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  Sarah opened yet another cupboard and discovered a collection of cast-iron saucepans and various sized baking tins. She decided that she’d leave that for now and was just closing the door when she spotted something lying in one of the tins. It turned out to be a plain brown envelope with ‘Rupert’ scrawled across the front. Sarah picked it up and noticed that the flap wasn’t sealed. It might have once been sealed, but the poor quality glue had long age become granular and useless. Without really thinking she peered inside and extracted a small piece of flowery notepaper. For some reason she opened it up and started to read and then wished with all her heart that she hadn’t. She remembered the story of Pandora’s box and this envelope was now well and truly open. It was a letter from Anna to Rupert, in fact a last letter from Anna to Rupert as it was her suicide note. She glanced nervously at the door and then at the recumbent Hoof, and then re-read the letter.

  My Dearest Rupert,

  Last week my worst fears were realised when after a second MRI scan Peter was diagnosed as having a fast growing inoperable brain tumour. We both know that there is something wrong with him and his current behaviour, but I never expected a death sentence to be passed on him.

  I could not bear to stand by and watch him deteriorate into a gibbering wreck with no quality of life, neither do I wish to live if the only good thing in my life is taken away.

  Please do not think ill of me, I love you dearly. Thank you for rescuing me from the sloth of despond and for being better than a father to Peter. The last ten years have been the most contented years of my life – please do not grieve too much for me as I’ve already taken too much of your life and I have moved on to a better place.

  Your loving sister.

  Anna

  Sarah methodically put the letter back into the envelope and placed the envelope back in the tin. Then after a moment’s thought she put the envelope in her back pocket. She needed time to think; was it possible, was it really possible, that Rupert had never discovered this note in four years? And if he did so now what effect would it have on him? She felt a slight unease at what she was doing, but she consoled herself with the fact that she could always put the envelope back in its original hiding place. Her musings were interrupted by Hoof who, without warning, sprang into life and rushed out of the kitchen. Sarah realised that Rupert had returned.

  Rupert paused in the hallway. There was music coming from the kitchen and a light shining through the doorway, he almost automatically called out, ‘Anna I’m back,’ but realised in time that it must be Sarah in the kitchen. He took a deep breath to gain some emotional control and started across the dining room; confronting Sarah was bad enough, confronting her in Anna’s kitchen was almost unendurable. He managed to get to the doorway and then stopped as Hoff ambled past him and resettled himself on the rug by the Aga. That simple act by his dog almost caused Rupert to scream. Sarah looked at him and was shocked at how dreadful he looked, his face was white, his hands were trembling and he had a sort of glazed expression. She began to wonder if her meddling in the kitchen was wise. He waved a hand, “You don’t have to do this.”

  Sarah decided on a nonchalant approach, “Can’t sit round doing nothing, thought it would be a help, but…”

  She noticed Rupert swallow as if forcing back something indigestible and disgusting, “No, it’s fine, the place probably needs a clean as I never use it.” His voice sounded all strained and hoarse.

  “Mind if I clean out the ‘fridge?”

  He managed a nod. She suddenly felt the envelope in her back pocket as if it were on fire. “Did you find me a billet?”

  He looked away as if about to pronounce a death sentence with the words being forced out in short staccato sentences. “No, you’ll have to stay here. You can’t possible sleep in your cab. You’ll freeze to death. Flosse farm is full. Ma Jones can’t take you. I have a spare bedroom and you’re very welcome to stay here.”

  The last sentence sounded false and hollow and Sarah realised that whatever was bothering Rupert it was obviously taking him a great effort to tell her she could stay. He suddenly turned around, “I’ll show you.”

  Sarah put down a cleaning cloth and followed him up the stairs, at the top he pointed to a door at the far end of the landing, “There.”

  He stood stock still as if powerless to move, she eased herself past him and walked down the landing. After a moments hesitation she opened the door. The room was like nothing else in the house, for a start it was all neat and tidy and secondly it was very feminine with floral curtains and a kidney shaped dressing table with matching drapes and a triple mirror placed in a corner. She took two steps in and looked around, what she was seeing hit her after about twenty seconds; it was not a spare room, it was a memorial. She turned and faced Rupert who had crept up behind her, “Thank you Rupert, but I really can’t sleep in here, the settee in the lounge will be fine.”

  She thought that Rupert was going to faint as he rocked gently backwards and forwards and eventually croaked, “No, I insist, please sleep here.”

  He suddenly sprang past her into the room like an animated scarecrow. He gabbled, “And feel free to use whatever you find. You can’t possibly wear the same cloths for days on end.”

  He waved his arms around and then fled from the room as if it were haunted and the hounds of hell were after him. Sarah stood still for a minute and then walked around the room without touching anything. There was a small picture on the dressing table of a slightly plump dark haired young woman with a hook nose and really serious black eyebrows sitting next to a young boy in a school uniform. Sarah could almost imagine this dark-haired woman conducting one last meticulous tidy up of this room before… Sarah shook her head and opened the wardrobe door to the left of a small fireplace. It was full of clothes; Sarah rapidly shut it and moved over to the door on the other side. She expected more clothes, but found a very steep enclosed staircase. She bit her bottom lip and climbed it; she needed no telling who the room at the top had belonged to.

