The House of Secrets

  Sarra Manning is an author and journalist. She is currently literary editor for Red magazine and has written for the Guardian, ELLE, Grazia and You magazine. She is the author of bestselling young adult novels, including Guitar Girl, the Diary of a Crush trilogy and Adorkable, and several adult novels. Sarra lives in North London with her Staffordshire bull terrier, Miss Betsy, and prides herself on her unique ability to accessorise.

  For all the latest news on Sarra, follow her on Twitter @sarramanning.

  Also by Sarra Manning

  Nine Uses for an Ex-Boyfriend

  You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

  Unsticky

  It Felt Like a Kiss

  After the Last Dance

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Sphere

  978-0-7515-6117-3

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Sarra Manning 2017

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  SPHERE

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  The House of Secrets

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Sarra Manning

  COPYRIGHT

  Epigraph

  1: 1936 Libby

  2: 2016 Zoe

  3: Libby

  4: Zoe

  5: Libby

  6: Libby

  7: Zoe

  8: Zoe

  9: Libby

  10: Libby

  11: Zoe

  12: Libby

  13: Zoe

  14: Zoe

  15: Zoe

  16: Libby

  17: Libby

  18: Zoe

  19: Zoe

  20: Libby

  21: Zoe

  22: Libby

  23: Libby

  24: Zoe

  25: Zoe

  26: Libby

  27: Libby

  28: Zoe

  29: Zoe

  30: Libby

  31: Libby

  32: Zoe

  33: Zoe

  34: Libby

  35: Libby

  36: Zoe

  37: Zoe

  38: Libby

  39: Libby

  40: Zoe

  41: Libby

  42: Zoe

  43: Libby

  44: Zoe

  45: Libby

  46: Zoe

  47: Libby

  48: Zoe

  49: Freddy

  50: Zoe

  51: Zoe

  Acknowledgements

  But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you

  And loved the sorrows of your changing face

  When You Are Old – W.B. Yeats

  1936

  2016

  1

  1936 Libby

  The King is dead.

  As Libby travelled across the city, the London she could see from the top deck of the bus was draped in black and when she disembarked at Victoria station, the swirl of travellers and businessmen was sombre and muted and she was glad of it. That, for these few days, until the funeral had passed, London, England, the whole damn Empire, matched the dark mood that she’d carried round with her these past few weeks. Now, no one would dare to tell her to cheer up or to will away her troubles with a smile.

  She hurried across the road, breath curling in the air like puffs of dragon smoke, her destination a small hotel down a side street.

  Libby paused in the doorway and looked around the lobby. The lighting was dim, the mood hushed. Even the ferns drooping in big brass pots added to the general air of despondency.

  There were two men sitting in the darkest, furthest corner and as Libby squinted in their direction, one of them caught her eye and stood up.

  Despite the gravitas of the days since the King had passed, Mickey Flynn hadn’t thought to adjust his swagger, his cocky grin or exchange one of his famously lurid silk neckties for a shade more fitting.

  ‘Libby, my darling,’ he greeted her, brushing his lips against the cheek she proffered. ‘Why the long face? Has someone died?’

  ‘Oh, Mickey,’ she admonished him. ‘That’s in very poor taste even for you.’

  Mickey ducked his head. ‘Now why would a fellow like me be weeping over the death of an English king?’ he asked, exaggerating his brogue so he sounded as if he were fresh off the boat, when Libby knew full well that he’d been born and bred in Kilburn.

  ‘Because someone’s dead and that’s always sad,’ she said as Mickey took her case and guided her to a table near the window, quite some distance away from the corner where he’d been sitting. ‘It doesn’t feel right not having a king.’

  ‘There’s your fellow Edward, isn’t there?’ Mickey sounded as if he were already bored with the topic and though Libby had plenty to say about how nice it would be to have a young king on the throne, one who seemed simpatico to the plight of the working man (the working woman too), she simply shrugged. Mickey tilted his head. ‘You’re looking awfully peaky, my darling.’

  The last time Libby had seen Mickey had been on a glorious September day. Then, he’d toasted her health and happiness and, along with the rest of their friends, waved her and Freddy off, still in their wedding clothes, as they’d boarded the Golden Arrow, the boat train to Paris. It wasn’t even six months ago, but it seemed to Libby that she’d aged a hundred years since then.

