‘Jack …’ she started.
‘Let’s go and see, shall we?’ He squeezed her hand and started walking.
‘It’s locked,’ she said again, as Jack rattled the secluded gate. ‘I told you. Penelope doesn’t want anyone getting in.’
Jack rubbed his jaw.
‘We should just leave it,’ Abby pressed.
‘Not yet.’ Jack walked in a circle behind her, then crouched and picked up a large rock. He approached the gate, wielding the rock, his face a mask of determination.
‘You can’t do that,’ Abby said, aghast. ‘That’s breaking and entering.’
‘And what if, tomorrow, I replace the padlock with a much more secure one?’
‘That you’ll have the key to, and Penelope won’t.’
‘I doubt anyone could get a key into this padlock anyway, it’s completely rusted over.’ He put the rock on the ground and peered at it.
Raffle barked loudly, and a couple of pigeons flew from their perches, wings flapping madly as they disappeared into the blue. Abby felt a pang of sympathy that their lazy Saturday afternoon had been disturbed.
On a day like today, there would be lots of people on the reserve, just a short walk through the fallen elder and the spreading brambles. What if Gavin or Marek were doing some work close by and stumbled upon them? She tried to remember who was rostered on that afternoon.
‘Jack,’ she whispered desperately.
‘This isn’t—’ He waggled the padlock, and suddenly there was a splintering sound and the metal lock was in Jack’s hands in two pieces, the chain hanging forlornly. He gave Abby a triumphant look.
‘We can’t.’
‘It was rusted through. I have no idea how old it is, but it wasn’t a good quality lock in the first place.’
‘Jack,’ she said again.
He held out his hand to her.
‘There’s no harm in looking, and I’ll get a better padlock tomorrow and give Penelope the key, tell her I was walking past and saw that it was broken. We’ll be doing her a favour. Come on Abby,’ he said, when she didn’t move or reply. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’
Abby sighed. She had wanted to get up close to Swallowtail House for two years, and now here was her chance, a chance that also let her get closer to Jack Westcoat.
She took his hand and let him lead her through the gate, Raffle following happily behind.
Chapter Five
Just because a bird is common, it doesn’t mean it’s not precious, and pigeons are unfortunately hated by lots of people. If you look closely at their necks, you’ll see their feathers aren’t just grey, but shiny green and purple too. Their gentle cooing is one of the most familiar sounds you’ll hear in the garden, and is very comforting.
— Note from Abby’s notebook.
From the moment Abby stepped inside the tall, redbrick wall, the atmosphere changed.
It felt stiller, as if the air was different, as if this was a place that had paused the moment Penelope had left and had been lying in wait for someone new all these years. Raffle padded along in front of them, nose down to the brown, frost-damaged grass. Abby still had her hand in Jack’s, and was acutely aware of the pressure of grasp, his long fingers curving around hers. She didn’t know whether to keep hold or to let go, but as they walked past the old stone fountain, long since given up spurting, its curved bowl with a puddle of water and dead, mulching leaves at the bottom, their hands fell apart automatically.
Up close, the house was imposing, the cracks more visible. The yellow paintwork was dulled and the windowsills were peeling, though most of the glass was still intact. Abby crunched over the gravel and peered through the closest window. The room was large and square, faint imprints on the walls where paintings had once hung. There was no furniture, but the plasterwork around the edge of the ceiling and the fireplace was intricate, patterns of flowers, butterflies and birds. The wooden floor was covered in dirt, as if creatures had tracked it through from outside.
All this time she’d been imagining the house’s interior as a still life of the day Penelope had left, the furniture in place, a book discarded on the table, a mug that had once held a cup of tea. The reality was very different. The house was empty and yet, as Jack had suggested, also not.
There was birdsong close by, a high, repetitive tune that Abby recognized as a chaffinch. A cluster of starlings sat on the roof, their iridescent feathers shimmering, their chirping, squawking and whistling a cacophony of attention-seeking – look at me, look at me. Abby had a sudden, ridiculous urge to tell them about her upcoming event and make sure they’d all be there.
