Barking Up the Right Tree

Chapter 5

11

My mother’s visit passed off very pleasantly and she left, promising to return soon. I didn’t see my next door neighbour again for a week or so, but one day I spotted her coming out of the village shop. Seeing her reminded me of my nephew’s hobby. Alice was laden down with shopping, but there was no time to offer to help her carry her bags as I was on my way to work. Poppy began tugging at my trousers and growling, as I explained why I couldn’t help Alice with her shopping. Before we parted, I mentioned my nephew, the youthful philatelist.

‘Philatelist?’ Alice repeated, looking baffled.

‘He collects stamps.’

‘Yes, yes, I know what philately is,’ she replied. ‘That’s very nice for him. I’m sure it’s an interesting hobby.’

‘I was hoping you might give me some stamps from your daughter’s letters.’

Alice smiled warily. ‘Oh, ah, I don’t think I can do that,’ she muttered, looking unexpectedly apprehensive.

‘Why not? Just a few would be great. He’s very enthusiastic and he’s only twelve.’

‘I don’t keep stamps from letters. I throw all the envelopes away. I have no use for them. They’re just envelopes. And now I really need to get this shopping home.’

‘What a pity,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could save them for me in future?’

A faint scowl crossed Alice’s face and she shuffled a few steps backwards. Muttering that she would see what she could do, she turned and hurried away, leaving me standing thoughtfully on the street. My suspicions rekindled, I made my way to the café and blurted out what was on my mind.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, you’re not banging on about that again,’ Hannah snapped. ‘Really, Emily, what is your problem?’

‘It’s not a problem, just a hunch,’ I replied, annoyed that she refused to listen to my concerns.

But it wasn’t just me. Poppy knew there was something wrong with Alice. I refrained from mentioning that to Hannah, who was unlikely to accept Poppy as a reliable witness. Hannah would just say that Poppy was responding to my unease, when in fact the opposite was true.

‘If you ask me, it’s a good thing that Sophie has finally managed to escape,’ Hannah said.

‘What do you mean, “escape”?’

‘What I mean is, Alice was always a complete control freak. Everyone knew. Maybe it was because it was only ever the two of them, but Sophie couldn’t move without her mother breathing down her neck. She wasn’t even allowed to go up to town with the other kids her age when we were teenagers. She was going to have to break free of her mother one day, and it sounds like she’s gone about as far away as she can. I can’t say I blame her. And before you ask me, I don’t feel in the slightest bit sorry for Alice. She brought it on herself. You can’t control someone else’s life like that, you know? Eventually they’re going to rebel. I think Sophie’s done it in a very nice way, actually. She’s been far kinder than Alice deserved.’

I thought about this. ‘What happened to Sophie’s father?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t know. They arrived here without him and I never heard Sophie mention him. I’m not sure she even knew him. There was talk at one time about him having disappeared without trace, or something along those lines, but honestly I can’t remember. I was only about eight or nine when Sophie and Alice arrived in Ashton Mead, and she was even younger. It was all a long time ago, and I was never close to Sophie. I don’t think any of the children in the village were. You’d have to ask my mother if you want to know about Sophie’s father. She might remember the gossip.’

I made a mental note to do just that. Listening to Hannah talking about Sophie’s father made me recall the cryptic comments in my great aunt’s journal, starting with ‘No sign of S’. I told Hannah about it, but she was preoccupied with lifting a tray of scones from the oven.

‘What’s that you said?’

‘It said, “No sign of S”,’ I repeated, ‘and then she wrote that she was concerned about it. No, not concerned, she said she was worried, worried about S. Don’t you see? If “S” referred to Sophie, then that means my great aunt was worried about her and that could have been because she disappeared. There was no sign of her. That’s what my great aunt said. She was worried because there was no sign of S.’

Hannah put her tray down and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a floury white streak. ‘Well, your great aunt’s “S” can’t be Sophie, because she went off travelling, so obviously there would be no sign of her. And your great aunt would have known about Sophie going away. Everyone knew about it. Sophie never stopped talking about it before she left.’

‘Did anyone actually see Sophie leave?’ I asked, a horrible suspicion reawakening in my mind. ‘And has anyone heard from Sophie since she went away?’

