Barry Martin sat in the silence of the late Sunday evening, staring out of the window to a garden he could no longer see. The house was so silent he wished the radio was playing but he couldn’t make the effort needed to turn it on.
The house in Chestnut Road had seen many changes since his mother Nia had moved out of the flat above her sweet shop in Sophie Street, and brought them here. Then the house had been filled with noise and music and laughter - especially laughter, he remembered sadly. Joseph, his prankster of a brother had seen to that.
Friends called and were made welcome, Nia sang as she worked in the house and the garden, the house had a heart and was filled with contentment. When first his brother Joseph and then his mother had died, the house had died a little too.
During the on-off marriage to Caroline Griffiths the place had begun to revive a little; there was a sensation of a living, breathing home. The little boy, Joseph-Hywel, was not yet three and if he and Caroline had stayed together, things would have continued to improve. But Caroline couldn’t live with him, and had returned to the Griffiths’ inconvenient, over-crowded cottage, preferring its many disadvantages to this modern, well-furnished house with him in it. He missed them, but in a perverse way didn’t want them back. They demanded too much of him.
If Caroline had accepted what he was, had helped him to achieve his ambitions it would have been all right, but she wanted him to give up on the business he was building, give more time to her and little Joseph. If she’d trusted him, given him more time…
He had started a photographic business which had been beginning to show promise of success, but he had given it up in an effort to make his doomed marriage work and play the part of a devoted husband. To please her he had taken a job he hated, in a plastics factory, but Caroline had still left him and now he had nothing but an empty house redolent with ghostly echoes of happier days.
Not even that, he reminded himself; the atmosphere was no longer a happy one. There was an unnerving melancholy about the empty rooms. Shadows leaned towards him, whispers filled the air, the fire failed to warm the hollow spaces. Small, ordinary sounds were alien, threatening.
Barry shrank away from the blank window and looked around the shadowy room. In a rare moment of sensitivity he knew the house didn’t want him there. It needed children, the chaos and clutter of family life. He didn’t want to spend another night in the place. It was dead to him, his ghosts had fled and the house was silently awaiting new beginnings.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered to the walls, “I’m putting the house on the market.” He was relieved to have made the decision, and went straight away to the desk that had been his father’s and wrote to Caroline, telling her of it. He assured her that, as his wife and the mother of his dead brother’s child, she would receive half the money.
He started to go up the stairs but stopped halfway up. The shadows were oppressive, the emptiness reminding him he was an unwelcome presence. He went back down and slept on the couch and dreamed of Caroline.
Caroline was lying on her bed listening to the laughter from below as Lewis, Viv, and her brothers Frank and Ernie and her parents talked over the events of their day. She had read stories to Joseph until he’d been ready to sleep but instead of going back down, she had stayed with her son, unable to disguise her unhappiness and join in the noisy good-natured bantering.
In her melancholic mood she had been saddened rather than amused by the story of the abandoned stock in the old draper’s shop. A failed business – almost as sad as a failed marriage. And, she reminded herself guiltily, because of her, Barry had suffered both.
When the house fell silent she went down and made a cup of tea. She opened the back door and stood for a long time staring out into the darkness as Barry had done, her thoughts winging across the night sky.
Edward was getting into his car in the car park of Montague Court in the afternoon following the weekend discovery of the money in the basement of his shop. He intended going to the police in the hope of finding the owner of the five hundred plus pounds, and was irritated when a voice hailed him. He didn’t have much time before his evening duties began. He turned to see Mr Leigh Grant approaching. Hoping that the man’s visit meant he was about to close the deal on the purchase of Montague Court he went forward with a hand outstretched.
“What the ’ell’s the matter with that sister of yours?” Leigh Grant demanded.
“Margaret?” Edward frowned.
“She’s the only one you’ve got isn’t she? Thank goodness too. You wouldn’t want a whole tribe of ’em!”
“What is the matter?” Edward asked, leading the man towards the main door.
“Today, my solicitor had this.”
‘This’ was a letter and Edward read it with growing alarm. Margaret had stated that the price of the house had increased by a thousand pounds.
“I don’t understand. She said nothing of this to me and I certainly wouldn’t have agreed. Come with me will you? We can get this sorted straight away.”
