‘I just wanted to see if anything had changed.’
‘Afraid not. It’s falling into yet more disrepair. Some say the roof’s caving in, others that it’s haunted.’
Bridie smiled faintly. ‘It was always haunted – apparently.’
Oliver leaned forward in his seat. ‘Remember when we thought we heard Isobel Raine’s ghost?’
‘Isobel?’ Bridie immediately thought of something Reggie had said –remarkable how much you resemble someone I once knew. He’d said her name – Isobel.
‘She was on the stage, for a while. Then she just … disappeared,’ said Bridie, repeating what Reggie had said.
‘You remember too?’ Oliver asked.
She did now that Oliver had mentioned the haunted theatre, and the rumoured ghostly presence of a young woman by that name.
‘She disappeared in the middle of the last performance there, and then the theatre just closed down,’ said Oliver. ‘Then the rumour started that the place was haunted.’
Like Oliver, and the locals living in Aldeburgh, Bridie knew a little of the history of the theatre. She said, ‘I wonder how she died.’
‘Who said she did?’
‘But the theatre is haunted.’
‘Is it? Nobody found a body, did they?’
‘How do you know that they never found a body? We’re talking years ago. When did it close exactly, before reopening temporarily?’
‘Thirty-three years ago. That’s when she disappeared.’ Oliver added, ‘I enjoy doing a bit of amateur sleuthing in my spare time when I’ve got through marking homework and running the drama club.’
Bridie didn’t know where he’d find the time for a relationship in between his full-on job, after-school clubs, and amateur sleuthing. She wondered if that was the reason he was still single.
He chuckled. ‘We were fourteen. And terrified.’
‘Whatever possessed us to do it?’ She’d thought she’d seen something, albeit fleetingly. Perhaps it was just older teenagers who, unbeknown to the three of them, had already been in there.
They sipped their coffees, thinking back to their past. She noticed he hadn’t mentioned Jack. The three of them had been inseparable once.
‘You went inside again – in the theatre, I mean?’ Oliver asked.
‘Oh, no. I just stopped outside, then it began to rain. I met a lovely old man called Reggie who had stopped outside to reminisce. He gave me his umbrella.
‘Did you say Reggie?’
‘Yes. Do you know him?’ Bridie knew it was a small town, but everyone did not know everyone else. That would be impossible, especially with the influx of tourists too.
‘Oh, yes. He supplies the school with musical instruments, visits and tunes the piano, and also does a very, very generous discount for repairs too.’
‘That is kind of him.’
‘Isn’t it? Don’t you remember him from when we were younger? He runs a shop in Cobblers Yard.’
She nodded. She had realised she vaguely remembered Reggie once they’d got chatting. Cobblers Yard. The name brought a smile to her lips again.
Oliver caught her smiling.
‘Sometimes I miss our teenage years.’
‘Me too.’
