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Hester woofed.
Alice put a finger to her lips in a shushing motion. ‘We have to keep it quiet.’ She got out her mobile phone and Googled a local taxi company.This is stupid, she thought. I have no idea where I can go with three pets.She realised that perhaps Freya had a point.
Alice cast that dreadful thought to one side. None of her pets were young. This was their home, or wherevershewas. It was bad enough that she felt she was being turfed out of her own house, without them losing their home, and their owner, too.
Alice walked up the stairs and knocked on the bedroom door at the end of the hall.
‘Come!’
Alice rolled her eyes and walked inside. It had been the spare bedroom until Theo had taken it over and turned it into another home office. She cast her gaze over the modern corner desk, state-of-the-art black leather office chair and desktop computer with two screens. His set-up looked like something out of a NASA control room.
‘Can you help me down with something from the loft?’
‘The loft?’
She looked at him. He was staring at her as though she’d just asked him to go with her to Timbuktu.
‘Oh, okay,’ he replied. ‘I have to warn you, though, I’m not good with heights.’
‘The foldaway stairs are perfectly stable, I can assure you.’ She knew that wasn’t the point, but she needed his help. ‘Besides, you won’t have to get in the loft. I just need to hand something down.’
He polished off his toast as they talked. Standing up, he wiped sticky fingers down his tracksuit bottoms and followed her out of the door.
Alice pulled the cord. She could hear raised voices downstairs and guessed that Jeffrey and Freya were still in a heated debate about what they were doing with her pets.
Just as she was thinking of the animals, Alice heard Marley meowing from deep inside the loft.
Theo heard the cat, too. ‘How did he get up there?’
‘I was sorting through some stuff for the house move. It’s some suitcases I need you to help me bring down.’
‘Sure thing, Mrs B.’
Alice looked at him. She wished he wouldn’t call her that. It sounded very … American, like she was in a sitcom.
‘Do you want me to help get the cat?’
‘Ah, no, I’ve got that covered.’ She turned to the airing cupboard on the landing, opened the door and found the cat carrier on the floor beneath the shelves full of towels. The reason they stored it there was so they could get the cat down from the loft whenever they ventured up there and he followed.
Alice walked up the steps with the carrier under her arm, pushing it through the hatch before she got up there herself. She turned around. Theo was halfway up the steps. ‘If I pass you these, do you think you can manage?’ She pulled one of the cases towards her. They weren’t heavy. She guessed why. The cases were quite shallow compared to modern suitcases, so a lot less clothing fitted inside.
Theo nodded, holding out a hand for one of the cases.
Alice slid the case forward through the hatch and kept hold of the end until Theo said, ‘I’ve got it!’
Two more cases and a cat in a carrier later, Alice was about to exit the loft when she caught sight of the sketch propped up on the dresser. Shingle Cove – that was where the property was located. It wasn’t a place she could forget in a hurry.
‘Are you alright up there, Mrs B?’
Alice rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I’m coming.’ She left the sketch where it was and was moving towards the hatch when she heard a meow.
‘Drat!’ Theo exclaimed from the bottom of the steps. He called out. ‘I let the cat out and didn’t expect him to scoot back up!’
Marley’s head popped up. Before Alice could grab him, he darted between her legs and made off towards the spot where the old suitcases had been.
Alice rolled her eyes again. It was her fault for not telling Theo that Marley had to be kept in the cat carrier until the loft hatch was closed, otherwise he’d be back up like a shot. And here he was, causing mischief again. She walked over to see what had grabbed his attention. He was trying to get a lid off a box with his paw.
It looked like a shoebox had fallen behind the cases. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d shifted the cases, as she’d been too busy packing them with clothes from the trunk. She didn’t remember there having been a shoebox in the loft, but then there was lots of stuff, and she hadn’t been up there in an age. In fact, when she thought about it, Jeffrey always appeared to discourage her from going up there. He always said it was because he didn’t want her to do herself an injury going up and down the steps.
