The Keeper of Secrets. Amanda Brooke

       2

      The house had been devoid of life for less than two weeks but it was already beginning to smell of dank decay. The two-bedroom workman’s cottage had one main reception room and a single-storey extension which provided a decent-sized kitchen. It had been her parents’ home for the whole of their married life and they had never seriously considered moving anywhere else; or, to be more precise, Harry had never seriously considered moving anywhere else. He had spent over a decade at sea before settling down and said that a larger house would have unsettled him. His wife, on the other hand, was far less enamoured with confined spaces. The construction of the extension twenty years ago had been the direct result of her constant complaints to Harry and the landlord. Anne had still thought the rest of the house small and pokey but she told people she would put up with it just like she put up with Harry, with a half-smile that revealed her true feelings. The cottage’s only redeeming feature was the garden, which was narrow and long with a wooden shed tucked beneath the shade of a large sycamore tree. This was where her dad would escape to when her mum wanted some ‘space’.

      ‘Leave the door open, sweetheart,’ Elle said to Charlie as she made the short journey from front door to the centre of the living room, where she dropped a stack of flattened cardboard boxes onto the floor.

      It was a blustery day and didn’t take long for the cold breeze to whip away the musty, tobacco-tainted air. The closed curtains billowed and the flickering grey light brought ghostly shapes to life. Elle quickly pulled the drapes open wide to chase the shadows out of the room, but then took a moment before turning back to face the last remnants of her parents’ life. When she did turn it was Charlie’s beaming smile that greeted her and this gave her the courage to stay. His chubby cheeks were ruby red from the cold and his blue eyes sparkled with ice fire. The sight of his unruly mop of hair made her instinctively bring a hand to her own head where she found a rogue blonde curl that had escaped her ponytail. She tucked it behind her ear and smoothed down the rest in an effort to keep the frizz under control.

      ‘Can I go out and play?’ he asked.

      Elle raised an eyebrow. ‘Can I stop you?’

      Charlie narrowed his eyes. ‘No,’ he said with as much defiance as he dared.

      ‘Only in the back garden, and on the condition that you stay relatively clean and dry,’ Elle told him. She knew that she would get through far more without Charlie at her side asking endless questions about what she was doing and why.

      ‘How clean is rel-ative-ly?’ he asked, struggling to get his tongue around the last word.

      ‘I have one extra set of clothes for you, so if you get too wet or dirty and need to change then you won’t be going out into the garden for the rest of the weekend.’

      Charlie considered his options. ‘OK, I can do that,’ he agreed.

      A moment later, when Elle had unlocked the back door and released Charlie into what limited sunlight a bleak February morning had to offer, she realized her mistake. The house was immediately emptied of life and the sense of abandonment hit her with such force that it knocked the breath out of her with a gasp.

      She glanced around the kitchen, searching out anything that would anchor her and staunch the tears. Lined up along the shelves was an assortment of jars in tight formation. They were empty and dusty now but had once been filled and refilled with homemade relishes, pickles and jams. The kitchen had been her mum’s domain and Elle could imagine her standing in front of a bubbling pot on the stove while barking orders to her dad in the next room. The memory brought no comfort so she fled to the living room where her eyes were immediately drawn to her dad’s favourite armchair with its dented cushions that had moulded to his shape over the years. The upholstery was careworn and the colours bleached by sunshine that belonged to long-lost summers. Elle’s sight was blurred by tears but she could see her dad sitting there quite clearly with a mug of tea in his hand, pulling faces behind her mum’s back as she continued to nag. It was a scene that once would have brought on a fit of giggles from their daughter but not now. Another sob escaped.

      The back door had been left ajar for Charlie but the front was open too so fresh air was being sucked into the house with a vengeance. Without warning the back door slammed shut and jolted her back from the precipice. She stepped into the small vestibule and closed the front door, silencing the wind and allowing a sense of peace to settle around her. Then she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this.

      Elle had always wanted to be the kind of daughter her parents could be proud of, and they had been, first when she qualified as a nurse and then shortly afterwards when she met and married Rick. He was doing well in his career even then and with the generous support of his parents they had enough money to put down a deposit on a grand house in Southport. Within three years she had become a fulltime wife and mother and was doing far better in life than her parents had ever dreamed possible. The only thing she couldn’t improve upon was their marriage, although she hid it well. She had become an expert at making everyone else happy; everyone except herself.

      Rapidly coming to the conclusion that giving in to self-pity was too exhausting, she steeled her emotions to face what needed to be done. Willing herself to be strong, she started systematically going through cupboards and separating treasured items to be kept from the jumble that would be binned or recycled. Whether she realized it or not, she was also looking for a small lock to match the brass key from the stolen watch.

      In no time at all, boxes and bags began to pile up and Elle only briefly stopped for lunch. Even Charlie was reluctant to take time out. He hadn’t been put off by the bad weather and gobbled up his sandwiches as quickly as he could so he could return to the fresh air that had upgraded his cheeks from bright pink to neon red.

      She spent the afternoon emptying her dad’s writing bureau. Rick had already rifled through the hoard of papers that Harry had crammed into its drawers and taken away a box full of documents that he said would help him settle the estate. The detritus waiting to be sorted included stacks of old bills that Harry should have thrown out long ago and a collection of keepsakes which sentimentality ruled that he could not. He had even kept hold of an assortment of greetings cards and Elle was trying to build up the courage to throw them out when the phone rang.

      ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ Angie asked. ‘Are you at your dad’s house yet?’

      ‘Yes and no,’ Elle answered then added, ‘or should that be no and yes? I’m at Dad’s, but you’re not disturbing me. In