  Rupert had managed to get to the bathroom before he was sick. He heaved into the WC pan and shook violently as he sat back on his legs. He said to himself, “It is right! I must…” He didn’t complete the sentence as he threw himself forward to retch into the pan again.

  Sarah, after her brief excursion into Peter’s room, exited Anna’s bedroom and went to sit on the stairs. She unconsciously sat on the fifth stair from the bottom and tried to think. When she had been a child she had always retreated to the staircase in her home so that she could both avoid the rest of the family and sit in relative peace, so subconsciously she repeated the old pattern and did the same now. Somehow she had found herself in an extremely awkward position; if she did sleep in the bedroom it was obvious that Rupert would find it excruciatingly difficult. She heard him being sick in the bathroom and decided that that ‘excruciatingly difficult’ was an understatement. On the other hand if she did not she would have to sleep in the lounge, at least there was a lock on the inside of the bedroom door. She was also beginning to feel used. She didn’t think that Rupert was deliberately using her, but her presence in the house and sleeping in Anna’s bedroom was forcing him to face some demons from the past. She placed her head in her hands, “Oh God,” she said to herself, “what on earth do I do?”

  Norman and Julia were also sitting on a set of stairs waiting for their dad to leave the kitchen and go into the lounge. He always went into the lounge if he was in during the afternoons and Norman had told his brothers to make themselves scarce so that they could have some time alone together. Suddenly the kitchen door opened and his father walked down the hall humming to himself and went into the lounge. Julia patted him on the shoulder and he muttered to himself that he was 34 and a grown man and followed his father down the hall; the time had come.

  Chapter 6

  Decisions

  Buster looked at the clock and sighed. It was three o’clock and time for his afternoon rounds. In this sort of weather there was absolute
ly no point in undertaking them, but with Maria and Jeremy on the warpath to not go would be a recipe for a tongue lashing. He carefully donned some wellington boots, an all-weather overcoat and a cloth cap and exited the house by the back door, which he carefully locked behind him.

  Rupert came out of the bathroom and sat, somewhat weakly, on the top step of the stairs. Sarah skewed herself round to look at him, he looked worse than dreadful. She tried for a smile, “How about I clear out one of the other bedrooms?”

  He shuddered and feebly shook his head. Sarah tried a different tack, “How about I just go?”

  His eyes opened wide and he shook his head, “No way, I’ll not be responsible for your death.” He said huskily.

  At the word death he screwed up his eyes. Silence ensued until Sarah said quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She thought that he hadn’t heard, then in a quiet sort of abstract voice he mumbled, “It’s difficult. I keep expecting her to come back through the doorway. I know in my head that she’s gone, but I just can’t bring myself to believe it.”

  Sarah replied softly, “What happened?” Trying to ignore the discomforting feeling around her back pocket.

  He took some time to answer, then it was as if every word was being dragged out of him under duress. “Peter went to school at West Dereham, it’s 2.95 miles as the crow flies and the council would only provide transport if it were more than 3 miles, so we took it in turns to drive him to school every day. She took him on a Wednesday and never came back.”

  Sarah probed a bit more, she just had to know what he thought had happened. “So it was a car crash?”

  He nodded, “The road is dead straight for a mile and then there is a sharp turn to the right with a giant Oak tree on the outside of the bend. The police say that she went into the tree at way over 80mph. She must have been in a hurry and then distracted.”

  He fell silent, but Sarah now knew enough to know that he had no idea that Jenny intended to drive into the tree. He suddenly looked up, “And neither of them was wearing a seat belt, she always put the belts on, she…”

  He fell silent again while his body shook with racking sobs; Sarah wondered what to do next.

  Buster eyed the mound of snow suspiciously. It obviously covered a car, but there had not been a car in this position this morning, so how come it was here now if the roads were closed? He looked around, but the snow had been blowing about for hours and there were no discernible tracks. He cleared some snow off the bonnet and uncovered a Mitsubishi motif. He shuffled up to the passenger’s window and cleared away the snow to peer inside. A clear female voice said from behind, “It’s alright, they’re up at the farm.”

  He sprang round to face a duffel-coated, gum-booted figure with a multicoloured bobble hat. From the gap between the bobble hat and a matching woollen scarf a pair of intelligent brown eyes peered out at him. He automatically estimated her size; taller than him by half a head, well built and too far away for him to jump, not that he had to. The eyes blinked, “Sorry if I startled you, I’m Julia Flosse.”

  She held out a mittened hand and he shook it with his black gloved hand noting the power in her grip and the length of her arm. “Buster Smith.”

  He waved an arm around, “Out for a walk?”

  She giggled, well she made some sort of noise under the scarf which fully covered her mouth. “Family’s having a row so it’s better out here.”

  Buster nodded, family rows he could understand. Julia pointed vaguely towards Ambrose House, “Is it true that you their minder?”

  Buster’s face smiled while his mind was scowling inside, his job was supposed to be a secret. “Not quite, chauffeur, general assistant, but not really a minder.”

