Page 42 of Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

The baby was wrapped in a white knitted shawl and clasped to a woman’s chest. ‘Is that you and your mum?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘You were tiny.’

‘I was premature, around six weeks, I think.’

‘Did you find that other paperwork in the attic too?’

He was prying but she was acting very oddly – staring into space while paint dripped from her brush onto the floorboards, or abandoning her painting all together to pace up and down. She stared at him with her big, troubled eyes: an intense gaze that sliced right through him.

‘I found the photo in a box in the attic, along with a copy of the legal agreement about this house,’ she said, at last. ‘The one that the Eppings sent me.’

‘Was there any explanation with that? Anything to explain why your mum kept it from you?’

She shook her head.

‘Did you find anything else with the lease and photo?’

‘A few bits and pieces – my birth certificate and an old letter to my mum. A love letter.’

‘From your dad?’

Their conversation was interrupted by the shrill ring of a phone. Rosie snatched up her mobile and winced when she looked at the screen.

‘Hey, Matt,’ she said, her voice over-bright and high-pitched.

‘Hey, there.’ Matt’s voice was tinny but Liam could just make out the words.

‘How are you?’ asked Rosie.

‘I’m missing you.’

‘Me too.’

‘Yeah but I’m missing you big time, babe.’

Liam might have been mistaken but Rosie recoiled slightly at the word ‘babe’. It made Matt, whoever he was, sound slightly sleazy, thought Liam, fully aware of his own hypocrisy. He was pretty sure he’d called girlfriends ‘babe’ in the past.

‘I’ll be back soon, Matt.’ Rosie was hunched over the mobile, trying to keep her conversation private.

‘When, though? The sun’s out and interest in our properties is soaring. We could do with you in the office,’ said Matt’s tinny voice.

Liam raised an eyebrow. One minute Matt was missing Rosie and the next he was moaning that she wasn’t at work. What a charmer!

Rosie lowered the phone. ‘I’ll take this outside. Back in a minute.’ As she grabbed a cardigan and slipped through the front door, he heard her say: ‘Oh, no one. Just a local who’s giving me a hand.’

No one.

Liam’s brush hit the wall rather too hard and paint splattered over his jeans. Not that it mattered, when they were just for working on the farm. He dabbed at the white specks with a cloth and watched Rosie out of the window.

Standing in the biting sea breeze, she pulled what looked like her mum’s old cardi tightly around her and burrowed her shoeless feet into the grass as she continued her conversation. Liam was no body-language expert but the chat wasn’t going well if her furrowed forehead was anything to go by.

When the call ended, she pushed her phone into her jeans pocket and stood for a moment, face into the wind. Liam pulled back from the window as she came indoors.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked, casually.

‘Yeah, well no. Not really. I just broke the news to Matt that I need to stay on here for a few more weeks. I’ve been avoiding telling him.’