Blood Ties (7 page)

Footsteps on the stone path and the slow wag of Napoleon's tail told her that Bethan had come to join her. She moved over and Bethan leaned on the fence from the garden side.

‘You all right out here?'

‘Oh, I'm fine. Dog will make sure I don't fall in, won't you, Napoleon?'

‘He's a marvellous animal,' Bethan agreed. ‘Our two are too daft for anything useful.' She paused, clearly curious. ‘Alec gone out for a bit then?'

Inwardly, Naomi laughed. ‘We were in The Lamb last night. Susan asked him for a bit of advice, tracking down next of kin and such. She seems to have taken on the responsibility for Eddy's estate. Alec's gone out to see what he can do to help.'

‘Oh, right. Poor love, she's known him since she was a little girl. We've all known him an age. He'll get a good send-off, that's for sure.' She sighed. ‘Just goes to show, doesn't it? Life is so fragile.'

Naomi nodded and silence fell for a moment or so. Something large splashed into the water and she wondered if it could be a vole or if it was too late in the year to be hearing ‘ratty'.

‘I hope you don't mind me asking, but you've not always been blind then?'

‘No. Car crash. One of those multi-vehicle things on the motorway. I was a police sergeant before that.'

‘Oh, so is that . . .'

‘How we met? Yes. I'm like Alec, never really wanted to do anything else until now, so it was all a major shock and something of a wrench.'

‘I can imagine.'

Can you? Naomi wondered. She would certainly not have been able to; not until life changed and gave her no option.

‘Wonderful, how you cope.'

Naomi laughed. ‘People worse off than me and all that. Hey, when you have to do something, well, you just have to do it.' She looked for a change of subject, not comfortable with talking about herself to a relative stranger, however nice she was. ‘You said you knew Eddy for a long time. Did you ever hear him mention family?'

Bethan thought about it. ‘I vaguely think there was a brother or a brother-in-law,' she said. ‘But he didn't come to either funeral. Not when Martha died nor when the girl was killed. You'd have thought . . .'

Naomi nodded. ‘Families can become estranged, though,' she said. ‘It doesn't always mean they don't care. Sometimes it's just that they don't know how to make contact again.'

‘But you'd think something as big as a funeral would bring them back together, wouldn't you?'

‘I suppose so. It depends how far apart they've drifted.'

‘Doesn't seem right though, does it?'

‘Does what?'

‘Well, I know Eddy probably doesn't have much to leave, but it doesn't seem right that someone he hasn't seen in years should get it all, not when they couldn't be bothered to come and see him even when he must have needed them.'

Naomi didn't think there was a lot she could say to that. She shivered. She'd come out in a heavy sweater, but the day was damp and chill and the cold now beginning to permeate.

‘Best come inside,' Bethan said. ‘I'll make you a cuppa.'

Alec arrived at the house before Susan and wondered if he'd found the right place. Set back from the road and reached, as Susan had described, by a short but heavily rutted track, it was a pretty place . . . or would be in summer, Alec guessed, when the now rather forlorn looking roses would be climbing around the porch and the – was that wisteria? – wisteria or whatever would be in flower. Alec liked gardens; he just had a rather vague notion of how they were made up. Naomi was the gardener in their house and she and her sister had managed to create a wonderfully lush, sweetly scented haven, despite Napoleon and Alec's efforts to help.

Closer inspection showed Alec that the window frames were in need of a coat of paint and the front door, though it had been daubed with red in the not too distant past, had been redecorated over previous layers of flaking paint. The knocker had rusted, and its face, which Alec presumed was some kind of pixie, was heavily pitted. ‘A pixie with pox,' he said aloud.

The front room curtains were closed and he could see little through the letter box except for the bottom steps and an area of tiled floor. The scene of poor Eddy's death. He was about to go round the back and snoop some more when Susan's Volkswagen pulled up beside his own car.

She got out, looking flustered. ‘Sorry I'm late. I seem to be having trouble getting the day started today.'