  Julia laughed, “So a general assistant who goes out twice a day in all weathers to walk round the village at exactly the same time every day.”

  Buster resolved to change his routine, “I like a walk.” He replied nonchalantly.

  The clothed head nodded, “I like a walk to, I just like to see the countryside change – it’s different every day.”

  Buster decided to probe a little, had she been watching him? “Work on the farm do you?”

  “No fear, I’m a schoolteacher at Brandon High, PE and maths.”

  He tapped the car, “So who was in this?”

  Julia thumped her mittened hands together, “Some dotty estate agent and her client. He wants to buy the Trembine Arms to turn it into a Yoga centre.”

  Buster could hear the scorn in her voice, “You don’t reckon much to the idea?”

  She shrugged, “Don’t go in for Yoga and he’s not exactly an advert for calm, more like a cat on hot bricks since he’s been stuck here.”

  Warning bells rang in Buster’s brain, “What’s he look like?”

  Julia shuffled from one foot to the other, “’Bout six foot tall, medium build, dark hair, skin like a baby’s bottom and a face like an angel.”

  “Eyes?”

  “Brown?”

  “Accent?”

  “Oxford – say you really are a minder.”

  Buster twitched his nose. He didn’t recognise the description, but Jeremy had acquired many enemies with his ruthless pursuance of gambling debts and ‘loan’ repayments. Julia half turned to keep the wind on her back, “He really is a yoga instructor, he’s spent half his time with us on the phone arranging and cancelling courses. He says that being snowed in here is costing him a fortune.”

  Buster relaxed slightly, “And her?”

  Julia shook her muffled head, “If you want more I’ll only do it in the warm, I’m bloody freezing to death out here.”

  Buster weighed up his options, “How about a hot toddy?”

  “Sounds grand.”

  Buster gave a last look around, for what it was worth in the dreadful visibility and led her towards Ambrose House.

  Sarah held onto Rupert as he sobbed into her shoulder. She had let her maternal instincts take over and climbed the stairs to give Rupert a hug. It had always worked with her younger brother and she thought that it might be working now. She only hoped that she wasn’t storing up some dreadful legacy for the future.

  Norman exited the lounge, slamming the door with a violent malevolence, and stormed up the stairs. His brother Mark was now sitting on the top step, “Didn’t go well then?”

  Norman snarled, “No it bloody didn’t.”

  Mark nodded, “Could hear you shouting up in the attic.”

  “He called me wastrel and told me that if I thought there was any money in acting for me I needed my head examined.”

  Mark smiled, “He told me that I’d never get an architect’s practice to employ me and Bill that he’d never get medical degree. So far he’s been wrong every time.”

  Norman went to pass but Mark laid a hand on his ankle as he said quietly, “The farm’s been his life Norman.”

  Norman sighed and sat down next to Mark, “But it’s not my life Mark, much as I love this place it’s not my life.”

  Mark nodded, “But it is Colin’s life. We all know that Colin is the natural heir to this farm, we just have to get dad to accept the fact.”

  Norman put his head in his hands, “What’s he got against Colin anyway?”

  He answered his own question, “Can’t he just forget that he dropped out of university?”

  Mark shook his head, “It weren’t only that and you know it. He married that tutor and then divorced her two years later and we both know that dad doesn’t hold with divorce.”

  They were silent for a minute and then Mark muttered, “Still going?”

  Norman stood up, “Too damn right I’m going, as soon as this wretched snow passes I’m out of here.”

  Petra Haston, estate agent out of need for cash, and Simon Jones, yoga instructor to make a fast buck, stood in the old bar of the Trembine arms and simultaneously shivered. For want of something to do they had inspected the whole of the Trembine arms, Simon had even checked over the outside, but
Petra had balked at that and stayed inside, not that it was much warmer there. Simon swung his powerful torch beam around the bar area, “Good space this; how old do you say this pub is?”

  Petra gave him another false smile, maintaining an Estate Agent persona was possible for her for half-hour bouts, but trying to constantly maintain it was driving her crazy. “Four hundred years give or take a couple of decades. Only the bar area mind. The back rooms were probably added in the eighteen century, the kitchen in the Edwardian era and the upstairs rooms sometime between the two.”

  “And you’re sure the place has been treated for death-watch beetle?”

  She gave her false smile, “Of course.”

  “And the thatch treated for flea larvae?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  He turned away and smiled to himself, thatch was never treated for flea-larvae so this woman had no idea what she was talking about. In fact she was starting to get on his nerves.

  Buster and Julia arrived at the back door and Buster let her in and took her directly to a small lounge. She took her duffel coat off, “Please stick this with my boots will you?.” She added her hat, scarf, mittens and ear-warmers. Buster dutifully carried them out and then unceremoniously dumped them on the floor next to her boots. He eyed her through the open doorway. Now that he could study her fully he noted that she was well built, say a size fourteen, possibly sixteen, but she was not fat, rather she was naturally large. She was also fit if her neck muscles were anything to go by. He walked softly back into the lounge via the coffee machine and poured a tot of whisky into each one. He proffered one to Julia, “You look fit.”