Page 43 of Crazy Spooky Love

Growing up as a Bittersweet, I’ve come to rely on a different set of life skills to most girls.

I don’t live my life according to social media and I’ve worked out my own style with scant regard for what’s in fashion.

I was never one of the popular girls or the sparkly girls and that never bothered me once, because all I needed was black nail polish, Marina, and my gut instincts.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve added sugar, superheroes, and Converse sneakers to that must-have list too, but my gut instinct has been a part of my Bittersweet genetic makeup for far longer than my one decent red lipstick.

It’s an integral part of my survival kit, and right now it’s telling me that this house still holds its secrets within its walls.

I’m about to suggest we decamp to Babs and break for lunch when Artie’s phone rings in his pocket.

“The Indiana Jones theme tune?” I say, recognizing his ringtone instantly.

“I changed it yesterday,” he says, distracted as he looks at his screen. His choice pleases me; I hope it reflects the fact that he’s finding life more of an adventure now that he’s part of the agency.

“It’s my mum.” He beams, clicking her onto speakerphone so we can all hear her news.

“Little Art,” she trills. “Can you hear me, Sausage?”

“Yes, Mum,” he says and laughs goofily because her voice is echoing off the high ceilings of the upstairs landing. “You’re on speakerphone so we can all listen.”

“Ooh, I say!” She sounds thrilled. “I feel like breaking into song!”

“Maybe not right now, Mum,” he says quickly before she can fill her lungs. “Did you find anything out?”

“Artie, you know me. I’m a burrower, a ferret, a seeker, if you will.

” He’s nodding. Her theatrics must be all part of her charm, he’s clearly used to her by the way he waits patiently for her to go on.

“You give me the scent of a bone, and I’m like a terrier, I’ll dig and dig until I find that pesky bone. ”

Endearing as his mother is, I wish she’d cut to the chase now, we’re on a tight schedule and I’m starving.

“Did she find the bone?” Marina hisses. “Did you find the bone, Artie’s Mum?”

I don’t know if Mrs. Elliott has taken acting classes or if she’s just a born dramatist, but I can almost hear a drumroll as we all stare at Artie’s phone, rapt.

“Did I find that bone?” she breathes. “Did I ever!” Her voice reverberates with triumph. “Charles Frederick Scarborough Henson, born at Hull Maternity Hospital to Priscilla Elizabeth Henson on June 22, 1920. Father unknown.”

“Father unknown?” I say. I knew the rest, but that came as a surprise.

“Oh, she’d have to have put that down, love, if she wasn’t married and he wasn’t there,” Mrs. Elliott informs me. “But she did give the baby Scarborough as one of his middle names, which indicates strongly that she wished to include the father in some way.”

“Right.” I speak loudly to make sure she can hear me. “That’s brilliant. Thank you, Mrs. Elliott.”

“Oh, I’ve not finished yet, love,” she laughs. “There’s more for you, if you’ve time?”

I’d hoped she might say that. “Go on,” I urge, and Marina and I step closer to Artie so we don’t miss a thing.

“Well, Charles grew up and married his sweetheart, Evangeline, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. She was pregnant when he left, and sadly he never came home again. He died whilst serving in the British Army, leaving Evangeline to raise their son, Richard Charles Scarborough Henson, alone.”

Marina’s eyes are brimming with tears already, and to be honest I feel incredibly moved too.

This family’s history is fascinating and complicated, and I understand Isaac well enough now to know this information will come as a blow.

He left his wife and child to protect them from the stigma of being thought of as a murderer’s family, yet Charles had gone on to live such a short, interrupted life, and Priscilla had borne the loss of her only child alone.

“Still there, folks?” Mrs. Elliott calls out, and Artie asks if there is anything else she needs to tellus.

“Well, there is, actually,” she says. “Richard Scarborough Henson is still alive and lives in Hull with his daughter, Jojo.”

I work through the information overload in my head. “So Isaac has a grandson called Richard, and he’s still alive and living in Hull?”

“That’s it, lovey, you’ve got it!”

I like Mrs. Elliott. She’s thorough and she sounds like she spends her life wearing a flowery apron and baking cakes, even though I know from Artie that she actually spends her time feeding rats to Pandora the Python and singing music-hall hits to the local old-age pensioners.

“Oh my God,” I say, as Artie hangs up the phone. “I need to go and tell Isaac what we know, because if Isaac didn’t murder Douglas…”

“And let’s assume for a moment that Lloyd did…” Marina adds, right there with my train of thought.

