‘I really don’t know anything.’ The postmistress shrugged her shoulders. ‘There was a story going around that Sylvia had a mixed race baby, but I always thought that was spite, because she were a bit wild and the family was so peculiar. I never really believed it. After all, where would Sylvia meet a black man around here? Besides, no one I know ever saw the baby, so there probably weren’t one.’
‘If Sylvia and Cassie were the same person, which I believe they were, then there really was a child, a little girl. Petal, she was called, and she was a lovely kid, bright as a button and a credit to her mother. Her grandmother may not have wanted her, she might send me away with a flea in my ear, but she ought to be told her daughter is dead and that her granddaughter is missing.’
‘Fair enough. Put that way, I suppose she ought to know.’ The postmistress looked rattled now. She was wringing her hands and bright red spots of colour had appeared on her cheeks. ‘I’ll give you the address, but it would be best if you wrote to Christabel Coleman rather than going there. She won’t open the door to you.’
‘Okay,’ Molly said, though she had every intention of going straight there. ‘I’m really grateful for your help, and I won’t tell anyone the information came from you.’
She rode away slowly from the post office, the address of the Colemans’ house in her pocket, mulling over what she’d been told. She wanted to believe she’d found out Cassie’s real name, and her home and family, but she had no proof at all that Sylvia Coleman was Cassandra March. What she ought to do was go straight to the police and get them to find out for certain. She could almost hear George lecturing her, saying that this wasn’t a job for amateurs.
But the police might take for ever to act, and Molly was desperate to know the truth. Besides, now, she wanted to see mad Christabel Coleman and the fearsome Miss Gribble.
It seemed that Cassie hadn’t spoken about her family for good reason. Who would want to admit that their mother was barmy? But even if Cassie’s mother was as mad as a hatter, she would never have expected her daughter to die young or her granddaughter to be taken away. So, however weird the family was, surely they’d want to help in finding the daughter’s missing child?
Mulberry House was only about three miles from the post office, but it took Molly some time to find it, as the postmistress hadn’t given her any directions. The entrance was down a small lane and a wall of thick, evergreen trees hid the house. It was only by pure chance that she noticed the faded sign by a large, rusting wrought-iron gate, and she got off her bike to peer through the rails.
The house was set back some hundred yards from the lane at the end of a drive that was overgrown with weeds and broken up in parts. The house was quite picturesque: mellow red brick, with fancy tall chimneys and lattice windows; Molly thought it must be over two hundred years old. Ivy covered most of it, including some of the windows, and, like the drive, it was neglected, with plants growing out of the gutters and roof.
It was obvious that neither house nor grounds had received any maintenance for years. What would had once been a lawn was now more like a field, with clumps of rough grass suffocating the daffodils, which must have been planted years ago and somehow managed to survive. Huge rhododendron bushes had spread and choked any other plants and bushes that may have once filled the borders. The rhododendrons were about to burst into flower, and Molly was reminded that Cassie had been thrilled when she found a couple growing in the woods behind Stone Cottage. Back then, Molly had thought her friend was just a bit of a botanist, but now it seemed clear that she’d been pleased to see them because they were a reminder of her childhood home.
Molly tried the gate and found it unlocked, but then she thought that perhaps shorts and a blouse were hardly suitable attire to give someone the news of their daughter’s death and decided to come back the next day in a dress.
But she remained at the gate for a while, looking at the house and trying to imagine Cassie growing up there. It wasn’t difficult: it was as extraordinary as Cassie, and her friend had always had an air about her, as if she’d known better things. She knew the names of plants and trees, could talk about composers, writers and artists in a way that ordinary people never did. She wished Cassie had told her about her father going missing in France. Had she heard the gossip that he had a woman over there? Did she hate the implication that he might have deserted?
Molly thought it looked a sad house. Maybe that was just because of the neglect and the sketchy information she now had about the residents, but she couldn’t possibly imagine any child ever playing noisy games in the garden or the house ringing with laughter.
It was going to be even sadder when she gave Mrs Coleman the news. She might have ordered her daughter to leave when she had an illegitimate child, but no mother, however hard-hearted, could possibly be totally immune to grief.
Later that evening, after she’d turned the guests’ beds down and helped out in the kitchen for a while, as the restaurant was busy, Molly wrote to Charley, telling him an edited version of the day’s events. She didn’t think he’d approve of her going back to the house to inform Mrs Coleman of her daughter’s death, so she implied she was going to hand what she knew over to the police.
With police on her mind, she also wrote to George, because he’d known Cassie and had been as frustrated as she had when his senior officers had given up on finding Petal.
‘I’m hoping that talking to her mother and this scary-sounding housekeeper will result in them demanding a better investigation into Petal’s disappearance,’ she wrote. ‘If they don’t seem to care, then I’ll go straight to the police myself. I’ll let you know what happens.’
She also penned a letter to Mrs Coleman, on headed paper from the George, in case she wouldn’t answer the door and speak to her. In it, she told her about her friendship with Cassie, who she felt sure was Sylvia Coleman, her death on Coronation Day and that Petal had disappeared.
She kept the letter short and to the point, asking Mrs Coleman only that, as Petal’s grandmother, she should insist on further investigation by the police.
It was raining the next morning while Molly served breakfast, but one of the guests said they’d heard the forecast, which said that showers would be dying out by midday. By the time she’d finished the bedrooms she was delighted to see the rain had stopped, and she rushed off to change.
She selected a blue, checked, pleated skirt to wear as it was heavy enough not to blow up in the air and expose her stocking tops as she rode the bike, and with it a toning blue twinset. She tied her hair back with a matching blue ribbon. She looked at herself in the mirror for some time before leaving and, although she had butterflies in her stomach about what she had to do, she at least felt confident about how she looked. Her cheeks were pink again; they’d lost their colour in London, and her hair its shine. But it was shining now and the sun over the last few days had given her blonde streaks amongst the brown.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said aloud. ‘I doubt they’ll be that weird. That’s just stuff people love to say.’
When she arrived at Mulberry House she pushed the heavy iron gate open and wheeled her bike up the drive. She had a feeling she was being watched, but she couldn’t see anyone looking out of the windows. She leaned her bike against a low stone wall which surrounded a weed-filled rose bed, then went over to the front door and pulled on the bell.
She heard it ring loudly enough to alert even someone hard of hearing, but no one came, so she rang it again, even harder. Again, no response. She rang it five times in all, and when there was still no response she walked round the side of the house to see if there was another entrance.