Page 44 of The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea

There was no furniture apart from a double bed draped in a midnight-blue eiderdown, a bedside table, and a desk with a green leather inlay. No possessions. No hint of the person who’d once slept here.

‘Do you think this was Edwin’s bedroom?’ whispered Clara. ‘It’s got a masculine feel to it.’

‘Probably. The Brellashams tend to have separate bedrooms, including my mother and father when they were married. Personally, I prefer to sleep with my partner.’

Clara blinked as an image of River sleeping next to his girlfriend, his tanned arm draped across her bare shoulders, popped into her mind. Why was she thinking of River’s love life? A door banging downstairs drove the image away.

‘Come on,’ said River. ‘Let’s make this quick before we’re missed.’

The next door off the landing opened onto an opulent bathroom, the likes of which Clara had never seen. At the centre of the room stood an enormous claw-footed bath with gold taps. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in white tiles edged in black and gold, and a double basin had been placed beneath the curtained window. The brass towel rails were gleaming but empty.

‘I think you could fit my bedroom into this bath,’ said Clara, stepping into the room and running her fingers along its rolled edge. She had an urge to clamber in and try it out for size, but River was tapping his watch, so she grudgingly left the amazing bathroom behind and walked to the only door left on the landing that was yet to be opened. This had to be Audrey’s bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed down the handle and the door swung open to reveal a bedroom which was, presumably, still as Audrey had seen it, on the night that she disappeared.

‘Woah!’ said River beside her. ‘Now, this really is amazing.’

Clara went inside, crossed to the window and, after peeping outside to make sure she wouldn’t be seen, pulled back the cream curtains. When light flooded into the room, it was easy to imagine that Audrey had stepped away for a moment and would soon be back.

In stark contrast to the minimalism of Edwin’s room, all surfaces here were covered with Audrey’s personal possessions. Framed photos of her, Edwin, and Geoffrey as a boy were displayed on a tall wooden chest of drawers. A cerise silk scarf was draped over the back of a chair, and a silver-backed hairbrush, blonde hairs tangled in its bristles, sat on her dressing table, along with a gold necklace and a glass perfume bottle.

Glenda was doing a good job of cleaning up here because there was barely a speck of dust in sight.

Clara picked up the heavy bottle and sniffed in a rich, musky scent. She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing the woman who had stood in this spot and sprayed herself with this perfume.

‘Come and look at this,’ said River, who was standing next to a door, by a floor lamp with a green fabric shade. ‘There’s a whole dressing room in here.’

Clara followed him into the small room which was lined with wardrobes, all painted white. She opened one and gasped at the treasure trove of 1950s fashion that greeted her. The wardrobe was crammed with dresses: striking dresses in jewel colours, made from satin and silk, with nipped-in waists and full skirts.

She pulled one out – a blue short-sleeved dress with a white collar – and held it against her. Audrey must have been about the same height but, judging by this dress, her shoulders and waist were tiny. Clara was quite slim but she would never fit into Audrey’s clothes.

She put the blue dress back and began to rifle through the other wardrobes – through skirt suits in pastel hues, Capri trousers, pedal pushers, and sleeveless cotton tops – until she reached a rack of long dresses and spied the dress she was looking for.

The lemon-yellow gown that Audrey was wearing in her portrait – the one she wore to the ball – felt soft when Clara ran her fingers across the satin and chiffon. It was a beautiful dress for a beautiful woman, whose ending still remained a mystery.

Clara carefully closed the wardrobes and went back into the bedroom. Then she sat on the four-poster bed before swinging her legs up onto the silk eiderdown and lying down.

‘We don’t have time for you to have a rest,’ said River, a hint of anxiety in his voice. ‘We really need to get out of here.’

‘I’m just trying to get into Audrey’s head, to understand what she might have been thinking before she left this house for good.’

River pulled the curtains back across the window, to erase any sign of their visit, before sitting down on the bed beside her. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea to try and get into the head of a woman who was so troubled, she walked into the sea?’

‘Probably not,’ Clara admitted. Who could ever know what Audrey, whose mental health could have been adversely affected by a whole range of issues, was thinking that night?

‘I’m getting a bit worried about you, Clara,’ said River gently. ‘You do seem obsessed with a dead woman.’

Clara closed her eyes. It was beginning to feel as if her interest in Audrey was edging from curiosity towards unhealthy behaviour. But soon, any connection she felt to Audrey would be severed anyway, when the house was sold and she was no longer able to roam its rooms. Presumably, this forgotten ghost floor would be emptied and turned into a swish apartment for someone with far more money than she had.

She opened her eyes and swung her legs off the bed. ‘You’re right. We’ve had a look and there are no answers here.’

Her eyes fell on the book that was sitting on the bedside table. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, one of Clara’s favourite novels and the book which was by Audrey’s side in her portrait.

Clara picked it up and began to leaf through it. This was presumably the last book that Audrey had ever read: a story set in a grand country house, where a lonely young heroine lived in the shadow of a former wife whose death was cloaked in mystery.

Did it resonate with Audrey? This book that had sat for the last sixty-seven years next to her bed? Clara had to accept that she would never know.

Putting the book back in its place, she got to her feet and ran her hands across the eiderdown to smooth any creases. ‘OK, it’s time to go.’

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