Alice’s Secret: A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed
Her company, publishers of a trade magazine, was small and family run: her boss, Charles, was the son of the chairman. He was funny, Alys supposed, if you didn’t mind being the butt of suggestive jokes. The general atmosphere in the office was so relaxed that she’d never paid his behaviour much attention, apart from sighing and rolling her eyes along with the other girls at his so-called witty innuendos. She’d met his wife at the Christmas party, and his kids sometimes came into the office during the school holidays. So far, so normal, until she’d noticed that whenever he came to look at work on her screen he started off with one hand on her desk, one hand on her chair, effectively trapping her there. The hand on the chair often strayed to her shoulder. She’d learnt to swivel the chair to reach for something, so that he had to move. She didn’t think he suspected that she’d noticed what he was up to.
One evening a couple of months previously, when an urgent deadline meant that they had to work later than usual, he came in with wine, crisps and pizza ‘to keep the troops going’. Alys began to feel uneasy as the others finished their work, packed up and started to drift away. She still needed to put the finishing touches to the cover and it looked as though she would be the last to leave. She’d barely sipped her wine, wanting to keep a clear head until everything was signed off, but she noticed that Charles had kept a bottle all to himself and he was well on the way to finishing it.
‘I’m done here,’ she said at last, shutting down her computer and gathering up her belongings.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to tell you how pleased I am with how hard you’ve been working to meet the deadlines. Can I buy you a drink to say thanks?’
‘Oh, there’s no need, you’ve already done that,’ said Alys, pointing at her wine glass, now half empty.
Charles wasn’t going to give up so easily. ‘Dinner, then?’ he said.
Alys started to put on her coat. ‘That’s very kind of you, but I really must get going.’ She was already heading for the exit but he was there before her, back to the door, arm stretched across the doorway.
‘You must have noticed how I feel about you?’ He breathed wine fumes into her face.
Alys’s heart lurched. ‘Well, I –’ Was yes, or no, the best answer?
‘You did know!’ he said, triumphant. ‘You were just leading me on …’ Before Alys could protest, he’d pulled her to him and was kissing her hard. Part of her brain was detached, dispassionate, aware of the sour wine on his breath, the prickle of stubble. Alarm bells were ringing in the other half – she needed to make him stop.
She tried to pull away from him, but he was too strong for her. ‘Oh, I’ve been watching you for so long,’ he murmured into her neck. His skin was radiating heat and he was tugging at her buttons, slipping his hand inside the neck of her shirt. Alys felt paralysed. Was this really happening? Could she kick him? Knee him in the groin and make a run for it? Even as she thought these things, images of how the next day would play out were crowding in. Was this going to be the end of her job? The one she took pride in and had worked hard at over the last couple of years, to become part of the close-knit team?
Summoning all her strength she pulled away from him, grabbing his arms and holding them at his sides.
‘For God’s sake Charles, you’re a married man.’ It sounded positively Victorian, but it was the best she could come up with. Could she preserve her job by maintaining his dignity?
He just laughed. ‘And that’s what makes it all the better. No strings attached on either side, eh?’
Alys took a deep breath. There was no way out of this. She was going to have to tell him exactly what she thought of him. At that moment, the door behind him flew open, and a face appeared in the doorway.
Startled, the new arrival said, ‘Sorry, sorry. I thought you’d all left. I’ll come back. Five minutes?’
Alys seized her chance, pushed past Charles and resisted the urge to hug the cleaner. The poor man looked embarrassed enough already. ‘No, it’s absolutely fine,’ she said. ‘I was just on my way out.’ Then she fled, without looking back.
She ran all the way to the Tube and felt blessed when the train arrived at the platform at the same time as she did. She slept fitfully that night, anxious about the next day, about how Charles might react to her. Would there be a trumped-up dismissal? Or another clumsy attempt at seduction?
Nothing happened. Instead of feeling relieved, Alys found herself jumpy and unable to relax. She wanted to discuss it with him and clear the air, but it was too awkward a topic to broach. How would you start? ‘By the way Charles, about last night when you tried it on?’ ‘How’s the wife, Charles? I’d love to catch up for a chat.’
