CHAPTER TWO
Take plenty of exercise. Always run after the ice cream van.
—Rosie’s Diary
ELLE, hot, flustered and decidedly bothered from her encounter with Sean McElroy, found her concentration slipping, her ears straining to hear the van start up, the crunch of tyres on gravel as it drove away.
It was all nonsense, she told herself, mopping up the suds, sitting back on her heels. She’d never heard of anyone called Basil Amery. It had to be a mistake. But the silence bothered her. While she hadn’t heard the van arrive, she hadn’t been listening. She had, however, been listening for it to leave.
The sudden rattle of the letter box made her jump. That was the only reason her heart was pounding, she told herself as she leapt to her feet. She wasn’t in the habit of racing to pick up the post—it rarely contained anything but bills and she could wait for those—but it was an excuse to check that he’d gone.
There were two things on the mat. The brown envelope Sean McElroy had been holding and a bunch of keys. He couldn’t, she told herself. He wouldn’t … But the key fob was an ice cream cornet and she flung open the door.
Rosie was still sitting on the drive, exactly where he’d parked her.
‘Sean McElroy!’ she called, half expecting him to be sitting in the van, grinning at having tricked her into opening the door.
He wasn’t and, in a sudden panic, she ran to the gate, looking up and down the lane. Unless he’d had someone follow him in a car, he’d have to walk, or catch a bus.
She spun around, desperately checking the somewhat wild shrubbery.
Nothing. She was, apparently, quite wrong.
He could.
He had.
Abandoned Rosie on her doorstep.
‘If you’re looking for the van driver, Elle, he rode off in that direction.’
Elle inwardly groaned. Mrs Fisher, her next door neighbour, was bright-eyed with excitement as she stepped up to take a closer look at Rosie.
‘Rode?’
‘He had one of those fold-up bikes. Are you taking on an ice cream round?’ she asked.
The internal groan reached a crescendo. The village gossips considered the Amery family their own private soap opera and whatever she said would be chewed over at length in the village shop.
‘Sorry, Mrs Fisher, I can hear my phone,’ she said, legging it inside, pushing the door shut behind her. If she’d left it open the woman would have considered it an invitation to walk in.
She sat on the bottom of the stairs holding the envelope, staring at the name and address which was, without doubt, hers.
Then she tore it open and tipped out the contents. A dark pink notebook with ‘Bookings’ written on the cover. A bells and whistles cellphone, the kind that would have her sisters drooling. There were a couple of official-looking printed sheets of paper. One was the logbook for the van, which told her that it was registered to Basil Amery of Keeper’s Cottage, Haughton Manor, the other was an insurance certificate.
There was also a cream envelope.
She turned it over. There was nothing written on it, no name or address, but that had been on the brown envelope. She put her thumb beneath the flap and took out the single sheet of matching paper inside. Unfolded it.
Dear Lally, it began, and her heart sank as she read her grandmother’s pet name.
Remember how you found me, all those years ago? Sitting by the village pond, confused, afraid, ready to end it all?
You saved me that day, my life, my sanity, and what happened afterwards wasn’t your fault. Not Bernard’s either. My brother and I were chalk and cheese but we are as we’re made and there’s nothing that can change us. Maybe, if our mother had still been alive, things would have been different, but there’s no point in dwelling on it. The past is past.
I’ve kept my promise and stayed away from the family. I caused enough heartache and you and Lavender’s girls have had more than enough of that to bear, losing Bernard and Lavender, without me turning up to dredge up the past, old scandals. The truth, however, is that I’m getting old and home called. Last year I took a cottage on the Haughton Manor estate and I’ve been working up the courage to write to you, but courage was never my strong point and now I’ve left it too late.
I have met your lovely granddaughter, though. I had lunch at the Blue Boar a couple of months ago and she served me. She was so like you, Lally—all your charm, your pretty smile—that I asked someone who she was. She even has your name. And here, I’m afraid, comes the crunch. You knew there would be a crunch, didn’t you?
Rosie, who by now you’ll have met, is a little hobby of mine. I do the occasional party, public event, you know the kind of thing, just to cover the costs of keeping her. The occasional charity do for my soul. Unfortunately, events have rather overtaken me and I have to go away for a while but there are people I’ve made promises to, people I can’t let down and I thought perhaps you and your granddaughter might take it on for me. A chance for her to get out of that restaurant once in a while. For you to think of me, I hope. Sean, who brings this to you, will show you how everything works.
I’ve enclosed the bookings diary as well as the phone I use for the ice cream business and, in order to make things easier for you, I’ve posted the change of keeper slip to the licence people so that Rosie is now registered in your name. God bless and keep you, Lally. Yours always, Basil
Elle put her hand to her mouth. Swallowed. Her great-uncle. Family. He’d been within touching distance and she’d had no idea. She tried to remember serving someone on his own, but the Blue Boar had a motel that catered for businessmen travelling on their own.
Haughton Manor was only six or seven miles away but she had to get ready for work and there was no time to drive over there this evening. Find out more. Neither could she leave it and she reached for the phone, dialled Directory Enquiries.
‘Lower Haughton, Basil Amery,’ she said, made a note of the number and then dialled it.
After half a dozen rings it switched to voicemail. Had he already left? What events? Scandal, he’d mentioned in his letter … She left a message, asking him to call her—he’d pick up his messages even if he was away—left her number as well, and replaced the receiver. She was rereading his letter, trying to make sense of it, when the phone rang. She grabbed for it, hoping that he’d picked up the message and called back.
‘Elle?’
It was her boss. ‘Oh, hello, Freddy.’
‘Don’t sound so disappointed!’
‘Sorry, I was expecting someone else. What’s up?’ she asked quickly, before he asked who.
‘We’re going to be short-staffed this evening. I was wondering if you can you drop everything and come in early.’
‘Twenty minutes?’ she offered.
‘You’re an angel.’ Then, ‘Would your sister be interested in doing a shift? She’s a smart girl; she’d pick it up quickly enough. I’m sure she could use the money.’
‘I’m sorry, Sorrel isn’t here, but I was hoping for some more hours myself,’ she added, taking advantage of a moment when he was the one asking for something.
‘You already do more than enough. I’ll have a word next time she drops in to the use the Wi-Fi. It wouldn’t hurt her to help out.’
‘She needs to concentrate …’ But Freddy had already hung up and she was talking to herself.
She read the letter again, then