the unbroken silence unnerving, the way nothing moved except at the will of the wind – but she kept telling herself that she would get used to it.
Now Claire was speaking to her. ‘So there’s been no word then – about Adam?’
His name hung heavily in the space between them all. Claire’s face was filled with concern, and Grace noticed out of the corner of her eye that Annabel was casting her sister a worried glance.
‘No,’ Grace said, breathing deeply. ‘The police have filed him away as a missing person… but, I don’t know… I can’t believe that he just walked out… Oh, I’m sorry, do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’ She could feel her breath tightening in her chest.
Annabel cut in. ‘So, Meredith… when you say you’ve lived here all your life, you surely don’t mean in this house?’
‘I do indeed,’ Meredith replied. ‘All my life. My grandfather built the original house, and my parents added various extensions to make it what you see today. When my father was a young man, Roseby was very different. There was a brickworks operating a few hundred yards from here, and there were more small tenements. Most have fallen down – there are only three left, ramshackle now, you’ve probably seen them from the road. When the brickworks closed, everyone left. There weren’t enough children to need a school, so the area went wild again. Just a few families stuck it out.’
‘Don’t you find it isolated?’ Annabel asked.
Meredith shrugged. ‘This house contains so many memories, it’s never occurred to me to leave. I belong here.’
Annabel glanced at Grace.
‘Don’t judge us too hastily, Annabel,’ Meredith said, laying her knife and fork slowly to rest on the edges of her plate. She interlaced her fingers and propped her chin on her hands, looking from Annabel to Grace. ‘I can honestly say I have never seen anywhere as beautiful as it is here. Desolate, yes, particularly in winter, but watch it come alive in spring when the lambs are born and all the birds return from their migration. And it’s glorious when the heather crowns it in the autumn. This place has more life to it in one square metre than there is in a square mile of the concrete sprawl so many of you are keen to call home nowadays.’
Annabel raised her hands. ‘I think you’ve misunderstood. I’m a journalist. I’m instinctively curious, that’s all.’ But Grace knew what Annabel had been trying to convey with her eyes.
There was an uncomfortable pause, then Claire said, ‘Our dad was a farmer. My sisters and I grew up playing in the ruins of the workers’ houses and the remains of the brickworks. It was fantastic – like having our own little make-believe village to run around in.’
‘Then they used them to hide in while they drank and smoked their way through their teenage years,’ Meredith added, a glimmer in her eye as she glanced at her daughter.
‘If you say so.’ Claire laughed. ‘Did Adam never tell you about them, Grace? He joined in for a while, in the few months he was here. He was a big hit with us all, I can tell you – new blood around here is extremely rare…’
Meredith’s eyes lingered on her daughter for a moment, then she looked down at her plate. ‘Remember that he was only here for a short time, Claire. It might not have felt like a big part of his life, not in the same way you remember it.’
Claire considered that. ‘You’re probably right. At the time I thought we were great friends, but when he left for university I don’t think I ever heard from him again. He didn’t even come back for a visit – did he, Mum?’
Meredith didn’t reply, but Claire’s comments were making Grace think back. When she’d first known Adam he had kept in touch with his grandparents by phone, but he’d never seemed keen to make the journey up from London to see them. ‘It’s a hell of a way,’ he’d told her, ‘and there’s nothing to do up there. They’re lovely people but we’re not all that close – I only saw them now and again before Mum died, and I didn’t stay with them for long before I went off to university.’ But she recalled how deeply touched he had been when his grandparents made the long trip south to see him get married. So after their wedding, he’d taken Grace to visit. There hadn’t been room to stay in the small cottage, so they’d booked bed and breakfast at a local farm. She remembered how much he’d enjoyed showing her around. It must have been then that his love for the area had been rekindled.
While caught up in her distraction, she had missed the change of topic. She began to listen again as Meredith said, ‘Emma and Carl… they live next door to Grace. Didn’t think they’d last when they first came – but they appear to have settled in. Their son prowls around the area, doesn’t say a word to anyone. Jack lives next door to them…’
‘Uncle Jack,’ Claire cut in.
