Shadows of the Past Read online

  Unlike the desk and sofa, the piano wasn’t just a piece of furniture. For Bridget in particular, she couldn’t look at it without seeing her mother seated on the piano stool, playing to her heart’s content. Sylvia often said how it lifted her spirits to be able to rattle off her favourite pieces, especially when she was feeling at a low ebb. For Gil and Bridget, some of their fondest memories were of the whole family gathered around the piano at Christmas time, belting out carols at the tops of their voices to their mother’s accompaniment. Parting with the piano would be akin to losing their mother all over again. This had always been the stumbling block.

  Last night, Bridget had been determined that she and Gil make a decision once and for all. She had however reached her own conclusion. It was time to let the piano go. She didn’t need it to remind her of her mother; a million memories would take care of that. All she had to do was convince her brother. Usually seen as the less sentimental of the siblings, Gil had surprised his sister by insisting that the piano stayed. They had come close to getting rid of it once before when they had offered it to Sylvia’s younger sister, Celia. Celia had married a farmer from the Yorkshire dales and since life on the farm was always very hard, Gil and Bridget had had very little contact with their aunt and their Uncle Tom. There had been a few visits to Yorkshire when they were children and Celia and Tom had visited Whytecliffe occasionally with their children John and Ruth. Both sets of cousins adored the other’s environment. Gil and Bridget particularly loved being allowed the freedom to explore the wide open spaces on the farm free from adult supervision, much to their parents’ alarm it had to be said. Since they weren’t allowed to have any pets at home, they loved spending time around the farm animals, especially the sheep dogs. John and Ruth, by contrast, enjoyed the attention from both sets of adults, particularly over a game of French cricket on the beach. Sadly, as life on the farm became increasingly harder, visits between the two families petered out.

  The last time that Gil and Bridget had seen their Yorkshire relatives had been at their mother’s funeral. Celia and Tom left the farm in John’s now very capable hands and stayed with their niece and nephew in Whytecliffe for a few of days. Ruth hadn’t been able to accompany her parents as she had recently broken her leg in a riding accident. Besides, she was now married and had left the farm some time ago and had no recent contact with her family down south. During her aunt and uncle’s visit, Bridget had been surprised to learn that Celia was also a keen musician. Whilst not as proficient as her older sister, she had relished the opportunity to sit at the piano and played a medley of songs from their younger days. Sensing that Celia might appreciate having an instrument of her own, Bridget asked if she would like to have it. Reluctantly Celia declined. John still lived at the farm and virtually ran it now, along with his wife Cathy. They had two children, with a third on the way, and there simply wasn’t the room.

  Looking back on the previous evening’s discussions, Bridget was disappointed that she and Gil hadn’t been able to agree but she understood that she had no choice but to accept his decision. The piano would stay put. For now.

  Gil and Bridget had agreed that before they could even begin to think about decorating, the first task would be to clear the bookshelves of their contents. This would be no mean feat. The shelves, which were built into the wide alcoves either side of the fireplace, were full to bursting. If Gil had ever noticed the cluttered state of the shelves it would never have entered his head to do anything about it. Bridget, on the other hand most certainly had noticed the clutter. However, as she saw the room as largely her brother’s domain, it’s tidiness, or rather lack of it, went completely under her radar. Consequently, between the two of them, the room had remained a mess. Until now.

  At his sister’s request, Gil had brought in the step-ladder and several storage boxes from the garage before he left for Southampton with Mick. Propping the ladder against the shelves, an intrepid Bridget put her foot onto the bottom rung and, rather gingerly, began to climb.

  The upper shelves near the window which overlooked the rear garden, were still full of Frederick’s books. They were predominately worthy but rather dull tomes on economics, banking systems and finance. All had remained untouched since the accident. The upper shelves to the right had been reserved for Sylvia’s extensive collection of sheet music and librettos.

  The lower shelves in the alcove to the right of the fireplace were allocated to Bridget and housed her ever-growing collection of cookery books. She was also a huge fan of crime novels and mysteries. Her love of this genre could be attributed to a bout of tonsillitis in her early teens. Having read all of her own books she drove her mother mad with demands for something to alleviate the boredom which set in as she began to recuperate. In desperation, Sylvia handed her a library book and which happened to be by Agatha Christie. Bridget accepted the book with disdain as to her teenage eyes, it didn’t look like her sort of thing at all. Still it was better than nothing. After the first few chapters, Bridget was hooked and soon owned everything the author had ever written. The books also sparked her love of mysteries and puzzles of all sorts, be they riddles, crosswords or jigsaws.

  Gil rarely read a book but that didn’t mean he didn’t need any shelf space. His collection of car magazines was bordering on a hoard. Bridget had long since given up asking him to get rid of some of the older ones. As Gil had been at pains to point out, it was the older ones which had most value as “collectors” items. Disaster had only just been averted some years ago when Bridget decided to take the bull by the horns and put aside a pile to be taken for re-cycling. Gil was furious and told her never to touch them again. Bridget agreed but added that that meant she couldn’t dust them either. After a stand-off, Gil graciously allowed his sister to dust his prized collection on the basis that that was preferable to having to do it himself.