Muttering about the uselessness of women in business and the irritations of the same, Leigh followed Edward through the main door, along the passage and into the kitchen where Margaret and Islwyn were preparing sandwiches and arranging small cakes on plates ready for afternoon tea.
“This won’t do, Margaret,” Edward said striding towards her. “You can’t do this!”
“I already have, Edward,” she replied with a smile. She didn’t look at him and neither did she stop setting out the small cakes.
“But we have an agreement for Mr Grant to buy the house. At the price stated.” He didn’t know how to deal with Margaret at the best of times and this could turn out to be the worst of times, with a heavy bridging loan to consider.
Mr Grant stepped forward and edged Edward out of the way. He caught hold of Margaret’s arm and turned her to face him. “What the ’ell’s going on? You either want to sell the house or you don’t. You’re wasting my valuable time. D’you realise that?”
“I saw another agent, this time in Cardiff,” she explained, “and they said the place was being sold too cheaply. I informed Oakland Estate Agency and demanded they adjusted the price accordingly.”
“You can’t do this,” Edward said weakly. “We gave our word.”
“Nothing is signed.”
“But I’ve spent money and I’ll make damned sure everyone knows about your dishonest ways. You’ll never sell.”
Margaret looked at Edward then, and smiled. “Now wouldn’t that be a pity?”
“I’ll offer one hundred and fifty more and if you don’t sign contracts today the deal is off.” Leigh Grant strode off and at the door, he stopped and waved Edward to join him.
“I mean it. I can’t waste any more time on this.”
“I’ll do everything I can, Mr Grant. I want this sorted too.”
It was nearly too late now to go to the police regarding the money. He wasn’t in the mood to start on the preparations for the evening meal. He returned to where Margaret was now slicing cucumber and tomatoes to garnish the sandwiches, and spoke to her calmly.
“Margaret. You have to sell. I will never change my mind about leaving here. You might wait months and then get a much lower sum. Whatever you plan to do once this is sold, you need as much money as possible to make a start, don’t you?”
“I’ll discuss it with Issy,” she said.
Holding back on the need to argue and show his frustration, Edward looked at the vegetables waiting his attention and the fish under its cover that needed boning and cleaning. He couldn’t face it. Not after this.
“Great,” he said with a grim smile. “Then I’ll leave you in peace to talk it over with Issy. I’m going out!”
“But Edward! It’s your turn to deal with this!” She spread her arms to encompass the work that needed urgent attention.
“Not tonight it isn’t, and I dare say I’ll be less and less reliable until the contract is signed.” He walked over to the car. If he was lucky, the police station wouldn’t be busy and someone would be willing to listen to his story. The old draper’s shop had more interest to him than the work at Montague Court.
On the way to the police station he had to pass the estate agency and he stopped and went in. A brief discussion assured them that the sale to Mr Grant was still on and that Margaret would be in the following day to sign the contract.
Edward didn’t get to the police station. The urgent sound of an approaching fire engine made him curious and he followed it to the main road through the town. Dense smoke filled the air and the cloying smell of burning made him close the car window. A second appliance arrived and a police car followed. He parked in a side street and went to see what was happening. It was soon clear that the large department shop facing the main square was on fire. Palls of smoke poured out of the roof and flames were seen leaping in frightening intensity through broken windows of the first and second floors.
The usual crowds had gathered and he saw the police and fire officers push them back. He presumed this was to allow the firemen to deal with the fierce blaze. But to his surprise he saw that cameras were on the scene. The BBC broadcasting van had been in the town to cover the opening of a new playground, and had taken the opportunity to add the fire story to the item filmed for the local television news.
Lewis Lewis was standing in the crowd and Edward went to join him. “Mr Lewis? This is a first, isn’t it?”
“Being present as news is made? Yes. And we’d better smile in case we’re caught on camera.”
They both watched as the roving lens of the camera travelled past them and on around the crowd, then back to the action outside the blazing building.
Flames were doused with jets of water that sparkled in the spring sunshine of the late afternoon, and gradually died down. The chattering crowd dispersed and the two men nodded to each other and went their separate ways, Lewis to a lonely evening in the house of Rhiannon and Charlie, Edward to smother his guilt at his dereliction of his duties at Montague Court. He decided to postpone reporting the money found, and instead, call on Megan.
