‘Shit!’ She didn’t often swear, and certainly not alone, out loud. ‘Shit shit shit!’ She banged the steering wheel. ‘Oh please, let there be enough to get me there.’
Leaning across, she pulled open the glove compartment and rummaged through the tapes and sweets which Lyn had left there. She found a couple of fifty pence pieces, her fingers sorting through the contents while her eyes were still fixed on the road ahead of her. All she needed was another pound and she could perhaps get a gallon – enough to get her there. A garage loomed ahead, its ugly neon sign bright in the rain-swept landscape and she pulled in, avoiding the pumps, drawing up near the air and water. With both hands now and the help of her eyes she began to ransack the glove compartment. Sweet papers, tapes, shopping lists tumbled to the floor. How strange that Lyn, so meticulous at home, should be so messy in her car. She smiled as she realised that most of the sweet papers related to Tom and then she frowned, wondering just how many sweets Lyn gave him. Her fingers closed over another coin. Five pence. Please, please, let there be some more money there.
In the end she found three pounds in scattered coins around the car – one coin under the floor mat, one down the side of the seat, another on the shelf under Lyn’s sunglasses. Relieved she backed the car up to a pump, put in the petrol and at last was on her way again.
She drew into Aldeburgh as a heavy thundery shower of rain began to fall. It was very hot. Pulling into the square she climbed stiffly out and ran, awkwardly because of her bulk, towards the Gowers’ house. The door had opened before she got there. ‘I saw you from the window, my dear.’ Dot pulled her in. ‘Are you soaked? You should have brought an umbrella, you foolish child!’
In no time at all, it seemed to her, she had been dried, reassured, settled into a comfortable chair in Edgar’s study and given a glass of iced lemonade. Edgar had waited behind his desk whilst his wife fussed around Joss and only when she too had at last settled onto the sofa by the window did he come forward and sit down.
His face was very serious as he reached for his own drink. Then he glanced at Dot. ‘She is expecting a baby,’ he said with a slow shake of the head. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘We can all see that.’ Dot sounded impatient.
He gave a deep sigh. ‘So, Joss. What can I do for you?’
‘What do you mean? Why is it significant that I’m expecting a baby?’ She needed to hear him tell her why.
Edgar Gower shrugged. ‘Perhaps you should tell me first why you wanted my help.’
‘You know about Belheddon. You know what it was that haunted my mother and grandmother. You know what happened to my brothers. You know about the roses.’
He frowned. ‘I know a certain amount, my dear. Not perhaps as much as you might be hoping. Tell me what has happened. From the beginning.’
‘I went to see John Cornish after you gave me his name last year. I tried again and again to ring you and thank you. It turned out that I had been left the house in my mother’s will. She said if I turned up within seven years of her death I was to inherit it. As you know, I did. It came at the right moment for us. My husband lost his job and we were penniless. We moved in, even though it was fairly run down and we are living there now. Myself and my husband and my sister – my adopted sister, that is – and my son, Tom.’ She scarcely noticed as Dot leaned forward and took the empty glass out of her hands. ‘I found diaries and letters in the house. My mother and my grandmother seem to have been haunted by something. They were very afraid. And now – ’
She couldn’t go on. Afraid that she was going to cry she reached for a handkerchief and found a wad of crumpled tissues in the pocket of her skirt.
‘And now it is your turn to be afraid.’ Edgar’s voice was matter of fact, unemotional. ‘My dear, I received your letter. I’m sorry. I hadn’t got round to replying as yet. Perhaps I wasn’t sure what to say. You have made me feel very guilty. Can you tell me what has happened since you arrived in the house?’
‘Roses.’ She found the laugh she was going to give came out as a sob. ‘It sounds so silly. To be haunted by roses.’
‘In what way are you being haunted by roses?’ Unseen by Joss Edgar gave his wife a quick worried glance. She was sitting, lips pursed, Joss’s glass still in her hand.
‘Just that. They keep appearing. Dried roses – no, not always dried. Sometimes fresh and cold – almost slimy –’ she shuddered. ‘On my desk. On the table, on my pillow – ’
Edgar sighed once again. ‘At least roses are unthreatening. You have never seen anything else?’
She shook her head and then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I sometimes wonder if Tom has.’
‘Tom is your son?’
She nodded. ‘He’s only two. He doesn’t understand. But something frightens him. He has bad dreams. I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t sleep any more. I’m so afraid. They want me to leave the house. To go away until the baby is born, but I don’t want to do that. It’s my home. My family home. And I’ve been part of the family for such a short time.’
He nodded. ‘I can understand that, my dear. But nevertheless I’m not sure that they’re not right.’
‘There must be something else I can do. Something you can do. Is it the devil? Does he really live at Belheddon?’