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She looked up and smiled. “I was about to call you.”
“Oh?” Bea embraced her and sat beside her, reaching for a chocolate biscuit.
Aidan sat as well and took a slice of apple from the pile of fruit. He leaned towards Bea, and the heat of his body sent a thrill through her. She loved that he was with her, that they were spending so much time together. Her biggest concern was that she needed more time to put her marriage behind her, to get over the hurt her husband had caused her, before she could move on.
The last thing she wanted to do was move on before she was ready and cause Aidan any pain. They’d already broken each other’s hearts all those years ago. She didn’t want to go through that again or put him through it either. They should be friends for now. Nothing more than that. Time would help them both understand whether there was more between them than history and affection.
“I’ve got your photographs with me. A copy, anyway. I was going to drop them by your place later, but I brought them over for Penny to take a look.”
Penny sat and grabbed a handful of grapes from the plate. “I haven’t seen them yet, and I still don’t know why you think it will mean anything to me. I was neither born nor a baby when they were hidden in the wall. I have no idea what’s in them or why someone would hide them in Bea’s cottage.”
Evie grinned. “You’ll see.”
“You’re being very cryptic,” Aidan said.
Evie pulled a yellow envelope out of her purse and set it on the table. She tugged a series of enlarged photographs from the envelope and spread them out in front of her. They were grainy and discoloured. All in black and white, but with a brownish hue.
Bea leaned forward, and her eyes narrowed. “Is that your beach house, Penny?” She pointed to a photograph of a man and woman standing on a porch with two children in front of them. All four squinted at the camera. An older woman stood off to one side looking at them instead of the camera.
They were all dressed for the beach, but in the post-war style. Shorts and buttoned shirts for the man and the boy, a floral buttoned dress and straw hat for the woman, and a one-piece swimsuit for the little girl, whose curls were caught blowing above her head, her lips pulled into a broad smile.
Penny studied the image. “Yes, that’s definitely my beach house. How funny. Who are these people, though?”
“I don’t know,” Bea said as she looked through the other images. “Here they are again.” The photographs seemed all to be of the same family. Some were posed, with the family seated inside.
Others captured moments in time when the family was in the middle of doing something and were stopped by the picture taker to capture the verve of their lives. There were even a couple where the photographer had attempted to take an action shot on the beach, but the figures were blurred, as were the waves and several seagulls in mid-flight.
“I wonder why they hid these photos in a wall,” Aidan said.
“Who knows?” Evie replied.
“They look vaguely familiar, don’t they? Who owned the place before your parents bought it, Penny?”
“Do you know old June Clements, the woman who runs the Kellyville Bakery?” Penny asked.
Bea nodded. “Of course. I saw her again when I first arrived on the island. She was very amused that I wanted to order a croissant.”
“It was her parents who owned the place. They built it before the war. I vaguely remember them, but by the time I came along, they were mostly out of the picture. No pun intended.” She grinned. She pointed at the photographs. “But those other people are my mum, my step-dad, and my grandmother.”
Aidan picked up the photograph. “Didn’t your family have some kind of tragedy there?”
“That’s right,” Penny agreed. “My grandmother was killed and they never caught her murderer. Mum and Dad always said the place was haunted after that.”
“I still can’t believe that happened on our quiet little island.”
“It was a long time ago. I didn’t know my grandmother,” Penny said.
“Isit haunted?” Evie asked.
“Not unless you include the python that lives in the roof,” Penny replied.
Bea shuddered. “Ugh, how can you stay there?”
“Monty keeps the rat population down for me.”
“I’ll never get used to that,” Bea replied.
Evie got up to make cups of tea, asking everyone what they wanted while she worked. Bea studied the photographs again, racking her brain to remember anything she could about the Clements family and the murder that’d become a kind of urban legend on the island since.