When Lewis reached the house in Sophie Street he looked across at number seven as he always did and saw his daughter coming out of the door.
“Dad,” she said, “I’ve got a whole week off next week. Barry is coming to look after the shop and I’m going to decorate the house. Or at least some of it,” she added with a smile.
“I can help you at the weekend and in the evenings, love. I’ll be glad of something to do.” Rhiannon looked doubtful and he said, “I’m not useless you know. Your old dad used to keep number seven in good order, didn’t he?”
“Of course you did, it’s just, well, Mam has offered. I couldn’t tell her not to come, could I?”
“Then I’ll do what I can and I promise I won’t do anything to make your mother lose her temper with me. Right?” He smiled at her and added in a whisper, “Damned hard it’ll be, mind, knowing how easy it is to make her mad. We all know she isn’t a redhead for nothing.”
“Charlie, Gwyn and I are going to see our Viv on Saturday afternoon to look at paint colours and wallpapers. Exciting, isn’t it?”
Lewis wondered sadly whether they were planning on decorating a nursery. He couldn’t accept his daughter’s marriage to a man who had seen the inside of more than one prison, even though she seemed utterly happy. He was certain it couldn’t last.
Gwyn watched his stepgrandfather and wished he could make him a friend. He loved Rhiannon and her mother Dora, but Lewis seemed unwilling to accept him, apart from rare occasions like the game of ducks and drakes at the seaside that day. Childlike, he wished something would happen to persuade Lewis he was worth a few minutes of his time but what that something was, he had no idea.
“Want to help me wash the car?” Lewis asked, an hour later. But that was not the Something Gwyn was hoping for. Besides he had promised to see Dora.
“Sorry Mr Lewis, but I’ve said I’ll go and see Gran. She’s bringing home some leftovers from the café for our tea.”
Lewis shook out the pages of his newspaper and hid his disappointment in its shadow.
Margaret didn’t go to Oaklands Estate Agency the following morning, even though Edward had told her the time of the appointment and waited for more than an hour.
When he walked into the kitchen, Margaret held up a hand to stop the words about to burst from him.
“I know, I should have been there, but things happen here and I just couldn’t make it. You’ll have to rearrange it for next week.”
“And you’ll stall and stall until the Grants give up. Is that it?”
“Edward, you can’t honestly want to see this lovely old house in the hands of the Grants? Did you know they were scrap merchants? And that Mrs Grant ran a second-hand clothes shop? Issy checked on them and it’s true. They’ve been dealing in old metal and other people’s unwanted junk, for heaven’s sake! How can they take on a place like this? We have to wait for someone more suitable. Mummy would be broken-hearted seeing it go to people like the Grants.”
“Nonsense, Margaret. They are perfectly decent folk.”
“Decent maybe, but can you image what this wonderful old house would look like in a year’s time if we allow them to buy it? They’d tear out eveything that’s beautiful and change the decor to ‘contemp’ry’ .”She mimicked the voice of a simpering woman. “‘Contemp’ry’ carpets instead of these wonderful Axminsters, and ‘contemp’ry’ curtains with jagged patterns on material you can see through. I can just imagine the plastic ‘egg chairs’ in the lounge can’t you?” She turned for Islywn to share her disparaging laughter, but it wasn’t Islwyn who stood in the doorway, it was Annie Grant.
“I don’t intend to change anything in this historic house apart from more modern plumbing, Miss Jenkins,” Annie said in her quiet voice. “And if my taste lacks the necessary polish, I’m not too proud to seek advice. In fact, I have already instructed a professional designer to come and look at the place and help me arrange the few quality pieces I’ve already bought, and assist me in finding the rest.”
As she walked out, Edward glared at his sister. “If you don’t sign that contract today, I’ll burn the place down, Margaret. Contents and all! The house might be beautiful but you are not!”