  In place of the pretty, laughing girl with orange blossom threaded through her red hair who’d leaned out of the train window to shout, ‘We’ll send you a postcard. Each and every one of you! We promise!’ was a pale, thin woman whose hair had faded, the gleam gone from her green eyes. Libby hardly recognised the reflection that stared back at her in the glass each morning.

  ‘That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say, Mickey.’ Libby fixed him with what Freddy had always called her basilisk stare but Mickey waved her words away with a brush of his pudgy fingers.

  ‘Never been a gentleman, you know that.’ He leaned forward. ‘This isn’t going to be too much for you, is it?’ He glanced back at the corner from where he’d emerged. Still seated there was an indistinct figure hidden by a copy of The Times. ‘You’ll really be helping your good pal Mickey Flynn out of a bind. Got one girl on her way to Hastings with a lord of the realm and another in Margate with the heir to a biscuit dynasty. It’s always like this after Christmas. Must be something in the bread sauce… January’s my busiest month.’

  Libby had forgotten how much Mickey liked the sound of his own voice. ‘I’m much better,’ she said firmly. ‘Quite able to manage a weekend in Brighton.’ Now it was her turn to nod her head in the direction of the dark corner. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Salt of the earth,’ Mickey assured her. ‘A diamond among men.’

  ‘Oh, do give it a rest, Mickey, darling. We both know you’ve never so much as crossed the Irish Sea, never mind kissed the Blarney Stone. I’m going to spend two days with a man I don’t know, two nights in a hotel room. So, tell me what he’s really like. No fibbing.’

  Mickey wiped the oily smile off his face as if he’d taken a damp rag to it. ‘Very stiff. Very proper. Ex-army, made his money in the motor
trade. Wife’s been keeping company with the brother of his business partner. Quite a tricky situation all round, his solicitor said, but Mr Watkins has agreed to do the honourable thing and give Mrs Watkins grounds to divorce him, poor bastard that he is.’

  ‘Isn’t it funny that when it comes to divorce, it’s the man who always decides to do the honourable thing?’ Libby noted with a contemptuous sniff. ‘If I were Mr Watkins, I’d bury the bitch.’

  ‘Mind your language!’ Mickey said sharply as the principled Mr Watkins unfolded himself from the chair and stood up. ‘I told him you were a teacher. Widowed. Respectable. Now, quickly, let’s get this squared away. We agreed twenty pounds, didn’t we?’

  ‘Thirty,’ Libby snapped. They’d agreed twenty-five, but Mickey must be getting fifty and she was the one who’d have to spend two days with a stiff, proper man with an axe to grind. ‘Thirty or I’m catching the bus back to Hampstead.’

  There wasn’t much Mickey could do when Mr Watkins was bearing down on them but nod unhappily and discreetly tuck the money into Libby’s coat pocket.

  ‘The Brighton train leaves in twenty minutes,’ Mr Watkins said brusquely when he reached them.

  Mickey made the introductions. Libby kept her face still and slightly wistful as befitted a respectable, widowed teacher, though she wanted to smile when Mickey called her Marigold. He had flower names for all his girls.

  ‘And this is Hugo Watkins.’

  The man nodded tersely at Libby as Mickey went on to explain the particulars. ‘From the moment you leave this hotel, you need to play the part of the besotted couple. I wouldn’t put it past the King’s Proctor to have a detective trail you. Don’t forget to sign the hotel register as Mr and Mrs Watkins and it’s not enough to have the maid come in in the morning and catch you happy as larks in bed together, you’ll need to be seen having dinner in the hotel restaurant this evening, tip well —’

  ‘You’ve already covered this in some detail.’ Mr Watkins spat out the words as if they were pieces of rotten apple. ‘We mustn’t miss the train.’

  He set off for the door, without waiting to see if Libby was following him. She quickly stood up, though everything in her wanted to stay, to not hurry after this hard-voiced, hard-faced stranger.

  Then she wished she hadn’t stood up at all, because the dull ache in her side, which was a constant these days, transformed itself into a sharp tugging sensation and she gasped.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Mickey advised her, mistaking her pain for trepidation, as he walked with her to the door where the odious Mr Watkins was pointedly looking at his watch. ‘Two days of sea air will put the roses back in your cheeks, my darling.’

