain wasn’t there, Ginger was sure she heard someone prowling round outside the house and when the security lights that overlooked the rear garden suddenly came on, it proved she hadn’t been mistaken.

  She peered out of her bedroom window, but couldn’t see anyone and after the lights had switched themselves off, she waited, watching. Nothing else triggered them so she told herself she was worrying about nothing. She had the CCTV system and its allied alarms, neighbours close at hand and Angus could be down from the big house in minutes.

  It couldn’t have been an animal going past, could it? No, of course not. How would an animal big enough to do that get into the back gardens, which were fully fenced?

  After that she slept only fitfully. There had been someone prowling round, she was sure, but who could it have been? Not Cutler this time. She’d seen a light in his workshop when she’d looked out, and his shadow as he sat working on a carving. He couldn’t be in two places at once, so the prowler couldn’t possibly have been him.

  Who else was interested in the Saffron Lane development, though? Or was it the little museum and its contents they were targeting? No, that didn’t seem right, either. The things in the secret room might be of interest to a museum, but Nell said Mr Kinnaird had told her they wouldn’t be worth a lot on the open market, were worth more in situ, bringing history to life for a new generation.

  It was a relief when dawn brightened the sky. It was strange how much safer one felt in daylight, and yet a friend of Ginger’s in Newcastle had been mugged in broad daylight.

  Never mind. Iain would be back that night and she’d catch up on her sleep then. She smiled. She was surprised at how much she’d missed him.

  It was nice being engaged, but she didn’t seem to need the thinking time she’d asked for. Should she suggest setting a wedding date? It’d be nice to have something to look forward to. Or should she leave that to him?

  And they hadn’t really talked about where they would live when they did get married. She loved this job and was looking forward to setting up the café and running it properly. But though the flat was too small for a permanent home, it’d be harder to run things if she was living elsewhere.

  Was anything in life ever straightforward?

  Well, she wasn’t going to make even minor decisions about anything important now. You didn’t think nearly as clearly when you were tired.

  Someone knocked on the front door of Number 1 soon after dawn. Ginger nipped out of her flat and peered through the door next to the storeroom. She saw Angus standing outside and waved. He waved back and unlocked the front door to let himself in.

  How thoughtful of him not to walk in and startle her. She pulled her dressing gown belt tight and asked, ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’d like to check the security system, if you don’t mind. It came on once or twice during the night, but when I checked the monitors I couldn’t see anyone. After a couple of alerts, nothing more happened, and I didn’t realise till this morning that someone had disabled the system.’

  She gaped at him, feeling a chill run up and down her spine. And she’d been relying on it to keep her safe! ‘I’d be glad if you did sort it out! Something, or rather
someone disturbed me as well.’

  ‘Right-ho.’ Angus took a ladder out of his little van and fiddled around with the cameras.

  When he got down, he was looking grim. ‘Someone knew exactly what to do to disable a standard CCTV system. I just want to check something.’

  He walked round the side of the house and then across to the shrubbery between it and the boundary wall of the grounds of the big house.

  She went to scramble into some clothes, then went to watch what he was doing.

  He returned, still frowning. ‘I shall make some modifications to upgrade the CCTV system today and program in a few little tricks of my own. The intruder has been trampling round the house and poking something down into the soil at the side of the house where the secret passage connects your house to the cellars, as well as further along where it leaves my land. I suppose they were testing to see where the roof of the passage is, but how did they know the passage leaves my grounds at exactly that spot?’

  ‘Who knows? Why would they do it, Angus? What benefit can an underground passage be to a burglar, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘All I can think of is that it’s a fanatic who wants to get hold of some WWII equipment by fair means or foul, a collector. You do get the odd one who’ll break the law to get something. Well, they’re not going to get into my houses or damage my property. I’ll make sure of that.’

  He took out his smartphone and began fiddling around, ready to do some shopping online. After a few moments and more fiddling, he clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘I can’t get hold of a couple of the essential parts till tomorrow. I’ll have to come and sleep down here till then. I’m not leaving you in danger.’

  ‘Iain will be back tonight, so he’ll be here to keep watch on me as well as the museum. I’ll press the alarm button if the intruder comes back, even if he doesn’t trigger the alarm system.’

  ‘Whoever it is seems well prepared. Must be pretty determined.’ Angus stood frowning, then said, ‘I’ll have a word with Iain, if you could get him to phone me when he arrives.’