The Emerald Comb (35 page)

Simon opened his mouth as if to speak, but then just smiled and looked down at his beer bottle.

Mum tactfully gathered up empty beer bottles and took them back to the house, throwing Dad a stern look. He gave a half-smile and dutifully followed her inside.

‘It must be very hard,’ I said, gently.

‘It was,’ she replied, ‘but now I’ve met him, and you and the kids, it’s wonderful. I wish I’d known you all earlier. It means so much to me. Your parents are lovely, too.’

I wondered what Simon was thinking. He’d never wanted to track down his own biological parents. Maybe he’d feel differently now.

‘I know what you mean, I think,’ said Simon. ‘Now that I’ve met you I get it – this urge to know where you came from. I never used to understand Katie’s obsession with genealogy.’ He looked at me, and then at Amy. ‘But I still don’t think I’d ever want to trace my own birth parents. Mum and Dad brought me up. I feel grounded enough in the past I had – I don’t need to know anything about the alternative one I might have had if I hadn’t been given up for adoption.’

Amy smiled at him. ‘That’s OK. I won’t push you to find out who my grandparents were. But I’d like to meet your adoptive mum. Will you take me to visit her? I know she won’t be able to understand who I am, but maybe you can say I’m a friend or something.’ She bit her lip. ‘I do understand if you don’t think it would be a good idea.’

‘I think we can sort something out,’ he said. ‘She’s lovely, on a good day, and I think she’d like you.’

At that moment, Lewis came out of the house. ‘Thomas is crying. He’s going on about ghosts again.’

Thomas was right behind him, and came running into my arms.

‘What’s happened, sweetie?’

‘I was up in Lauren’s room and there are ghosts in the roof crashing around,’ he sobbed.

‘In the roof?’ asked Simon.

‘Banging on the ceiling and flapping.’ He climbed onto my lap, snuggled into me and put his thumb in his mouth, a sign that he was tired.

‘Maybe a pigeon has got into the loft,’ Simon said.

I looked at him. ‘You’re going to have to get that hatch opened up then, at last.’ I turned to Amy. ‘I’ve been asking him for weeks to open it up. We’ve lived here four months now and have still not been up there.’

‘Wow, unexplored territory!’ said Amy. ‘Why not open it up now? I’ll help.’

‘So will I,’ said Lewis, hopping from foot to foot with excitement.

‘Looks like we’re going to have to,’ said Simon. ‘Come on then, troops.’

They marched inside, and I followed, carrying Thomas. I took him to the living room, persuaded Lauren to make room for him on the sofa, and switched the TV to CBeebies. With the bribe of a chocolate biscuit, she agreed to look after him while we investigated the ‘ghosts’. I felt a twinge of excitement myself – finally the loft would reveal its secrets, if it had any. Remembering Georgia’s silver and emerald comb I’d found hidden in the desk, it was not impossible that there could be something else, tucked away in a corner of the attic.

I went upstairs, followed by my intrigued parents, to find Simon and Amy manoeuvring a step-ladder under the loft hatch. Lewis was standing by, with a crowbar in his hand.

Simon climbed the ladder, and inspected the hatch. ‘It’s nailed shut. Getting it open will probably wreck it. I’ll have to make a new hatch, after.’

I could hear the pigeon, if that’s what it was, flapping about up there. ‘It’s got to be done. Come on, we’ll hold the ladder steady.’ Dad stepped forward, recognising his job in the proceedings, and took a firm grip on the ladder.

Simon rammed the crowbar between the hatch and its frame, and levered it back and forth. The wood splintered and a shower of dust fell down on us.

‘Careful, love,’ I said, following the unwritten rule that a wife and mother must advise caution at every possible opportunity. Lewis rolled his eyes and Amy grinned. Mum put her hand over her mouth. I knew she’d been thinking of saying the same thing.

‘My mum used to be forever saying that, too,’ Amy said, and Lewis giggled.

Simon gave one last heave on the hatch, and it gave way, swinging downwards on rusty hinges. He caught it before it knocked him off the ladder.

‘Right, now we need to bring the long ladder in. It’s too high to climb up from the stepladder.’ He backed down the steps, brushed the wood splinters off his shoulders and he and Dad went to fetch the other ladder in from the shed.

Lewis and I folded the step-ladder and propped it in a corner of the landing. A frantic fluttering ensued and we realised the pigeon had come down through the hatch. We managed to usher it into Lauren’s room, and opened the window. After a few sickening crashes against the glass it found its way out, and headed over to Stan and Eileen’s garden where it disappeared into their flowering cherry tree.

