18
“T his is a very lovely room, Mr Sparks,” Esme says as we get her settled in one of the spacious accessible rooms on the ground floor.
I set a tea tray down on the small table in between her and Sam, who sits in the armchair we placed by the window so guests can enjoy the view of the gardens.
“Please, call me Ellis,” I say as I pour her a cup of tea.
Morgan is perched on the edge of the bed and Bertie stands in the corner, quietly for a change, with her hands on Artie’s shoulders. He watches the old woman with a complicated mixture of emotions flitting across his face, but most surprising is the fact that Stanley has appeared beside them, his clipboard clutched in his hand as usual.
He doesn’t say anything, just seems content to watch the scene unfold in front of him.
“I’m not really sure what I’m doing here though.” She picks up her teacup, the china rattling from the tremor her hands appear to have. “Mr Stone has been asking me all kinds of questions. About my parents, my brother, if I believe in ghosts.”
“How much do you know about your brother?” Morgan asks as I hand him a cup of tea too.
“Well, I never met him, of course.” She takes a sip. “He was evacuated from London with many of the other children during the Blitz. He came here to Ashton house and was quite happy by all accounts. I have a few of the letters he wrote to our mum during his stay. Then he got sick, from diphtheria, I think, and died. They couldn’t bring him back to London, so the family allowed him to be buried here. It was kind of them. Mum came for the funeral, broke her heart too. Afterwards, she returned to London. She was a nurse, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Morgan says, shooting a look at Artie, who is still watching Esme intently.
Esme nods. “She was needed, so she threw herself into work. My dad was one of the lucky ones, considering he fought on the front lines. Or maybe he wasn’t so lucky.” She shrugged. “I was born a few years after the war ended. It was a hard life in those post-war years. Everyone was exhausted, trying to rebuild—their homes, their lives. Mum died when I was about six years old, a tram accident. Dad did his best to raise me, but he wasn’t a well man. Like most of those who came home from the war, he was never quite right after. Raising me after Mum died mostly fell to my auntie Beryl, my dad’s sister. In the later years, I took care of Dad. He died back in the eighties.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say quietly, glancing at her as I hand Sam a cup of tea.
She hauls the large bag beside her wheelchair into her lap. Rummaging around, she pulls out some framed photographs and sets them on the table for us to see. The first one is a black-and-white one of a young couple getting married, which I assume was her parents, and although Esme is older than her mum ever got to be, I can see the resemblance.
The next picture is of the woman, taken a few years later. She’s standing in a garden and smiling into the camera. Standing next to her, with her hand on his shoulder, is a cheeky little boy I recognise. His smile is the same as his mother’s as he poses beside her grinning.
The photograph next to it is of a little girl maybe around eight years old, who I recognise as a young version of Esme. But it’s very different from the easy smiles of Artie and his mum.
Esme stands rigidly in her Sunday best. Her brown bob-length hair is neatly brushed and tied with a pale ribbon. The dress she’s wearing has little flowers on it, her white socks are folded over at the ankle, and her black Mary Janes are polished without a single scuff mark in sight.
A man stands behind her. Although I can see it’s the man from the wedding photo, this version of him has aged so much in what would have been, in reality, not a particularly long length of time.
His face is lined and his eyes haunted as he stands behind her, his suit ruthlessly pressed, shirt collar starched, hair neatly combed. He looks austere, his mouth a thin line as he stares into the lens.
Poor man. This is someone who survived the horrors of war only to lose his son and his wife and be left raising a second child alone.
Artie drifts closer, his eyes fixed on the pictures. “That’s my mum and dad,” he whispers. His eyes fill with tears.
My heart aches for him, and I wish I could give him a big hug. I look away from him and it’s only then that I realise with a jolt that Sam is staring straight at him. There’s not a hint of shock on his face, only kindness and understanding.
What is going on here? I wonder. Who is Sam, exactly?
I move over to Morgan, who seems to sense my confusion.
“Sam’s a private investigator based in London. I contacted him a few days ago,” Morgan says to me. “As it transpired, he’s a very good friend of your friend Tristan.”
“Tristan?” I repeat in surprise. My gaze flings to Sam, who gives me a knowing smile and a wink.
“That’s right,” he rumbles in his reassuring Yorkshire accent. “And just so you know, you and I’ll be having a conversation after this. I have a message for you from him.”
I nod, not wanting to say too much in front of the old woman, who watches all of us curiously.
She turns to Morgan. “Mr Ashton-Drake?”
“Morgan, please,” he says. “We might as well all be on a first-name basis given the sensitive subject we’re going to be discussing.”
“And what exactly is that?” Esme asks. “Sam here showed up yesterday at the nursing home in North London where I live and said you’d hired him to track down any relatives of my brother, Arthur Clayton. Now, I have racked my brain, but I cannot think of a single reason why. Arthur was only ten years old when he passed away. He’s buried right here on your land. As he was only a child, it can’t be an inheritance investigation seeking living relatives. If it was something as simple as asking permission for his remains to be moved, it could have been done over the phone. Yes, Sam convinced me that it was imperative we meet in person, along with a rather strange request for me to bring my family photo albums. Now, what is so important I had to make a four-and-a-half-hour car journey to visit the house where the brother I never knew died over eighty years ago.”
“Well, firstly,” Morgan begins. I take a seat next to him on the bed, content to watch it all unfold in front of me. “I want to thank you for making the journey. It can’t have been easy.”
