Eleanor took the book from Chris, handling it delicately. She turned it over. She knew what it was: The Young Detectives by R.J. McGregor. She didn’t remember the author although she had read and re-read the book many times. The story was a memory more vivid than life, as for Eleanor most stories had always been.
‘This was brilliant,’ she breathed. ‘Mrs Skoda read it to our class when I was seven, but the summer term finished before she got to the end. I bought it in the holidays with my birthday money and read it tucked up in that chair one rainy afternoon.’ She went over and, as if in illustration of her eight-year-old self, settled down in a dirty brown armchair by the fireplace that Chris hadn’t noticed before.
As she flicked through the dusty yellowed pages it all became clear.
‘There was a secret passage in a window seat, just like those ones under the windows. You had to open and shut the window in a certain way to release the catch on the seat.’ Chris was staring at the doll’s house and didn’t appear to be listening. Eleanor continued to herself:
‘I tried it with these seats, but the lids are stuck fast.’
Eleanor dropped the book on to the floor. The story had got mixed up in her mind with real life.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m tired, that’s all.’ Someone was standing close to Eleanor’s chair but Chris would only repeat that she’d gone mad if she told her. ‘Let’s go, or they’ll be coming to get us. It’s eleven-fifteen already.’
‘Why did he leave me this?’ Chris waved a hand at the doll’s house.
‘I imagine he wanted a child to have it. Even a grownup one.’
‘But Gina might have children.’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘She won’t. He knew that.’
‘Why, is she sterile?’ Chris thought of Gina, who only seemed to cheer up in front of a horse.
‘No.’
Eleanor dragged open the front of the doll’s house. It was coated in thick dust. A bird had got into the playroom, there were splashes of dried droppings along the roof of the house and down its front. She marched her fingers down the top passageway lined with minute oak panels and stopped at the top of the stairs. She could get no further. She had once tried and got her arm stuck. Gina had grazed it as she pulled it out. Eleanor’s face loomed into the bedroom where she and Gina had slept until she had to move because Gina grew older and too grumpy to share.
‘Warmer…’
‘Do you know where Alice is?’ Chris’s voice was harsh behind her.
Eleanor pushed her hand in as far as she could go and tapped the wood panelling on the landing. It made a hollow sound.
‘Hot!’
But then so did all the walls in the doll’s house. Eleanor shut the frontage sharply and got to her feet.
‘You know who killed her, don’t you.’
‘I think so.’
Eleanor was aware of a different kind of silence. There was no bird song, no scratching at the windows or creaking floorboards, only an uncanny quiet, final as death enveloping the dimly lit room. The sense of a presence other than themselves had quietly evaporated. Through the open window came the smell of wood smoke. Cedarwood. Eleanor’s favourite…once upon a time.
Eleanor was afraid. Her daughter had an expression on her face that Eleanor couldn’t fathom, that she had only ever seen once before on a human being. That time she had managed to get away. She wouldn’t get a second chance.
She had no more lives left.
‘So, who was it?’ She would make her Mum say the name.
‘It’s a long story. Some of it may not be true.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’
‘It starts that Tuesday afternoon in the main street of the Tide Mills. I took you there. It’s where the Sainsbury’s…’
‘Yes, yes, go on.’ Chris leaned against the space hopper and shut her eyes, the way she had always done when her Mum told one of her stories. It made them more real.
Thirty
It seemed to Alice that her voice was fading away. When she spoke, each number came out soft and flutey, and she imagined herself as a distant pigeon and not a girl at all. The heat was making her feel queasy and as she squinted in the direction in which Eleanor had rushed off, she seemed to float above the chalky path for it heaved and swelled at her feet.
‘One… two… three… four… five…’
Everything went black.
Enormous hands clamped over her eyes, and soft firm fingers pressed into her eye sockets making the darkness fleck with bright red arrows. As Alice tried to scream, one hand moved down her face to her mouth shutting it. This meant she could see again.
‘It’s okay, Alice. It’s me.’ Hot words whispered in her ear and the hands turned her to face him. Even with her eyes open, Alice still saw dancing darts, like sparklers. He had his back to the sun so she couldn’t see his face. But by now she was relaxed. She knew who he was.
Doctor Ramsay crouched down to Alice’s level, one knee on the stony path that had once been the Tide Mill’s busy main street, resting his elbow on his other knee. For a moment Alice imagined he was going to propose like the prince in Cinderella. She flinched as he stretched out and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, whipped out his handkerchief, and went through the motions of dusting her down. She tried to stand stock still throughout; it annoyed her Mum when she wriggled during hair brushing.
‘Did I frighten you?’
‘Not really. Perhaps at first, until I saw it was you.’ She grinned. She was pleased to see him. He spidered around on his haunches so that the sun shone properly on his face. Now Alice could see fine drops of water on his forehead and she wanted to reach and wipe them away in return. The sun was beating down on their heads, no wonder he was sweating. But just as this idea was forming, Doctor Ramsay did it himself, mopping his hankie across his face as if in a hurry.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I wanted to catch you before you finished counting and dashed off. I suppose you’ve been roped into playing hide and seek again, have you?’ The doctor looked quickly back up the path towards the outhouses and the last remaining cottage. There was no movement from the remains of the Mill Owner’s house, the ruins were choked by ivy and nettles. Tall straggling blackberry bushes had obliterated the once flourishing pear orchard. Alice knew Eleanor wasn’t hiding there. She nearly told Doctor Ramsay this, but she was grateful for his help. She had guessed he understood how horrible it was playing games with Eleanor.
‘It’s my turn to look. I don’t know where to start, Eleanor has so many secret places. And really we’re not supposed to be here anyway.’
Instantly Alice knew she shouldn’t have pointed this out, she was assuming too much too soon. Doctor Ramsay might not really be her friend. Eleanor might have sent him as a spy to test whether Alice was a traitor. Eleanor had made it clear that treachery was a terrible crime.
‘You’re quite right, it is dangerous here. What if one of you fell and hurt yourself? Who would be there to help? People tend not to come here, the locals think it’s haunted.’ He guffawed, his head going back, so that Alice could see down his throat.
Doctor Ramsay thought ghosts were stupid. This changed everything. Alice’s Mum insisted that their old cottage was haunted and had kept on at her Dad to ask the Post Office to find them another place to live. He had stayed up one night in the living room with all the lights off to prove to her it wasn’t. No ghost had appeared, but she had said ghosts didn’t show themselves to everyone. Now Alice laughed loudly too. Of course ghosts were stupid.