‘Poor thing,’ said Mum, already picking up feathers from the carpet.

‘Did it hurt itself?’ asked Lewis, handing her a bunch of feathers from his windowsill.

‘Maybe a little, but it was able to fly, so I reckon it’ll be all right,’ said Amy.

I winced as a crash from the stairs signalled the return of Simon and Dad with the ladder. ‘Sorry about that,’ Simon said, nodding at a fist-sized chunk of plaster they’d knocked off while negotiating the turn in the stairs.

‘Needs replastering anyway, when we can afford it,’ I shrugged. ‘Pigeon’s out.’

‘Oh, good. Well, we’ve come this far, might as well go up and have a look around. Lewis, can you fetch the inspection lamp from the under-stairs cupboard, and an extension lead? Plug it into the socket just inside Lauren’s room.’

Lewis nodded and ran off to fetch the items while Simon pushed the ladder up through the hatch. Dad resumed his ladder-holding job.

A minute later, with the lamp in his hand, Simon climbed up, and disappeared into the darkness above.

‘Well?’

‘I can see where the pigeon got in. There are a couple of missing slates. We’ll have to get them fixed before the winter.’

‘Can I come up?’

‘Yes, there’s a bit of boarding down, and it seems firm enough.’

I climbed up slowly, and emerged into the stale, dusty attic air. Simon had hung the inspection torch from a nail in a rafter, and the light it gave was good enough to see the whole area. Only the area around the hatch was boarded over; an assortment of planks laid haphazardly across the joists. Simon pointed out a gap which I stepped over carefully.

‘Can I come up? And Amy?’ Lewis didn’t wait for an answer, but scrambled up the ladder, quickly followed by Amy.

‘I’ll just stay and hold the ladder,’ said Dad.

‘Careful,’ said Mum, sending Lewis and Amy into fits of giggles again.

‘Is there anything up there?’ called Dad.

‘No, it’s empty,’ said Simon. ‘Just cobwebs and a few dead leaves from the old beech. Must have blown in through the hole in the roof.’

‘Wow, this is amazing!’ said Amy. ‘All this space – you could turn it into a games room or something. Put a Velux window in, and some proper flooring. It’d be a great place to play for the kids.’

‘Yeah, cool! Can we, Dad?’

‘You don’t need any more space to play. We’ve got two spare bedrooms, for goodness sake! What we’ll be putting up here is insulation. And I guess we could store stuff, like the Christmas decorations and camping gear up here, once I’ve put a proper loft-ladder in.’

‘Hold on, what’s that?’ I’d spotted something. Simon unhooked the inspection lamp and angled it towards where I was pointing at a corner of the loft. There was a small wooden box, pushed right up under the rafters. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled over. It was about the size of a shoebox, and filthy dirty. I pushed it back across the boards towards the others.

‘Cool, a box of treasure!’ said Lewis, crouching down to open it. ‘Aw, poo, it’s locked.’

‘Pass it down to Granddad,’ said Simon. ‘We can probably prise it open, but let’s do it in the daylight. The dust up here is making me sneeze.’

I almost fell down the ladder in my haste to find out what was inside the box, prompting Mum to shake her head and tut. Once we were all down, Dad carried the box out to the garden. Mum fetched a duster to get the worst of the filth off, and Simon fetched a variety of screwdrivers and chisels to try to get it open. In the end, the lock broke away with very little effort. There was a clash of heads as Amy, Dad, Lewis and I all leaned over it, each trying to be the first to see what was inside.

‘Well, I’ll go and make some tea while you all knock yourselves out over that musty old box,’ muttered Mum, clearly feeling left out. No one answered her, as she slunk off to the kitchen.

I lifted the contents out carefully, and spread them out on the garden table. A mildewed hardback exercise book. A scrap of paper with something written on it, in faded brown ink. And a photograph, in a broken gilded frame.

Dad picked up the picture and studied it. ‘This looks like a really early photograph. Ooh, Katie, is this who I think it is?’ I looked over his shoulder. The grainy, sepia picture showed a seated elderly woman in a dark gown, a bearded man standing behind her, and two younger men standing stiffly at her side. At the bottom of the picture the name of the photographic studio was printed:
Brown & Sons, Winchester, 1872.

My stomach flipped with excitement. It was the St Clairs, it had to be! ‘Yes, I think it is! Georgia, Bartholomew, and their sons Barty and William.’

‘She looks completely different to her portrait, doesn’t she?’ said Dad.

‘Well, she’s much older here. 1872 – that makes her…’

‘Only about fifty. Hardly
old
, my girl,’ said Dad, with mock indignation.

‘She looks older than that,’ said Amy.