Her inability to take action seemed to have sapped her vitality. Increasingly, she found herself observing, rather than taking part in, social gatherings. There’d been that after-work drink she’d dragged herself along to, a week or so after the incident, when Laura, one of her workmates had asked her, ‘What have you done to upset Charles? I’ve noticed him picking on you for no reason.’ Alys had looked at her in mute astonishment, not sure what to say, indeed, whether it was safe to say anything at all. Laura looked puzzled, then gasped. ‘Oh, you weren’t treated to one of his late-night working specials, were you? Just ignore it and pretend it never happened. I always say it should be written into the contract. Clause 2.5. Permission for Mr Rollinson to try it on at least once without employee inflicting grievous injury.’
Alys was horrified but she tried to give herself a talking-to. Laura had shrugged off Charles’s behaviour – why couldn’t she? She couldn’t get rid of the feeling, though, that Laura should have warned her to be on her guard.
Her feelings started to turn to anger as time passed, but she felt that there was no one she could take her complaint to in a small family firm. It would be her word against that of her boss. Rather than having it out with Charles it felt easier to do nothing. Instead, she brooded on the incident. She no longer looked forward to going into work each day and she was hardly aware of how insular she’d become. She found herself going through the motions of life, following her normal routines, but simply not engaging with them anymore. And soon it became easier to dodge invitations and shut herself away.
The Sunday when Alys, setting out to buy milk, realised that she hadn’t left the house or spoken to anyone all weekend, had provided a rare moment of clarity. It had pierced the fug of inertia that had descended upon her. She had decided there and then that the best thing to do was to leave work after all. She was bored in her job, she told herself – blocking out the fact that once upon a time she’d looked forward to each day in the office. She needed a change of scene. As the plan took shape in her mind, the original reasons were gradually buried, and before long she had convinced herself that boredom and restlessness were her only motivations.
Alys dragged herself out of her reverie, aware that the train had just pulled into a station. She forced herself to focus, looking for the name on the platform. It was Doncaster – they were well on the way. She people-watched from the window as the train waited there for a few minutes. A portly, balding gentleman in a suit drank from his polystyrene coffee cup, gazing intently down the tracks. He turned, and Alys caught a glimpse of an unexpected thin, greying ponytail. As the train pulled out, she saw local buses, the top decks filled with people, heading home after shopping. Who knew where to, or what awaited them there? At the next stop, Wakefield, a man stood in shorts and sunglasses, apparently oblivious to the rain and the fact that all those around him sported coats and umbrellas. Alys was intrigued by these little glimpses into other people’s worlds. Who were these people, and what were their lives like? It was a reminder that there were other lives apart from her own, equally filled with problems, challenges, achievements, boredom, and happiness.
She changed trains at Leeds, struggling to pull her case out of the rack. She found herself caught up in the confusion of what seemed to be rush hour, even though it was only four o’clock. The train for Northwaite was already standing at the platform, just a couple of carriages this time, heat belting out as though it was a winter’s day rather than early April. She took a seat near the door, calculating how many stations there were until her stop. Passengers got on, looked uncertain, asked Alys if they were on the right train. She hadn’t a clue, but smiled politely and tried to help.
Once the journey was under way, the elderly man across the aisle tried to draw Alys into conversation. She was guarded in her responses, then felt bad. This was Yorkshire, after all, not London. It was normal here to chat, to be interested in others and what they were up to. This was something she was going to need to embrace: all part of reinventing herself and beginning her new life.
Chapter Four
The approach to Bradford held both mosques and mills. It seemed like an odd juxtaposition, the graceful exteriors and gleaming domes of the mosques standing out against the soot-blackened and forbidding Victorian architecture, smoke stacks and minarets paired. No sign of towering office blocks or cranes creating yet more high-rises: this was a landscape new to her. The train rested at the station for longer than usual and, with only a few stops to go now, Alys suddenly felt a flutter of apprehension. What had she done?
Rain was still coursing down the train windows when they pulled into Alys’s stop. She heaved her suitcase onto the platform. She had received a text from her aunt on the train, saying that she’d send someone to pick her up and that there was no need to get a taxi. Alys headed into the car park and looked around. She hadn’t thought to ask for any further details, she’d been so caught up in her thoughts. She’d have to call her aunt and find out who she should be looking for.
