Orkney Mystery Read online

  'Hello!' The young woman who opened the door had a big welcoming smile on her face, as well as a baby on her hip. 'You must be Emma?'

  'That's right,' she said, smiling back. 'Emma Mason. And you're Jenny?'

  'Yes, I am. My husband, Neil, is around somewhere. You'll meet him soon enough. Come in, come in! I'll take your wet coat and hang it up to dry. How was your journey?'

  'Fine – until the storm arrived,' Emma said with a grimace.

  'Och, that's Orkney for you! Just a bit of wind and rain. It will be different again tomorrow. You'll see.'

  'I certainly hope so.'

  *

  Sure enough, by the next morning the storm had abated. The rain had stopped and the ferocious wind had become a gentle breeze. There was even a hint of sunshine behind the thin cloud cover. After breakfast, Emma set off to see her inheritance, leaving the car behind. Broch House wasn't far away. A mere ten minute walk, according to her hosts.

  Even with their instructions, the approach wasn't obvious, however. She was glad to encounter a friendly elderly man standing at his garden gate, watching her approach along the lane.

  'Can I help you?' he asked when she was close.

  She didn't really need help but it was hard to refuse the offer of it. 'Broch House?' she asked with a smile. 'Do you know where it is?'

  'Oh? Broch House, is it, you're wanting? Old Miss Nicholson's place. It's been closed and empty a wee while now, though.'

  'Yes, I know. I'm Miss Nicholson's niece.'

  'Och, you know all about it, then,' he said with a nod and a smile. 'Just carry on down the road a little way. You can't miss it. It's the house with the two trees in front.'

  He pointed the way ahead and added, 'The first one in the village, or the last, depending which way you're coming from.'

  'Thank you!' Emma smiled and added, 'Has the storm given up, do you think?'

  'For now, perhaps.' He looked up at the sky and added, 'But for how long, though?'

  'Indeed!'

  She gave him a cheery wave and went on her way, wondering if all the natives were as friendly as him.

  *

  As she neared Broch House, she could see that it was quite a large, two-storey house. Not a cosy little cottage at all, she thought with surprise.

  She opened the garden gate and stood just inside for a few moments, running her eye over things. Surrounded by a hedge that had got out of control, and with two big sycamore trees either side of the gate, the garden had obviously been fairly well tended in the past. Now, though, it had become rather wild. She could see bramble competing with roses, and dandelions threatening to take over the lawn. The struggle must have become too much for Aunt Freda, which wasn't really surprising. Her aunt had been a good age.

  The house itself was a very plain-looking, grey, pebble-dashed building. It was double-fronted, with an attractive little porch on stone pillars sheltering the front door. The small sash windows, upstairs and down, all looked as though they wanted a good clean but they seemed in good repair.

  In fact, Emma's first impression, admittedly from the outside, was that the house as a whole was in pretty good condition. Aunt Freda must have been on top of things until almost the very end. Such a big house, too. She really had done very well.

  Emma walked down the path leading to the front door and fumbled out the keys she had received from the solicitor back in Newcastle. Then she paused for a moment and took a deep breath, wondering with some trepidation what awaited her on the other side of the door.

  *

  The first thing she noticed when the door opened was the smell. She wrinkled her nose and grimaced. Damp! The house smelled damp and unoccupied, which was exactly what it was. She wondered how long it had been like that. A few months, certainly. But so far no-one had been able to tell her exactly when her aunt had passed away. She steeled herself to begin her inspection.

  Two big reception rooms opened off the hall. Both were fully furnished with ancient, if comfortable looking, items that might have been acquired from a museum dedicated to the 1940s. Sofas with tassels, sideboards and wing-backed chairs. Tall, oak bookshelves brimming with books, and a pine dresser displaying an ornate porcelain tea service.

  Emma smiled as she contemplated the first of the rooms, and smiled even more broadly when she looked into the second. How clever!