Sally returned from shopping to find the back door wide open. She couldn’t keep the place completely secure because of her guests coming and going at odd times, but she thought she’d locked it. Then as she thought about her movements she remembered she had gone out through the front door. She couldn’t have left the back door unlocked, surely. Things like checking doors and windows before going out were automatic. Perhaps one of the boarders had called back for something? No, she admitted to herself, if anyone forgot, it was me.
Even with the thought she might have done it herself, she couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease at finding the door open. Standing in the kitchen, afraid to go any further, she called for Ryan. Then she noticed that the carved table that had stood near the bottom of the stairs was not there; neither were the two valuable porcelain bowls that had stood on it. Surely they hadn’t had a break-in?
Slowly, still calling her husband’s name, she went through the hall and into the lounge. There she could see quite clearly that they had been robbed. She backed out and went to where the telephone now sat on the floor, its table missing from the corner.
When they had first been married, there had been plenty of money and she and Ryan had chosen some beautiful antiques for their home: some Georgian silver, and elegant lamps and small tables and chairs that they had found at auction rooms. China too had become an interest and she looked around, tiptoeing into the rooms as though she were a stranger there, and saw that most of the best items were missing.
She returned to the hall and as she knelt to pick up the phone to call the police, the thought flitted through her mind that Ryan might have taken them to sell. He was always complaining about having no money in his pocket. They were his as much as hers. Perhaps she should wait to speak to him before calling the police. She replaced the phone.
“Why haven’t you called the police?” Ryan demanded when he came in a few minutes later and learned of the robbery.
“I thought, well, I didn’t know whether you’d decided to sell them.”
“What? You’re accusing me of robbing my own house? Like your father, eh? Burning down his shop and claiming the insurance? Is that what you think of me?”
Frightened now, her tongue tripping over the words, she tried to explain that, as they were his he had every right to sell them should he wish to do so. The words came out disjointed, making no sense.
When Megan went home she called as usual as she stepped through the door but her mother didn’t answer. She had been in for more than an hour and had started peeling the potatoes which were standing in a bowl ready, cutting them into chips for the usual Friday meal, before Sally appeared.
“Mummy. I was wondering where you were.”
“I was having a lie down, dear.”
“Are you ill?”
“No, but I fell again and hurt my head.”
“Tomorrow you and I are seeing the doctor.”
“No, dear. It’s all right. I wasn’t dizzy or anything. I was overloaded, trying to save myself a journey, you know how it is. A lazy man’s load your grandmother would call it.”
Megan sniffed the air and frowned. “I can smell vinegar. Have you spilled any?”
“Perhaps when I refilled the bottles a little while ago.”
Megan glanced at the shelf where they kept the condiments used for the tables. The vinegar bottles were far from full.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked.
“He’s – I don’t exactly know, I’ve been asleep,” Sally excused. There was weakness in her voice and Megan wondered with some alarm whether she had been crying.
The front door slammed and Megan saw her father hurrying down the drive. She knew something was wrong between her parents, but couldn’t imagine what it could be and daren’t ask. She would talk to Joan about it.
A little later, she went into the bathroom and smelled again the sharp, unmistakable smell of vinegar. In the small litter bin in her mother’s bedroom she found a pad of brown paper that had been saturated in the stuff. The words of the rhyme came to her.
‘…he went to bed to mend his head
with vinegar and brown paper.’
It was what boxers and others used to help reduce bruising. If that was what her mother had done, why had she lied?
Rhiannon started work on the living room on Monday morning after Charlie and Gwyn had gone to work. Stripping wallpaper off was a tedious task but by lunchtime she had managed to clean two walls. Her father came in at three o’clock and insisted on helping.
“Your Mam won’t be home from the café until six so I’ve got about four hours,” he said, after changing into old clothes.
When Charlie and Gwyn came in at six the walls were clean and the ceiling had its first coat of white paint.
“Thanks, Mr Lewis,” Charlie said, pleased with the result of the first day. “I feel awful about Rhiannon doing it while I’m at work, but she insisted on having a go.”
“And I feel awful too,” Lewis told him. “She’s only a young girl and she was intending to do that high ceiling herself.” His voice was harsh, the words came out as a criticism.
“It wasn’t my idea, but Rhiannon wanted to try,” Charlie protested. “I wouldn’t tell her she couldn’t do it. She makes her own decisions. I respect her too much to tell her what to do.”
