Page 5 of Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

CHAPTER 3

Liam Satterley carefully picked his way up the track that had been turned into a mudslide by the latest downpour, and turned up his collar against the persistent drizzle. He hoped this wasn’t going to be a wasted journey, but there were signs that she’d arrived. A light was on in one of the bedrooms at Driftwood House, and Claude in the village reckoned he’d caught a glimpse of her this afternoon.

‘Blondish hair, tanned face, big suitcase,’ was Claude’s description. A man of few words, he could usually be found in the pub when he wasn’t at sea. But big, bearded Claude was rarely wrong, so Liam had decided to take a chance and deliver the letter, even though it was inconvenient. It was a busy time on the farm and he was behind with so many tasks. Fenella, one of his prize ewes, wasn’t herself, and might need a visit from the vet. That could prove expensive and money was in short supply right now.

But the letter in his pocket might be urgent – he suspected from the envelope that it might even mean trouble. And though he didn’t like to admit it, he was curious to see peculiar Rosie Merchant again.

He’d been on a course at the agricultural college the last time she’d made it home, ages ago. Although, thinking back to how she’d once described him at school, that was probably just as well.Full of himself and tedious.Ouch. It had rankled at the time, when his mate Kieran passed on what he’d overheard. And it still did now, to be honest. He’d always had a way with women but Rosie was apparently immune to his charms. Not that he’d been interested in her, with her long plait and funny glasses that made her look like an owl. Plus, she always had her head in a book.

He pushed the letter further into the pocket of his wax jacket and cursed himself for not wearing his bigger boots. Although it was spring, as a farmer he should understand the vagaries of Devon weather and have chosen more appropriate footwear. Billy, trotting along beside him, had a glistening wet coat and looked totally fed up with this unexpected walk.

‘Hey, boy, come here.’ When Liam whistled softly, the black and white border collie slithered closer to his side. ‘This won’t take long, thank goodness, and then we can go home. OK? Good boy.’

Billy leaned into his master’s pat, smearing mud across the tall man’s faded jeans.

At the top of the cliff, the two of them made for the back door of Driftwood House, which faced away from the sea. It was more sheltered here and clumps of spring squill lined the path, their violet-blue petals deceptively delicate.

How had Sofia described these flowers? ‘Hardy little buggers’; that was it. More hardy, it turned out, than she was in the end.

‘Are you ready, boy?’ asked Liam, his voice suddenly gruff with emotion. Honestly, he was getting soft as he slid into his thirties. Sofia Merchant was a nice enough woman, but she kept herself to herself so he hadn’t really known her. Just as he’d never really known her daughter with the striking, russet-brown eyes who’d escaped from Heaven’s Cove as soon as she could.

Liam placed the carrier bag of provisions his mum had insisted he bring with him on the ground and knocked on the back door. There was no light on in the kitchen or in the ramshackle conservatory with its salt-streaked panes of glass, some of them chipped by small stones swept from the beach by the relentless wind.

When no one came to the door, he knocked again, but the house remained silent as rain drizzled down the kitchen window. Perhaps Claude had mistaken a tourist for Rosie, and Sofia had left the bedroom light on when she was last home. This miserable wet walk had been for nothing. He knocked again for luck, more loudly this time, as Billy waited with his ears pricked.

What a total waste of time! Liam had already turned to go when the back door was wrenched open, and there was Rosie Merchant, looking dreadful.