‘Abby, come here.’ Jack beckoned to her, his gaze fixed on whatever he could see through a window on the opposite side of the house.
Abby walked over and stood next to him, turned to see what he was seeing, and gasped. This room went all the way to the back of the house, French doors leading onto a terrace, and beyond that she could see a hint of the bustling, overgrown gardens.
‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘A ballroom?’
Whereas the other room had pale walls, this grand space was decorated in a dusky blue, which made the white plasterwork stand out even more. Hanging from the ceiling were two intricate chandeliers, their crystal droplets catching the light, some of the jewels clustered together to form rudimentary butterflies.
She tried to imagine the house in its former glory, and Penelope inside it. Had she been welcoming, hosting grand parties alongside her husband? Or had she always been closed off, the two of them stalking through the huge house, barely making use of it?
‘I think so,’ Jack murmured, but Abby had forgotten what she’d asked him.
‘What are you thinking?’ she whispered. He seemed transfixed, the pads of his fingers lightly touching the glass, as if he was a small boy enthralled at the window of a sweet shop.
‘I’m thinking I definitely need to get Penelope a good padlock tomorrow. And look.’ He pointed, and Abby followed the line of his finger, noticing what should have been glaringly obvious, but she had managed to miss. One side of the French doors was open a crack.
She sucked in a breath. ‘There might be intruders in there. Squatters, drug dealers – anyone.’
‘Or it could have been the wind? An animal?’
‘We don’t have bears in Suffolk,’ she said, more to hide her anxiety than anything else. ‘Occasionally there are badgers, but sightings are rare, and they couldn’t pry open a door.’
‘Let’s go and see.’ When she didn’t move, Jack took a step towards her. ‘Nothing will happen, I promise.’
‘How can you promise that?’
‘Because I write this stuff for a living,’ he said. ‘Empty houses, intruders, suspense. I know all the tricks.’ His smile was lopsided, also unsure, Abby thought, but his curiosity was clearly winning out. ‘Come with me.’
Those words, from Jack, were like a spell. Come with me. She couldn’t say no.
As they walked round the side of the house, the grass gave way to a tangle of weeds, a hint of pale green buds and some apple trees that must once have been coppiced and shaped, but now grew proudly up towards the sky, winter skeletons waiting for the spring. She hurried to keep up with Jack’s long, easy strides.
She knew that, were she suddenly afraid, she could take his hand, and that he wouldn’t shy away from that simple physical contact. Somehow, that meant a lot. It had been a long time since she had felt this comfortable with a man, and she and Jack barely knew each other.
‘Jesus,’ he said, as they reached the back of the house.
Abby stopped beside him. ‘Wow,’ she murmured, because it was truly magnificent, in a creepy sort of way.
The stone veranda ran the full length of the building, with steps down to what must once have been a neat path, weaving through low beds and formal rose gardens, between manicured hedges. Now, only the echoes of that formality remained, a rigid past trying to imprint itself on an unruly, chaotic present. Wint
er weeds crept up between every paving slab, the stones themselves pitching and cracking with the pressure, giving the impression the patio was moving, rippling like the sea. The stairs were mostly hidden by a tangle of ivy, and every rose bush had either grown wildly or died, dark, charcoal-like remains alongside healthy plants, bursting with the promise of new buds in only a few weeks’ time.
A small, pale structure towards the back wall of the grounds – a summerhouse – was almost lost amongst the greens and browns.
It was overrun with life: natural, escaped life. Warblers trilled, a blackbird sang from the top of a burgeoning, evergreen hedge, grown out of its topiary shape like a wilful child, and Abby could see movement at the back of the garden, close to where the redbrick wall kept the woodland at bay. A fox or a rabbit, maybe. Possibly a deer. She watched for a moment longer, but the movement stilled as whatever it was disappeared into denser foliage.