She dug into her rucksack, feeling around. She couldn’t locate her phone. ‘Damn’, Alys cursed under her breath, panic rising in case she’d left it on the train. She rested the rucksack on top of her case and began to dig deeper. It was then that a battered Land Rover, the old, green variety, roared into the car park, and pulled up beside her.
‘You must be Alys,’ said the driver, leaning across and flinging open the passenger door, without switching off the engine. ‘Hop in.’
Alys was rather taken aback. ‘How do you know I’m Alys?’ she demanded suspiciously. The driver was a man of about her own age, casually dressed in jeans and a jumper, and apparently oblivious to the weather.
He looked her up and down, taking in her rain-soaked hair, the escaped strands which were plastered to her cheeks for once, rather than springing wildly in all directions, the crêpe-de-Chine dress only partially covered by a rather horrid red-and-grey cagoule that had once belonged to her brother, and the army-type boots.
‘Your Aunt Moira gave me a pretty accurate description when she asked me to collect you,’ he said, with a wide grin.
Alys, feeling her cheeks redden, and trying to hide her embarrassment, attempted to pull her suitcase closer to the Land Rover. There was a grinding noise as one of the wheels caught in the paving stones. She tugged impatiently. The suitcase pulled free of the paving, but left a wheel embedded there and keeled over. Her open rucksack flew off the top of the case and upended itself, scattering her possessions everywhere. Alys watched, horrified, as her phone – clearly not left on the train after all – skidded along the ground and came to a halt perilously close to the grille over a drain.
‘Oh crap!’ Alys bent down and scrabbled around, trying to gather all her belongings before the rain soaked everything, stuffing them haphazardly back into the rucksack.
‘I’m Rob, by the way,’ said her driver, who’d now hopped out of the Land Rover, leaving the engine still running, and was trying to help Alys gather her things. She rather wished he wouldn’t – the emptying of the rucksack had exposed a muddle of dirty tissues, receipts, scribbled shopping lists, half-full packets of chewing gum and sweets, coins, a pine cone and a less-than-clean comb.
‘What about this?’ Rob held up a letter, now crumpled and damp, by his fingertips.
‘Oh!’ Alys almost snatched it from him. ‘I meant to post it before I left. Is there a postbox here?’
‘Maybe you should let it dry out for a bit first? If it’s important.’ Rob seemed to have judged from her reaction that it was. ‘Here,’ he took it back from her and flattened it out on the vehicle’s dashboard. ‘You can post it up in Northwaite later.’
He turned his attention to her suitcase, heaving it into the back of the Land Rover. ‘I see you’ve come to stay for a bit,’ he remarked, looking back at Alys over his shoulder. ‘Good job you didn’t try to fly up – they’d have charged you excess baggage!’
‘It’s mainly books,’ muttered Alys, on the defensive. It was partly true. Moira had asked for several cookery books for inspiration, and she’d tossed in some travel guides for good measure, so she could start planning for her trip.
‘Hope you haven’t been waiting long,’ added Rob, climbing back into the driver’s seat and patting the passenger’s seat to encourage Alys to get in. ‘The battery was flat, so I had to get a push down the hill and hope for the best. That’s why the engine’s running, just in case.’ And with that he slammed the Land Rover into gear and they were off. The letter to Tim sat on the dashboard, an uncomfortable reminder to Alys of something that she needed to resolve.
She settled herself rather gingerly in her seat, aware that it looked as though it might have held a dog or a muddy jacket until recently. She wrinkled her nose: yes, there was a definite aroma of wet dog. Alys looked away, gazing out of the window. The hill out of the town looked nearly vertical. Rob obviously knew the road well – he drove speedily but carefully. He didn’t say another word and Alys began to wonder whether she should try to make conversation. She looked at him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, registering wavy brown hair, a checked shirt topped with a ribbed navy sweater (holey at the elbows) and broad hands (none too clean) grasping the steering wheel.
‘Um, Rob – is that short for Robert?’ she ventured, to break the silence.
‘No,’ said Rob, shortly.
‘Oh.’ The silence grew, developing a portentous quality. Alys had the feeling that she had said something wrong.