Lewis was angry – but with himself and not Charlie. He had intended to say he was glad he’d been able to take a few hours off and help. “I’ll give the ceiling its second coat before I go to work in the morning,” he said gruffly.
“Thanks for your help,” Charlie uttered.
‘You’re welcome’ didn’t seem a suitable reply, so Lewis said nothing.
When Dora came at seven o’clock she was dressed in overalls and wore a scarf around her fiery red hair. Seeing the walls were all stripped and clean, she suggested they sized them ready for the paper.
“I’ll do that, Dora,” Charlie said, “but first I’m taking Rhiannon and Gwyn for a walk and to get some fish and chips for supper. Will you come?” He glanced at Lewis as he spoke but Lewis presumed the words were for Dora alone and didn’t acknowledge them. Dora shook her head.
“No thanks. I’ll just get all this wallpaper into a sack for rubbish and go home. We’ll do the sizing tomorrow evening, shall we?” She had guessed from the atmosphere that Lewis was out of favour. The three went out leaving Lewis and Dora alone. “Have you upset them?” Dora demanded as the door closed.
“Not intentionally, no.” He started to explain what had happened, but instead he said, “It’s no use, Dora love, I don’t trust the man with our Rhiannon. He’s a jailbird. He’s broken into people’s houses and stolen from them. He stole from the shop where Rhiannon works. How can I welcome him as a son-in-law?”
“By looking at Rhiannon and seeing how happy she is.”
“What about you, Dora. Are you happy?”
“I’m enjoying the café, and working with Sian is pleasant enough.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“Yes,” she snapped, “I’m happy! Right?”
Lewis burst out laughing. “I asked an innocent question and you flare up as if I’d asked you to murder someone.” He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. “If I ask if you’d like a cup of tea, will you shout at me?”
“No. But I’d refuse.” She picked up her coat and he held her back.
“Please, Dora. Stay a while. I’m damned lonely.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Mine,” he said sadly. But she stayed.
Margaret stalled for a few more days but signed for the sale of Montague Court on the twenty-third of May. She had always known the house would have to be sold. Once Edward had backed out and demanded half of the money there had been no hope.
“He let me down badly, Issy,” she said as she and Islwyn were getting into bed. “I can’t bear the thought of leaving my home. What shall we do?”
“Sometimes things that seem ruinous turn out to be for the best. This house would always have been a drain on you. There would never have been a moment in all your life when you were free of money worries. A place like this eats money like water pouring down a drain in a storm.”
“I know all that, but I love it so. Besides, we do have to earn a living. What can we do?”
“Open that restaurant you’ve often talked about. You’re a particularly talented cook, my dear, and I’m quite capable of doing all the less skilled jobs.”
“A café,” she said despondently. “Like your wife, Sian.”
“A restaurant very unlike my wife Sian’s. You’d soon earn a reputation for first-class cuisine. Dora and Sian run an unimpressive caff!”
“I have considered a small, exclusive restaurant,” she mused.
“Then think again, of a large, exclusive restaurant. Some thing that will make Edward’s pathetic little shop seem like a joke.”
He had hit on the one thing to cheer her. “I’ll pay him back, Issy. I want to see him suffer for the way he’s behaved.”
“Don’t waste energy on petty anger, my darling. You’re bigger than that. Stronger. More dynamic. A visionary endowed with imaginative skills. You’ll be so successful you’ll be able to forget you ever had a brother Edward.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want Edward to forget me.”
With the sale of Montague Court set to go through, Edward’s activities in the restaurant were reduced. He spent hours each day working with Frank Griffiths and occasionally Hywel, getting the shop emptied and cleaned.
“Can you imagine this ever being a garden in which we can sit and relax?” he asked Frank one morning when they threw even more rubbish out of the house and into the once cleared area.
Frank laughed. “Every time we clear it, we start filling it again, but it’ll come. The last few bricks from the dividing walls will take another day to clear, but then we’ll get Dad and Ernie with the van, and we’ll empty the garden for the last time.”
“Don’t you get tired of dealing with jobs like this?” Edward asked as Frank added more bricks to the pile that almost covered the small back garden. “I’m fed up with mess and confusion and I’ve only had a few weeks of it.”