“It was hell on my knees, young man. I should have said no, but I have to admit, it piqued my curiosity, and Sam here is quite persuasive. If he’d turned out to be a scam artist or a kidnapper, I just thought, oh, why not? At least it’ll break up the monotony of my existence.” Her eyes narrow and she points a bony finger in our direction. “But if this is about money, I warn you, you’ll not get a penny out of me.”
“I can assure you, Esme,” Morgan says gently, “this is not about money. It’s about your brother Artie.”
She stares at Morgan contemplatively, her wrinkled lips pursing. “That’s the second time you’ve called him Artie,” she murmurs. “It’s what my mum used to call him on the rare occasions she’d speak about him. You speak as if you knew him, but I can see from your age that can’t be the case. He’d have been dead decades before you were born.”
Morgan draws in a breath. “This is going to sound strange, but I did know him.”
“Impossible,” she scoffs.
“It’s true. I was born here at Ashton House, lived here until I was six, when my father passed away and my mother took me to live in the US, where she was from. During my years here as a child, I had a friend called Artie with whom I always used to play. He was ten years old, had an infectious sense of adventure, a naughty smile, and an intense love of trains.”
“My…” She frowns, her expression puzzled. “My dad said Artie loved the trains. Before he left for the war, he’d take my brother down to the railway bridge near their house on a Sunday afternoon to watch the steam trains as they passed.”
“Yes.” Morgan smiles. “I remember him telling me that.”
“That’s not possible. You had an imaginary friend, that’s all.” She shakes her head. “I can understand it, I had a lonely childhood. I can’t tell you how many times I’d wished that my brother had lived. But he’s long gone. I don’t understand what you hope to achieve by all this?”
“Esme,” Morgan sighs. “I know it’s a lot to take in. Yes, Artie died here in 1942, but he never left.”
She scoffs. “What are you saying, that his ghost still haunts this house? Ridiculous.”
I rise from my seat and cross the room, dropping down to kneel beside her wheelchair.
“Esme.” I take her hand gently. “Artie is here, and he’s lonely too. He’s been feeling sad lately, and he didn’t know what had happened to his parents after the war. We wanted to help him connect with that part of his life.” I look over to Artie, who in turn looks over to Stanley, his eyes wide and pleading. Stanley looks at him, then to his sister, and to my surprise, gives a little nod of his head.
“I’m going to get fired soon anyway. What’s one more infraction, I suppose,” I hear him mutter.
“Esme.” I squeeze her hand gently. “Look.” I nod towards Artie.
She follows my gaze and draws in a sharp breath, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open as he appears in front of her.
“Hello, Esme.” He grins, then crosses the remaining space between them and climbs up onto her lap. “You look like Mum. You got more pictures? I’d forgot what she looked like til I saw ’em.”
Esme nods slowly in shock.
“Artie?” she whispers.
“Yeah, surprise.” He tilts his head and looks at her. “I’m your big brother, which is weird, ain’t it? Cos you’re a grown-up. Do you got kids of your own?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she answers softly. “I got married but we never had children.”
They stare at each other for several long seconds, then smile.
“I wished for you when I was little,” Esme tells him. “When I was really lonely and had no one to play with.”
Artie nods. “Me too.” Then he gives her another one of his grins. “But you’re here now. Do you want to play? Cedric’s got trains.”
“Cedric?”
“Morgan’s granddad, ’e lives upstairs. He’s got this massive train set, fills the whole room. He lets me play up there.”
“I’d love to, but it’s hard for me to get up the stairs on my own.”
Artie looks down at her wheelchair. “Why you got that?”
Esme grins, and it’s so much like her brother’s smile that it strangely makes me want to cry.
“Because I’m old and my legs don’t work too well now,” Esme explains. “I can walk with my sticks, but only short distances.”
“That’s okay. There’s some more train sets up in Morgan’s old nursery. I can bring them to you?” Artie looks up at Morgan, the question in his eyes.
“You can take anything you like from there, Artie.”
“You wanna play?” he asks Esme again, and she nods. “And after, can you show me some more pictures?”
“Of course,” she says softly. Artie disappears, and she turns to me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You probably won’t have to say much.” I chuckle. “Artie won’t let you get a word in edgeways. When he gets rolling, he can talk the hind leg off a donkey.”
“Is this all some kind of weird dream?” she mutters. “Am I dead?”
Morgan snorts. “There are days here that it feels that way, but no, you are very much alive. Only now you and your brother have the chance to get to know each other.”
“Wow.” Esme shakes her head. “This is not how I expected this day to go.”
“Seeing the dead is a bit of a jolt at first,” Sam interjects. “But trust me, you get used to it quickly once the shock wears off and you stop questioning your sanity.”
“I’m not quite there yet,” she says.
“I do need to have a word with Morgan and Ellis here, and it’s somewhat time-sensitive,” Sam says. “Do you feel comfortable on your own with your brother?”
She looks to me. “He won’t hurt you,” I tell her earnestly, and she nods.
“We’ll check in on you in a while,” Morgan assures her.
“’Ere we go.” Artie reappears, his little arms piled high with puzzles, books, and an old, boxed train set. “What do you want to do first?” he says excitedly.
Esme’s eyes are misty when she smiles at him. “Anything you want, you pick.”
A quick glance around tells me that Bertie and Stanley are nowhere to be found. Sam nods his head towards the door, and the three of us slip out of the room. Once we’re outside in the corridor and the door has clicked closed behind us, Sam turns to me and Morgan.
“Okay, I don’t want to alarm you, but you are in some very deep shit.”