‘Damn woman,’ Bandit cursed as he glanced up at the hotel and saw Madeleine watching him from the window. Raising the axe high above his head, he brought it down with a satisfying thud, making the log split in two and fall to the ground. He scooped up the logs that he’d previously cut and threw them into the wheelbarrow that stood by his side. It was still early autumn and without the glow of embers in the open fires, the house could easily turn cool at night. Besides, the reception rooms always looked much nicer with the logs alight, the guests preferred it, and it was his job to ensure that there was enough dry wood to keep each of the three fires going right through the winter. But he knew he had to be ahead of his game, this wood would need to be stacked and dried out for at least six months before it would be ready to burn.
He saw the back door open and watched as Morris Pocklington emerged.
‘Look, I’m really sorry about last night. I didn’t know that Madeleine was your daughter,’ Bandit said, pre-empting the conversation that he guessed was about to happen.
‘She’s pretty pissed at you,’ Morris replied with a laugh. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to get on the wrong side of her.’
‘Shouldn’t be going round pretending to be a burglar then, should she?’ Bandit fired back as he picked up another log and brought the axe down to split it. He hadn’t even known that the boss had a daughter, so he couldn’t be blamed for not knowing who she was when he’d seen her creeping around like a hunting tiger, looking for its next meal. But tigress she was not. He’d seen the way she’d looked up at him like a frightened doe in the darkness. Her eyes wide open with fear. She’d appeared vulnerable yet powerful, and timid yet fiery, all at once. She was so similar to the type of women he’d encountered in the marines. Women who could cut you down with words at ten paces, or shoot you from a distance and, to be honest, he wasn’t sure he wanted to encounter women like that again. Not after Karen.
‘You don’t like her?’ Morris asked as he stepped up on the log to perch on the fence and pushed his hands deep in his pockets.
Bandit bit his lip. ‘I barely know her.’
He thought of the deep musky perfume that she’d been wearing; its scent had annoyingly stayed with him through the night. She’d had a feisty personality, a spark about her that could have lit a campfire from a distance, yet he couldn’t work out what annoyed him the most; her high spirits, her feisty personality or the vulnerability that shone from within. None of them could possibly be a good thing.
‘Afghanistan, it changed you, Bandit.’
It was true. Afghanistan had changed him. Karen had changed him. ‘I know.’
‘Do you want to talk about it yet?’
‘No, I don’t.’ The words were sharp, harsh and meant to stop the conversation. The very last thing he ever wanted to talk about was Afghanistan. Just the thought made his palms begin to sweat and he rubbed them down his jeans as he felt his whole body begin to tremble. He wanted to close his eyes, but couldn’t. On some nights there was no sleep at all, some nights he’d sleep for an hour or two, but then the nightmares would begin. Every sudden noise reminded him of the explosion, every beach reminded him of the desert and every woman reminded him of Karen. Everything that had happened played on his mind. One minute he’d been part of an elite group, the next he was flying home: inadequate, alone and uncertain of his future.
The only thing that he had ever been certain of in his life had been his father and his home, the gatehouse at Wrea Head Hall. The whole estate had drawn him in, surrounded him with the safety blanket that he liked and needed. He looked up at the hall and the grounds that surrounded it. It was beautiful.
He walked away from where Morris was perched. He walked over to the fence and made his way beyond the stables, sitting down on the grass and out of view. He allowed himself to glance back at the hall again, to the window where Madeleine had been standing, but she was no longer there.
He stared into the distance and took long, deep breaths. It was the only way he could rest, the only way the flashbacks would stay away.
A noise in the grounds attracted his attention and he looked across to see Madeleine as she walked towards the trees. With her was a young girl and a spaniel, who ran back and forth at a hundred miles an hour.
Ignoring them, he looked back at the gatehouse. It was his home, where his father had lived before him. A place so precious to him that he had to keep it at all costs, because one day, when he was well enough, he’d bring his father back here to live.
Bandit thought of how his father’s eyes would light up each time the gatehouse was mentioned and how he could recall the past, the history and the gatehouse’s connection with Wrea Head Hall.
Bandit smiled as he thought of what his father had said during his last visit. ‘I liked the lady. I’d go through the tunnels each Sunday for tea.’
He shook his head. His father certainly had a good imagination, or did he? Could the tunnels that he spoke of really exist? Could he have really gone through them to visit the hall? And if he had, why would he have gone every Sunday for tea? The thought of a secret tunnel had intrigued him for years, but he’d never found any evidence of them existing. It was as though every time the name of the house was mentioned it sparked a memory, and his father would repeat the same things over and over. The words were always about the gatehouse, about a lady, the tunnels and about the hall. Bandit knew that somewhere deep within his father’s mind were many memories that were locked away and the truth may be lost forever, but the house was still there and so was its history. All he had to do was help his father unlock the memories that were trapped within his mind and hopefully, by doing so, bring his father back to the present.