Freya North 3-Book Collection: Secrets, Chances, Rumours

Returning to the house, Joe thought he must be losing the plot for thinking how the house seemed deserted without that little lot. Then he scolded himself as a soft sod for again liking the way Tess said ‘home’. She never referred to the Resolution as the house, or your house – nor to the phone as the landline or house phone. Home was the word she always employed, whenever she could. Conversely, he chose not to use it much – the word or the place. He didn't want to hang around; he wanted to be on his way, with his London head on. But still he looked in at Tess's room and Emmeline's before he went. The doors had been closed but he left them ajar; as if inviting the new spirit those rooms now exuded to emanate through the house.

He'd miss them.

For fuck's sake, what was he thinking.

It took the rest of the day for the residual feelings from her dreams to dissipate and by the following morning, Tess felt restored. She also felt more than ready to tackle the tasks she'd set herself. One of which was to keep the doors to Joe's study and bedroom firmly shut.

It was fine and dry and Tess decided to make a start on the boot and utility rooms, taking all the old boots and coats into the garden. She pegged the jackets on the washing line, chucked onto the bonfire heap a waxed jacket so old and neglected that the fabric had cracked, shook out a dusty jumper and decided it still had life in it and just needed a wash. She thought about adding the gumboots to the bonfire pile, so ancient that the rubber had blanched and disintegrated, but she decided to dump them directly in the bin. The same fate awaited the single flip-flop. As it did the golf umbrella that, when opened, rattled and spewed its broken spokes like a science-lab skeleton that had come unscrewed. Anyway, Tess didn't think Joe was the umbrella type. He probably just turned his collar up against inclement weather. Or donned one of those yellow hard hats. She'd come across two already, had tried one on but resisted the urge to fit the straps and take a look.

With all the footwear out on the lawn either airing or awaiting their fate by fire or bin, she came across a bootjack. It was in the shape of a beetle, its antennae forming the heel grip, and she liked it so she gave it a reprieve. It would only need a clean and a lick of black gloss paint. However, the boot scraper resembling a hedgehog with a thatch of old coir as the spines was dumped without a second thought. It had turned mostly green, was covered with cobwebs, with evidence of large spiders lurking beneath. Sizeable ones had already made their displeasure known when Tess first started to clear out the utility room, putting themselves and Tess into a scuttle of panic.

On the shelves above the washing machine and tumble drier, crates were stacked; some plastic, some wood, some full, some empty. So that's where the spare light bulbs are. And batteries. Now Em's little singing tortoise could finally make music again! Jesus, how many packets of fuses does a man need? Rat poison? Meths? And what the hell is this stuff, with the skull and crossbones emblazoned all over it? Tess bagged it before she binned it.

She sorted through myriad items. Many were destined for the bin. A few would be better off living in one of the kitchen drawers. Some would stay in the utility room. Others needed to go into one of the garden sheds – but she'd have to sort those out too and they were currently padlocked. It amused her trying to correlate this Joe-of-the-Utility-Room with the Joe-of-the-Study. She wondered what Joe-in-London was doing. Then she told herself to change the subject.

As if reading her mind, Wolf scrambled up from his snooze in a barrage of barking and belted past Tess out into the garden. That mangy cat, no doubt. She was too engrossed in her sifting, and knew Wolf well enough by now, to think much of it. Into an old wooden wine crate (which she thought would scrub up nicely itself and could be re-employed elsewhere), she piled the items that were to live in the kitchen and took them through.

And there, she froze.

There was someone outside.

This time, there really was. It wasn't a shadow. It wasn't her imagination. It wasn't her reflection.

There was definitely someone out there looking in at her, and this time they weren't darting away.

So why wasn't Wolf continuing to bark?

And what could an elderly lady want? All the way up here? Was she lost?

And if she was smiling benignly, why did Tess feel rooted to the spot?

It was because something she couldn't yet decipher was oddly familiar.

