‘In no uncertain terms, apparently. Kate said she would, mainly because the man smelt.’ He rolled his eyes in disgust. ‘At least we’ve seen him for ourselves now, thanks to our little snout the postmistress letting us know when he collected his magazines from her. I can’t wait to tell Will what you’ve dug up.’
‘And tell him to make sure Kate understands that Grove is not to be trusted.’ Liz sat back. ‘Any luck with talking Emilia into getting a surveillance camera installed at Little Anchor?’
Matt shook his head. ‘She still says it reminds her of bad times — and the stories her parents told her of being watched and spied on. I can’t push her too hard, we don’t know what she’s been through in the past, but I won’t give up trying.’
‘Shame,’ said Liz. ‘I know whoever it is has gone quiet, but I’m sure they haven’t finished with our Emilia yet.’
Matt nodded. He felt the same. The question was, what had they in mind for next time?
CHAPTER SIX
The week had been a series of ups and downs for Will and Kate. In the main she had been a bit calmer. Barry and his workers had started work on the patio, and as it turned out, he had proved to be the exception to the rule. Will was obliged to admit that he and his workers had done an excellent job for a very reasonable price. So much so that, as Barry’s next job had been held up yet again, they had begun clearing an overgrown area to the back of the well, with a view to constructing a series of small terraces and a pond. It was actually quite reassuring to see them working outside. Having them there made the place feel kind of normal, and they were certainly working far faster than him. Even better, it clearly pleased Kate.
Even so, despite the good days, Kate oscillated between being the loving woman he had married and a preoccupied, impatient and bad-tempered stranger. Her mood swings left him tired, unhappy and unable to sleep.
Kate’s sleep patterns had altered too. More often than not she would rise in the dead of night and spend hours in her studio, and she never volunteered to show her husband the fruits of her labours.
Once, after constant requests from him, she produced a finished image. It was powerful and cleverly painted, but it lacked the fine detail that normally characterised her work. It was shadowy and somehow frightening. It showed some kind of underground dweller, a troll-like being crouched at the entrance to his cavern and looking out suspiciously. He was depicted slightly turned to one side so that you saw his deformed back. Outside the cave, like a window looking into the light, was a mountain meadow. That was sunlit and colourful but it only occupied a small portion of the painting. It seemed to Will as if this glimpse of a meadow was the only part of the picture that Kate had painted, the rest being the work of someone else. That other artist was undoubtedly brilliant, but sinister.
She refused to show him anything else, which made him wonder anxiously what the other paintings might be like. Will longed to talk to Matt and Liz about Kate, but he felt that this would be a betrayal. He was sure she was deeply depressed. He recalled the breakdown she had suffered following the loss of their child. It was some time ago now, but still she found it impossible to talk about the baby.
Little Emma Stonebridge had lived for one day. Kate had haemorrhaged so badly after the birth that they thought they would lose her too. But she survived, coming out of it minus her torn and damaged womb. The shock of losing Emma before she could even hold her, and then discovering that she could bear no more children, had pushed her one heartbreak too far. It had been a long road back for them both.
Matt and Liz knew the bare bones of what had happened, but Will had never gone into detail about the full extent of Kate’s emotional disorder.
Now Kate seemed to be operating in overdrive, working all night in her studio and decorating by day. She accomplished miracles. Along with her reluctant workhorse, Will, she painted and papered, bringing the old house back to its former splendour. Will’s more relaxed routine long abandoned, she even found time for longer walks on the marshes and the sea bank, sometimes disappearing for hours at a time. Will could only watch in horror, waiting for the inevitable crash.
On this particular day he was carrying some empty paint cans to the garage when he heard someone call out to him.
‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Stonebridge. Have you got a moment, sir?’ Barry’s foreman, an older man called Neville, was coming towards him along the drive.
As he went out to meet him, Will experienced an odd disquiet. His gut began to churn, as it had when he was still in the force, a sure sign that something was not right.
‘You know that natural bit of higher ground behind the well — the mound we cleared last week and planned on cutting the terraces out of?’
Will nodded.
‘It’s not actually natural at all, sir. It’s an old air-raid shelter, left over from the war. We don’t rightly know what to do now, sir. Would you come and take a look at it?’
He and Kate had often wondered about that piece of raised ground. Lincolnshire gardens were predominantly flat. In the end they had decided that it must just be old topsoil piled up and ready for a job that never got done. Weeds and brambles had covered it completely.
‘Well, I’m damned!’
‘It’s built a bit like an Anderson shelter, dug down into the ground and with them curved sheets of corrugated iron over the top. I remember playing in the one my gran had — she lived in the East End of London during the blitz and used her shelter as a sort of garden shed for donkey’s years. Good fun for a kid, too. My brothers and I used to love it.’ Neville chuckled.
‘I am surprised there’s one on the fens,’ Will said. ‘London certainly, but out here?’
‘Well, Greenborough’s not far away, that was considered a prime target — East Coast port, you know, and this is Bomber County, Mr Stonebridge. The Lancasters flew out of here every night on their missions. Didn’t yer dad tell yer about ’em?’
But Will’s dad had died when he and his younger sister, Eva, were kids.
Neville, well up on his local history, went on to tell Will about the thousands of evacuees who had poured into the rural villages after war was declared. Will had to stop him after a while and bring him back to the matter in hand. ‘So, is it intact?’
‘Dunno yet, sir. Thought you better see it first. It has a proper solid door, which is a bit unusual. Lots of folk used to just hang a curtain up — doors meant no air and would have made it pretty uncomfortable. Our young Steve is still digging down to get it free.’
A young man with a selection of colourful tattoos and a shovel was moving great heaps of rich soil away from the old, damp wood. Sweat glistened off a ferocious-looking tiger and dripped across the heart-encircled Mandy.
‘Nearly there.’ He raked away some loose earth and threw his spade down with a gasp. ‘’Ot work, an’ no mistake.’
‘Open her up, Steve, and I’ll get you a cold beer,’ Will called out.
The lad dragged on the old door. It opened with a squeal, and the three men peered in.
As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they made out two beds at either side of the shelter, with a small wooden table in between. A rickety bookcase stood just inside the door with a rusty bucket next to it. The bedclothes had long gone, but a hurricane lamp still stood on the table alongside a tin box, and when Will prised it open, he found a pack of dog-eared playing cards and a mildewed prayer book.