The Judge's Daughter (41 page)

He cleared his throat. ‘Do you know where Mrs Makepeace is?’

‘Morecambe,’ she replied. ‘She goes once a year to remember.’ The woman looked over her visitor, deciding that he seemed of decent enough professional standing before
allowing him into her overstated home. The windows were dressed in knickers, as Ian Harte had come to name foolish looping draperies with lace and broderie anglaise trimming their edges. Dried
flowers in terracotta cones hung each side of the fireplace, while the mandatory pot pourri acted as centre piece on a coffee table.

After an invitation to be seated, he placed himself in a cream leather chair. The room was stuffy and over-perfumed. Imitation antiques lined the walls – a bureau, a chesterfield, some
deliberately distressed bookshelves that housed, among others, Barbara Cartland, Mills & Boon and, to add a little class to the establishment, a few tomes in imitation leather.
Lancashire
Life
and
Ideal Home
flanked the pot pourri with a set of silver-plated coasters completing the piece. This was the stage on which actors acted day-to-day parts in their make-believe
lives. The setting was a much-loved disaster, its owner proud to show it off. ‘Morecambe?’ he asked. ‘Would you care for a cup of tea or coffee?’ He saw the desperation in
her face, recognized loneliness, opted for coffee. While she made the drinks, he sat feeling sad. Why? Because this village, once bustling with life and a sense of community, had become a waiting
room for the ambitious young who clung by the skin of their teeth to the first rung of the property ladder. Gardens had been replaced by slabs on which cars could be parked, while almost every
house boasted a burglar alarm colourful enough to catch the eye of any would-be thief. The residents of Skirlaugh Fall were in hiding, each holding on desperately to possessions and position, every
man for himself, lottery ticket in a drawer, the pub continuing to serve chicken in a basket and Black Forest gateau, post office gone, new dormer bungalows in hideous pink or yellow brick hiding
in dips behind the original stone-built dwellings.

‘How long have you lived here?’ he asked. Had she not heard that minimalism was now in vogue, that dado rails were no longer the fashion?

‘A few months. We stand to make a killing and move on pretty soon. This house isn’t big enough for a family, and I am expecting our first. You were looking for Mrs
Makepeace?’

‘Yes.’

She poured coffee from a steel-and-glass jug, said she hoped he liked Kenya blend, offered him a bourbon cream. ‘She’ll be in Morecambe. That’s where he died, you
see.’

‘Oh?’ He swallowed a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Who died?’

‘Her husband. It must be going on forty years ago now, but my mother remembers it. They died at sea.’

‘They?’

She nodded. ‘Him – Mr Makepeace – and a judge who used to live at Briarswood – they were the only two on board. No crew that night, my mother said. It was all over the
papers. Anyway, Mrs Makepeace never remarried. She must be sixty now, but she’s still pretty.’

‘So is her garden.’ The Makepeace house was one of the few to have survived the invasion.

‘She does it all herself. Not that I know her, you understand. We keep ourselves to ourselves. Anyway, the yacht exploded and both men died. They’d been putting some sort of fuel in
the kitchen – the galley – and something went wrong. Mrs Makepeace was left with a small baby and no husband. Very sad.’

‘Terrible. When will she be back?’

The woman raised her shoulders. ‘No idea. I believe she rents a house for a few weeks, but, like I said, we don’t mix.’

Nobody mixed any more, because there was nowhere to go. The pubs in towns were crammed with kids, the bulk of whom appeared to be below the age of reason. Cars disappeared with monotonous
regularity, many burned and exploded in an effort to destroy all evidence when petrol tanks ran dry. Life was lived these days in secure units that had once been proper homes. Keeping people out
was the main aim in life as man entered the twenty-first century.

The town centre was dying, its murderers sitting in municipal offices to plan the rerouting of a river, the destruction of beautiful commercial properties, the reduction of Bolton to a town like
any other, building societies, fast food, fast shopping, layered car parks. Social life was arranged these days around fortresses occupied by friends – so it was dinner parties, bridge,
garden barbecues. No one borrowed a cup of sugar any more; no one took sugar any more, he thought as he dropped a sweetener into his cup.