The woman knocked on the window, as if unsure whether Tess had seen her though they were observing each other directly. She waved; the kind of gesture that suggested she was popping by for a prearranged cuppa. Then she disappeared from view. This was like a starter's gun for Tess and she hurried out through the utility room taking Wolf's route.

And there he was, the great oaf. Some guard dog. There he was, sitting beside the intruder looking very relaxed by the state of his lolling tongue. She was wearing sturdy lace-up shoes and dark tan tights and she had no ankles to speak of. Her hair was styled in a vague approximation of the Queen's and, though she was quite upright in figure, her coat was buttoned up wrong and her eyes were pale and searching. Though Tess realized she certainly was not ancient, she did appear infirm. One arm lolled by her side. The other hand was busy in her pocket. She was sneaking out treats for Wolf while she looked at Tess, as if she was waiting for her to make the first move. She certainly didn't have the air of a trespasser about her.

‘Hullo?’ said Tess.

‘Hullo, dear.’

‘Can I help you?’

The lady laughed. ‘I was about to ask you the same thing. I live here, dear – what were you doing in my kitchen?’

In the short time it took for Tess to wonder how on earth to respond to this, she watched the lady become visibly puzzled. Her thin lips worked over her teeth as if she was in deep conversation with herself. Suddenly, she'd aged. She touched her hand to her hair, pressing firmly through to her head as if to check it was still there. Doing so left an indentation in her hairstyle.

‘I just popped out to the shops. To get something. Didn't I?’ She looked at Tess. ‘Can you remember what?’ Wolf was trying to put his nose right into her pocket. ‘Stop it, Wolf,’ she said.

She knew the dog's name. And then Tess knew why. She walked over to her and held out her hand – not for the lady to shake, but for her to take as support.

‘I'm Tess,’ she said kindly.

‘I'm Mrs Saunders,’ the lady said, holding onto Tess as a child holds onto their mother. ‘But you can call me Mary.’

Tess felt tears prick but had no idea why they were there. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘Lovely, dear,’ Mary said. ‘I think I probably baked a cake yesterday too. If Wolf hasn't scoffed it.’

They sat at the kitchen table, the contemplative, measured tock from the grandfather clock in the hallway adding a soothing structure.

‘Sugar?’

‘Two, please. Though I used to be sweet enough.’

Mary enjoyed the way Tess laughed at this.

‘Biscuit?’

‘Well!’ She took one daintily, as if she was taking tea at the palace.

‘Joe isn't here,’ Tess said.

‘I should hope not! Unless he's playing hooky from school. He'll be home soon enough.’

‘Soon enough.’ And Tess thought, won't you come home, Joe – won't you come home and see who's here?

Every now and then Mary looked at Tess with momentary confusion but didn't seem to mind being unable to quite place her. It was as if Tess's benign presence rendered insignificant the finer details of who she was and why she was here. Crumbs spittled from Mary's mouth and she dabbed them away. Tess noted her hands were elegant but the nails were uneven and the skin was not only blemished with age; it was also dry and thin from lack of attention. She spread her own fingers out across the edge of the table, like a pianist about to play. Mary took note.

‘Not married yet?’

Tess shrugged and shook her head.

‘Joe'll be down on bended knee – when he's back from university. Though what sort of life he can offer you, I don't know. Now – if he'd followed the family path to the doctor's door, well, that would be a different situation altogether.’

‘I don't mind that he's not a doctor,’ Tess found herself replying before pulling herself up sharp and wondering if facilitating a confused lady's imaginings was tantamount to fraud – or cruelty.

‘What's that?’ Mary looked through to the hallway at much the same time that Wolf took himself off to sit at the bottom of the stairs with his ear cocked.

‘It's the baby,’ Tess said.

‘The baby?’

Tess thought about it. ‘Little baby Emmeline,’ she said. ‘She'll be waking from her nap.’

‘Little baby Emmeline,’ Mary murmured, as if convincing herself that she'd only momentarily forgotten about little baby Emmeline.

If Em hadn't quite woken from her nap then the sharp rapping at the door-knocker and the clangorous din of the doorbell certainly ensured she had.