  One was clearly the morning room, receiving full sun – as it did now – through big windows overlooking a lawn. The other was darker, cosier – more of an evening room – with only one, small window. She couldn't believe the second room ever got any sun at all, but she could imagine it being a comfortable place to retreat to of a winter's evening.

  The well-worn chair and stack of logs by the open fireplace told her where Aunt Freda had liked to be by that time of day. She crossed the room to examine the book shelves on the far side. Her aunt had obviously been a reader, she thought, impressed. There were some wonderful books here, fiction and non-fiction, and quite a few modern publications as well as many classics.

  She glanced around. No television. She smiled again. Of course not! No time for that, when you had all these lovely books to read. There was even an ancient chaise longue, well worn, to allow you to do that in some comfort. And if it was cool, the wing-back chair close to the fireplace looked just the place to be.

  The house was centrally heated, though. The old lady had seen to that. There were big radiators on two walls in this room, the evening room. She had noticed that the other room, the morning room, also had radiators, but they would scarcely be needed when the sun was shining.

  She moved on, and found the kitchen. That raised another smile. It was a big room, with a lovely old farmhouse table in the centre. Definitely a traditional kitchen. Not a microwave in sight. There was an Aga cooker on one side. For times when speed was needed, there was also an electric cooker, with separate oven and hob, not far away. The Aga would be lovely in winter, but too much perhaps in summer – if they ever got summer here, she added with a shiver, the general damp coolness of the house getting to her suddenly.

  Surprisingly, there were six bedrooms upstairs, three doubles and three singles. Two of the bedrooms were fully furnished, one of them obviously Aunt Freda's and the other perhaps a visitor's room. The remaining rooms had beds, but otherwise only essential furniture.

  There was also a well-fitted and large bathroom, with a big free-standing bath and a separate shower cubicle. It looked to be the most modern room in the house. And why not? Emma thought with approval. Some things mattered more than others, and this was one of them.

  All in all, she concluded, the house was surprisingly big, much too big for a single, elderly lady. Still, she thought, Aunt Freda wasn't always elderly, and perhaps she wasn't always single either. Really, and sadly, she knew next to nothing about her.

  Another conclusion was that despite its plain exterior, the house was rather a pleasant old place. Parts of it were even quite cosy. The kitchen and evening room, for example. And the bathroom. Yet it was so big that Aunt Freda could only have lived in part of it, certainly in recent times. How strange. Why hadn't she moved into something smaller?

  Overall, though, it wasn't bad, she decided with relief. It needed updating, as the estate agents would say, but it was a substantial house in good repair. No doubt, Aunt Freda had seen no need at all to update it. It had probably suited her just fine, exactly as it was. No mystery about that at all, really.

  Chapter Four

  As she was leaving, closing the gate carefully after her, a man walking along the road came up to speak to her.

  'Good morning! You must be the niece?'

  She turned and smiled politely. 'Good morning. Yes, I'm Miss Nicholson's niece.'

  'I heard you'd come to look at the old place.'

  Now who would he have heard that from? Emma wondered. It could only have been the elderly man who had told her the way here. She hadn't spoken to anyone else. News travell
ed fast in these parts, seemingly.

  'Do you live locally?' she asked politely.

  'Aye. In the village, there. I knew your aunt quite well.'

  Emma nodded. She wasn't eager to get into conversation about either the house or her aunt with someone she didn't know.

  'The house will no doubt be going up for sale?' the man inquired.

  'Oh, I don't know yet,' Emma said with another polite smile. 'I've only just got here.'

  'You'll not get a lot for it,' he continued, as if she hadn't spoken. 'What with the state of the economy, and how it wants such a lot doing to it, the old place.'

  He shook his head, as if to confirm his own thinking, and added, 'Aye. You cannot expect much for it. Prices are awful low around here, anyway. And then there's the recession. It's not worth you spending any money on doing it up, either. You would never get your money back.'

  Emma nodded and started edging away. This was a conversation she did not wish to have. She wasn't impressed by the way the man had intruded on her. The house, and her plans for it, were nothing to do with him, she almost felt inclined to say.