‘Can you imagine what this will be like in the spring and summer?’ The thought overwhelmed her, the wildlife that would run amok in this place that had once been so highly cultivated. ‘There will be roses – who knows how many colours and scents – different types of butterfly and moth, the birds making nests, bringing their young up with all this to feed on. It’s heaven.’
‘It’s years of work for someone, somewhere down the line,’ Jack said quietly. ‘But there is something compelling about it. Shall we?’ He turned to the house, and Abby heard the creak of the French doors opening wider. She felt a wave of panic, and then decided that, as they’d come this far, they may as well go the whole way.
She stepped inside after him, their boots – his, Timberland, hers, Merrell – echoing on the wooden floor. Beneath the high ceiling and the chandeliers of the ballroom she felt small, the trails of ivy and cobwebs not diminishing its impact. Jack was already striding through it, towards the hallway. She followed, walking over a mildewed rug that had been forgotten, its pattern indistinct.
The hall was impressive, but without the large windows seemed gloomy, and the further they got from the French doors, the more cloying and thick the air became. But Jack was exploring the house with a sense of purpose, as if he’d planned this all along, and had used subterfuge and suggestion to make Abby think this was what she wanted.
She remembered the accusation she’d flung at him after the Halloween event, that he wanted to use her to test out some gruesome theories for his next book. She pushed the idea away. Jack was grumpy, but he wasn’t dangerous. She reminded herself of how he’d behaved with his admirer in the pub, courteous even when he’d been set on drinking himself into a stupor, the way he’d come to her rescue after she’d tripped outside his cottage, refusing to let her go home alone. However miserable he was, she was sure she wasn’t about to die in Swallowtail House, falling senseless onto the mouldy rug with a well-placed blow to the back of the head.
‘The kitchen’s through there,’ Jack said, making her jump. ‘It’s huge, but understandably old-fashioned. If it were up to me, I’d rip all the units out, redo everything in wood and white granite, and put an island in the centre. The windows are large, and there’s another set of doors onto the patio so it’s got lots of natural light.’
‘Do you fancy a bit of interior design, then?’ Abby asked.
Jack gave her a quizzical look. ‘Aren’t you imagining what you’d do with this place if it was yours? Think how incredible it would be if it was restored, in keeping with all the period features, but with modern appliances and technology. What would you do with the ballroom?’
Abby laughed. He was so different; whimsical and relaxed, the hunched shoulders gone. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he said, not giving her time to protest.
Jack tested the stairs gingerly, but they seemed to be solid, no overly loud creaks or splintering of rotten wood beneath his feet.
They toured the bathrooms and bedrooms, all empty of furniture, all at different stages of nature’s consumption. One had a bird’s nest on the windowsill; Abby thought from the size and shape it was probably a sparrow’s, and too early for it to be this year’s. The house was never silent, their footsteps creaking, Raffle snuffling into every corner, the trill of birds reaching them through the thin glass.
Abby warmed to Jack’s theme, telling him which bedroom she would use, and which would be reserved for Tessa and Neil, Daisy and Willow. There was a small room, tucked into a corner of the house like an afterthought, but it had windows on two sides, which made it one of the lightest. It had a worryingly impressive spider’s web in the corner, with several moths hanging limply in it, but in Abby’s fantasy world that would easily be removed.
‘How old are they?’ Jack asked. ‘Your nieces.’
‘Eight and four,’ she said. ‘Daisy’s birthday was just before Christmas. My sister, Tessa, is a natural mum. She never gets stressed or wound up, and always manages to look glamorous, though it must be constantly exhausting.’
‘Do you see them a lot?’
‘Yeah, they only live in Bury, so I try and see them every couple of weeks.’
‘It must be nice, being close to your family like that.’
