“Will you come to the flat tonight?” I ask, my heart thudding dully in my chest with a mixture of nerves and worry.
“Okay,” he replies quietly.
I lean in and kiss him again, wanting to stay with him but knowing I have a responsibility I can’t ignore.
“I’ll see you tonight.” I kiss him one last time and reluctantly pull away. “I promise.”
Turning abruptly, I head out of the room with Dusty and Mrs Abernathy close behind me.
22
Iraise my hand to knock on the door as I dance impatiently in place. I glance down the street, then down at my watch before knocking again. The door suddenly swings open and Larry stares at me in confusion.
“Tristan? Can I help you with something?”
“Actually you can,” I reply. “I need to ask you a question and it’s probably going to sound a little weird.”
“Okay…” Her voice is hesitant and I don’t blame her.
“The night your aunt died, I was in the room just after they found her and she was laying on her bed, fully dressed and holding onto a handbag, a black leather one.”
Larry nods. “I know which one you mean. She took it with her absolutely everywhere, wouldn’t let it out of her sight.”
“Do you have that bag by any chance?” I ask.
I have this weird feeling churning in my belly. It’s a kind of sense of urgency laced with excitement at the thought of unravelling the mystery of why she kept trying to give us a bag she never let out of her sight. At this point I’m not even sure what we’re going to find in there. A lost Fabergé egg? George Washington’s false teeth? A packet of cough sweets and a bus timetable from 1988? Who knows, but I’m curious as hell to find out.
“You want Aunt Delores’ handbag?” she asks with a baffled frown. “Why?”
“It’s a bit hard to explain.” I shove my hands in my pockets and rock on my heels awkwardly. “I think she hid something inside it, something important.”
“Like what?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know, but it was important enough for her to never let the bag out of her sight,” I reply. “Do you have the bag?”
“Yes,” she answers. “Somewhere. I picked it up with the rest of her things from the home, but I haven’t gone through it all yet.”
“Could we take a look?” I ask.
“Is this really necessary?” Larry sighs as she looks down at her watch. “I really need to get to work and if I don’t leave soon, I’ll miss the bus.”
“I’ll pay for an Uber if that happens,” I offer. “Please, Larry, just a quick look.”
“Fine,” she relents, stepping back so I can cross the threshold. Closing the front door behind me, she leads me into her living room. There are several cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the room that hadn’t been there last time I visited.
Crossing the room, she picks one of the ones labelled ‘clothes’ and slides it over to me.
“Check this one,” she says before pulling out another similarly labelled box, unfolding the flaps at the top and rummaging through the neatly folded contents.
I do the same, vaguely aware of Dusty and Mrs Abernathy hovering nearby, watching us. I’ve just got the box open and am carefully checking through the contents, hoping it’s not full of underwear, when Larry pulls out a black object wrapped in a clear plastic bag.
“Here it is.” She pushes the box out of the way and carries the bag to the table.
She unties the top of the plastic bag and reaches inside, pulling out a shabby leather blob that’s identical to the one Mrs Abernathy is carrying around and has been trying to give me and Dusty for days.
Unzipping the handbag, Larry upends it carefully and spills the contents over the table’s surface. It’s a strange mishmash of assorted objects, just as I suspected. There’s a tiny little clutch purse containing several twenty pence pieces and a King George halfpenny. An embroidered handkerchief with the letter ‘B’ monogrammed in the corner. And a TV remote control, possibly from the care home, which Larry chuckles at as she sets it aside.
She sifts further through the contents to find a pair of nail scissors, a ball of string, a packet of Polos, a loose domino, and several teabags.