‘No problem. You still want me here? I won't take offence.' She'd had the night to think on her impulse and Alec knew just how fast such impulses could seem wrong or foolish.

‘Oh, do I want you here,' Susan said fervently. ‘I've been driving here dreading the thought you might have changed your mind. I don't think I could face going in on my own again.' She shook her head. ‘Which is silly. It was always a place I loved to visit.'

‘It's hard after the person is gone though,' Alec said. ‘My uncle died a while ago and left me his house. Going back there without him was really difficult. Right, what do we do now? Shall we go inside?'

Susan slipped the key into the lock and Alec followed her, then walked past as she came to a stop in the hall, staring at the place at the foot of the stairs.

‘What's through here?' he asked. ‘Ah, the living room.' He opened the curtains and let in the grey November light. ‘Kitchen at the end of the hall? Yes?'

‘Yes.' She finally braved the living room, glared at the empty fire grate.

‘Maybe we should make one up,' Alec said. ‘We may be here a little while and I'm guessing there's no central heating?'

‘No, he didn't like the idea. He was a bit set in his ways. I don't know, it feels a bit . . . intrusive, making up a fire.'

‘Better that than freeze or let the damp take hold. You know, it would be a good idea to make up a fire every day or so, to keep the place dried out until all this is sorted. Houses like this, with solid walls, they're a devil to dry out once the damp gets in.' He knelt, sorting kindling and logs, and, after a moment more of hesitation, she fetched matches down from the mantelpiece.

‘I think there are some firelighters somewhere. In the kitchen, maybe. I'm not that good with fires.' She laughed. ‘I'm afraid I am a fan of central heating.'

‘Firelighters would be good. I'm out of practice. Where would Eddy have kept his papers, do you think? Did you manage to sort out the solicitor's name?'

‘Um, yes. Wright and Cole in Somerton. Apparently, they have the will. I've got to see the doctor and get the death certificate to them and so on. They don't know about family either.'

‘Right, so it looks like it's up to us, but I'll go and have a chat to the solicitors if you think it would be helpful.'

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘I really do appreciate this, you know.'

‘You are very welcome. I know how hard it can be.'

She brought the firelighters and he lit one, tucking it beneath the kindling and trying to recall what else he should be doing. They had a wood burner back at home, but Naomi normally set it ready and he just did the manly thing of lighting one of the funny rolls of newspaper she placed beneath the kindling and which seemed to do the trick. It occurred to him suddenly, catching him off balance, that Naomi seemed to have made a point of taking over those tasks everyone assumed would be difficult for her to accomplish without sight. Gardening, setting the fire, cooking; she excelled at them all and, as he watched the fire reluctantly take hold, he realized too that this was probably her sister Sam's doing. Even before Naomi left hospital, and while the rest of them had been flapping round making sympathetic noises, Sam had been insisting Naomi learn to apply her own lipstick.

He sat back on his heels, other vague thoughts suddenly clarified. ‘Do you have kids?' he asked.

Susan laughed nervously. ‘Um, no. I've got an ex-husband, but thankfully we never got around to the having children part.'

‘We're thinking of having some,' Alec said. ‘I've been putting it off, I suppose. Work is so demanding and I always worried about coping.'

‘You mean with Naomi? I mean, it must add an extra dimension, problem wise, not being able to see.'

‘No, actually.' Alec smiled, more to himself than at Susan. ‘I kept telling myself that was the problem, but, you know, I think I've just realized it was me.
I
was worried on the coping front. I want to do a good job, you know, and I've seen so many broken marriages in my job, especially once the kids start coming along. Sorry, you know how sometimes things just feel very clear very suddenly?'

Susan was laughing at him, her expression bemused. ‘And kneeling on a frayed rug, in a stranger's home, trying to light a fire, it all became clear?'

Alec got to his feet, watching with satisfaction as the fire took hold. ‘Put like that,' he admitted, ‘I do sound like an idiot.' He glanced around the shabby little room – at the shelves, over-stacked with books; at worn chairs, their threadbare arms polished bare by years of hands. ‘When did Eddy's wife die?' he asked.