‘If you leave a card, I’ll get Mrs Makepeace to phone you when she gets back.’

‘No need,’ he answered. ‘I shall put a note through the door. Thank you for your help.’ He took a last sip of coffee and decided that he didn’t like Kenya
blend.

Outside once more, he unlocked his car, climbed into the passenger seat and sat for a few moments outside the Makepeace house. He now knew the recent history of Briarswood and was coming close
to believing in ghosts. Over several decades, the building had been rented out to various people, but no one had stayed beyond a few months. As for the construction, there was an extra wall in the
cellar – that was the only explanation for the anomaly. To investigate, he needed the permission of the current owners. The owners were Helen Spencer, Millicent Spencer and Agnes
Makepeace.

Briarswood was supposed to be haunted, and Ian Harte understood why tenants had quit. It was a very odd place. He remembered his last visit and had no desire to return to the house, but, as the
one elected to get a builder to sort out the footings, he was forced to become involved. Because Briarswood, once Lambert House, was to become a health farm. ‘Another slide into bloody
stupidity,’ he muttered. The country was going to the dogs and he was forced to play a part in the sin.

It would be a simple case of taking out a few bricks to ensure that the building was stable, but permission was required. He sighed, wrote his note for Mrs Makepeace, delivered it and returned
to his vehicle. As he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away, he found himself wishing that someone else could take charge of this job. Briarswood was crazy, and he wanted nothing more to
do with it.

Agnes gazed out to sea, her eyes fixed on the area in which her beloved husband had last drawn breath. There had been no funerals, because the yacht, reduced to matchsticks,
had taken with it two people whose bodies had never been found. She recalled the inquest, remembered a man from the Lifeboat Association stating baldly that any persons on board would have ended up
as fish food.

For at least two years after the accident, Agnes had been a robot. She had functioned, had fed and clothed her child, had scarcely noticed when Helen had left with Millie, Mags and Harry to live
in the south of England. ‘Just me and Lucy now,’ she breathed. George had lasted longer than poor Denis, but a single coronary occlusion had eventually taken him away from his wife and
children.

She said her goodbye to the grey water, picked up the handle of her wheeled suitcase and dragged it towards the station. Home. She was going home to an existence that held few pleasures now that
David was gone. She was proud of her son. He was a consultant who specialized in childhood cancers at Great Ormond Street hospital. He was married, Agnes was a grandmother, and she lived for
infrequent visits. Everyone was so busy these days, seeming to live at the speed of light, with no time for anyone or anything.

Mags, Harry and Helen were becoming distant memories. The geographical space between them was a factor, though separation had begun before they had left Lambert House. It was probably because of
the accident. Harry, who had passed his driving test just before the explosion, could have been the driver, but Denis had taken the judge to Morecambe Bay and Denis had died. That was not
Harry’s fault, though he had shouldered a form of guilt, and, probably for that reason, he and Mags had followed Helen to Hastings.

In spite of his position in the legal world, Judge Zachary Spencer had died intestate, so all property and monies had gone by default to Helen and Millie. Helen, in typical fashion, had managed
to divide everything into three parts, for herself, Millie and Agnes. Should Lambert House be sold, that money, too, would be split in a similar fashion.

But no one had wanted the house. Agnes could not understand why. She had spent nights there, had experienced nothing, yet she had been forced to listen to complaints from tenant after tenant
while wild stories were told. No, they hadn’t actually seen or heard anything, yet stuff moved. The furniture remained in situ, but smaller, personal items disappeared all the time, only to
turn up later in improbable places. The house was dark and often chilly, they said. Agnes had never found it to be dark. One tenant pointed out that the place became lighter and warmer every time
Agnes entered it, but that was foolishness, surely?

She played with a crossword, read the headlines, then fell asleep. Morecambe was miles behind her when she woke. Oh, Denis. How could the pain continue after thirty-nine years? Why did his
raincoat still hang from the hall stand with that ancient brown-and-black-checked scarf? She had never let go, had never said goodbye, had remained half a woman. Perhaps the burial of a body might
have made things easier to accept, though she doubted that, too. He had been her soulmate and she had lived nearly two-thirds of her life without him to keep her warm and safe.

