crossing the rain-slippery cobbles, desperate to get home. Fumbling with the latch he pushed the heavy door open, pausing in the impenetrable darkness at the foot of the stairwell, trying to get his breath, tears pouring down his face, before heading up the long steep spiral stairs. On, he went, his small feet pounding up the worn stone steps, on and on, up and up …
Ruth Dunbar woke with a start, staring into the blackness of the bedroom in her father’s Edinburgh house, grasping for the dream, still feeling the little boy’s terror as he ran, still seeing the drama unfold, raising her eyes in her dream from the body lying in the dark street to the shadowed grey walls, the crowds, illuminated so dramatically by the flaming torch held in the raised hand of a bystander, her gaze travelling on up to the great crown steeple of St Giles’, starkly unmistakable halfway down Edinburgh’s spine, silhouetted against the last crimson streaks of the stormy sunset.
She hugged her pillow to her, her breath steadying slowly as her eyes closed again.
In the morning she would remember nothing of the dream. Only much later would it surface to haunt her.
The Present Day
‘Presumably you’re going to sell the house?’ Harriet Jervase sat back on the sofa and studied her friend Ruth’s face.
There was an almost tangible silence in the room and then, clearly audible, footsteps moving softly through the hallway outside and up the stairs.
Ruth put her finger to her lips and stood up. Tiptoeing to the door, she pulled it open. The hall was empty, crepuscular beneath the high ceiling of the staircase well. She reached for the light switch. The austere hanging lamp with its faded shade threw an awkward cold light which left shadows over the turns in the staircase. Upstairs she heard the sound of a door closing.
She went back into the living room. ‘That man gives me the creeps,’ she said, throwing herself down in her chair again. ‘He was listening at the door, I’m sure he was.’
‘Why don’t you tell him to go?’ Harriet was Ruth’s oldest friend. The two women had been at school together and had remained in touch over the years since. To Ruth, the only child of comparatively elderly parents, Harriet had been the nearest thing to a sibling. It was a given that she would have come up to Edinburgh for Ruth’s father’s funeral.
‘I can’t just throw him out. He was so kind to Dad.’
The presence of Timothy Bradford in the house had been an unwelcome surprise when she arrived. He appeared to have been staying there for some time, very much at home.
‘Have you asked him what his plans are?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘It’s too soon.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Harriet’s voice was crisp. ‘He’s obviously not going to go until you say something.’ She gave Ruth a quizzical glance. ‘I know you feel you should have come up here sooner when your dad fell ill, but be honest, Ruth, he didn’t tell you there was a problem; you came as soon as you knew. And if Timothy was comfortable looking after him, that was his choice. On his own admission, your dad has given him free bed and board in Edinburgh for months, but it’s over now. Whatever you decide to do with the house, he has to go.’
‘You’re right,’ Ruth agreed gloomily.
‘Do you want me to tell him?’
‘No!’ Ruth was shocked. ‘No, of course not.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow after you’ve gone.’ She frequently found herself resenting Harriet’s calm assumption that she was the more efficient of the two of them, but it wasn’t as if they saw each other often enough these days to make an issue of something so trivial.
‘So, what will you do after you’ve got rid of him?’ For all their closeness there had been long gaps when they hadn’t seen each other, especially since Harriet had moved away from London and down to the West Country. She surveyed her friend fondly. Ruth had large grey eyes, her most striking feature; as a child they had always been the first thing people mentioned about her. Her hair on the other hand was a light golden brown, something she had never bothered about and which had become streaked with silver at the temples at a remarkably early age. It had suited her then and suited her now. Harriet had always felt strangely protective of Ruth. She was one of those people who seemed too vulnerable to exist in the normal world; which was rubbish. At some level Ruth was tough as old boots.
‘I haven’t any plans yet. I’m not sorry I gave up teaching; I’d been there too long and I was growing stale. I was just learning to appreciate my freedom as mistress of my own destiny when I found out Dad was so ill and I thought I’d have to move up here permanently to look after him.’ Ruth sighed sadly. ‘No more freedom after all. That was why I rented out my London flat. I didn’t realise how short a time he had left.’
‘And what of the husband?’ Harriet never stooped to giving Richard his name.
Ruth laughed quietly. ‘The ex-husband is fine. You saw him at the funeral. We agreed to go our own ways. We still talk occasionally. We’re friends.’
There was a painful pause, a silence that covered so much that had happened: her longing for a child and the bleak discovery that Rick was unlikely ever to father a baby, the failed IVF, the decision to give up trying, the sense of empty pointlessness that followed.
Harriet cleared her throat uncomfortably. ‘So, you really are fancy-free?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘With no London flat, at least for now, but instead an Edinburgh house.’
‘Yup.’
‘Any gorgeous men on the horizon?’
‘No.’
‘Not Timothy?’
‘Definitely not Timothy.’
‘So, what did you do with yourself those last few months before you came up here? If you weren’t working, you must have been doing something.’
‘Living off my share of the sale of Rick’s and my house. I bought the flat with my half and that left me some change to give me the chance to stop and think about what I really want to do with the rest of my life. Meanwhile, I was free to read the books I want to read instead of set texts; explore the world, relax; take up hobbies for the first time since I grew up!’
‘Stamp collecting?’ Harriet’s voice was dry, though there was a twinkle in her eye.
Ruth laughed. ‘If you must know, I’ve started researching my family tree. My mother’s family tree, to be exact.’
‘Bloody hell, Ruth! I thought your father’s attitude to your ancestors would have put you off that for life.’
Ruth grimaced. ‘On the contrary. I always planned to do it one day, if only to show him I didn’t care how much he hated them.