“It depends on what you want from life,” Frank the philosopher replied. “Now me, I don’t like responsibility, see. I give Mam as much as I can afford each week and she does the rest. I never get a bill, she tells me when I need new clothes, she feeds me and I help Dad keep the place going. For me, perfect. Now our Basil’s different. He’s married to Eleri and they had two little boys and he’s in his oils. Never been happier. So there it is, it’s what you choose.”
Edward was surprised. He’d never heard more than half a dozen words from Frank before; in fact all Frank usually offered were monosyllabic grunts.
“It sounds as though you’ve thought about life very seriously,” he said.
“Seriously and long, Mr Jenkins. And I know I’m not the sort to be a reliable husband. Sad,” he added, “but true.”
“I never thought I’d marry,” Edward replied, “so I told everyone, including myself, that I didn’t want to.”
The remark hit home to Frank, who had begun to think he was unlovable and would never find a girl who could love him. He didn’t reply for a long time and as both men were working hard sorting the bricks and stones into piles, Edward thought the conversation was over. Then Frank said, “You’re right.”
“Am I?” Edward frowned. “Right about what?”
“Right in thinking I’m pretending. I do want to find a girl and marry her but I don’t think I ever will, so I tell myself I don’t want to. Sad, eh?” he said with a wry grin.
“It seems perfectly normal to me. I suspect we aren’t the only ones, Frank. There must be many people who do just that.”
Frank stopped shovelling and stared at Edward, who in spite of the physical work he was involved in, still managed to look smartly dressed and elegant, wearing overshoes to protect his footwear and gloves to protect his hands. “You know, you aren’t half bad for one of the gentry, mate.”
“One of the gentry? The Jenkinses? Not any more I’m not, but thank you.”
When he left Frank finishing the clearing, and got ready to go back to Montague Court, Edward’s thoughts were on Megan. Something about his strange conversation with Frank had brought his feelings for Megan into focus. Not one of the world’s great thinkers, but Frank had certainly highlighted one of his own worst fears. Like Frank, he didn’t want to face the rest of his life alone.
Similar thoughts were keeping Lewis’s mind from his work. At two-thirty he rang up his last two customers and cancelled his appointments, then he headed back to Sophie Street. He knew Dora would still be at the café, but Rhiannon should be at home finishing off the decorating. Opening the door he called and was rewarded with seeing Rhiannon coming out of the kitchen followed by the enthusiastic dog.
“Dad. This is a surprise. Don’t tell me you’re mitching again?”
“I know you want to get the room finished today, so I thought, while you did that, I’d make a start on Gwyn’s room. I’d like to do something for the boy.”
Pausing only for a sandwich, Lewis set about cleaning the walls and washing the ceiling in the boy’s room, hoping that, besides helping Rhiannon, it would please his stepgrandson. He was impressed with the paper the boy had chosen. Cheerful but not overpowering. He must remember to congratulate him on his choice. The walls had already been scraped clear of wallpaper, and Lewis sized the walls and painted the ceiling before stopping to eat.
When Dora came at seven, he asked her to go with him to the pictures instead of working on the next stage of the decorating. Prepared for arguments and reasons for saying no, he could do nothing but stare when she agreed.
At once Gwyn asked whether he could go with them and Lewis glared at him and said; no. The boy’s face crumpled and Lewis felt ashamed. Unintentionally he’d upset the boy again. “Any other time I’d love you to come, son,” he said. “But tonight, I want to talk to your Gran.”
“Let him come, Lewis,” Dora said. So it was the three of them who set off an hour later, to a film none would enjoy, each aware of the disappointment of the others.
One day, Lewis thought, one day I’ll do something right!
Three times Margaret and Islwyn thought they had found the perfect position for their restaurant. Each time they were refused permission to change the use from residential to business. All the time as they searched and were thwarted, she blamed her brother for their trouble.
“It’s all right for him,” she complained to Islwyn as they closed the door on another disastrous property. “He chose when to leave. He had something all ready and waiting. No thought for how difficult it would be for us.”
“There are a dozen properties that would do for what Edward has planned, dear. We need something a bit more select.”
