There wasn’t much gratitude. ‘Could be anyone, couldn’t it? There’s nothing to prove these people were his family. I mean, the Bible looks as if it belonged to the wife. It’s her family tree in the front, not his.’
Diamond didn’t pursue it. Wigfull was discouraged by the digging and even more discouraged by Diamond’s visit.
‘So will you come back tomorrow?’
‘No chance,’ answered Wigfull. ‘I’ve got to get the body identified before we can fix a post-mortem. These lonely people who kill themselves without even leaving a note are a pest to deal with. For the present, I’ve seen more than enough of this God-forsaken place and I’m chilled to the bone. I might send a bunch of cadets out to turn over the other trenches. I don’t expect to find anything.’
‘Any theories?’
‘About the digging? No. If we’d turned up something, I might be interested.’
‘There must be some explanation, John. It represents a lot of hard work.’
‘You think I don’t know? Anyway, I’m leaving. If you want to stay, be my guest. There are candles in the kitchen.’
Thirteen
Doreen had a taxi waiting outside Harmer House. She opened the rear door for Rose, helped her in with the two carrier bags containing all her things, and got in beside her.
The driver turned to Doreen and asked, ‘All right, my love? All aboard and ready to roll?’
Visitors to the West Country are sometimes surprised by the endearments lavished on them. Doreen answered with a nod.
Rose was looking back at the hostel. She felt no regret at leaving the place, only at being parted from Ada, who had been a staunch friend. She was sure Ada would not let the parting get her down, and neither would she, if she could help it.
‘At least you’ll have a room to yourself tonight,’ Doreen said, trying to be supportive.
‘Will I?’
‘It’s like a furnished flat. Your own bathroom, kitchen, everything. I’ve done some shopping for you. Hope you don’t mind pre-cooked meals.’
‘I’ll eat anything, but I don’t have much cash to pay for it.’
‘Forget it, darling. We’re family.’
They drove past the fire station at the top of Bathwick Street and over Cleveland Bridge.
‘Did you walk along here while you were staying at the hostel?’
‘No. It’s new to me.’
Doreen smiled. ‘Different from Hounslow High Street.’
The joke was lost on Rose. The street they had just joined, with its tall, terraced blocks with classical features, might as well have been Hounslow for all she knew.
The taxi moved across the city at a good rate into some more modern areas built of imitation stone that looked shoddy after the places they had left. But presently they drove up a narrow street into a fine, eighteenth- century square built on a slope around a stretch of garden with well-established trees.
‘Your temporary home.’
‘Aren’t you staying here as well?’
‘Just around the corner in a bed and breakfast. You don’t mind having the place to yourself?’
Truth to tell, Rose preferred it. She was drained by the effort of accepting as her sister this woman she had no recollection of meeting before. They got out at the lower end of the square. Doreen had a hefty fare to settle: she counted out six five-pound notes and got a receipt, which she pocketed. Then she escorted Rose to the door. ‘There are shops along there, in St James’s Street, newsagent and grocer combined, deli, launderette, enough for all immediate needs,’ she said, sounding like a travel guide. ‘Oh, and a hairdresser’s.’
‘Does it look that awful?’
‘Of course it doesn’t, but if you’re like me, you get a lift from having your hair done. If not, there’s the pub.’
From the arrangement of doorbells, Rose noted that the house was divided into flats with a shared entrance.
‘Hope you won’t mind the basement,’ Doreen said apologetically, when she had let them in. ‘That’s all I could get at short notice.’
They stood in a clean, roomy and impersonal hall without furniture except a table for the mail.
‘You must have been confident of finding me to have fixed this up.’
‘More than confident, my dear. I knew. Saw your picture in the paper, you see. It said you were being looked after by the Social Services, so it was just a matter of establishing who I was.’
‘And who I am.’
‘Well, yes.’ Doreen led the way downstairs and turned the key in the door. They stepped inside a large room that must have faced onto the square. All you could see through the window was the outer wall of the basement well and, high up, a strip of the street with railings.
‘The living room. Better than the hostel?’
‘I don’t think the hostel had a living room.’
Affectionately Doreen put her arm around her. ‘So this will do?’
‘Home from home.’
In reality, it was just another strange setting for Rose to get used to. She was impatient to get back to her own place, whatever that turned out to be. She hated being under an obligation to people. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do while Doreen and her partner Jerry chose to linger in Bath.
Fitted green carpet, two armchairs, glass-topped table, bookshelf with a few paperbacks: it would do. The only thing she disliked was having to keep the light on during daytime, a fact of basement life.
‘I’m going to make us a cuppa,’ said Doreen, crossing to the kitchen.
Rose looked into the bedroom. Clean, if rather spartan. Two divan beds with the mattresses showing. A sleeping bag had been arranged on the nearer one. Fair enough, she thought. I could hardly expect them to go to the trouble of buying a full set of bed linen. She put her carrier bags on the spare bed. Unpacking wouldn’t take long.
Back in the kitchen, Doreen showed her the food shopping she had done. There was enough for a couple of days at least. ‘Didn’t know whether you’d gone back to your vegetarian phase, so it’s rather heavy on veggies,’ she said.
‘If I have, it’s all gone by the board in the last few days. I simply don’t remember if I’m supposed to be a vegetarian.’
‘You were always taking up new diets. I could never keep track of them.’ Doreen poured hot water into the teapot and swirled it around. ‘But you like your tea made properly. The pot has to be warmed.’
‘It’s so strange being told these things. I’m wanting to know everything about myself, of course, but it’s still like talking about another person. If I make tea for myself, I suppose I’ll go to the trouble of warming the pot now that you’ve told me I always do it, but it’s the strangest feeling – as if I’m trying to be someone I’m not.’
‘It will all start coming back, I expect,’ Doreen said, ‘and then it will make more sense. Did the doctors give you any idea how long you’ll be like this?’
‘Not really. All I was told is that I’ll get that part of my memory back. It isn’t like concussion, when you lose a small chunk of your life for ever. I may have had concussion as well, of course.’
‘You have had a time of it.’
‘I’ll be all right soon.’
‘But it’s still horrid for you while it lasts.’
‘Yes.’
‘How will it come back, all at one go, or in little bits?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
