No Place Like Home Read online

  No Place Like Home

  Lynda Stacey

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Acknowledgments

  More from Lynda Stacey

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  This novel was written during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

  It was a time of great uncertainty, a time when none of us knew where our future would take us, or even if we had one.

  And even though I chose not to include the virus in this story, this book is for every key worker who fought so hard to keep our country going and for those who put themselves at risk for the sake of others!

  From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank each and every one of you x

  1

  Swinging her car onto the single-track lane, Molly cringed as the suspension gave an instant groan of displeasure, and immediately she wished she’d put more items into the furniture van, rather than filling her trusty old Astra Estate up to the gunnels. Its load was now far too heavy for the car, especially on a potholed lane like this one.

  Narrowing her tear-filled eyes, she tried to focus. The darkness was surrounding them quickly, casting long, eerie shadows, and she found herself slowing the vehicle, looking up at the cliffs that towered vertically to one side of the car and felt herself almost cowering away with a fear she couldn’t understand as she took in their vast and impeding height. The sight was made even more intimidating by randomly planted trees. Most were old and gnarly, with long overhanging branches, all of which reached out to resemble long, spindly arms that seemed to be grabbing at the car.

  To the other side of the lane, the view couldn’t have been more different, and Molly gasped, in awe of the vast and rugged North Yorkshire coastline. The long, sweeping beach and the pretty little fishing town of Filey. Her view only slightly obstructed by two small properties, each balanced precariously on the cliff top, with just enough space between the buildings and the cliff edge to save them from falling into the sea. It was a thought that made her shudder; the reality of living in such a remote place had suddenly become real and she blew out a long, slow breath while carefully manoeuvring her car along the lane, through the rainwater that had collected and pooled outward from the edge of the road, and warily she tried her best to avoid the grass verge that had already turned into a furrowed and dangerous quagmire.

  Molly slowed the car, leaned forward, sighed. She knew she had to stay calm, had to believe that moving here, to this house, was the right thing to do, and while taking deep, measured breaths, she switched off her car’s engine, took a moment to gaze at the view, mesmerised by the way the waves dramatically increased in size. Each one rolling forward, bigger and stronger than the one before. Each commanding its place in the sea, before finally throwing itself violently towards the shore, in one final explosive gesture.

  Opening the car window, Molly took in a deep breath of fresh salty sea air, her eyes constantly on the coastline, where clouds scuttled moodily across a sky that was getting darker by the minute. A rumble of thunder echoed somewhere in the distance, a sound that left her with no doubt that an impending storm was heading their way and she wondered how long it would be before the rain came down and, when it did, how torrential it would be. Keeping one eye on the rear-view mirror, she hoped that the removal van would miraculously appear. Yet quickly she realised that getting a van of that size along this lane, during a storm, could prove to be a challenge.

  ‘Hello. Earth to Molly.’ Her teenage sister, Beth, waved a hand up and down in front of her face. ‘Please tell me that isn’t it?’ She rolled her eyes and pointed to one of the two cliff top houses. Both were unkempt, but one was dramatically worse than the other. ‘I am not living there. Not a chance.’ Rummaging in her bag, she dragged her phone from its depths and slumped back in her seat to stare aimlessly at its screen.

  Molly bit down on her lip. Hesitated. Picked up a clear plastic folder the solicitor had given her. ‘No, this one’s ours.’ She pointed to the picture. ‘From what I remember, it’s just a bit further along the lane, round the corner. You’ll see it in a minute.’ Dropping the folder in the footwell, she waved a hand at the sea. ‘I was just taking a moment to look at the bay. That’ll be the view we get from the house, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  Beth tutted, curled her lip in disgust, flicked her long, copper hair away from her face, kicked off her shoes and lifted her bare feet to rest against the glove box. ‘I suppose so, if you like that sort of thing. Personally I’d rather go back to Dan’s. I liked it there. Dan was nice.’

  ‘We couldn’t stay at Dan’s forever, and…’ Molly sucked in her breath. ‘Well, it was getting awkward. Wasn’t it?’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Since me and Dan split up, I’ve found it… difficult. So, it was time to move on, time to come here and since we had to give Mum’s house back, we had nowhere else to go. You do know that, don’t you?’ Looking down and into the passenger footwell, she focused on her handbag, thought about the letter within, feared for what it meant, what repercussions it would bring and wished for life to be different.

  ‘Right,’ Beth spat back. ‘So, I’m supposed to be grateful that we inherited a house that stands on the edge of a bloody cliff, am I? Well, sorry if I’m not overjoyed, Molly. But I didn’t want to move, not again, and what’s more, we shouldn’t have had to inherit anything. Our mum, she should be here, and coming here doesn’t feel right. Not without her.’