Abby nodded, thinking of her mum and their strange encounter on New Year’s Day, and then her dad, who she hadn’t spoken to in such a long time. ‘I’m very lucky to have Tessa,’ she said. ‘How about you? Do you have brothers or sisters?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No, it’s just me. Which is fine, mostly. I can’t exactly miss siblings if I don’t know what it’s like to have them. I count my friends as pretty much the same thing.’
Abby thought of Eddie Markham, and wondered how close they had been before everything got so angry and complicated. Had his betrayal been like losing a brother? Was that where the punch had come from, the lingering sadness that had seemed to overwhelm him today? She had seen tempers frayed to breaking point, and for much lesser things than revealing a friend’s past mistakes in a national newspaper.
‘Why is it only mostly fine?’ Abby asked, taking advantage of Jack’s temporary suppleness.
He glanced at her before turning back to the window. ‘Because when you’re the only one, your parents’ expectations are all on you. You have to fulfil all the hopes and dreams that they never achieved and which they’ve subconsciously – or consciously, in some cases – passed on to you. And you certainly can’t screw up, at least not in the way I’ve managed to.’
Abby winced. ‘I’m sorry. It can’t have been fun telling them.’
‘I didn’t have to. It was all over social media before I’d made it out of the venue. I got a call in the car on the way home, which I was lucky to be in, as Eddie could have called the police and had me charged with assault. But as it was, that phone call from my dad was probably as bad.’ A ghost of a frown flittered across his face, then it went back to being stony.
Abby wrapped her hand gently around his arm, the thick, soft fabric of his padded jacket, and wondered if he’d even be able to feel her touch. But he glanced down, acknowledged the gesture with a weary smile, and then seemed to snap out of it.
‘Which one do you think is the master bedroom?’ he asked, walking along the corridor to the front of the house. He stepped into the largest room, which had two windows looking out over the front lawn, and Abby followed.
She could see the gate they had broken in through and the woodland beyond, the trees towering over the brick wall. Over to her left was the spire of the chapel library, and further away, a hint of the yellow paintwork and the tiled roof of the Skylark. The sun was sinking, and she knew they’d have to leave soon or risk being in the abandoned house in total darkness. The thought sent a thrill through her, and not purely out of fear.
‘Look at this,’ Jack said.
There was something dangling from the otherwise bare curtain rail. Jack unwound the slender chord and pulled the object down. It was an ornament made of coloured glass that, with the north-facing window, would catch the sun throughout the da
y, as it swept east to west. He handed it to Abby, and she looked at it more closely.
It was in the shape of two birds, facing each other, their wings and tail feathers splayed out behind them. The glass was shot through with all the colours of the rainbow, shimmering like the Murano necklaces Rosa sold in the gift shop, and edged with metal. Purple beads hung on a string below their feet. Even though the design was simplistic, Abby thought she could identify the birds from their shape, the myriad of colours, their position facing each other.
‘Lovebirds,’ she murmured, running her fingers over the wavy, hand-blown glass. ‘Why did Penelope leave this behind? It’s beautiful.’
She could imagine her boss and Al lying in a grand bed facing the window, the curtains drawn, knowing that from their impressive vantage point they couldn’t be spied on by anyone, the glass of the lovebirds dappling the covers with coloured light.
‘Maybe it was too painful,’ she said, answering her own question. ‘Maybe, after Al died, they were symbolic of what she’d lost.’
‘Lovebirds,’ Jack repeated quietly, reaching out to touch the glass, their fingers brushing, the briefest touch sending a tingle up Abby’s hand, an electric shock that went straight to her heart.
‘Lovebirds mate for life,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘And they pine for their companion when they’re apart. Just like Penelope and Al,’ she added, wondering again at the strength of her boss’s grief to abandon the home they had shared, to stay so close to it for all these years, but to never venture inside, or make a decision about its future. ‘What if she had things that she’d never told him, things that she regretted? Perhaps that was what was haunting her, but it felt like it was the house, so she had to get away from it.’
The Lovebirds Page 6