  'But I'll be happy to talk to you when it comes to putting the old place on the market,' he added. 'I might be able to help you out, as I'm a man with a growing family myself, and in need of a bigger house. Alastair McEwan, by the way. Just ask for me in the village. Everybody there knows me.'

  'Thank you,' she said, without a smile. 'I'll remember that.'

  What a cheek! she thought as she walked away. Remember him? I should think I will!

  *

  The young couple who owned the guesthouse invited her to have coffee with them. She did, partly to avoid another little rain shower she saw streaming over the fields towards them.

  'It rains so often here!' she said, hurrying inside.

  'Ten times a day,' Jenny said with what sounded like grim satisfaction.

  'Twenty!' her husband, Neil, said.

  Emma laughed. 'How do you stand it?'

  'Och, it's what we're used to,' Neil said. 'We've both lived here all our lives. We wouldn't know what to do with good weather.'

  'You were born in Birsay?'

  'No, not Birsay. We're from Kirkwall – the big, capital city!'

  'It is big, isn't it?' Emma said with a smile.

  'Indeed it is! There must be seven thousand souls living there now.'

  'Goodness! As many as that?'

  He grinned at her. 'Nearly as big as your Newcastle.'

  'Nearly,' she admitted, enjoying the sense of fun pervading the kitchen.

  Jenny brought a plate of shortbread over to the kitchen table, to complement the coffee her husband was pouring.

  'Something I've been wondering,' Emma said. 'This island, the biggest of the Orkney islands. It's called Mainland, right?'

  'Aye,' Neil said, eyeing her suspiciously.

  'So what do Orcadians call what I think of as the mainland, over there on the other side of the Pentland Firth?'

  Neil and Jenny looked at each other for a moment. Then Jenny said, 'That's Scotland, of course.'

  'Of course. Silly me!' Emma laughed and added, 'You make it sound like a foreign country.'

  'So it is,' Neil said, 'to a large extent. Like Shetland, Orkney looks after itself. It doesn't really matter what goes on in London, or in Edinburgh either for that matter, to us up here in the Northern Isles.'

  Emma nodded. 'That's the impression I've been getting,' she admitted.

  'We're more interested in what's going on in Norway, and in Iceland and Faroe,' Neil continued.

  'Just you speak for yourself!' Jenny intervened. 'Kirkwall is as far as I want to go when it comes to shopping, or taking the little one to see the doctor.'

  Neil laughed. 'True enough!'

  'Priorities, eh?' Emma said with amusement.

  'You bet!' Jenny said firmly.

  *

  Emma decided she liked her hosts very much. They had such an easy, friendly way with each other, and with her. So she took the opportunity to ask them if they had known her aunt.

  'Miss Nicholson, in Broch House?' Jenny said. 'Was she your aunt? Oh, yes! Everyone around here knew her. She was a lovely old lady.'

  'Everyone around here knows everyone else anyway,' Neil added, 'regardless of what they're like. It's unavoidable. More's the pity.'

  'Oh, Neil! What a thing to say.' Jenny shook her head, turned back to Emma and said earnestly, 'He just means it's a very friendly community.'

  'A very nosey community, as well,' Neil said with a laugh. 'We all know each other's business.'

  'What about a man called Alastair McEwan? Do you know him?'

  'Oh, he's the worst of the lot,' Neil said. 'The man's forever poking his nose into other folks' business.'

  'Neil!' Jenny remonstrated. 'You make him sound terrible, and he's not. Not really.'

  'Well ....' Neil just shrugged.

  'I met him this morning,' Emma hurried to say. 'He told me I shouldn't expect much for Aunt Freda's house when I sell it, because it's in rubbish condition and the economy's terrible anyway. He made me feel I should just give it away. Then he told me to contact him when I want to sell.'

  Neil laughed. 'That's him! What a terrible man he is, trying to take advantage of you so soon.'

  Jenny smiled. 'I don't really think there's any harm in him. He's just ....'

  'Nosey?' Neil suggested, provoking more laughter.

