The Last Goodbye: Echoes of War, #2

Chapter One

EMMA

Australia, 2014

It was late morning when Emma turned into the street where she used to live and saw the old apartment block unchanged, sun-bright and warm in the late summer heat. From beyond the houses across the road she could hear the murmur of the surf on the beach, mesmerising and full of memories of a happier time: the first flush of excitement of a new life in Sydney, the hope and expectation of new love. She stopped for a moment to listen, hoping to be soothed by the rhythmic shush-hush of the water. She should walk along the sand while she was here, she thought, in a last goodbye to a place she had thought for a while she would never leave. But the impulse slid away almost as soon as it had risen, and she walked on, making her way along the little walkway and up the stairs towards the flat that was no longer her home.

On the landing outside, she hesitated, the key hanging loosely between her fingers. Jamie had promised he would not be home, but still it seemed wrong not to knock, just in case. He might have forgotten she was coming. He might be inside, with one of the women who had brought about the end of their relationship. Emma suppressed a shiver at the thought of it, despite the warmth of the day. She knocked, knuckles rapping loudly on the wood. Nothing. She knocked again. If he had fallen asleep in the bedroom, he would not hear her. She pressed her ear to the door. No movement. No music. No TV. Letting out a long breath that did nothing to steady her racing heart, she slipped the key into the lock and opened the door.

The flat was exactly as she remembered it, except she was acutely aware that it was no longer her home. She let her eyes wander across the fraying sofa, the old wooden cupboard, the posters on the walls, the surfboards propped up in the corner, and realised there was nothing in the place of her at all. It was all Jamie: his furniture, his taste, his things. It was hard to believe she had ever lived here at all. Three years of her life, and all she would take from it would fit into the two sports bags in her hand.

Outside on the balcony, a cockatoo landed with a clatter on the rail and began to squawk. She watched it for a moment through the window, gathering her resolve. Then, finally, with a little lift of her shoulders and a deep breath, she headed through the bedroom to collect up the belongings she had not taken when she’d walked out of Jamie’s life a few short weeks before.

Just before she left, she did a final sweep, casting one last look around the flat she had once adored. It seemed shabby to her now with its discoloured paint and thinning carpet, and there was nothing of her that remained within its walls. The ache she had felt at leaving began to ebb, but still she wanted to be gone, half expecting the familiar wash of loss to sweep through her again. Absently, she ran her fingertips across the kitchen counter and her eyes lit upon a little stack of post, propped against the coffee machine. She rifled through it. A couple of official-looking letters for Jamie that could have been traffic violations, a card for a long-departed previous tenant, and a slim white envelope addressed in neat black handwriting to her.

Emma frowned and turned it over between her fingers. In spite of the handwritten address, it had a legal air about it that sent a vague ripple of unease across her, an automatic sense of guilt for as yet unknown transgressions. Sliding an instinctive glance towards the open door, as though checking she was still alone, she tapped the letter against her fingers, considering. She wanted to be gone, half afraid of meeting Jamie and eager to put the whole business behind her, but the letter had roused her curiosity.

The sudden bang of a car door in the street outside startled Emma from her thoughts and, stuffing the envelope into the pocket of her jacket, she picked up her bags and walked out of the flat for the final time without a backward glance.

Later, she dropped the two bags onto the narrow bed in the little room in a down-at-heel shared flat that had been the best she could afford when she had ended it with Jamie. The usual taint of damp permeated the air and she opened the window with a shove, letting in the clamour of the street along with the afternoon breeze, the hubbub of voices from the café downstairs. Weary now from the day’s emotions, she left the bags unpacked and wandered out to the kitchen. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she remembered about the letter and took it from her pocket, sliding a finger under the flap and coaxing it open.

The letterhead announced Fenchurch, Woolacott and Partners, Solicitors, London, and the same breath of guilty unease passed through her before her eyes skimmed down across the page, searching for the details – money she owed, a fine she had not paid, someone accusing her of something. So it took a moment for her to understand the actual words.

We are delighted to inform you that you are the sole beneficiary in the stated last will and testament of Isobel Landon, of Cherry Tree Cottage, Cavendish Lane, Little Sutton, Norfolk, United Kingdom.

We are instructed to distribute the financial assets of the estate to you, and to facilitate your travel to England to take possession of the house and effects at your earliest convenience.

There are a number of documents that require your signature – if you can email us at the above address at your earliest convenience, we will forward these to you forthwith.

We look forward very much to hearing from you …

She read it again. And again, for a third time.

Bewilderment and disbelief tumbled in her thoughts. Who on earth was Isobel Landon? And why would she leave an inheritance for Emma? She trawled the confusion of her thoughts for a memory but the name rang no bells – there was no half-forgotten presence from her past, no vague sense she might have heard that name before. A long-lost relative, perhaps? She thought of her parents, and her grandparents, but there was no one still living she could ask. She shook her head against the bafflement, hoping to re-order her thoughts into some sort of sense. It made no difference.

She let the sheet of paper fall onto the kitchen counter and made the tea on automatic pilot, numb with shock. Then she sat at the table with her cup, and picked up the letter to peruse it again. It was a scam, she decided. It had to be. She was not the kind of person this sort of thing ever happened to.

But still …

Getting up with a sigh, she took her cup to the sink. An inheritance would be nice, she thought, as she rinsed out the mug. It would be a way out of the doldrums her life had become since she and Jamie had broken up, a chance to start again, instead of this endless round of work and sleep to make ends meet and no money for anything else.

After she had left him, Emma had realised that Jamie had been her whole life. Her friends were his friends, her social world belonged to him, and everything she did revolved around him. When she had decided to stay in Australia to be with him at the end of her working holiday, she had simply moved into his life, lovestruck and swept away by the romance of the beaches where he spent his days in the surf. And by the time it was over, there was absolutely nothing left in her life of her own. Without him, Emma had abruptly found herself friendless and alone.

She turned from the sink and rested her hips against it, looking once more at the letter that lay on the table. It looked official, she thought. The English was correct and plausible, and they hadn’t asked for any money, requesting only that she email them. For a moment she hesitated, caught between curiosity and scepticism. What did she have to lose? An email couldn’t hurt, surely?

Sitting down again at the table, she reached for her laptop and opened it, waiting with the usual slight sense of trepidation as it whirred reluctantly into life. But the little flourish eventually announced the computer’s continuing health, and she opened up her email and started to type.

Chapter Two

EMMA

England, 2014

It was not a scam, and in what seemed like no time at all Emma had finished up her life in Sydney and was on her way back to England to start afresh. But in all the correspondence with the solicitor she had found out nothing more about the mysterious Isobel Landon, and the not knowing kept her awake at night, turning over the endless possibilities in her mind, all of them unlikely, impossible, and in the sleepless early hours she half expected to wake to the news that it was all a mistake – she was the wrong person after all, and the inheritance belonged to someone else.

But each morning she woke up a little more used to the idea, a little more accepting of the fact that she was the owner of a cottage in Norfolk, that her bank account was full enough to make her very comfortably off. Slowly, shock gave way to delight. Perhaps she would find out more when she got to Little Sutton, she thought. Perhaps people in the village would be able to help. Smiling to herself, she looked out of the little aircraft window at the spectacular dwindling view of Sydney harbour, and settled in for the flight.

When Emma finally stepped off the bus in Little Sutton at the end of her journey it was late in