The Damaged Hearts Bargain (Tetherington Hearts #2)

Chapter Thirty Two

A fter a very restless night, Lucy had come to no further conclusions as to what exactly she should be doing to make Cal’s life better. It wasn’t until she was sitting at the breakfast table with George moaning about another early morning that she had an epiphany.

“The worst part of being an adult is that you can do all the things you want, but now you’re old enough to know that you shouldn’t. It really is unfair,” George was saying.

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, George, if you want to eat biscuits for breakfast, then go ahead. I’m not going to stop you.”

“That’s my point though,” said George. “I do want to eat biscuits for breakfast. But I also know that if I eat biscuits for breakfast then at ten o’clock I’ll be hungry again and then I’ll be cranky, and then I’ll do something unspeakable to a customer just to get my hands on a croissant.”

“You could eat chocolates instead,” Lucy said, nodding at the box of chocolates that Billy had gifted to George just the other day.

“Don’t get me started on the chocolates,” George said. “I love Billy to death, but he knows my weak spots. One mouthful of something like that and I’ll weigh two hundred kilos by the end of the week.”

“No you won’t,” Lucy said. “Just eat them sensibly. One a day or something. Moderation in all things.”

“No, no, that’s not how it works with me. That box would be the start of a slippery, slippery slope.”

Which was when it happened. Boxes starting things. The words swirled around her head and she was unable to place them for a minute. Then she remembered. When Deb had come to claim a memento, she’d taken the jade box from Cal’s mother’s dressing table and said it was special. But Cal had said something along the lines of everything started with that box.

It had pricked up her senses at the time, but she’d already promised Cal that she wasn’t going to do any more digging. Now though, well, surely that promise was off the table? There was something about that box and the only person who might have answers and who wasn’t dead or an ex was Deb Manning.

“You alright?” George asked. “If you’re angling for a chocolate, you can have one, I won’t be horribly jealous or anything.”

“I’m fine,” said Lucy, getting up from the breakfast table. “Just going to be late if I don’t get a move on, that’s all.”

SHE WORKED HER morning shift so it was lunchtime before she could go off in search of Deb Manning. She didn’t have to search long though. Deb was in the pub for lunch, exactly where Lucy had suspected she might be.

“Is it alright if I sit with you a minute?” she asked.

Deb, who was forking her way through a ploughman’s grinned. “Happy for the company, have a seat.”

“I’ve got an ulterior motive, I’m afraid,” Lucy said. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Fire away, as long as you don’t mind me eating while you’re talking.”

Lucy smiled. “Not at all. I just, um, well, I was wondering, that box you took from Cal’s mum’s house, you said it was special. Would you mind telling me why? ”

“I’m sure it’s worth nothing,” Deb began.

“Oh, I’m absolutely not saying it is. I’m not accusing you of anything or anything like that, I just… I’m trying to figure something out.” It was a weak excuse, but Deb seemed to buy it, she smiled.

“Well, in that case… Let me see. It’s common for dementia patients to have a sort of special place, a secret hidey-hole, a concealed stash, that sort of thing. I don’t know why, but there tends to be one place that sticks in their minds, long after a lot of other things are gone. The box was Pam Roberts’ special place.”

Gears were turning in Lucy’s head.

Everything had started with that box. The box that Pam kept special things in. Precious things.

“I don’t know much about dementia,” Lucy said quietly. “Does it take a long time to develop, or does it go quickly?”

Deb shook her head sadly. “That’s the worst thing for most, I think. The first signs can appear long before any crisis. It can take years and years to develop. Often, we just think that our mums or grand-dads are getting a bit absent-minded. But eventually we have to accept that they’re steadily losing pieces of themselves. It’s a hard thing to watch.”

A long time. But seventeen years? Lucy scratched her nose in thought. Things were starting to come together but she wasn’t sure that she had the whole picture. Wasn’t sure if what she was thinking was even possible.

She cleared her throat. “Can I tell you something?” she asked Deb. “I don’t want to keep you if you’ve got some place to be.”

