The Boat House by Pamela Oldfield Read Free Book Online

went in search of his wife, assuming she may have gone to friends or even back home to America . . . but never did find her.
    She sighed. ‘All very sad. And the twins were orphaned . . . or were they? The father died, it’s true, but where is their mother? It would be a shock if she suddenly turned up again to claim them.’
    ‘I wish she would! Then they’d have a happier time than they do now.’
    ‘But the girls aren’t unhappy,’ Marianne protested.
    Lorna was staring at her. ‘Would you want to live with a grandmother like Mrs Matlowe? Can’t do this! Can’t do that! Don’t talk to the neighbours.’ She dangled the key. ‘We’re not to stay up here too long, Cook says.’
    Marianne nodded, giving the room a lingering look before preceding Lorna on to the landing.
    Halfway down the stairs Lorna said, ‘The old nanny thought the children should go to school when they were five and mix with other children and she told Mrs Matlowe. She said it wasn’t healthy for them to be shut away from other people. She was always on about what they did in America, so Mrs Brannigan says. She used to hear them arguing. Ivy something – that was her name. Ivy Busby! She may have been old but she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.’
    ‘So did you ever meet her?’
    ‘Yes. She came over with the family and was still looking after the twins when me and Cook were taken on. The story was that she’d been widowed three days after her wedding – Ivy Busby I mean, not Mrs Matlowe – and she became a nanny and never looked at another man. Isn’t that romantic?’
    ‘It’s terribly sad,’ said Marianne.
    Lorna shrugged. ‘Anyway she was nice enough, I suppose, but very outspoken. A bit doddery – Cook thought she must be nearing seventy – but then Mrs Matlowe gave her the sack for interfering and the poor old thing had nowhere to go.’ She tossed her head indignantly.
    ‘So no one knew what happened to her?’
    Lorna nodded. ‘Then eventually the first governess came and went and then you came.’
    They stood at the foot of the stairs, finishing the conversation, until Cook called to ask if anyone wanted a cup of tea and a jam tart, and Lorna and Marianne hurried into the kitchen.

THREE
    ‘S mall but bijou’ was how Donald Watson liked to describe his office, and to him and his secretary, Judith Jessop, it was a second home. They both spent more than half their lives among the crowded furniture, sagging shelves and overflowing filing cabinets. The frosted windows were rarely cleaned, the floor was hardly ever swept and the two desks were never tidied.
    Judith Jessop told people that she and her employer saw to the cleaning of the office and that an office cleaner would muddle everything up and set back important investigations. Her maiden name was Judith Watson and she was, in fact, Donald’s cousin. At twenty-four she was a few years his junior and recently married to Tom Jessop. The cousins were vaguely similar to look at – she had the same friendly open face and warm smile – but whereas Donald was what she called ‘a plodder’, she was full of nervous energy and inclined to be hasty.
    ‘The stuff’s arrived from the police station,’ she called when he bowled into the office four days later, ten minutes after her own arrival. ‘One of the lads brought it round first thing.’ She tossed the slim package on to his desk and helped him off with his jacket. It was her philosophy that, simply because she was part of his family, it didn’t mean she need not give him the kind of respect another secretary might give. It irked him a little to be fussed over but Judith insisted. ‘I’m paid to be a secretary so I’ll act like one,’ was her frequent reply to his protests.
    He picked up the package, tore it open and settled down in his chair to examine the contents. ‘We have to come up with something new,’ he told her for the third time. ‘There has to be something we’ve overlooked. No one vanishes