  *

  'Now I'm being nosey,' Emma admitted. 'I know next to nothing about my aunt, even though she left me her house when she died. I would really like to know what she was like, and what she did with herself. For one thing, Broch House, nice as it is, is such a big place for an elderly woman on her own.'

  'Well, we're really not the best folk to ask,' Neil said. 'We've not been here too long ourselves. We just knew her as a pleasant neighbour, and a bit of a local celebrity.'

  'She was always out and about,' Jenny added. 'Walking, I mean. She seemed to be very interested in natural things – wildlife and such. Birds, particularly.'

  'And ancient monuments,' her husband contributed. 'She took a great interest in them.'

  'Yes, you're right.' Jenny considered for a moment and then said, 'Everything, really. She seemed to be interested in everything.'

  Emma nodded thoughtfully, thinking once again how little she knew of Aunt Freda. Nothing, really. Next to nothing. It seemed such a pity. She would have to try to find out more while she was here. She owed her that much, at least.

  Chapter Five

  Emma returned to Broch House the following morning. This time she explored it more thoroughly, taking her time. She wanted to get a feel for the place, and to try to understand what sort of house it had been when it was lived in by Aunt Freda.

  The truth was that it was all a bit of a mystery, one that was starting to intrigue her. She just couldn't imagine how an elderly woman could have lived here all alone all those years. She dearly wanted to know how she had managed it, and what she had been like. What was she doing on Orkney all those years, anyway? One of the few things Emma did know about Aunt Freda was that she hadn't been born here.

  Having been told by her hosts at the guesthouse that her aunt had been such an active person had made her even more curious. Something of a local celebrity, Archie had said. In what way? And how had Aunt Freda made her living? Considering the house she had owned, she obviously hadn't been living on benefits. She must have done something that paid well at some stage in her life.

  One thing Emma was sure of : she wouldn't be putting Broch House up for sale until she knew more about it, and more about Aunt Freda. She was determined about that.

  *

  Unfortunately, she didn't know anyone in the family she could ask. The obvious place to go was her own family, but that hadn't been any good when she had inquired. Her mother didn't seem to know anything, and was even less interested. All she had said was that her understandin
g was that Aunt Freda had lived in Scotland all her life nearly, and, sorry, but she didn't know anything else about her. Mum didn't think she had ever actually even seen her. Dad, unfortunately, knew even less than that.

  Really, though, Emma reflected, it should have been down to Mum. It was nothing to do with Dad, and not much more to do with herself either. Freda was actually Mum's aunt, rather than her own. That was about all she had been able to establish before she left home to come here. So, really, Freda had been her own great-aunt – or something! She shook her head with exasperation. She always had been vague about family relationships.

  Dad had just shaken his head, and said he knew nothing about the woman – or much about Mum's family in general. All he knew was that they called this woman in Scotland "Aunt Freda", if they ever mentioned her at all – which wasn't very often – whatever the precise relationship. He had seemed to have no interest in speculating about her either.

  Mum had been horrified at the idea of Emma travelling all the way to Orkney, especially alone, just to see some old house that had been left to her by someone they had never seen. Why on earth did she want to do that? Just tell the solicitors to sell it – and be done with it! That had been her poorly considered advice.

  Mum hadn't even been very curious about why Emma had been left the house in the first place. Strange things happened every day, she said. Some people won the Lottery, didn't they? Why them, not somebody else? There was neither rhyme nor reason to it. The same with this house.

  Emma smiled as she recollected her mother's astonishment at her proposal to visit Orkney. She had been mystified. Not that she had stood in Emma's way at all. She just hadn't been able to understand it.

  'It's the least I can do, Mum,' Emma had explained. 'Apart from anything else, I want to know: why me? Why has a house been left to me? I have no idea. Do you?'

  Mum had shaken her head. 'No. It's a mystery,' she had said. 'Let me know what you find out, dear. Anyway, where is Orkney? Up north somewhere, isn't it?'

  'It's part of the Northern Isles, Mum, north of Scotland. Near Shetland. I looked it up in the atlas.'