The Lost Child by Ann Troup Read Free Book Online Page A

along her collarbone and terminated at the top of her left breast. It was her brand, the mark that divided her from the concept of normal and set her apart from others. Jean had hated it and had forced the habit of keeping it covered. When she’d been a child it had been polo neck sweaters and stiff lace collars and she’d had the constant sense that she was being slowly suffocated. Her face twisted with anguish at the memory and she reached once more for her scarf. Concluding that she was better off with the devil she knew, she carefully wound the fabric around her neck and patted it into place. The motion dislodged a few grains of Jean, which had collected in the folds of fabric. They fell, seeding the room with smouldering discontent.

Chapter Four
    Rosemary Tyler looked up from her washing up and peered out of the window. She could see Derry bouncing about at the end of the garden like an overexcited puppy. He was with someone. Ire rising, she strained up to see who was goading her brother now. She saw a woman talking to him. A young woman, who Rosemary didn’t recognise. At first.
    Grabbing up a tea towel she strode to the door and marched down the overgrown path, grinding her wet hands into the fabric as she went. ‘Oi, Derry. Inside, now!’
    Derry straightened at the sound of his sister’s voice and like a well trained dog he immediately scuttled inside the house. He shied away from Rosemary as he passed, as if expecting a vicious flick from the wet fabric that she held in her hands.
    Rosemary saw, with a glimmer of satisfaction, that the stranger was wrong-footed by this. She planted herself behind the gate, folded her arms and said, ‘Can I help you?’ in a tone that conveyed that she had no intention of doing any such thing.
    ‘I’m sorry to bother you, I’m looking for the house where Ruby Tyler used to live. The lady in the post office told me it was along here, but I can’t seem to find it.’
    Rosemary appraised the woman before her. She seemed the timid type, the type that apologised for breathing. ‘This is it, I’m Ruby’s daughter. What’s your business here?’
    The woman swallowed, ‘I’m Elaine Ellis, Joan’s daughter?’
    ‘Am I supposed to know who you’re talking about?’ Rosemary was already impatient with this wilting violet, she had made up her mind to be the minute she had clapped eyes on her.
    ‘Ruby was my mother’s aunt.’ Elaine explained feebly. She took a step back.
    Rosemary wrinkled her brow, the gears of her memory engaging and grinding back the years – she needed to play this cautiously, you never knew what people might be after. ‘Do you mean Jean Burroughs? Jean that moved away?’
    ‘Yes, sorry, Burroughs was her maiden name.’ Elaine nodded with relief.
    ‘Bloody hell, I haven’t seen Jean in thirty odd years. No great loss, we weren’t close.’ Rosemary delivered the words with the addition of a dismissive flick of her tea towel. ‘Anyway, what brings you here? If she’s hoping my mum left her any money she’s barking up the wrong tree, all we got was this shit hole and a pile of debts,’ she laughed and indicated the ramshackle building that stood behind her.
    ‘Oh no, nothing like that. It’s just that she died not long ago, and she sometimes talked about Ruby and here and I was hoping to scatter her ashes in Ruby’s garden…’ Elaine trailed off as both women surveyed the scrubby land that had been used for years as a laissez faire scrapyard. The rusted hulk of an old car nestled among the weeds whilst scrawny chickens pecked and scratched in the dirt. A pair of ageing German Shepherds eyed them lazily from where they lay chained to a post.
    Rosemary raised an eyebrow and stared at Elaine with amused scorn. Then she laughed, so much that she had to bend down and brace her hands on her knees in order to catch her next wheezing breath. Rising, she flapped the tea towel at Elaine, ‘Sorry love, but you really do have to see the funny