The bus dropped her outside the house and she entered by the front door. There was no one to greet her, no human, no animal, no sound. The television filled the void and she sat, still wearing
her coat, to stare at a bouncy young woman making garden features. The young woman was not wearing a bra and her hair kept falling over her face. She spoke loudly and dragged bits of grey, dried
wood hither and thither, her plan to make a Chinese garden in an English suburb achieved within five heavily edited minutes.

His photograph was on the mantelpiece. Pop and Nan were there, too, along with Pop and Eva, then Albert and Kate, who had lived next door. They were all gone now, of course. Agnes had inherited
Bamber Cottage, had sold it and was living comfortably on her savings. What was this card about? She stared at the item she had picked up on her way in, fished out reading glasses and saw Ian
Harte’s name and telephone number with a message. He was a surveyor and he wanted to talk to her about selling Briarswood. Agnes sighed. She had changed the name and the decor, yet still no
tenant had endured beyond six months. Haunted, indeed. Oh, well, she would phone the man in a day or so.

As if reading her thoughts, the instrument rang out. It was Lucy. She was going round the bend with boredom and stated her intention to visit the next day. ‘Heard from Mags?’ she
asked.

‘No,’ replied Agnes.

‘I’d never have believed she’d stay out of touch,’ Lucy complained. ‘We were all so close, weren’t we?’

Agnes sighed. A lifetime ago, she had married the sweetest man in the world, and Lucy had married her George, who had been the second sweetest. Mags and her new nose had been joined in wedlock
to Harry Timpson, who had become a very successful accountant. Then, suddenly, it had all gone awry. ‘Morecambe was cold again,’ she said.

‘Isn’t it time you stopped going, Agnes?’

‘No. You can put flowers on George’s grave, but the sea is all I have when it comes to Denis. Yes, get your old bones round here tomorrow. I’ll go mad, butter some bread and
open a tin of soup.’

She decided to unpack in the morning, made her way upstairs and, after the necessary preparations, climbed into a bed that had seen better days. She would never part with it. On Denis’s
side, the old pillow remained. She had worn out several of her own and had replaced them, but she kept his and changed its cover twice a week. For a while after he had gone, the scent of him had
lingered, but he was all swallowed up now, obliterated by time and by the fact that few of the current neighbours remembered him.

‘It just goes on, come what may,’ she told the luminous dial of her alarm clock. The ticking and the turning of pages in a calendar continued, no matter what. She remembered the day,
felt the baby in her arms and the chill travelling the length of her spine. He should not have gone to work, should have stayed at home after the previous day’s troubles. But he had gone and
nothing would ever bring him back.

Denis remained the same as ever, young and handsome in various frames around the house. Agnes, still straight and fairly strong, had silver in her hair and lines on her face. She was not afraid
of ageing, was not afraid of death. All she feared was this continuing emptiness, the silence, the isolation. All she wanted was to be part of a family, but David was too far away and Denis was
long gone.

Never mind. Lucy would be here tomorrow.

Lucy bustled in with fish and chips. ‘I didn’t get any mushy peas for me,’ she said, ‘they give me wind in the willows.’

They sat at the kitchen table, each leaving many chips uneaten. ‘One portion between two next time,’ said Lucy. ‘Never mind – it saved you opening a tin and buttering
bread.’

In the living room, they played Scrabble for a couple of hours. Lucy, who had become an addict, manufactured some improbable words. When challenged by her partner, she came up with the
inevitable Chambers dictionary and proved herself right. ‘Shall we go to the pub?’ Agnes asked as dusk fell.

‘No. It’s full of thirty-year-olds with prospects.’

‘And credit cards.’

‘Exactly. I can’t recall the last time I was in there. Remember Helen’s first game of darts? I reckon they had to plaster three walls after that. Anyway, I have come with a
cunning plan.’

‘Ah.’ A cunning plan was typical of Lucy, who still continued to be the naughty child. ‘What is it this time?’

Lucy grinned. ‘It’s time we had another Hastings adventure. We won’t tell them we’re coming, eh? I can book us into a hotel and we’ll get fed and watered with our
own money. Then we just turn up at the house and surprise them.’