Page 41 of The Sisters at the Last House Before the Sea

‘Someone’s written “William France 1918” on the other side of the picture,’ said Isla, taking her phone back. ‘Perhaps he spent time in England while he was over here, fighting, and that’s how he first met Edith.’

‘In Heaven’s Cove? That seems unlikely.’

‘That’s what I thought, but who knows?’

There was still so much about William and Edith that they didn’t know, and Caitlin’s interest was definitely piqued. Even Maisie seemed curious about them at times.

Maisie! Caitlin glanced again at her watch. She really should be back by now.

‘I’m going to have to go and look for her,’ she told Isla, doing up the buttons on her cosy Fair Isle cardigan.

‘Are you really worried about Maisie? She seems the kind of girl who can look after herself.’

‘Sadly, not always.’ Caitlin remembered some of the times she’d had to bail Maisie out: there was the time she flooded a friend’s bathroom by forgetting to turn off the tap, when she’d shoplifted as a dare, and more recently, the time she was excluded from school for playing a ridiculous and cruel practical joke on a teacher. ‘Maisie makes out that she’s grown up,’ she explained, ‘but she can be very unpredictable, and a bit of a pain at times, to be honest.’

She immediately felt guilty for criticising Maisie. But Caitlin often felt more like her handler these days than her stepmother. And how on earth would the teenager react to news that her home was being sold off to settle her father’s debts?

She pursed her lips to stop them from wobbling, and noticed Isla giving her a straight stare before she asked, ‘Are you going out in those shoes?’

‘They’ll probably be all right.’ Caitlin looked down at her fashionable leather boots whose smooth leather soles might as well be made of glass in this weather. She was behaving like Maisie whose brief foray outdoors in trainers had ended in disaster. ‘Well.’ She grimaced. ‘Maybe not.’

Isla gave a wry smile. ‘You never were particularly equipped for the countryside, were you, Cait?’

Caitlin wasn’t sure whether she should take offence at the comment, but Isla was right. She’d found it harder to move to Heaven’s Cove twenty years ago than Isla had. Isla had taken to the great outdoors and the peace of the village almost immediately, but it had taken Caitlin longer to feel settled in this quiet, alien environment. She had relaxed, eventually, when she’d begun to trust that Jessie wasn’t about to get fed up with them and turf them out.

‘You can borrow my wellies,’ said Isla, going into the hall, and rummaging in the under-stairs cupboard before brandishing a pair of white boots decorated with garish yellow sunflowers. ‘I’m going out too, so I’ll keep an eye out for Maisie, and please give me a call when you find her.’ She gingerly placed a hand on Caitlin’s arm. ‘Don’t worry. People don’t go missing in Heaven’s Cove. It’s not that kind of place.’

Teenagers went missing in every kind of place, thought Caitlin, as she made her way carefully down the hill towards the centre of the village. And even if abduction was extremely unlikely, there was the sea Maisie could drown in, or the cliffs she could fall from…

Caitlin snuggled her chin into her soft scarf and tried not to worry – which was impossible because being responsible for a teenager was nerve racking, even when the teenager wasn’t yours. Caitlin blinked as an icy wind slapped against her cheeks. Maisie felt like hers, even though the stroppy teenager would never believe it, or like it, for that matter. She still hankered after her real mother in Canada, who didn’t appear to give two hoots about her. And now her father had let her down too, and Caitlin didn’t have the heart to tell her. It was better that she hated Caitlin rather than her father, for a little longer at least.

Caitlin walked on through the narrow lanes until she reached the old church, and the village green, which today was an expanse of white. She stopped for a moment and caught her breath. It was more sheltered here, farther back from the sea, and utterly beautiful. St Augustine’s was sitting at the centre of a winter churchyard, its gravestones topped with snow. There was a pillow of snow, too, on The Mourning Stone, which marked an ancient, local tragedy. And nearby stood a snowman, with a carrot for its nose, a tie around its neck and a straw hat on its head.

Caitlin began to walk around the green and only noticed a section local children were using as a slide at the exact same moment she felt her feet slip from beneath her.

She tried to keep her balance but it was impossible. Isla’s boots couldn’t gain traction, and she fell, landing with a bump on her backside and bashing her arm on the floor.

‘Great!’ she uttered, sitting dazed for a moment. The hem of her jacket was darkening as snow soaked into it, and she felt sick with the pain radiating from her elbow. Suddenly she felt hands beneath her armpits and she was hauled to her feet.

‘Thank you,’ said Caitlin, turning round. ‘Oh.’

Sean was standing there, with a younger lad behind him who was eyeing her curiously.

‘I saw you come a cropper,’ said Sean, his fair hair hidden under a black woolly hat. ‘We were coming out of the shop.’ He nodded towards the Mini Mart that kept villagers and tourists supplied with everyday essentials.

‘Well, like I said, thanks very much,’ said Caitlin, wiping snow from her coat while her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Sean stepping in to help her again was mega-humiliating.

‘I thought it was Isla who’d come a cropper, because of the boots,’ said Sean, watching her. ‘Then, I realised it was you, falling on your arse.’

His voice was deadpan but Caitlin caught a familiar twinkle in his bright blue eyes. She recognised it from fifteen years ago, whenever he’d looked at her. Only, back then, he’d thought she was wonderful. Now, he must think she was an anxiety-ridden mess who couldn’t even stay upright.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked, shoving a small paper bag and its contents into his jacket pocket.

‘Only my pride,’ said Caitlin, ignoring the burning pain in her elbow.

‘You were lucky, then.’ He paused. ‘Are you out for a walk?’

‘Yes, well…no. I’m looking for someone, actually.’

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