Shell House (16 page)

       
“It was an awful time for your grandfather and a very long time ago it was too. People need to remember that.”

       
“What do you mean? People won’t ever forget something like that.”

       
“I know. What I’m trying to say is that Gabrielle was just a child. Children don’t understand their actions at that age.”

       
“So you do think she did it?”

       
“I’m not sure and I’ve questioned it all since the day it happened. Gabrielle was a lovely child but she was also complex, difficult and sometimes she could be really temperamental.”

       
“That doesn’t sound good. You and my Great Aunt spent a lot of time with her and my father so you’d know more than anyone if she was capable of murder. Even Gramps isn’t sure.” Nancy sighed and added another sugar lump to her cup of tea and stirred it noisily.

       
Catherine got up from her chair to check the pastries weren’t burning in the stove.

       
“I don’t know. I just don’t know, love. She found it hard not having her mother around and your grandfather worked long hours...I’m not blaming him, I’m just saying it was tough all round.”

       
“Have you seen her since she’s been back?”

       
“No not yet. I wasn’t here much over Christmas was I? And the few times I did come she was at that cottage she stayed in and then your granddad said it was best not to come whilst the reporters were on the doorstep, unless I fancied being mobbed, so I stayed away. I’d like to see her though.”

       
Nancy nodded. “She is really lovely. I can’t help but like her and I’m finding it hard to get my head around the fact she could have done such a thing.”

       
“Maybe she didn’t.”

       
“But you just said...”

       
Catherine hastily cut her off. “I know but I also said I’d never been sure. Just because I think that a child needs her mother and the absence of one can affect them doesn’t mean I think she did it. That Ellen Tailby was a bit of a strange woman. Her and her husband actually, when I come to think of it.”

       
“What, the parents of the children?” Nancy shuffled in her chair her eyes widening with interest. “Did you know them?”

       
Catherine nodded. “Not hugely well. We weren’t friends or anything. I used to see her around the village and on occasion at mutual friends’ parties or community events, that sort of thing, but not recently.”

       
“Are they still alive?”

       
“Yes. Well, if you can call that living. I think she’s housebound now and someone told me she had the onset of senile dementia. But that could just be idle village gossip.”

       
Catherine jumped up from her chair, startling Nancy. “The pastries!” She removed the tray from the oven and almost threw it across the table. “They’re not too overdone.”

       
“Ooh lovely!” Nancy fetched two plates and grabbed a pastry, dropping it quickly as it burnt her fingers. “Did you make these?”

       
“Of course I did! You know I bake during the winter months.”

       
“Oh yes, it’s almost that time of year again when you throw yourself into the garden.”

       
“Yes, so make the most of it because it’ll be the last you and your Granddad will be getting until later this year.”

       
“Have the Tailbys’ said anything about Gabrielle since they discovered who she was?”

       
“I don’t know. Like I said, we’re not friends and they’d be unlikely to tell me anything anyway considering I work for your Granddad. I’m sure they know about it and the usual gossips have put their own spin on it. The most important thing is that none of you take any notice.”

       
“I’ll be okay; it’s Gramps I worry about.” Nancy got up from the table to fetch some tomato sauce from the cupboard. “What did you mean when you said they were strange? The Tailbys’ I mean?”

       
Catherine grabbed herself a sausage roll from the pile of pastries and went into the pantry on the hunt for some relish to accompany it.

       
“I don’t know really. I just never took to the woman.” She found what she was looking for and sat back down, trying to put her thoughts into words. Memories flooded her mind but nothing looked or felt clear. “She always gave the impression she didn’t want to stop and chat if you saw her in the street. A bit aloof, I suppose. She’d smile but her eyes would be saying something different, do you know what I mean?”

       
“I think so.”

       
“Put it this way − I never saw her at many village events when my children were little. It was almost like she thought she was too good for everyone.”

     
  Nancy paused for a moment.

       
“Maybe she couldn’t face it, what with her children being...you know...dead.”

       
“No! I’m talking before all that happened.”

       
“Oh, I see.”

       
Nancy pondered on what Catherine had told her. She wished she knew more, that she could see the memories in her head to try and make sense of them herself.

       
“She must have been quite friendly with Granddad to ask Gabrielle to watch her children.”

       
“I don’t understand?”

       
Nancy sighed. “She asked Gabrielle the day it all happened if she’d watch her children, didn’t she? Or have I got that wrong?”

       
“Oh, I see. Yes, yes she did but that was fairly normal in those days.”

       
Nancy frowned. “Wasn’t it more normal for kids just to be left alone, especially in a village community?”

       
“Yes, I suppose it was,” Catherine frowned as she poured another cup of tea, trying to remember what it had really been like. “Her children were poorly at the time though, I think, and Gabrielle happened to be passing and she just wanted her to sit with them.”

       
“Poorly? From what?”

       
“I don’t remember the details, love. Why is it so important?”

       
“Just curious that’s all; trying to get it straight in my own head.” Nancy wondered whether to tell her of Harry’s plans to appeal but thought better of it. After all, it wasn’t really her news to tell.

       
“I don’t think anyone will ever get to the bottom of it. It was too long ago and none of it’s clear to anyone anymore. Memories become distorted over time.”

       
“But the truth is out there. That’s what’s driving me crazy.”

       
They were both quiet as they pondered on visions of the past.

       
“Does it really matter?” Catherine broke the silence. “The truth, I mean. Isn’t it more important who she is now, not what she was? She was so little it just feels like it almost doesn’t count.”

       
Nancy’s eyebrows rose slightly and she placed her cup back in its saucer. “I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Tailby would see it like that.”