‘My late husband’s older brother,’ Meredith explained. ‘Ted and Jack were originally from Skeldale, but Ted took over the farm from my dad after we were married, and Jack moved here a few years later to help out. So he’s lived here for over thirty years. Never married. Keeps himself to himself now. You’ll be lucky if you catch sight of him.’
‘And the house at the top?’ Annabel asked.
‘Another relative,’ Claire chuckled. ‘It’s so incestuous here.’
Meredith cast her a withering glance. ‘Hardly. They’re a couple about your age, perhaps a bit older. Distant cousins in the family, yes, but a few times removed. When they heard the house was vacant they snapped it up. It seems to suit them. They have also taken on one of Pippa’s siblings. Our dog Rosie had pups a few years ago, so we kept Pippa, and Holly and Bess went up the road. Rosie died last year, so now we’ve only got Pippa.’
‘That’s why I keep seeing black dogs everywhere!’ Grace said. ‘I was worried it was some kind of omen. I even dreamed about one the other night – with bared teeth and slavering gums – horrible.’
‘Well now, that could have been a barghest,’ Claire said. ‘There’s a legend of a black dog around here. Some say it’s Dracula’s dog – though I think it was actually Dracula himself who turned into the black beast that jumped off a ship in Whitby and raced away into the night.’
‘Whitby is only ten miles or so over the moors,’ Meredith added.
‘However,’ Claire continued, warming to her subject, ‘others will tell you that the barghest appears to people just before the death of a local.’ On seeing Grace’s horrified face, she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Grace – I’ve lived here on and off for the best part of thirty-two years and I’ve never seen one shred of evidence to support the stories. They’re folk tales. You had a nightmare, that’s all.’
Grace looked at Meredith for confirmation, but Meredith only gave her a stiff smile. ‘The moors are full of ghostly apparitions, Grace. Surely Adam told you that? We even have one of our own.’ She glanced from Grace to Annabel. ‘In here.’ She waved her hand around the room.
‘His name is Tiny Tim,’ Claire added, nodding to show her mother was telling the truth.
‘Are you joking?’ Annabel was gaping at them like they’d announced that the house was a spaceship and lift-off was imminent.
‘No, not at all.’ Meredith’s face was solemn. ‘Though Tiny Tim is the girls’ nickname for him. He’s a little child. He’s only been spotted a few times, but he gets up to mischief now and again, banging things around during the night. We’ve learned to live with it, and it doesn’t happen all that often – hardly ever since the kids grew up.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Annabel’s eyes were ablaze with curiosity. ‘Who’s seen him?’
‘My eldest, Veronica, once said she’d seen him watching her from the end of the bed. Our youngest, Jenny, used to talk about playing with Timmy upstairs, when we moved her into Liza’s old bedroom. Neither girl was scared. He’s pretty harmless. I think he only appears to children – as far as I know, no grown-ups have ever seen him, we just hear him now and again.’
‘I can’t tell if you’re winding me up,’ Annabel said after a beat.
Meredith looked slightly offended. ‘I can assure you we’re not. I’ve researched it. An eight-year-old boy called Timothy was killed on the road near here, back in the twenties. We’re pretty sure he’s the one who lives with us.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Annabel looked at Grace. ‘You don’t have any ghosts in the cottage, do you?’
‘I… I don’t think so,’ Grace replied. She didn’t think she believed in ghosts, but she was momentarily very aware that Adam’s grandmother had died there – probably in the bedroom Grace was sleeping in.
‘Hawthorn Cottage is one of the older dwellings, been here since before the brickworks,’ Meredith told them. ‘But I’ve heard most of the local tales and I don’t remember a ghost ever being mentioned there. I think you can both rest easy.’ She picked up a napkin and gave her lips a dab.
‘Ghosts wandering everywhere out there, though.’ Claire gestured at the moors beyond the picture window.