‘Yes, and even allowing for age, to me she looks nothing like the portrait we found online. Her face shape’s completely different.’ Dad frowned as he peered at the picture.

‘I guess the portrait painter wasn’t very accurate, then,’ I said. ‘But isn’t it great to see an actual photo of your ancestors? Look at Bartholomew’s whiskers, they’re quite something!’

‘This book’s all just numbers. Maybe it’s grid references to where the treasure is buried,’ said Lewis. He’d been leafing through the notebook while we studied the photo.

‘Let me see,’ I said, and he passed it over. I opened it and flicked through a few pages. It was an accounts book. I looked closely at the list of outgoing payments. All were for the same day every month starting from May 1842 and continuing up to December 1876. Different amounts, but all documented as
Payment from B. St Clair to B. Cutter.
I picked up the scrap of paper. It was an address:
B. Cutter, c/o Revd. Richards, The Rectory, Church Lane, Woodhall, Lincs.

‘Dad, look at this.’ I passed the book and paper to him. ‘B. Cutter is Bartholomew Cutter, the servant Agnes Cutter’s son, known as Tolly. His birth certificate arrived in the post this morning. He was brought up in Woodhall by his grandparents.’

Dad stared hard at me. ‘If Bartholomew St Clair was sending money to Bartholomew Cutter, the son of his servant, that surely means…’

‘…that Bartholomew St Clair was the father,’ Simon finished triumphantly. ‘Perhaps Agnes was making trouble for St Clair, so he killed her to keep her quiet, and buried her here in the garden. Which means our mystery woman must be Agnes, Bartholomew’s mistress, fallen out of favour.’ He slapped his thigh. ‘Knew it would be something to do with sex, in the end. It always is!’

I frowned. Something didn’t quite add up. ‘Barty and Tolly were half-brothers, then. But Barty must have known about Tolly, because he had him here to visit in 1881. He was visiting here when the census was taken.’

‘Which would mean Bartholomew didn’t murder Agnes to keep his illegitimate son secret, as he must have told his legitimate son Barty about him at least. What a mystery!’ Dad shook his head.

‘And if the bones
were
Agnes, Tolly’s mother, it’d be very strange to invite her son to stay, knowing his mother was buried in the garden.’ I shivered at the thought.

‘Maybe Barty didn’t invite Tolly. He could have just turned up. Look, the payments stop in 1876,’ said Dad, pointing at the last page of the accounts book.

‘That’s when Bartholomew senior died. Perhaps Barty didn’t continue the payments, or didn’t know about Tolly, until Tolly turned up five years later wondering what had happened to his money.’

Simon nodded. ‘Yep, I bet that’s what happened. Bartholomew senior was sending money, not just because Tolly was his illegitimate son, but because he felt guilty over murdering Tolly’s mother.’

‘Tea’s up,’ said Mum, returning across the lawn with a tray.

‘Biscuits!’ said Lewis. He grabbed a handful and ran off to jump on the trampoline.

Amy grinned at me. ‘This is better than
Who Do You Think You Are?
’ She stuffed a biscuit into her mouth and went to join Lewis on the trampoline.

‘Well,’ said Dad, as he took the cup of tea Mum offered him. ‘I think that’s as near to the truth as we’re ever likely to get.’

***

The weather changed at the start of the next week. It was cooler, with a definite feel of autumn in the air. Amy had left late on Saturday evening, hours after Mum and Dad, with promises to come back for a full weekend the next time. She was moving to London permanently so it would be easy to meet up. Simon had put a temporary catch on the loft hatch, to keep it closed until he’d made a new one.

We had a riotous birthday party for Thomas, who wore his ‘I Am 5!’ badge for a whole week. The kids went back to school, so once I was back from delivering Thomas to his new class – my baby, in Year One in big school! – my time was my own. I whizzed around the house cleaning and tidying, and had everything straight by midday. Time to go for a walk.

I collected the little box of ashes from the kitchen windowsill, put on my walking shoes and a fleece, and set off, up the lane past the pub and up to the church yard. The grass around Bartholomew and Georgia’s graves was in need of a trim again. I made a note to myself to come back here and tidy it all up, one day soon.

I sat on a nearby bench and regarded Bartholomew’s grave.
For all my wrongs I do repent.
What wrongs, Bartholomew? Did you kill her, your servant Agnes? Could you really have done such a thing? And you, Georgia, did you know what he did? Did you know about his love-child – the other baby Bartholomew? I took out the box of ashes and gazed at it. These two sets of remains, just feet apart now, who had once lived under the same roof, and, if I was right, had shared the same bed on at least one occasion.