  Molly glanced at her sister, felt her pain. ‘Hun, we…’ She caught her breath, didn’t know what to say. ‘We couldn’t stay at Dan’s. When I asked if we could move in, he wasn’t as overjoyed as you might think, looked as though he’d been offered a glass of arsenic. And I thought he’d be okay, eventually. But he started acting all cagey…’ She carefully thought about her words. ‘I think this house, our new home, came through at just the right time.’

  ‘He was only acting “cagey”, as you put it, because he wanted you back, he still wants you back.’ Beth gave her hopeful eyes. ‘He loves us, Moll, I just know he does.’

  Molly could feel her sister’s heartbreak, she loved Dan like a brother, and it was more than obvious that she felt like the middle sibling of two others. Two others who had quarrelled, and she was doing everything she could in the hope that everyone would shake hands and make friends. Sighing, Molly rolled her eyes. She needed to find a way to pacify her sister, to get her on side, without telling her the truth. Without destroying yet another part of her life.
‘Besides, you’re fifteen now. You’re growing far too fast and that terrifies me. You really need your own space, your own bedroom, not one you share with an older sister.’ She smiled, dropped a hand affectionately on Beth’s leg. ‘And, not to put too fine a point on it… I want my own space, too.’

  Beth squirmed in her seat. Wriggled her toes and stared at her feet, which were still balanced on the glove box. ‘Did Mum ever sleep here, at the house?’

  Molly laid a hand over Beth’s. ‘Sure she did. She spent time here with Michael, they loved each other. She was finally happy, Beth. She was planning a life. That had to count for something, didn’t it?’ Closing her eyes, she nodded, thought of how their mother had tried to convince them to move here with her, how they’d both selfishly resisted. Neither had wanted to move, neither had wanted the long commute to school or to work. Neither had wanted yet another father figure in their lives.

  Molly might have felt differently if she’d known her own father, but she hadn’t. ‘He was a childhood sweetheart, a boy I met at school,’ her mother had always told her. ‘He was a kind young man, with beautiful eyes, that looked just like yours, but he went away to university, we lost touch. He didn’t even know you existed and the last I heard – he’d died. It was a tragic, meaningless accident.’ She’d always looked wistful when she spoke, as though trying to keep the picture of his face permanently preserved in her mind, making Molly wonder what would have happened if he’d lived and what kind of life they’d have had if he were around and came over to visit.

  ‘Michael dying changed everything for all of us, didn’t it?’ Beth put her phone down, flicked at the zip on her school bag.

  ‘It did. Our mum hadn’t known him long, seemed very happy and when he died, it was as though all her dreams died with him, all her plans.’ Blinking away the tears, Molly smiled awkwardly. ‘When the solicitor rang Mum and told her that Michael had left her the house, she started planning again. Started looking forward. Making a new life, a new life she wanted us to be a part of, and all of us living here together was what she dreamed of.’

  Beth held both hands out, palms up. ‘And instead of starting again, she went and got herself murdered, didn’t she? And then, somehow – we got to move here without her.’ Arrogantly, she held two thumbs up in the air and spat the words. ‘So yay, how lucky are we?’

  Molly once again took her younger sister’s hand. ‘Beth, don’t be like that. Please, give it a chance.’ With a half-smile, she closed her eyes for just a moment, tried to think of the right thing to say, felt totally inept. ‘Did I ever tell you that Mum used to bring me here?’ She tried to think of a nice story, pointed to the beach. ‘We’d spend hours and hours making the biggest sandcastles, with really deep moats. I’d fill them with sea water using my little pink plastic bucket.’ She took a deep breath, blew it out and made an attempt to stop the tears from flowing. ‘I’d always have a flag, one of those plastic ones that’d been glued onto a long straw and…’ she wiped a tear from her eye, ‘I used to make Mum stand up and salute the waves, while we placed the flag on the top of the castle.’

  Beth looked thoughtful; took her feet down from the glove box, sat forward and stared at the beach. ‘Huh, I guess you didn’t think too much about the environment back then, did you? You do realise that all those bloody straws will still be out there, don’t you? They’ll be floating around, killing the wildlife for up to two hundred years.’ Her hand suddenly became animated and made a wave like motion in the air. ‘They’re probably still out there, causing chaos,’ she said, accusingly.

  Molly went silent. A surge of guilt swept through her conscience. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she agreed, ‘we didn’t know any better then.’ She shook her head, knew it had been wrong, but couldn’t help but wish for the simplicity her life used to have. A time when she’d been a child, young, naïve, happy and her only responsibility had been getting up and going to school.