‘Twenty-odd years ago. His daughter two years after that. Karen was fifteen when her mother died. It was all very sudden and I don't think he ever recovered. The furniture wasn't new even back then and I can't think of anything he's bought since.'

‘What did he do? Work wise, I mean.'

Susan moved through into the kitchen. ‘We should light the fire in here too,' she said. ‘He taught History, secondary school. When he lost his family, he lost his mind too for a while. Never worked again after that. I think there must have been a bit of a pension, but he was in and out of hospital, mental hospital, for several years. He had a lovely family, a lovely life, and when it all came crashing down I don't think he had the resources to cope, poor man. Hard to know how you'd react in a situation like that, isn't it? I think we just have to pray we never find out.'

Alec nodded agreement. The fire in the kitchen was already laid and Susan did the honours this time while Alec looked around. The kitchen was meticulously tidy. The table had been scrubbed so often that the grain had been raised, and the floor was spotless. He could see Eddy's wellingtons and walking boots in a little porch-style lean-to that extended from the back door, sweeping brush and mop and bucket strategically placed beside them. No stray pots on the draining board, no rubbish in the bin.

A meticulous man.

One small thing jarred against the rest. ‘He must have had a visitor,' Alec said.

‘A visitor?' She looked to where Alec pointed. ‘Oh, he used the big pot.'

‘Two mugs.'

Susan nodded, taking in the fact that neither was pink striped; that particular cup still hung below the teapot shelf. Someone he knew well, then. A friend. She frowned. ‘It must have been a late visit. He always made sure he washed up, put the rubbish out and set the fire for the morning before he went to bed. He liked his habits, did Eddy. Everything in its place.'

‘As you say, it must have been late.'

‘Odd, though. He'd usually have washed the cups and rinsed the teapot out before going up, however late it was. He hated mess.'

‘Well, two mugs and a teapot. It's hardly mess. If he was tired . . .'

‘To Eddy, that would have been mess.' She frowned, looking around for further evidence of Eddy's late night visitor. ‘There's a biscuit wrapper in the bin. He always emptied the bins last thing.'

‘Did he often have late night visitors?'

‘I don't think so. Occasionally someone from the detectorist club would stay over. Some of them come a long way and a lot of them are doing it on a tight budget. He's got a spare room he leaves made up just in case.'

She led the way upstairs. Alec followed, noting the frayed stair carpet that was implicated in Eddy's death. It would have been very easy to have tripped and fallen.

At the top of the stairs was a long landing with four doors leading off. Susan opened the second, revealing a room with a single bed beneath the window, made up and ready for a guest. A wooden chair placed beside the bed served as both seat and bedside table. Closer to the door, a large cupboard that Alec thought might be a linen press occupied an inordinate amount of space. Curious, he opened the doors, finding nothing more interesting to his casual glance than piles of sheets and blankets.

‘No sign of anyone up here,' Susan said. They returned to the landing.

‘Do you mind?' Alec said, indicating the other doors.

‘What? Oh, no, I suppose not. We're supposed to be looking for . . . whatever . . . after all.'

The furthest door was the bathroom. Alec guessed it must be directly above the kitchen and sharing the same feed from the water tank he assumed would be in the roof space above. It looked, to Alec, as though the bathroom occupied space divided off from one of the bedrooms, the house probably being too old to have had indoor plumbing when it had been first built. The bathroom was tiny. The bath squeezed into a corner and the toilet next to it. A washbasin so close to the door it prevented full opening. A quick look in the bathroom cabinet revealed a single toothbrush, paste, extra soap and a basic first aid kit with plasters and ointment.

The room next door was the guest room. Next was a large double room that had been Eddy's. A candlewick bedspread had been pulled back across the puffy pink quilt, but the sheets and blankets had been undisturbed. So, Eddy had come up to bed, but not actually gone to sleep before his visitor arrived. ‘How was Eddy dressed the night he died?'