and had completed a most meticulous business training, there hadn’t been much left to sell. By then Emmie had grown up fast to value security above all else. She’d loved her stepfather, and wouldn’t have had him be any different, but he had seemed to make an art out of spending. She’d rather thought then—and later knew—that he was having a one-sided affair with his bookmaker—Alec doing the giving, his bookmaker taking.
Emmie’s mother had died intestate, so the house had passed to Alec. By that time Alec’s mother, a formidable if slightly unconventional woman, had been living with them. Hannah Whitford had turned eighty, but was as sharp as a tack—and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Emmie had calculated that she must be some kind of step-grandmother to her, but when out of respect she’d addressed her as Mrs Whitford, the thin, straight, white-haired woman had advised her that, since she drew the line at being called ‘Granny’, Emmie could call her Aunt Hannah.
So Aunt Hannah she had become. She had her own private pension—but, having already ‘lent’ her son her savings, had declined to let him see any of her pension. ‘If you’re that hard up,’ she’d told him forthrightly when he’d come on the scrounge, ‘sell the house!’
So he had. And they’d moved to a three-bedroomed rented apartment in a very nice area of London. And Emmie had started work at Usher Trading. All in all, given that Emmie had learned to more and more value her security, she had come to love Aunt Hannah too, and the next three years had passed very pleasantly.
And then Emmie had been made redundant and dear Alec had died. About that time, when Emmie had been trying to get a grip on things, she’d become startled to realise that Aunt Hannah was occasionally losing her grip a little!
At first Emmie had put it down to the fact that, for all Alec’s mother had used to tear him off a strip from time to time, she had dearly loved him—and had lost him. Perhaps, when she had come to terms with her grief, she would be her old self again.
In the meantime, Emmie had found herself a new job with a firm of insurance brokers—and managed to hold it down for six weeks! Then her womanising boss, not content with the extramarital affair he was having—the phone calls she’d overheard had spoken volumes—had had the utter nerve, after many ignored hints, to one day openly proposition her! That was when Emmie had discovered she was quite good in the tearing-off-a-strip department herself. Because, though it had been entirely unplanned, she’d been goaded beyond all possibility of suffering her new employer’s lecherous advances any longer, she’d let fly with her tongue—and found herself out of a job.
She’d consoled herself that she didn’t want to work there anyway. And found herself another job. It had taken her ten weeks to lose it—this time for bad time-keeping. And it was true, her time-keeping had become appalling. But Aunt Hannah hadn’t seemed to want to get out of bed in the morning any more and, while it had been no problem to take her breakfast in bed, Emmie had found she didn’t love her work well enough to leave the apartment until she was sure Aunt Hannah was up and about.
Her third job after being made redundant from Usher Trading had lasted four months. It hadn’t paid as well, but it had been nearer to her home, which had meant she hadn’t had to leave for work so early. All had seemed to be well, until her employer’s son had come home from abroad and, obviously believing himself to be irresistible, alternated between being overbearingly officious with her or, despite the fact he had a lovely wife and children, making suggestive, sickening remarks about how good he could be to her if she’d let him.
Emmie hadn’t known how much more she could take, but supposed that working for fatherly Mr Denby at Usher Trading had rather sheltered her from the womanising types lurking out there. She’d recognised she was a novice at knowing how to handle them, and had been near to exploding again one day, when a call had come through from the local police station. Apparently they had a Mrs Hannah Whitford there, who seemed a little confused.
‘I’m on my way!’ Emmie exclaimed, holding down panic, grabbing up her bag, car keys at the ready.
‘Where are you going?’ Kenneth Junior demanded.
‘Can’t stop!’
‘Your job?’ he warned threateningly.
‘It’s yours—with my compliments,’ she told him absently. The fact that she’d just walked out was the least of her worries just then. She made it to the police station in record time. ‘Mrs Whitford?’ she enquired of the man at the front desk.
‘She’s having a cup of tea with one of the WPCs,’ he replied, and explained how the elderly lady had been found wandering the streets in her bedroom slippers and seemed distressed because she couldn’t remember where she lived.
‘Oh, the poor love!’ Emmie cried.
‘She’s all right now,’ the police officer soothed. ‘Fortunately she had her handbag with her, and we were able to find your office telephone number in her spectacle case.’
‘Oh, thank goodness I thought to jot it down!’ Emmie’s exclamation was heartfelt. She’d only put it in Aunt Hannah’s spectacle case because she’d known the dear soul would look first for her glasses before she thought to look for her phone number.
‘Has Mrs Whitford been—er—forgetful for very long?’ the policeman asked in a kindly fashion. Emmie explained how, if Aunt Hannah had, it was only recently, and only since she had lost her son earlier in the year. Whereupon, on learning that Emmie was away from the apartment for most of the day, the officer tentatively suggested that it might be an idea to consider establishing Mrs Whitford in a residential home.
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly!’ was Emmie’s initial shocked reaction. ‘She would hate it!’ And, getting over her shock a little, she asked, ‘Was she very upset when you found her?’
‘Upset—confused, distressed—and,’ he added with a small smile, ‘just a little aggressive.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Emmie mumbled feebly. But, fully aware that Aunt Hannah had a tart tongue when the mood took her, was in no mind to have Alec’s mother ‘established’ in a residential home. Even if, while waiting for Aunt Hannah, the kindly policeman did suggest to her not to dismiss the notion out of hand, that residential homes weren’t jails, and that if those in charge knew where residents were, they were quite at liberty to come and go as they pleased. For unintentional but added weight, he mentioned that while indoors someone was there all the time to keep an eye on residents, and see to it that they had their lunch.
Hannah Whitford suddenly appeared from nowhere. ‘All this fuss!’ she snapped shortly, quite back to normal, but Emmie, who knew her well, knew that she was more embarrassed than cross. ‘Have you got your car outside?’
Emmie was not about to give the police officer’s ‘residential home’ suggestion another thought. But Aunt Hannah, either having had a similar conversation with the woman police constable who’d looked after her, or having done some serious thinking of her own, brought the subject up herself. It was around lunchtime the following day that, having been deep in thought, Aunt Hannah suddenly seemed to realise that Emmie was not at work.
‘What are you doing home?’ she demanded in her forthright way.
‘I thought I’d look for another job,’ Emmie replied, aware that, with yesterday’s confusion behind her, Aunt Hannah was getting back to being as sharp as she had ever been.
‘Because of me.’
It was a statement, and despite Emmie