“I was only about to do some shopping,” said Deb. “I can just as easily stay here for a half pint after lunch.”

“I’ll get that,” Lucy said, standing up. “And then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to run something past you. Just an idea. I need to know if what I’m thinking is even possible. But it has to be secret, is that alright?”

Deb shrugged and smiled. “I’m a nurse, you’ll not find many as good at keeping secrets. I’m happy to help, if I can.”

Lucy went over to the bar. It was all about boxes, she could see that now. The jade box on Cal’s mum’s dressing table. And the cash box that had had only two keys.

“What are you two plotting at over there?” Rosalee said as she came to take Lucy’s order.

Lucy closed one eye in thought and looked at Rosalee. Then she nodded. “Give me half an hour to talk to Deb and then if I still think I’m onto something, I’ll come and talk to you about it, alright?”

“As long as you wait until the lunch rush is over,” Rosalee said, sliding a half pint over to Lucy. “I’ll be on tenterhooks.”

HOW COULD SHE be sure that she was right? There was no way really. But after what Deb had told her and what she’d pieced together herself, Lucy was pretty certain that she was at least on the right track. She perched herself on a bar stool and Rosalee put the kettle on.

“Go on then,” said Rosalee.

“First, you’ve got to promise me that this is between us, at least for now.”

“My lips are sealed,” Rosalee said, lifting one eyebrow. “Now what’s going on?”

“Let me ask you something first. You knew Cal’s mum, right?”

“All this again?” asked Rosalee. “I thought the two of you were on the outs. You wouldn’t find me digging into an ex’s past.”

“We’ve broken up,” Lucy said. “This isn’t about that though.”

“What is it about then?”

“Justice,” said Lucy, feeling the word big in her mouth like it was too large for what was happening.

Rosalee blew out a breath. “Yeah, I knew Pam. She was a lovely woman before, well, before.”

“Was she, well, was she on top of things? Efficient? That kind of person?”

Rosalee laughed. “Oh not Pam. At least not the Pan that I knew. She’d have forgotten her head if it wasn’t screwed on right. ”

“And yet she was treasurer of the women’s club.”

“Huh,” said Rosalee. “You know what, she was a secretary for a long time too. Personal assistant I think we’d call her now.”

“So maybe she wasn’t always absent-minded.”

“I suppose not,” Rosalee said carefully. “Now what’s going on here, Lucy? I’m starting to think that you’re thinking something that I wouldn’t like you thinking, if you get my drift. Pam Roberts was a good woman.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Lucy said. “But I’ve been wracking my brain to think of a reason why Cal would be in that room with the money in her hand, and there’s only one reason that I can think of. Only one thing that makes sense.”

“Which is?” prompted Rosalee.

“She wasn’t taking the money, we already know that since the money had already gone missing, so she must have been putting it back.”

Rosalee sighed and leaned on the bar, eyes weary. “I think you’d better tell me the whole story now. What exactly are you proposing happened?”

Slowly, carefully, Lucy began to tell her what she suspected had happened that night. And when she was done, Rosalee was pale.

“I might not have it completely right,” Lucy said. “But you have to admit, it makes a lot more sense this way.”

“Jesus,” breathed Rosalee. “You’re right, it does. And it would all mean… it’d mean that we’ve all been wrong. That Cal was right all along and… We’re not bad people Lucy.”

“I know that you’re not,” Lucy said. “You’ve all welcomed me with open arms, the whole town. But I can see where things got all mixed up as well. And I think that maybe we should try and put things right.”

“How?” Rosalee asked.

“About that,” said Lucy. “I think I might have an idea. It’s big and flashy, but it’ll be noticeable and have people talking the right way.”

“Big and flashy? You sure that’s what’s needed here?” Rosalee asked doubtfully.

“People like to gossip about the negative, not about the positive,” said Lucy. “If we’re going to get the truth out there then we have to do it with a splash otherwise everyone will ignore it.”

“What do you need?” Rosalee asked.

“Um, I need that big blank wall facing the road,” Lucy said.

“You…. You what?”

Lucy explained and a wide smile started to stretch across Rosalee’s face.