“Then Lloyd would never have inherited this house,” I breathe. “In fact, if he’d been found guilty, he’d most probably have been hung for it.”

“Which would obviously mean that his son wouldn’t have been born, nor his grandson, nor…”

“Donovan Scarborough wouldn’t even exist,” Artie gasps, finishing the theory forus.

We all go quiet and digest what this means.

“What a terrible injustice,” I say. “Not only did Isaac lose his family and his home, but his son and grandson lost out on inheriting this place too.”

It feels as if the jigsaw is slowly slotting itself into place in my head. I can understand now why Isaac’s distress is powerful enough to hold not only his own ghost here, but Lloyd’s too. So many unresolved questions, and really only one way to find a definitive answer.

“We have to find the knife,” I say, seized by new determination. “If we can prove who murdered Douglas, then maybe there’s a chance all of this can still be put right.”

“How?” Marina asks, confused.

Artie turns over the facts in his head. “You think the house might be in the wrong hands?”

I shrug, unsure. “I don’t know the ins and outs of property law, but I do know that the only way the Scarborough brothers are going to find peace is by sorting this mess out once and for all.

Which is really why we’re here, so let’s concentrate on that.

” I chew my index fingernail, damaging the oxblood polish as I think.

“And who knows? Maybe it will also mean that Isaac’s grandson is the rightful owner of the house, or he might at least be entitled to half. ”

“Melody,” Isaac’s paper-thin voice calls from behind me on the attic stairs.

“Melody Bittersweet!” A second voice barks my name from below too, more forthright and loud.

I turn to see Isaac standing behind me, and his face tells me that he’s probably been there long enough to overhear much of what’s been said.

“Isaac, I’m so sorry,” I say, laying my hand over my heart. “I’d like to have come upstairs to tell you all of this properly.”

“I came to warn you that they’d arrived,” he says, and I frown.

All becomes clear a moment later when Donovan Scarborough storms up the stairs toward me with Leo and the creepy twins in tow.

“Out!” Scarborough yells. “Key, and out! I hired you to clear this place, simple, and by the sounds of the last few minutes you’re hatching some hair-brained outrageous scheme to try to discredit my entire family and challenge my ownership!

Who the hell do you hokey-cokey people think you are? This isn’t fucking Heir Hunters !”

He’s proper livid, purple in the face from having overheard the majority of our conversation just now.

The twins are behind him, nodding earnestly throughout his speech, and I catch Leo’s eye and find his expression impossible to read. The fact that he’s sporting a tweed eye patch over the shiner he gained from the flying-book incident doesn’t help, frankly.

“ Heir Hunters is my mum’s favorite TV show,” Artie says, in that untimely, unintentionally fabulous way that only he can.

“Popeye, you’re officially rehired,” Scarborough blusters. “You lot, get out!”

I look at Isaac, stricken. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and he shakes his head violently.

“Find him, Melody. Find Richard.”

I swallow and glance quickly toward Leo because he’s the only other living person here who will have heard Isaac’s words. Once again, his good eye is curiously impassive.

I look at Marina and Artie and shake my head imperceptibly, willing them not to argue withme.

“Come on,” I say. “We’re done here. We need to leave.”

I hand Donovan the back door key as we file past him, and Leo puts his arms out to his sides in front of the twins as if he’s protecting them from us. I’m not certain. I think he’s making sure they don’t stick a delicate ankle out and try to trip usup.

As we pull away from Scarborough House I take a last glance up at the attic, and as expected, I see Isaac standing there, watching us leave.

He’s just found out so many poignant things he didn’t know; his only son was a casualty of the Second World War, and the woman he loved never remarried or had any more children.

I hope she wasn’t unhappy for her whole life.

It’s so terribly sad to think how many people’s lives were affected by Douglas’s murder.

“We’re not really leaving it there, are we?” Artie says as he drags his seatbelt across his body.

“Not a prayer,” I say, dogged.

Marina starts to laugh as we rumble along Brimsdale Road, breaking the tension. “Your mother called you ‘Sausage’!”

“Hull’s a long way from here,” Artie says, tipping his head to the side to study the map on his screen.

We’re back in the office and have spent the afternoon going over everything we know, writing all of the births, deaths, and marriages and possible scenarios up on the whiteboard until we all reached the same inevitable conclusion. We need to go to Hull.