They were walking back to the car along the road over looking the docks and the railway sidings when he stopped to examine the details of the final house for that day.
“Not far,” he said, “we might as well walk.”
It was situated in a quiet street which was lined on either side with tall trees. The properties were large and had once been imposing, but most were neglected and run down. The area was not one to appeal to the clientele they hoped to attract. Sadly they retraced their footsteps and headed back to the car.
They drove around, remarking on the possibilities of certain streets and the hopelessness of others. On reaching the beach they stopped and decided to walk a while. That was when they saw a ‘For Sale’ notice they hadn’t seen before. It was beside a path which led down to a small bay not far from the pleasure beach and with a garden that overlooked the sea.
The house itself was detached and with a wide drive shaped like an upside down Y, with two gateways marked ‘in’ and ‘out’. Thrown into the shrubbery they spotted a dilapidated sign stating the place had once been called Waterside Restaurant.
“At least there won’t be difficulties about change of use,” Margaret whispered excitedly.
The man who showed them around the three reception rooms and five bedrooms was vague. His wife was shopping he told them and he kept looking around as if expecting her to suddenly appear, like a genie from a lamp.
The rooms were clean and elegantly decorated and furnished, and at once they knew it had possibilities. A week later they had arranged to buy it. A survey had been carried out and an architect consulted to deal with the enlargement of three rooms into one with a series of arches.
For a while, Margaret forgot her aching need to revenge herself on Edward.
In the garden of the old shop, Frank was scraping rubbish together with two large pieces of wood, using them like paddles to draw the assorted oddments togeti1er before picking them up and putting them into a sack. Something stuck against the wood stopping its movement and irritably he pulled at the rubble and dead branches and long, dead grass and found a wrapped candlestick. It looked rather fancy and for a moment he thought of taking it to sell, but conscience prevailed and he put it aside to show Edward.
They went together to the police station and showed them the candlestick and it was quickly recognised as being a part of the haul when Sally and Ryan’s house was robbed.
Megan came to tell him and she was still there when the police came to interview Edward about how it had been discovered.
“All I can tell you is that it was found among the rubbish when Frank Griffiths was scraping up the last of the rubble from the building work,” Edward told them. “If you speak to Frank he’ll be able to give more details. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that at least one item has been found. Perhaps there’ll be a clue as to where the rest is hidden?”
“We’d like permission to search your property, sir. Here and Montague Court.”
“My property? But of course, although as it was found out here, there doesn’t seem much point.”
The stony-faced policeman then asked, “Can you give me your movements on the afternoon of the robbery, sir?”
Alarmed, Edward thought a moment then shook his head.
“My movements are no longer regular I’m afraid. I spend a lot of time at Montague Court with my sister, and a lot of time here, with Frank Griffiths. It’s impossible for me to remember exactly where I was at a given time.”
Quirking an eyebrow, the policeman asked, “You wouldn’t be thinking of using Frank Griffiths as an alibi would you?”
“Why not? He found it and handed it in, didn’t he? I’ve found Frank to be hard-working and honest, so I can’t allow you to make me say otherwise.”
“This property, sir,” he waved his arms expressively, “it’s an expensive undertaking?”
“I can cope, constable.”
“I’m sure you can, sir. Thank you for your help. We’ll be in touch.”
“He thinks I did it!” Edward gasped.
“How exciting,” Megan laughed.
When the shop basement was finally cleared, Frank and his father found a sink with a tap, previously hidden in a corner, and also what looked like a junction for a gas appliance on an opposite wall. Both had been boarded up but the sink drained satisfactorily, and water gurgled, spluttered and eventually flowed, brown and rusty, from its solitary brass tap. They showed it to Edward with great pride, as though they were responsible for it being there and were offering it to him as a prize.
“Someone must have lived down here at one time,” Edward said when he showed Megan. “Perhaps I could rent it out and earn a few pounds to help things along. Frank said his brother Basil might be able to find a bed and table and the rest, although I might get what I need from Montague Court. We will want it decorated though.”
“Another job for Frank Griffiths,” Megan smiled. “D’you think he’ll cope with such regular work?”
“If he does, I gather it will be the longest gap between court appearances since he was nine!”