Page 1 of The Sisters at the Last House Before the Sea

PROLOGUE

Jessie glanced at the framed photograph sitting on her polished walnut bureau. Two teenaged girls beamed back at her, their heads bent together and their arms around each other’s shoulders. They’d been close back then, and it broke Jessie’s heart to see them now – little more than strangers, linked only by blood and obligation. She’d tried so hard to bring them back together but her efforts had failed.

Jessie brushed a strand of white hair from her forehead and picked up her fountain pen. She let the cold metal of its barrel rest on her bottom lip for a moment while she chose her words carefully. Then she painstakingly wrote out her final riddle, narrowing her pale blue eyes as she concentrated: Don’t get in a spin, girls, though mistakes can cost you dear. This one brings good fortune and, I hope, will make you cheer.

How long would it take Caitlin and Isla to solve the mystery? Jessie wondered, patting blotting paper onto her words so they wouldn’t smudge.

She was sure they would work it out before too long – Isla, in particular, who was a crossword addict, just like her, and would enjoy the challenge. But she hoped it would take the girls long enough that they would spend time in each other’s company and remember how close they had once been. Before Caitlin had left Heaven’s Cove and everything had changed.

Jessie looked out of the window, at the green shoots in her garden and the shimmering sea beyond. She would see this spring, but she was old and unwell, and she doubted that she would see another. How she would miss beautiful Heaven’s Cove, and her darling girls who had brought her so much joy, along with some heartache.

With a sigh, she carefully placed the riddle inside the envelope that had arrived in the village more than one hundred years earlier. Isla had sacrificed so much for her, and she so wanted to make things right. Even if that meant making things right from beyond the grave.

1

CAITLIN

Everything here was grey: the sea, the sky, the faces of villagers passing by. Caitlin sighed,the drab surroundings perfectly matching her mood.

She shifted on the sea wall where she’d been sitting for the last five minutes. The chilled stone was turning her thighs to ice, but it was either brave the cold and all-pervading grey, or endure the tense atmosphere inside Rose Cottage. Neither of which were terribly appealing.

Cold salt water splashed onto her jeans as waves rippled against the wall, but she couldn’t be bothered to move. She couldn’t be bothered to do much these days, not since she’d ended up back in Heaven’s Cove.

She thought she’d got away from this tiny village on the Devon coast fifteen years ago. She thought she’d escaped. But now she was back and every cobbled street she walked, every corner she turned, was bringing up painful memories.

Caitlin sighed again as she thought of her grandmother, Jessie, whose death only three weeks ago still felt raw. Of course, she was sad that Jessie was gone, but her sorrow was laced with shards of guilt.

She shook her head, trying not to think of all the times she’d made excuses to avoid visiting her grandmother. So many pathetic excuses. Caitlin gazed across the grey expanse of water, wishing with all her heart that she’d made more of an effort. But regrets were pointless when it was too late to make amends.

The sad thing was she hadn’t been avoiding Jessie at all. Not really. She’d mostly been keeping away from her own sister, Isla, and with good reason. Isla had said very little since Caitlin had arrived two days ago with Maisie, but her mournful blue eyes said more than words: You lied to me. You lied and you left.

It was quite unbearable, and, if you added in Maisie’s furious adolescent glares, life was pretty rubbish right now. And that didn’t even take into account Stuart’s betrayal. How had Caitlin not realised the scale of her husband’s problems until it was too late?

‘Eek! Well, isn’t that just perfect!’ she hissed as a larger wave washed up her legs. Here she was, with her life imploding, and now she had wet trousers into the bargain.

Caitlin got to her feet, wincing at the squelching coming from her ankle boots. She’d have to stuff them with newspaper and hope the salt water didn’t discolour the leather. They’d cost a fortune and she couldn’t afford to replace them for the time being. Maybe not ever, thanks to Stuart.

She set off walking, back to the house that was home to her and her stepdaughter Maisie for the time being. The home that her twenty-year-old self had been so eager to leave. She’d been different back then: naive and sporting a terrible mono-brow, drowning in responsibility and filled with dreams.

That’s why she’d loved university and the freedom it gave her. And that was why she’d been so reluctant to come back. And her new life had gone well, mostly – until Stuart’s behaviour had brought everything crashing down.

Caitlin had reached the house and she stood, with her hands on her hips, staring at the building that might prove to be the answer to her prayers.

The house in front of her was very unlike her modern home in Hammersmith, West London, which had floor-to-ceiling windows, a state-of-the-art heat pump and a verdant roof garden. Her grandmother’s home, on the edge of Heaven’s Cove, was Victorian and made of red brick. It was called Rose Cottage, though Caitlin thought the name both twee and inaccurate – the building was too large to be a cottage, and Caitlin had never seen a single rose in the flower beds that led to the front door. In spring and summer, the garden was festooned with geraniums, lupins, lavender and phlox. Though now, as November slid towards December, the earth was barren and dark, with no flowers to add any cheer.

But it was a handsome house, Caitlin had to admit. The building was perfectly proportioned, with a large bay window at the front, and the original door with its stained glass in blues and greens. A wooden balcony wrapped around the upper floor. Not that anyone could step onto it and enjoy the sea view, not unless they wanted to risk plunging through the rotting wood and landing in the garden below.

Whoever bought the house would need to carry out a good number of repairs but that would be their problem. All Caitlin needed was the money from the sale so that she and Maisie could go back to London and get on with their lives. Rather than being suffocated by guilt and regret in this tiny village where modernity came to die.

Caitlin stood for a moment longer, with her hand on the garden gate, psyching herself up to go inside. The house felt strange without Jessie bustling round or sitting in her favourite chair, doing the Times crossword.

Sometimes, Caitlin almost believed she could feel Jessie’s presence, hovering in the ether, though that was ridiculous. It was far more likely she was being spooked by Isla, who had a habit of appearing out of the shadows, with a pained expression, like a Victorian wraith. She was grieving for their grandmother, but then so was Caitlin – though she didn’t feel she was allowed to because of the apparently unforgivable way she’d behaved…

Caitlin shut down that train of thought immediately and walked briskly through the garden towards the front door. She needed to get things moving, otherwise she would end up spending the whole winter in Heaven’s Cove and she wasn’t sure she could stand it when storms rolled in off the sea.

She could remember lying in her bedroom at the back of the house, feeling the building shake as the wind roared. She’d held on tight to her boyfriend and wondered if the house could withstand such a battering.

Caitlin blinked, trying to erase the memory. That was the trouble with coming back here after all this time – memories were rekindled, like spectres rising from the grave. Memories that did nothing but make her feel unsettled and lost.

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