‘You just told me that Alice gets letters from her regularly.’

I let the subject drop for the moment, but Alice’s reaction to my request for stamps continued to trouble me, and I determined to find out more. After work, I walked home with Hannah to see her mother. Poppy trotted happily along in front of me, stopping to sniff at the grass verges and bark at the occasional bird that flew by overhead.

When we arrived, I didn’t like to launch straight into the subject that was on my mind in case it appeared that I had gone there only to quiz Jane about Sophie’s father. Jane was a curvaceous woman, who looked like an older version of her daughter. I wondered if Hannah found it strange, looking at an image of herself in thirty years. Hannah had brought some cakes and scones home from the tea shop, and we sat in the garden, chatting over a cup of tea, while Poppy and Jane’s dog sat on the grass together.

‘Do you think Holly likes Poppy?’ I asked, watching as my puppy tried to play with Jane’s dog, who steadfastly ignored her.

Jane shrugged. ‘Holly’s too old and lazy to play. She just wants to sit in the sun and doze. I gave up trying to work out what my dog was thinking a long time ago. Basically dogs need sleep, food and water, and it’s that simple.’

‘What about affection?’ I asked, looking at Poppy who had given up trying to entice Holly to respond and was now lying comfortably sprawled out on the grass. ‘Don’t they need to feel loved?’

Jane laughed. ‘What better way can there be to show you love a dog than to make sure it’s well fed and warm and comfortable, and gets the exercise it needs?’

When Hannah went indoors to put the kettle on, I turned to Jane and broached the subject that was on my mind.

‘You want to know about Alice’s husband?’ she repeated. ‘My, that’s going back a few years.’

‘What happened to him?’

Jane shook her head. ‘Alice introduced herself to us as a widow when she arrived in Ashton Mead.’

‘What had happened to her husband?’

‘There was a rumour going round that he had died in so-called suspicious circumstances. Some people said that was why Alice had moved here, to get away from the publicity.’

‘What did people think had happened to him?’ I asked, eager to hear confirmation that Alice had been suspected of committing at least one murder before her arrival in Ashton Mead. ‘Did you suspect foul play?’

‘Oh, I don’t think anyone thought he’d really come to a sticky end, or anything like that,’ she laughed. ‘It was just a silly rumour. When a newcomer arrives in a small village like Ashton Mead, people like to invent stories about them. It helps us pass the time.’

Jane laughed, and I wasn’t sure whether she was being serious or pulling my leg. After all, I was a recent arrival in the village myself. But I refused to be distracted by rumours that might have circulated about me.

‘What were the rumours about Alice?’

‘Some people didn’t believe she was really a widow, as she claimed.’

‘If you didn’t believe she was a widow, what did you think had happened to Sophie’s father?’

Jane sighed. ‘There were people who thought she never had been married at all,’ she explained. ‘Some people assumed she was a single mother when she arrived in the village with a small child. It sounds ridiculous in this day and age, but some of the older villagers thought she was embarrassed to admit to being single, so she invented a husband who had died. Mostly we believed that she was a widow because, really, why would anyone lie about it?’

‘Did you believe her?’

Jane shrugged. ‘It’s a long time ago. I really can’t remember.’

‘What about my great aunt?’ I ventured.

‘Poor Lorna,’ Jane replied. ‘What about her?’

‘Did she ever have a boyfriend? You know, a relationship with a man?’

‘If she did, she kept it very quiet.’

Hannah came out with a tray of tea and cakes. Glancing regretfully at my expanding waistline, I took the smallest cake on the plate, and the conversation moved on.

That evening I retrieved my great aunt’s diary from the back of a drawer, and read right the way through it again, from cover to cover. As I flicked through shopping lists and reminders to pay various bills, I wondered whether Alice had remembered to save any stamps for me. I resolved to march straight up to her front door when I had some time to spare, and knock until she answered. If there was nothing scandalous going on, she shouldn’t have too much trouble in persuading me I was mistaken, but I was determined not to be fobbed off. When I took Poppy out into the garden before bed, I stared at the metal fence glowing softly in the moonlight, and wondered what secrets lay hidden on the other side.