  Gil and Bridget had agreed that they would keep any of their parent’s books that had any sentimental value but would either sell or give away everything else. Bridget was tasked with sorting everything into boxes which Gil would either put into the loft for safe-keeping or for disposal in one way or another.

  Puffing with exertion, Bridget made several more trips up and down the ladder, carefully stacking the books on the desk for sorting through later. She had almost cleared the shelves when, stretching out to reach a book wedged in the far corner of the shelf near the window, she almost lost her balance. In the effort to save herself, she dropped the book she had been holding in her other hand. Damn, she said to herself as the book fell onto the rug. Before it had time to hit the ground however, a sheet of blue notepaper fluttered gently out from between its pages before landing gracefully in the waste-paper bin.

  Bridget got down from the ladder and picked up the book from the rug. She flicked through the pages, checking for signs of damage before adding it to one of the piles on the desk. Bending down, she retrieved the sheet of notepaper from the bin. Time for a break, she said to herself and idly placed the notepaper on the sofa.

  Ten minutes later, Bridget returned to the study carrying a tray on which she had placed a mug of coffee and a plate of her own shortbread. Brushing biscuit crumbs from her blouse she leaned over and retrieved the notepaper from the seat next to her, expecting to see her father’s familiar, spidery handwriting. Instead, she found herself reading a love letter.

  9 Fareham Place

  Whytecliffe-on-Sea

  20 December

  My darling Freddie,

  I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to hear your voice again after all this time. I had given up all hope of ever speaking to you again but my heart is almost bursting at the thought of seeing you. However, so much has passed since we last met that I am frightened that you will not have the same feelings for me as you once used to have. I have accepted that fate, if that is how it is to be, but to see you just one more time will be worth any heartache.

  When we spoke, I told you that I didn’t know where I would be staying over Christ
mas but I have now made arrangements which I hope will make it easy for you to come to see me, without your family finding out. I will be staying at 9 Fareham Place from 23 December until New Year’s Eve. The family will be out on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and we would have the place to ourselves, if that is convenient for you of course.

  I am counting the hours until we are together again darling Freddie. I look forward to hearing from you.

  Yours ever

  Eleanor

  Bridget was dumbstruck. But no matter how many times she read and re-read the letter, the meaning was clear, there was no other way of interpreting those words. Bizarrely however, as she would later recount to Gil, the first thing that struck her was someone calling her father “Freddie”. Even to her mother, he had never been anything other than “Frederick”, very occasionally “Fred” when she teased him, but never “Freddie”. Bridget put the letter down and shook her head. This was a joke, it couldn’t be real. No-one would write to her father like that. There had to be some logical explanation. She read the letter again, there was no getting away from it; this was unmistakably a letter between lovers. She threw her head back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, her heart beating at an alarming rate. Then it hit her, Fareham Place. Where her father had met his death. Oh my God, she said silently to herself, how could I have forgotten?

  After the initial shock of Frederick’s accident had worn off, temporarily at least, Sylvia had voiced her suspicions. Whilst Gil and Bridget had done their best to reassure their mother that there was some perfectly innocent explanation as to why he’d been in Fareham Place that day, they had to admit to having doubts themselves. An affair had briefly crossed both of their minds but was dismissed by Gil almost immediately as his father was the last man on earth to get involved with another woman. “I wonder how many deserted wives have said that?” Bridget had said at the time before dismissing the idea herself as being simply too ludicrous to be true. For a while, they even thought their father might have been mixed up in “something shady” at the bank, before dismissing that notion too. Frederick was the epitome of middle-class respectability and trustworthiness. He would rather have died than let himself become embroiled in any wrong doing. No, whatever their fathers’ business had been in Fareham Place that day, it wouldn’t have been anything dishonest.

  As the implication of the words she had just read began to sink in, Bridget’s mind was in turmoil. Who was this woman that her father had been so desperate to see on that fateful day that he was prepared to deceive his own family? She began to shake. If it hadn’t been for her, this stranger, her father would not have been killed, he would have lived to spend many more Christmases with his family. She jumped up to reach for the phone on the desk, she had to speak to Gil, she couldn’t deal with this on her own. Just as quickly, she put the phone down again, telling herself that it wasn’t fair to upset Gil when he was probably in the middle of a deal at the retailer’s. She would wait patiently, counting the minutes until he got home. She would show him the letter. He would know what to do.

  Chapter Four

  Bridget didn’t know how she would get through the rest of the day so she did what she did best and threw herself into a marathon baking session. By mid-afternoon she had churned out loaves, fruit pies for the freezer and one of Gil’s favourites, macaroons. Lord knows if he’ll have any appetite for them after he’s read the letter, Bridget thought to herself, casting an eye over her afternoon’s work.