Finally, Rob sighed, shifted up a gear as the road levelled out, and said, ‘Robin’.
‘Robin!’ Alys tried to stifle a snort of laughter. The name really didn’t suit him.
‘Ok, I know.’ Rob glanced sideways at her. She was relieved to notice the hint of a smile lifting his previously stern expression. ‘Blame my mum. When she was expecting me she was stuck at home with bad morning sickness. She fed this robin in the garden every day, apparently. It got so tame that it would fly over to sit on her hand as soon as she stepped outside the back door. She saw it as some sort of good omen, so she promised to name her firstborn after it.’
It was Rob’s turn to snort, sardonically.
‘Aah, that’s a lovely story.’ Alys was encouraged by how positively chatty he’d become. ‘Well, I don’t know who I’m named after. Alice in Wonderland, perhaps?’
‘Hmmm, that figures,’ said Rob, but before she could ask him what he meant by that, the Land Rover came to a halt and Rob leapt out, leaving the engine still running. He opened her door, and turned to haul her suitcase from the back.
‘Don’t forget your letter,’ he said. ‘The postbox is on the main street. Moira will be pleased to see you. That back injury has been making her feel a bit desperate. Can you manage now?’ He paused. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your case onto the path. It’s that door along there – the blue one. Don’t let Moira lay a hand on this case, mind, or she’ll be in hospital.’
Clearly finding this funny, he chuckled to himself, settled back in the driving seat and drove off, leaving Alys to struggle her one-wheeled case along the path that ran between a row of cottages and the church. She had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t made a very good impression and she couldn’t for the life of her work out why she even cared.
The blue door flew open before Alys reached it, and there was Moira, leaning heavily on a walking frame. Her short wavy hair was threaded with far more grey than when Alys had last seen her, and she looked pale and drawn, but she was beaming from ear to ear.
‘I thought I heard Rob’s Land Rover,’ she said. ‘You’re here at last. Come in, come in. There’s tea, and cake, of course.’
Chapter Five
Later that evening, after Moira had shuffled painfully up the stairs to rest in bed, and Alys had made sure that she’d swallowed her painkillers, before arranging her pillows to support her back and ease any pressure on her spine, Alys decided it was time to get her bearings and take a tour of the village before it got dark.
Latching the door behind her, she headed along Church Lane into the cobbled main street. Seen up close, the cobbles came as a shock – she had expected smooth, polished, rounded stones of different hues of brown. She’d seen something like that before, but where? Perhaps in a museum in York, when she was small? The Northwaite cobbles, however, were pretty much uniform in size and looked as though they might have come from a garden centre. Alys wasn’t sure that the local tourist authority would appreciate her description, but they’d added nothing to her journey along the road in the Land Rover. She’d be surprised if any of the cars around here still had their suspension intact.
She spotted the postbox: a flat, red panel set into the grey-stone wall, a tub of bright daffodils beneath it. She hesitated a moment – the letter now looked a bit of a mess. Tim wouldn’t be happy. Then she shrugged, and posted it. After all, he’d be even less happy when he’d read it …
Turning her gaze to the road ahead, she took in the grey-stone houses fronting the street, hugging it on each side. Window boxes and flower tubs and, in one case, a tiny stone seat, had been squeezed into the available area between the front windows and the pavement, the strong colours of the spring flowers throwing the blackened and weathered stone into sharp contrast. The front doors opened straight into the sitting rooms and, where lights had been turned on inside, Alys could see that the rooms were dominated by huge stone fireplaces that seemed out of place in such small spaces.
Pausing to catch her breath as the road climbed steeply out of the village, she found herself already high up and quite exposed, gazing out at three surrounding and distant hills of a similar height. The road swept off into the distance over one hill, a monument topped a second, moorland the third. Lights were starting to twinkle here and there in the gathering dusk.
Although it was past eight in the evening it was still not quite dark. The light had the strangest quality, tinged with both a grey and a yellow hue. Dark clouds were gathering over to her left and Alys could see a mist sweeping through the valley. It looked as though rain was heading her way. Her hair, whipped by the wind, was springing free of the elastic band and blowing across her eyes. She shivered, wishing she’d worn something warmer under her cagoule. She remembered Moira’s advice before she’d left London. ‘Pack some warm clothes. It always feels about ten degrees colder up here.’ Perhaps this wasn’t the right evening to continue her explorations?
