Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The homely disorder inside Roy’s house put Lily at ease. A jumbled mess of shoes lined the hallway, and a coat rack was so full it seemed to defy physics. It wasn’t all Roy’s – that much was clear from the variety of women’s shoes and the pink hoodie which lay slung over the banister post.
“My daughter is fifteen,” he said, catching Lily surveying the chaos. “I gave up on trying to maintain any order in the house a long time ago. I embrace the mess instead. Whenever it bothers me, I remind myself I’m lucky to be the full-time parent. That puts the mess into perspective.”
“Her mother doesn’t live with you?” Lily asked, following him to a farmhouse kitchen which was in similar disarray.
“No. It’s just Mia and me. Has been for a few years now.
The situation works well for everyone, thank goodness.
” He turned on the tap and filled the kettle.
“I couldn’t cope with being the one who only gets Mia every other weekend, but her mother is career-focused at the moment. Like I say – it works well.”
“That’s good.”
He grinned. “And I really thought that once I retired I’d have time to keep on top of the housework, but apparently I was optimistic.”
“It’s a lovely home,” Lily said, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table and inadvertently disturbing a sleeping cat. The ginger bundle of fur didn’t seem to be in a rush, but sprang down from the seat and sauntered out of the room.
“She’s warmed the seat for you,” Roy said affectionately.
Lily hung her coat on the back of the chair before sitting, and the tone of Roy’s voice when he spoke again caught her off guard.
“I looked into it as much as I could,” he said, suddenly serious. “Without any evidence, there was only so much I could do.”
“You looked into my parents’ deaths?” Lily whispered.
“I did as much as I could.” He leaned against the counter as the kettle began to rumble. His eyes took on a vacant look before he seemed to snap out of his trance and meet Lily’s gaze. “That’s what I tell myself, anyway. I sleep better if I tell myself there was nothing more I could do.”
Tears welled in Lily’s eyes. “You don’t think the fire was an accident?”
“I suspected it might not have been. But the fire wiped out any evidence there might have been.” The kettle clicked off, but he ignored it and took a seat at the table.
“I know Clara ended up fearing for her life, and yours. After her accident, I was with her in the hospital. She was barely conscious, but she muttered about someone having pushed her down those steps.”
“She didn’t give you any more details?”
“No. And the next time she came around, she’d only speak to your uncle. I don’t know what she said to him, but he left and took you with him.”
“Did the police look for the person who’d pushed her?”
“We made a few inquiries, but no one knew anything.” He shook his head. “Clara was in a medically induced coma for two weeks, and when she woke up, she claimed she’d just fallen and must have been delirious when she said someone pushed her.”
“You didn’t believe her?”
“No.” He rested his forearms on the table. “I think she decided the police weren’t going to help her, so she took matters into her own hands. I believe the most important thing to her was keeping you safe.”
“I think so too,” Lily said sadly.
“What made you think she might still be alive?”
“There’s no death certificate for her.”
“That’s what made me wonder too.”
“You’ve checked?” Lily asked, unable to hide her surprise.
“After I heard that she’d died, I did a little digging. I couldn’t find any evidence of her death. As far as I can tell, someone intentionally started that rumour. I’m not sure who, or why.”
“Maybe she started it herself,” Lily suggested.
“That makes the most sense. If whoever started the fire thought she was dead, they’d stop chasing her. I tried to follow that rumour back to its root, but I ended up chasing my tail.”
“Do you remember Richard Harper? The property developer?”
“Yes, but I told you I looked into them. Clean as a whistle, and he seemed like a nice guy. He was shaken up by the fire – and Clara’s accusations.”
“I don’t think it was anything to do with the developers, either,” Lily said. “I met Richard last week and I agree he seems like an upstanding guy. He was very shocked to hear that my grandmother had died.”
Roy raised a questioning eyebrow.
“He’s been receiving Christmas cards from her for the last twenty years.”
He jutted his chin out. “No way.”
“I think she was leaving me a trail back to her. Except the only thing of significance about the cards is that they came from Marcie’s gift shop.”
“Marcie Smith? In Malporth?”
“Yes. I asked her about the cards, but she marched me out of the shop and told me to be careful who I spoke to about Clara.”
“That’s an odd thing for her to say.”
“She claims Clara made a lot of people angry with her accusations.”
“She did. But most people were sympathetic. They knew what she was going through.” He moved to make tea.
“Marcie and Clara used to be friends. I used to get updates from Marcie after your grandmother’s fall.
She visited her regularly. It was hard for her because Clara didn’t seem to care whether or not she had visitors. She didn’t talk much.”
“So why does Marcie have such a grudge against her now?”
“Clara started to get aggressive.” He paused while he added milk to the mugs. “She’d shout at the staff in the care home, and at Marcie too. She wasn’t herself. I think Marcie was hurt more than anything. They’d been good friends, then Clara pushed her away and didn’t want anything to do with her.”
“Why would Clara send cards from her shop then?”
“I have no idea.”
“I need to find her,” Lily said desperately. “But if the Christmas cards were supposed to be a way for me to track her down, I don’t know how.”
“I’m sorry,” Roy said. “I’m not sure what to suggest.”
When he set a steaming mug in front of her, Lily wrapped her hands around it, taking comfort from the heat. “Maybe there’s a way to get her to come to me,” she said finally.
“How?”
“If she’s still alive, the most likely scenario is she’s hiding out of fear of the person who started the fire.” She looked at Roy until he gave a subtle nod. “If I find who started the fire, she could come out of hiding. There’d be news articles – she’d surely hear about it, and about me.”
“It’s a long shot. And I don’t know how you’ll go about it.”
“I planned to investigate it, anyway. I’ve been talking to people and gathering information. That’s why I was looking for you. I hoped you could tell me more.”
He blew out a breath. “I can’t tell you anything officially,” he said, drumming his fingers against the table edge. “And you’d need to bear in mind that anything I tell you is purely from my memory – you shouldn’t take it as fact.”
“I know,” Lily said with a grateful smile.
He nodded gravely. “Where shall we start then?”