  Gil arrived home just after five. Bridget had never been so relieved and yet so full of dread to hear his car pull up in the drive. She had toyed with the idea of destroying the letter, pretending it had never existed. Speaking to Gil would make it real, and she didn’t know if she could cope with that. No she would burn it, forget all about it, and forget all about Eleanor and her deceitful ways. Then it dawned on her. She, Gil and the police had done everything they could at the time to find the driver who had mown Frederick down without so much as a backward glance, on Christmas Eve of all days. It had taken over each of their lives. Each time they saw a vehicle with even the slightest damage they wondered if it was the one which had killed their father. Their obsession continued until exhaustion and grief eventually got the better of them. Although they agreed they would never give up the search, they conceded they could do no more. Not until today that is, Bridget said out loud as she took the last of the loaves out of the oven. This woman, this Eleanor, whoever she is, holds the key to Dad’s death that we’ve been searching for all these years. This is our chance to find out the truth at last.

  Gil was as stunned by the letter as Bridget had been. Pouring himself a large brandy after supper, which neither of them had any appetite for, he sank into one of the armchairs in the living room. Bridget sat on the sofa opposite clutching a large glass of white wine to her chest. For a while, they both stared into the hearth, still in a state of shock, struggling to make sense of it all. As the brandy began to take effect, Gil was the first to break the silence.

  “I can’t believe it Bridge, not Dad, he’s the last man in the world to have had an affair. He adored Mum, and us, he would never have done anything to risk that.”

  “But he did Gil, that’s exactly what he did and we’ve got to come to terms with that. I don’t think we can interpret the letter any other way, do you?”

  “It does seem pretty unequivocal, I’ll grant you that. One thing I’m curious to know though is, did Dad get to see this Eleanor or not, I mean was he killed before or after their meeting?”

  “Well we know the accident happened at 1.45 and the bank had shut its doors for Christmas Eve at midday. That would have given Dad plenty of time to get to Fareham Place and see Eleanor as arranged wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes but don’t forget he often stayed behind after the rest of the staff had left, to make sure everything was in order, so we don’t really know what time he left the bank. As the place was going to be closed for the next few days I think he might well have left quite a bit after midday, so he could have been killed on his way to see Eleanor, not afterwards.”

  “We’ll never really know will we? Only Eleanor could tell us that.”

  Gil ran his hands through his thinning hair as a wave of frustration and anger suddenly ran through him. “There’s just got to be another explanation, this just doesn’t sound like Dad at all.”

  “But it’s there in black and white, I don’t think you can take those words any other way” said Bridget, close to tears. After a pause she went on “do you know, I can just about accept the fact that Dad had an affair, married men do, he wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, but what I can’t accept is that if he hadn’t gone to see Eleanor he might still be alive today.”

  “And so might Mum” Gil added solemnly.

  “Oh Gil, this is just dreadful, what an earth are we going to do?”

  “What do you mean? What can we do? We just have to accept it and carry on.”

  “But don’t you see Gil, this is the breakthrough we’ve been looking for all these years, we now know why Dad was in Fareham Place. What we don’t know though is why he was killed, but I’m determined to find out.”

  Sensing that his sister was rapidly getting the bit between her teeth, Gil attempted to reign her in. “Let’s just leave things lie Bridge, we can’t bring Dad back and it all happened so long ago, besides, where on earth are you going to start?”

  “Where all of this began of course. Nine Fareham Place.”

  Chapter Five

  Precisely one week later Bridget found herself on the doorstep of number nine, Fareham Place desperately trying to summon up courage to ring the doorbell. Gil had tried his best to persuade his sister not to get involved but he knew it was futile. She was like the proverbial dog with a bone. When she got her teeth into something he knew she would not let go until she had got to the bottom of the matter and found the mysterious Eleanor.

  Bridget had caught the 9.40 bus from The Esplanade which had drop
ped her a couple of streets below Fareham Place. She had never had cause to visit this part of Whytecliffe before so had to ask for directions to her destination. The driving spring rain was doing its best to wrestle her umbrella out of her grip, forcing her to bend into the wind to stop it turning inside out. She raised it up to see where she was and was relieved to see the street sign indicating that she had arrived.

  All of the houses in the terraced street were red brick but their owners had attempted to add an air of individuality by painting the front doors and windows in different colours. Although some of the old sash windows remained, many had been replaced with PVC casements.

  Number nine had clearly benefited by a recent make-over of both door and windows and Bridget was grateful for the small porch that had been added as she struggled with her umbrella. Come on, she said to herself, you’ve waited nearly thirty-five years for this moment, don’t walk away now.

  As she pressed the bell, sounds of a wailing child could be heard somewhere deep within the house. Oh dear, I’ve woken the baby, she thought and half turned to walk away. Before she could get her umbrella up, the door was opened by a rather frazzled looking young woman with the still wailing infant clinging to her left hip.

  “Yes?” the woman inquired, swaying back and fore in an attempt to soothe the child.

  “I’m so sorry” Bridget mumbled, “I seem to have called at a bad time, I hope I didn’t wake the baby.”

  “No don’t worry, we’ve been up half the night, he’s teething. What can I do for you?”