She turned, heading back towards the lights of the village. The last cottage on the high street was more noticeable viewed from this angle. She’d been struck by its ornate stone gatepost and the front door with a carved stone arch above it as she’d headed out of the village. It had seemed unusually grand for a cottage. She now saw that there was a side door, too, with a little niche cut quite high on the wall beside it, similar to the type of thing you might see in a church. This was also decorated with a stone arch, and a pillar candle burned in a glass storm lantern placed in the niche. It was a nice touch, thought Alys, hurrying back towards the haven of Moira’s cottage as the first drops of rain began spattering the paving stones. She hoped the flame would survive the coming storm.
Chapter Six
The key felt weighty in Alys’s pocket, where it sat along with the code for the café alarm on a folded piece of paper that she turned through her fingers as she walked. She felt a mixture of trepidation and excitement: trepidation that she would fumble the alarm code and trigger the alarm, and excitement at getting a proper look at the café for the first time. It lay in the opposite direction to the one she had taken when she had explored yesterday evening. The memory of posting her letter came back to her and she experienced a frisson of worry as she walked. Her letter would be on its way to Tim now. When would the consequences be felt?
At breakfast that morning Moira had said, ‘Why don’t you take the keys and go and have a look around the café? Then maybe we could think about baking and you could open it on a part-time basis until I’m feeling a bit better, so that my regulars don’t think I’ve abandoned them.’
Then she’d given Alys directions and the instructions for the alarm and so here she was, standing outside the door. The Celestial Cake Café was well placed, on a bend shortly after you came into the village. They must have driven right past it after Rob had collected her from the station the day before, Alys reflected, but she had failed to register it. The café had one large window and a smaller one on either side of the front door, which was set back, providing shelter from the weather. Yesterday’s rain had given way to clear skies and a brisk wind that had buffeted her on her walk and Alys appreciated the moment’s respite as she prepared to open the door. The door handle, fingerplate and letterbox were made of ornate brass, polished and with a lovely soft sheen that suggested years of use. The exterior paintwork had been freshly done, in a light-sage green to match the door, and ‘The Celestial Cake Café’ was lettered in a simple black script across the top of the façade. The most striking thing, though, was the pair of white angel’s wings that hung in the largest of the two windows. They looked as though they might have been taken from a statue. Alys smiled to herself – she wondered where Moira had got them. They were an original and memorable touch.
She steeled herself to open the door and deal with the alarm but, as Moira had promised, it was perfectly straightforward and, with the beeping of the keypad stilled and the door closed behind her, she could examine the interior at leisure. The whole room was half panelled in duck-egg blue tongue-and-groove, and the upper part of the walls was painted to match. Framed prints of cherubs and line drawings of angels were intermingled with small watercolour sketches that looked as though they might be of the local area: waterfalls, woodland paths and views of grey-stone cottages. Mismatched wooden chairs painted in a soft palette of colours – blues, greys, greens and stone – had been provided with seat cushions in an Indian paisley fabric that added a bright splash of hot pink, turquoise and orange. There was a window seat under the angel’s wings, piled with cushions in the same soft shades as the chair colours, and a wooden serving counter looked as though it had been created from recycled hefty wooden planks, marked here and there with black strips and holes where iron fixings or nails had been removed.
The café interior was L-shaped and the back section held tiny tables and a wood-burning stove. It was now cold but Alys could imagine how the room with its stone-flagged floor would benefit from the heat in the colder months. She peeped out of the narrow window in the sturdy back door to catch a glimpse of a small courtyard, lined with tubs filled with spring bulbs in full flower: scarlet and orange tulips, creamy yellow narcissi and bright-blue grape hyacinths. Scrubbed tables folded against the wall told her that this would be an extra seating space in the warmer months. All in all, Moira had done a wonderful job, Alys thought as she looked around. And the place was spotless, not a crumb or sticky smear to be seen. She tried to imagine what the café must be like when it was busy with the buzz of conversation, the smell of coffee in the air, the serving counter piled high with cakes and biscuits ready for the customers.