The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

more resistance than might be expected from a lightweight pack of hoover bags, when both the bags and a second object came hurtling towards her head, forcing her to take swift, evasive action. The unexpected item smashed against the floor, shattering glass across a wide area and splitting two bits of wood apart at a corner joint.

For a second Wendy was puzzled, but then she recognized the wooden frame amid a sparkle of broken glass as the picture Peter had given her all those months before, when he had found it in the attic. What on earth was it doing in the kitchen cupboard? She supposed that one of the workmen had seen it lying about and tucked it on to the top shelf of the cupboard to get it out of the way while they did some job or other, and then it had been unknowingly pushed to the back by the insertion of the pack of hoover bags. And now there was another mess to clear up …

She took up what was left of the frame and carefully picked away the remnants of glass. The photograph of the smiling young man was easily extractable now, and she slid the image free and automatically turned it over, wondering if a tentative identification might be available. The writing on the back was faint, the silvery grey remainder of a pencil dedication: To Dora from Johnny with all my love.

Wendy gave a little gasp. Oh, Joan … Oh my goodness. This surely must have been the local boy about whom Peggy Disberry had spoken. A photograph hidden under a loose board in the attic, where Dora’s disapproving parents would not find it. Where no one had found it, not for over forty years. Hadn’t one of the children said, on that very first day when they all came to view the house together, that attics were always full of secrets, or something of the kind?

As she fetched the dustpan and brush to clean up the glass, she wondered whether she had been directed to break the photo frame, today of all days, just after hearing the news of Joan’s death. Bruce would have dismissed it as a coincidence, but so many aspects of her relationship with the house and its past seemed pre-ordained. Look at the way she had come into the money in the first place; it was as if she had been meant to have the house … as if her fate had been tied to it. She double-bagged the glass before putting it into the bin, moving about the kitchen like an automaton. Could there be other clues up in the attic? Things Peter hadn’t found? After all, he had only discovered the photograph by accident. It wasn’t as if he had been searching up there. It wasn’t as if anyone had ever searched up there.

Though the electricity supply to the attic had been restored, the provision of lighting did not amount to more than a couple of bulbs, suspended from wires which hung from the ceiling: good enough not to fall over anything, but no good for a proper search. Wendy armed herself with the big torch, checking the batteries before she mounted the stairs to the upper landing.

At the attic door she hesitated, just as she had done that night when she’d thought she’d heard someone moving about up there. Bruce was probably right about that. Old houses always creaked, their woodwork subject to changes in temperature and humidity. She opened the door, switched on the light and slowly mounted the stairs.

Up in the attic, her footsteps echoed around the large, relatively empty space. So far, they had made little use of its storage potential. The cardboard boxes containing the Christmas decorations were up there, and some boxes of old toys which should rightly have been donated to the Scouts jumble sale but had somehow been overlooked. There were a couple of slowly deflating lilos leaning crazily against the boxes of toys, probably the result of some sleepover in Tara’s den, but that was about all. There was nothing to be afraid of. Wendy moved around the perimeter first, shining her torch across one patch of brickwork after another, looking for any possible cranny which a young girl might have utilized to conceal love letters or a diary, but nothing presented itself. When she reached the furthest corner from the stairs, she thought she heard voices, whispering. She turned back so that she was facing into the room.

‘Who is it?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’

She stood for a few moments, feeling foolish in the silence. It was probably just the wind on the roof slates or something. And yet there had been so many rumours of ghosts.

‘I want to help,’ she said aloud.

Laughter? Surely, that had been the sound of laughter, faint but definite? A moment later, she caught the faint whoops and shouts of some boys, passing in the road outside, probably on their way home from school for lunch. That must have accounted for the other noises too. They were just sounds coming in from outside. Kids being loud. Maybe. For an unheated space it was surprisingly warm. Airless, too.

When her search of the walls produced nothing, she turned her attention to the floorboards. So far as she could remember, Peter had implied that he’d discovered the hidey hole by accident, having trodden on a loose board. She tried to remember exactly what he had described, as she crossed and recrossed the attic floor, hoping to identify the place. No boards sprang up when she stepped on them, or even seemed particularly rickety. Think, think, what had he told her about the place where the picture had been? Then it occurred to her that it must have been a short section of wood. A young girl couldn’t have lifted the kind of long planks which made up most of the attic floor. She began to search again, this time looking for shorter sections