Noah thought for a few seconds, then realised there was one room he hadn’t looked in. His dad’s room. He hesitated. Surely it was unlikely that shy, obedient Freddie had ventured into his grandpa’s room? But – as Noah himself had reassured his nephew – Jonathan was no longer in the house, so there was no reason not to.
On entering the room, Noah was shaken. He’d foolishly imagined it returned to its old use as a study, but when he stepped inside, it was still very much his father’s last resting place. It was an unsettling thought, made only slightly more palatable by the sight of Freddie’s feet sticking out from underneath the bed, the underside of his socks grey with dust. Glad of the distraction, Noah pretended not to have seen his nephew. He made a circuit of the room, checking behind the curtains and in the corners, muttering, ‘I wonder where he could be?’ before crouching down, grabbing a foot and yelling, ‘Found you!’
Freddie screamed with mock terror and wriggled further underneath the bed, forcing Noah to lie down on the carpet. From his prone position he could see Freddie pressed against the wall, curled up in a ball, his eyes screwed shut. The old ‘If I can’t see you, you can’t see me’ gambit. Noah grabbed again and snared Freddie. This time he allowed himself to be hauled out. He emerged from beneath the bed with what looked like a small box clutched in his hands.
They sat on the carpet together. Noah waited for a moment, then asked, casually, ‘What have you got there, Fredster?’
‘I found it under Grandpa’s bed. I think it’s treasure.’ Freddie held the box tightly, obviously wary that his uncle was going to take it off him – which was precisely what Noah found himself wanting to do.
‘May I see?’
Freddie chewed his bottom lip, politeness and self-interest at war. He was so obviously Liv’s child. His compromise was to hold the box out for Noah to look at.
‘Have you looked inside?’ Noah was conscious of his heart rate increasing.
Freddie shook his head and drew the box back into the safety of his lap. He traced his grubby fingers across the pattern on the top.
Noah was very careful about what he said next, aware that he needed to strike a tone of adult authority rather than his usual uncle chumminess.
‘You know that we shouldn’t really be in Grandpa’s room touching his things, don’t you, Freddie?’ This was mean. Freddie looked away. ‘It’s okay. I know you were just playing, and it was a great place to hide – it took me ages to find to you – but we’d better clear out now, before anyone finds us in here. We wouldn’t want to upset Megan, would we?’
Freddie shook his head. The tips of his ears had turned bright pink with shame. Noah felt shabby, but he absorbed the feeling. Freddie got to his feet, still clutching the box to his chest.
Noah kept his voice neutral, but firm. ‘Put it back where you found it, eh, Freddie? Even if it is treasure, it’s not yours, is it?’ He walked towards the door, deliberately keeping his back to the boy. Freddie was obviously thinking. Noah gave him one more nudge. ‘Someone hid that box away, to keep it a secret. And you know that a secret worth hiding is worth keeping.’ He heard Freddie sigh, then the whisper of wood on carpet as his nephew slid the box back underneath the bed. ‘Good lad.’
They left the room and Noah pulled the door shut. When he looked at Freddie, he was relieved to see that his nephew was empty-handed, the secret box returned to its hiding place for someone else to find.
Chapter 32
THEY WERE eating late, to allow time for Arthur and Freddie to be fed and put to bed. The boys were cranky after the excitement of their trip to the beach and Grandma’s surprise appearance. Noah didn’t offer to read them their bedtime story – he felt he had compensated enough. What he really wanted to do was go back into his father’s room and retrieve the box Freddie had found, but with all the human traffic in the house, that was proving to be quite tricky. Noah was worried that Freddie would renege on their deal and try to reclaim his find. The thought of it sitting under the bed nibbled away at him, an itch he couldn’t scratch. Who hides a box underneath a bed unless there’s something in it worth hiding? His father? Megan? There was a moment when Liv and Angus were bathing the boys – one threat neutralised – and Megan was in the kitchen preparing dinner, when he’d been about slip into the study, but on cue, the front door had opened and his mum and Chloe clattered in. At that point Noah resigned himself to waiting until everyone was in bed, before he could retrieve Freddie’s find and discover whether it really did contain any ‘treasure’.
The box now beyond reach – for the time being – Noah turned his attention to another more pressing issue for which he needed privacy.
The air was sharp with frost as he walked up the drive. The exertion made his chest feel tight. Noah tried Josie’s mobile. Her bright, breezy recorded promise to get back to him as soon as possible sounded like a taunt.
He
