And yet there was obviously something. It was there in the letter.
‘Tell me about him,’ she said.
‘Basil?’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know much. He’s just an old guy with two passions in his life. Rosie and poker.’
‘He’s a gambler? Are you saying that he puts Rosie up as surety for his bets?’
‘He’d never risk losing Rosie,’ he assured her. Then added, ‘Which is not to say that if he got into trouble some of his playing partners wouldn’t take her in lieu if they could get their hands on her.’
‘So, what are you saying? That you’ve been appointed getaway driver and I’ve been chosen to give her sanctuary?’ It … not she. She was doing it now. But it explained why Basil had gone to the bother of registering her grandmother as Rosie’s keeper.
‘That’s about the gist of it,’ he admitted, stretching his neck, easing his shoulders.
‘Don’t do that!’ she said as his navy polo shirt rippled, offering a tantalising promise of the power beneath the soft jersey. Talk about distraction …
Sean frowned. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, thank goodness.
‘Does he disappear regularly?’ she asked before he had time to work it out.
‘I wouldn’t know. I’m his landlord, not his best buddy. But he garages Rosie with me and I was in London when he took off and he couldn’t get in. It would seem that his need to disappear was too urgent to wait until morning.’
‘So, what? He dropped a note through your letter box asking you to bring her here?’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, looking slightly uncomfortable, no doubt thinking that she was taking a dig at him for doing the same. ‘I assumed that once you’d read whatever was in the envelope you’d know what to do.’
What to do?
It got worse, she thought, suddenly realising exactly what this was all about.
‘I’m sorry, Sean, but if you’ve come here expecting to be paid your rent, you’re out of luck. I don’t know Basil Amery and, even if I did, I couldn’t help you. You’re going to have to sell Rosie to recover your losses.’
‘Sell Rosie? Are you kidding?’
‘Obviously,’ Elle said, back to sarcasm. ‘Since she’s Basil’s pride and joy.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
‘I can think of more important things to lavish your love on. I mean, how would you react to someone you’ve never heard of expecting you to run an ice cream round for him?’
Sean thought about it for a moment, then said, ‘Why don’t I put the kettle on? I make a mean cup of coffee.’
‘I haven’t got any coffee,’ she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.
‘Tea, then,’ he said, picking up the kettle, filling it and turning it on. He took a couple of mugs off the dresser and since the tea bags were stored in a tin with ‘TEA’ on the front—life was complicated enough without adding to the confusion—he found them without making a mountain out of a molehill. So far, he was doing better than either of her sisters ever managed. ‘Milk, sugar?’ he asked, dropping a bag in each mug.
She wanted to tell him to go and take the van with him, but he was right. They needed to get to the bottom of this.
‘Just a dash of milk.’
Was there any milk?
‘How about sugar? You’ve obviously had a shock.’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ she said, pulling herself together. ‘This is some kind of weird mistake. It has to be.’
They weren’t the most conventional family in the world, but they didn’t have secrets. Quite the contrary. Anyone would give him chapter and verse …
He glanced back to her.
‘What are you so scared of, Elle?’
‘I’m not scared!’
‘No?’
‘No!’ She’d faced the worst that the world could throw at her, but he was right, something about this put her on edge and, seizing on the fact that the kettle hadn’t come on to divert his attention, she said, ‘You have to give the plug a wiggle.’
He wasn’t diverted, just confused, and she reached behind him.
‘Don’t!’ Sean said as he realised what she was doing. He made a lunge in her direction, but not in time to stop her. There was a bit of a crackle and a tiny shock rippled up her arm, then the light came on and the kettle began to heat up noisily.
Her cheeks lit up to match but the rush of heat that invaded her body, starting at the spot where his hand was fastened over hers was, fortunately, silent.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the hammering of her pulse in her ears was so loud that Sean could hear it too, because he dropped her hand so fast that you’d have thought she was the one with dodgy wiring.
Without a word, he took a wooden spoon from the pot by the stove, used the handle to switch off the kettle and then removed the plug from the socket.
Whatever. Tea had been his idea.
But he wasn’t done. Having disconnected the kettle, he began opening the dresser drawers.
‘Excuse me!’
He held up a screwdriver he’d found in the drawer that contained bits of string, paper bags, the stuff that didn’t have any other home.
‘It’s beyond help,’ she told him. ‘It’s just …’ worn out, past its use by date, just plain old ‘… vintage. Like Rosie.’
‘It’s nothing like Rosie,’ he said, ignoring her protest as he set about taking the plug apart. ‘Rosie is not an accident waiting to happen.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ she retorted.
‘No. It’s a matter of fact. She’s completely roadworthy or I wouldn’t be driving her.’ He looked up. ‘And I wouldn’t have brought her to you.’
‘No?’ Then, realising just how rude she was being, she blushed. ‘No, of course not. Sorry …’
‘No problem.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ she said, only too aware of the envelope that was lying on the kitchen table with all the appeal of an unexploded bomb.
The Amery family had lived at Gable End for generations. This was the house Grandpa had been born in and it was marked with traces of everyone who’d ever lived there.
Their names were written in the fly-leaves of books that filled shelves in almost every room. Were scratched into the handles of ancient tennis racquets, stencilled onto the lids of old school trunks in the attic.
Their faces as babies, children, brides and grooms, soldiers, parents, grandparents, filled photograph albums.
There was no Basil.
Okay, there were gaps. Photographs fell out, were borrowed, lost.
Or had some been removed?
Gran had recognised the name. According to Sean, she hadn’t acted in the slightly silly, coy way she did when some man from the pensioners’ club chatted her up, and they often did because she was still beautiful.
She’d nearly passed out, he’d said. Panicked. And then there was Basil’s letter. He’d mentioned Bernard and referred