  Leaning back in her seat, Beth flicked the screen of her phone, lifted it to the window and clicked to take a photo. ‘You once told me she’d brought me to this beach. Is it true?’ she asked wistfully, her eyes never leaving the beach, or the dog that ran playfully in and out of the water.

  ‘Sure it is.’ Molly laughed, rolled her eyes to the ever-darkening sky. ‘The last time we came, you were a very excited toddler. Around two years old. I’d have been ten or eleven and I remember you escaping Mum’s clutches. You set off running across the sand and straight into the sea, where a massive wave tossed you up in the air – and you landed back on the beach with a thud. Mum must have thought you were about to drown because she screamed so loud that my ears literally rang for hours.’ Molly furrowed her brow, while trying to remember. Suddenly she saw Charlie’s face, the fury he’d shown that day.

  ‘What is it?’ Beth questioned.

  ‘I just remembered your dad, Charlie, he went mental with a man who saw you running away from Mum. You were running towards the steps, screaming and he jumped up, scooped you up from the beach and well… I thought Charlie was going to kill him. I’d never seen him so cross, scared me to death.’ Her words trailed off as the memory faded.

  Huffing, Beth threw her arms in the air. ‘So, let me get this straight. We’ve ended up inheriting a house. That’s perched on a cliff. That overlooks the very same beach where I was almost killed and then abducted as a two-year-old.’ She shuffled in her seat, tutted. ‘Well, thanks…’ She paused, looked skyward.

  A single tear dropped down Molly’s face. The months had taken their toll. Overnight their lives had turned into an unpredictable rollercoaster, one that wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. And now, as well as everything else, they were moving into a house they didn’t want. In a town that was miles away from the life they’d known and taking the first daunting steps into an existence they couldn’t possibly understand. For the first time in their lives, they’d be living alone. Just the two of them. Something that Molly had both looked forward to and dreaded in equal measure. And now they were here, she took a deep breath, stared at the sea, at the beach, wished for answers, for the knowledge that whatever happened, she’d be able to keep Beth safe, keep them both safe, and she shook her head, knowing full well that she couldn’t promise either.

  2

  ‘Seriously, Moll, have you seen the length of this lane?’ Beth tutted as Molly turned the car. ‘There isn’t even a proper path and I can’t believe we have to travel up and down it twice a day… just to get me to school and back.’

  Molly wrinkled her nose, shook her head and paused, once again her eyes went to her handbag. To the letter. Was it wrong to keep the truth to herself? ‘We…’ she emphasised the word before continuing, ‘we don’t have to drive along here at all. But you, young lady, you do have to walk,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘School bus pulls up at the top of the road, right over there.’ She pointed to a distant car park that stood along the roadside. ‘Eight fifteen, every morning,’ she said, keeping up the pretence, but deep down she knew that on most days she’d be doing the driving, the protecting, the making sure Beth got on and off the bus safely.

  Blinking repeatedly, Beth huffed in frustration. ‘Oh great, that’s just great,’ she said, jutting out her chin in protest. ‘And I’m guessing that you’ll provide the bloody welly boots too, will you?’ Her hand went through her long hair, flicked it back from her pale freckled face. ‘I mean, look, just look…’ She pointed her finger around in a wand-like fashion at the lane. ‘There’s, you know… there’s mud. It’s everywhere. Moll, my shoes will be ruined…’ She threw herself backwards in the seat and gave off a long audible sigh, shuffled impatiently. ‘And the nearest shop, it’s just got to be a million miles away and what about my friends? How am I going to get to see them? Dan drove me back and forth. I hardly ever had to catch a bus.’

  Molly felt her patience wane. ‘You need to learn to look after yourself. Dan isn’t your taxi service. And neither am I.’ She paused, placed her hands back on the s
teering wheel and squeezed the leather. ‘If I’m going to work effectively, I need my sleep. You should try being a dentist, it isn’t easy. Some days I just want to go home and lock the door. I don’t always want to start getting the car out again and running you all over. Besides, we’re miles away from York now and it certainly wouldn’t be a quick trip to pop you back and forth to friends.’ She thought of the days following her mother’s death, all the patients she’d smiled at, when in reality all she’d wanted to do was throw the towel in, stay home and hide under the duvet, not go out for days, but knew that she couldn’t.

  ‘Dan liked giving me a lift, he looked out for me,’ Beth insisted.

  ‘Well, if I know Dan, he’ll be absolutely delighted to get both his car and his house back.’ Pressing her lips tightly together, Molly thought of Dan, of how much she’d previously loved him and how, over the last couple of weeks, she’d felt more and more anxious in his company, feeling an immeasurable sense of relief when she’d been allowed to take possession of the house.

  Beth threw her arms up in the air. ‘I give up and I want to go back to York. I liked living in the city, Moll. My friends are there… and here… I don’t know anyone.’