The Ghost Tree. Barbara Erskine

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      Ruth took a cab back from the lawyers, terrified that she would come home to find Timothy had returned. Her hands were shaking as she inserted the key in the lock, but to her relief the front door opened normally. She closed it behind her and drew the bolt across, then she paused to listen. The house was silent.

      Tiptoeing into the sitting room she sat down on the edge of the sofa just as she had the night before. Velvet-covered, under a tartan rug, it was placed in the window so the light fell over her shoulder. She remembered from her childhood how it had been a favourite place for her mother to sit and read. Now it was dusty and faded; the room smelt stale and cold and unloved. The whole house felt abandoned and empty. Even the ticking of the clock had stopped. She had hated that clock as a child. It had underlined the echoing quiet of the place, the passing of time, her loneliness as the only child of two older parents, and she had felt it was mocking her with every jerky movement of its hands.

      James Reid had assured her that nothing would happen while he appealed on her behalf against the new will. The absolute worst that could happen was that, if it was proved genuine, she would have to share the inheritance. As her father’s undisputed daughter, she was entitled to at least half of everything. He also told her that she was quite justified, at least for now, in changing the locks if she was nervous; after all, whether or not Timothy was related to her, he was still a stranger.

      Her phone made her jump. It was Harriet. ‘How are things going? I’m loving it here in North Berwick. Liz and Pete are being so kind. I can stay as long as I like, so I’ll be here for a while, working on my book.’

      The sound of her voice broke the spell. Ruth stood up and, walking round the sofa, drew back the curtains that had blocked half the light from the room. She stood staring out as she relayed the morning’s events.

      ‘Shit!’ Harriet summed up in one word.

      ‘I’d never given the inheritance a thought; of course I hadn’t. I’d spoken to James on the phone after Daddy died; he had told me that my father’s will, which he made after Mummy died, left everything to me.’

      Harriet snorted. ‘I told you Timothy gave me the creeps. What a bastard! So, what happens next?’

      ‘I wait to hear from James. He is formally going to contest the will. Apparently, if Timothy is genuinely Daddy’s son, he can claim half the inheritance, whatever the will says, but then so can I.’

      ‘Ouch. I’m sure he’ll sort it out. Keep calm, Ruthie. It’ll be OK. There’s no way that vile toad could be a relation of yours.’

      Switching off her phone, Ruth sat for a moment, staring into space.

       The house and all your father’s possessions, his money …

      ‘Don’t panic,’ James had said as he shook hands with her at his office door. ‘Your father’s bank accounts are frozen and nothing will happen for a while. These things take time.’

      And, she reminded herself, he had told her she was entitled to change the locks.

      The locksmith said he could make her his last call that evening. Pulling the curtains across once more after a quick look out into the street, she checked the bolt on the front door and then headed back upstairs to the cupboards on the top floor.

      Looking at the rail of dresses and coats she was pretty certain they hadn’t been touched; presumably Timothy wasn’t interested in clothes. But what about the other stuff, the boxes and cartons? Now she was looking more carefully she could see paler patches in the dust. Parcel tape had been pulled off and not replaced, latches on old suitcases were standing open when she knew her father, even in the act of banishment, would have made sure they were all neatly closed. He had been too ill to have made it up to the top floor for a long time, never mind stir up the contents of the cupboards like this. This had to have been Timothy. He had rifled through all her mother’s precious possessions, the things she had treasured and loved, her books, papers, jewellery, pictures. Even the little writing box with its inlaid brass initials that Ruth remembered from her childhood was there, lying crookedly on top of another box in the corner.

      Methodically she began to take items one by one out of the cupboards and line them neatly on the floor. Tossed in a corner of one of the cupboards was a teddy bear. He had been hers, her beloved Pooh. She picked him up and held him close, burying her face in his threadbare fur. He had lost the warm comforting scent she remembered and smelt of sawdust. She had loved him above all her other toys and, knowing this, her mother had kept him for her; so too, she realised with a sob, had her father.

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