       
“I don’t mean the children that died...oh I can’t seem to put it into words. I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened that day and how can someone be judged on something they did over forty years ago?”

       
“I think I understand what you’re trying to say but surely we all need to know the truth one way or another?”

       
“Maybe so but some of you might not like what you hear. The truth may already be out there.”

       
“Yes. Perhaps because we don’t like it we want to change it.”

       
“Anyway, I must be off, the garden won’t dig itself.” Catherine got up from the table and fetched her coat from the hall cupboard.

       
“Oh, I keep forgetting it’s that time of year when you strange green fingered folk start gardening in the freezing cold.”

       
“If I didn’t, you and your Granddad wouldn’t have all that lovely fresh veg for your dinner.”

       
“I know, I know.” Nancy moved from the table and went to see Catherine off.

        Harry walked bravely down to the sea front later that day feeling vulnerable and exposed. He’d wrapped himself up well, partly to protect him from the cold but also to hide himself from being recognised; his scarf covering half his face, his trilby tilted over his eyes.

       
He walked there alone having asked Nancy to leave him to it because he needed time to think. Things hadn’t gone as well as he’d anticipated with Bill.

        He’d known really, deep down, but there had been a glimmer of hope that his friend would shine some positive light on the situation. The simple truth being, there was no new evidence and no reason to call a retrial after all these years and there probably never would be after all this time. And the one major point Harry had overlooked was that it was he who was enquiring after an appeal and this most certainly had to be done by Gabrielle and not on her behalf. He knew there was no way she would put herself forward for anything like that. Her guilt and remorse weighed too heavy upon her and she’d see it as disrespectful to the family of the victims. After Bill’s visit he was left feeling desperate, drained and terribly weak.

       
Words swirled around in his head in time with the tide that was edging away. He couldn’t quieten his mind in order to think clearly at all. He had no idea when he was going to see Gabrielle again and this was making him feel anxious.

       
He pondered on his life now without her and thought about the realism of never seeing her again and it all felt horribly pointless. He knew he had Nancy, but like all young people, from what he’d observed, they were expecting you to die; knew it was on the agenda at any time. Grandchildren expected grandparents to die however much they didn’t want it to happen. But he always thought that when it came to children and their parents they didn’t want to admit or talk about that particular, inevitable fact. The fear of them no longer being around at the top of the hierarchy made them starkly aware of their own mortality and if nature took its course, they’d be next in the queue. That’s how he’d felt with his own parents anyway.

       
He knew Nancy would miss him when he was gone and he’d occasionally seen a fleeting glance of her grief when he’d caught her staring at him in a concerned way. The difference was that they’d had the privilege of one another’s company and he hadn’t had enough of that with Gabrielle. And soon Nancy would be going off to university and starting a new life which wouldn’t include him so much and rightly so.

       
His mind flitted back to death and nature taking its course and Emma’s face appeared in his mind. Some religions would say that nature did take its course and it was God’s will to take her at that time. That’s what Emma had believed anyway. He thought about all the years he’d endured without her; far more now than he’d ever spent with her. Most of it had flown by, being a working single parent with two children, although in the early days of grieving he would have said the time passed slowly and endlessly. Now here he was sat in front of his oldest and dearest friend, the sea with the story of his life stored in the fathoms of its soul. It made him feel acutely aware of all the things he’d meant to do and hadn’t; his life had been overshadowed by so many emotions after Gabrielle was taken away. He wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, it wasn’t in his nature. He was just wondering where all the time had gone and how he’d come to be eighty years of age. It was as though he’d suddenly become consciously aware of it, like it was tangible for the first time in his life and right now he could really feel it.

       
Having talked to the somewhat turbulent ocean, he pushed himself up slowly from the bench, content with the advice he’d been given, and carefully made his way home to attend to the business that had become clear to him was unfinished.

CHAPTER EIGHT

        There were many days that passed in which Gabrielle seemed to spend hours just sitting and thinking. Having moved into her new safe house, she was emotionally fatigued and she couldn’t muster up the energy to do anything. It was a peculiar house, not unwelcoming or impractical; it just wasn’t something she would have chosen for herself. It gave her a strange comfort and she wasn’t sure if it was the house itself or the fact she felt safe and cosseted because she’d been moved somewhere where her identity was once again hidden.

        Driftwood was the name of the house; not terribly original but it was quite an apt description of how she was feeling at that moment. The building itself was a 1970s chalet bungalow, pebble-dashed white with chipped and sea- weathered blue painted window frames. It was situated down a quiet, narrow road which led to the beach and the sea. It was completely private, surrounded by a high privet hedge. It was a place where lots of people passed during the day and she guessed at all hours in the summer, but it was somewhere she could blend in along with all the other holiday rentals. Many people moved in and out of the area, so no one was really aware of who was coming and going.

       
Even though Gabrielle was an hour or so away from Harry, she didn’t feel completely cut off from him. It was quite literally a one road drive all the way around the coast. When she’d first arrived she’d run upstairs like a child to look out of the window across the coastline, to see if she could see her father’s house standing proud on its jutting cliff side. She knew this was an impossible concept as the distance was too far, but it offered her some comfort just to look. She imagined in her mind, when she was drifting off to sleep, that she could see the house all lit up at night, twinkling above the dark sea.

       
The house was clean, if a little tired, and warm, thanks to Rosa having turned the heating on when they’d first been escorted there by a rather burly plain clothes policeman. Rosa had stayed with Gabrielle for a few days and she’d been glad of the company. The problem was she’d just wanted to get on with things and Rosa’s presence made everything feel at a standstill. She craved space and the freedom of being alone, which she felt she hadn’t had for a long time.