  Mr Watkins didn’t offer to take Libby’s case though he did hold the door for her, even as he held his body rigid so there wasn’t the remotest possibility she might brush against him, and when Mickey called after them, ‘Don’t forget to take off your wedding ring, Marigold!’ he snorted derisively.

  2

  2016 Zoe

  ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with h.’

  ‘Um, I don’t know. House?’

  ‘You’re not even trying.’

  ‘I am but there isn’t much else in my eyeline right now,’ Zoe said.

  It was raining so hard she could barely see anything beyond the windscreen. Their little Fiat was packed so full of boxes and bags that she couldn’t see out of the back window either. The drive from Swiss Cottage to Highgate had been nerve-wracking enough and it hadn’t even been raining then.

  They were stationary now; parked behind their removal van, Zoe’s mobile sitting on the dashboard. They both tried hard not to stare at it.

  ‘Do you give up?’ Win asked.

  ‘I absolutely give up.’

  ‘Hydrangeas.’

  Zoe squinted furiously out of the window. ‘What hydrangeas?’

  ‘Somewhere out there.’ Win gestured at the murky foliage in front of the house. ‘You said they were hydrangeas, when we came for the first viewing, didn’t you?’

  ‘No!’ They’d only been playing I-Spy for two minutes and already Zoe was sick of it. ‘Are you talking about the rhododendron bushes, by any chance?’

  ‘Same thing, aren’t they?’

  ‘How did I end up married to a man who can’t tell the difference between a rhododendron and a hydrangea?’ Zoe shook her head sorrowfully.

  ‘You know the nature stuff is your department,’ Win said, because Zoe’s parents were firm believers in the benefits of fresh air and the Great Outdoors so being able to tell the difference between a rhododendron and a hydrangea wasn’t unduly taxing for her. She could even differentiate between a chaffinch and a goldcrest at fifty paces; a talent she rarely had use for. ‘While I can add up whole columns of numbers in my head. That’s what I bring to our relationship,’ Win reminded her. ‘Also, I bake. I keep you in cake.’

  ‘For which I’m eternally grateful,’ Zoe said and then her phone rang before Win could continue to list what else he brought to their union and they both twitched like they’d never heard a phone ring before.

  It was Parminder, their solicitor. All the funds; money from the sale of their flat earlier that day, the savings squirrelled away, the mortgage they’d extended, had reached their final destination, never to return. Now Parminder had been instructed by the vendor’s solicitor that the key to the house that they’d just bought and could barely see from where they were sitting, was under a brick in the flowerbed nearest to the front door.

  Zoe opened the car door. ‘We’d better make a run for it,’ she said.

  They ran, coats pulled over their heads. There was nothing even near to being a flowerbed by the front door but they both rooted around in the tangle of weeds until Win found the key, then made a dash for the door.

  It should have been a special moment. Their first proper house, a brand new start, but rain was dripping down Zoe’s neck and the movers were unloading so she took the key from Win and rammed it into the lock.

  ‘Not so fast.’ Win wrapped his arms around Zoe’s waist before she could jerk away and tried to lift her up. ‘I’m going to carry you over the threshold.’

  They’d known each other for thirteen years. Lived together for ten of them. Been married for the last three and… ‘Win! Don’t be silly! Please let me down. You didn’t even carry me over the threshold on our wedding night.’

  ‘I was too drunk then, I’d have dropped you and anyway, this is our do-over, isn’t it?’ Win panted as he tried to find purchase on the slippery wet fabric of Zoe’s khaki parka. ‘Stop wriggling!’

  Instead of sweeping Zoe up in his arms, it was more of a precarious fireman’s hold.

  ‘Please don’t drop me, I really don’t want to fracture anything.’

  ‘I’m not going to drop you. You’re as light as feather,’ Win grunted, which was a lie because Zoe was a good ten stone, most of it dough-based.

  He staggered through the open doorway and Zoe had no choice but to cling tightly to him and wish he’d put her down…

  ‘Mind your backs!’ shouted a voice from behind them and Win did drop Zoe then so they could flatten their spines to the wall, as the first box was brought in. ‘Where do you want these then, guv?’

  ‘I’ve labelled every box,’ Win said. ‘Half the boxes are going in the front room, the other half upstairs in the back bedroom, next to the bathroom. All labelled. Clearly. Big black letters.’