Page 17 of The Sisters at the Last House Before the Sea

Caitlin tried to relax because the cold was making her so tense, the muscles in her neck were starting to ache.

‘OK,’ she told the man she’d married in Hammersmith and Fulham Register Office five years earlier. They’d both been optimistic then and filled with hope for the future. ‘I’ll stop catastrophising and you do what you can, but please be realistic, and keep me informed.’

‘I will. I’ve already said.’ He sniffed. ‘What happened about your grandmother’s house, by the way? When do we get the money for that?’

We? Caitlin hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. There’s been a slight hold-up.’

‘But you’ll get the cash soon?’

‘I expect so,’ said Caitlin, her mind whirling. She didn’t trust Stuart with their money any more, and if she could persuade Isla to sell Rose Cottage, she would have to make sure that Stuart couldn’t get his hands on the proceeds. She was applying for work at the moment and would have to do the same with her wages, too.

A woman’s voice sounded in the background, far away in sunny Gran Canaria.

‘Sorry, Cait, I’m needed and have got to go. We can’t afford for me to lose my job right now. Speak soon.’

Caitlin kept the phone to her ear for several seconds after Stuart had ended the call. She suddenly felt so exhausted, so wrung out, she could hardly move. Or maybe it was hypothermia setting in as tendrils of mist wrapped around her and the world beyond began to dim. Even the squawking of seagulls looming at her out of the fog sounded muffled.

With an effort, she pushed herself away from the damp boulder and shoved her phone back into her pocket. The waves were getting closer and the air smelled of salt and seaweed.

A sudden flash of déjà vu dragged Caitlin back through the years. She’d been here before, on a misty day like this, when the world shrank to arm’s length and everything beyond might as well not exist. Only, on that day, she hadn’t been alone. Sean had been by her side, with his arm around her shoulders, and his breath warming her ear as he whispered how much he loved her. He’d trusted her and she’d let him down.

Caitlin shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory. He was married to Jen now, presumably happily, whereas she was married to Stuart… She stopped the thought before the word ‘unhappily’ was fully formed. She was staying with Stuart and that was that.

10

ISLA

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Paul said, idly rubbing his hand up and down the back of Isla’s neck as he re-read the love letter from William to Edith. When Isla shifted on the sofa, he stopped stroking her neck but kept his hand on her shoulder.

‘What were you thinking?’ she asked, distracted now from trying to make sense of Jessie’s accounts. Her gran had always been fiercely independent when it came to paying bills and wouldn’t let Isla get involved.

‘I was thinking about this letter,’ he said, giving it a shake. Isla glanced at William’s words in Paul’s hands, wishing that she’d put the letter away when she got back from the graveyard. She’d left it on the kitchen table and he’d spotted it straightaway. ‘It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it? I mean, who cares about these people after all this time, even if Edith was your great-great-aunt? And that riddle doesn’t make any sense at all.’

‘Riddles don’t, at first. That’s the point,’ said Isla, closing her gran’s accounts book. ‘Riddles are meant to be challenging and I think that’s why Gran left it for me and Caitlin. She wanted to challenge us.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know but hopefully it’ll all become clearer when we work out why the letter is important.’

‘So, you’re going to waste your time on it, are you?’ He stuffed the letter, none too gently, back into its envelope.

‘I don’t see it as wasting time.’

‘Well, I do, when there are so many other things that we could be focusing on.’

The riddle was a last link to Jessie, and felt like a way of holding onto the grandmother she’d lost. But Isla wasn’t sure that Paul would understand so she held her tongue.

‘Perhaps your gran was just having a joke,’ Paul continued. ‘I mean, the bloke who wrote this letter must be long dead. And he lived in America, for goodness’ sake.’

Paul said ‘America’ as if it was another planet. Which it might as well have been to him. He hated flying. He hated travelling, full stop, and took great pride in telling people that he hadn’t been farther than Swansea, 150 miles away, in five years. ‘Why do I need to go anywhere else?’ he’d say. ‘This part of beautiful Devon has everything and everyone I could possibly need.’

Once upon a time, Isla would have found that constricting. But her world had shrunk over the years, as she’d cared for Jessie, and now she felt much the same in Heaven’s Cove – in familiar surroundings which felt so safe.

‘I don’t think Gran would have left the riddle unless it meant something,’ she said, tucking the accounts book down the side of the sofa, ‘and, actually, I’ve found out something about—’

She stopped speaking when she heard the front door open and close. It was Caitlin, who’d driven off hours ago, not saying where she was going. It obviously wasn’t Maisie because Maisie always slammed the door – however many times Caitlin asked her not to – as if she wanted to bring the whole house down.

It had been the same at Easter, when Maisie had been dropped on them with very little warning – just so Caitlin and Stuart could go off on some exotic jaunt, no doubt. Maisie hadn’t been thrilled about it, and neither had Isla. Initially she’d welcomed the chance to get to know Maisie better…until she’d got to know Maisie better.

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