The Light a Candle Society E-Book

Ruth Hogan

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'LIFE-AFFIRMING AND FULL OF LOVE' CELIA ANDERSON 'WARM, COMPASSIONATE, WITTY' MIKE GAYLE 'HEARTWARMING' Woman's Own A TOP TEN KINDLE BESTSELLER Every flame tells a story... George McGlory has been struggling since the death of his beloved wife, Audrey. But when he witnesses a public health funeral - with no flowers and no mourners - he is inspired to create The Light a Candle Society. As George and his friends join together to celebrate forgotten lives, their care, compassion, humour and friendship become gifts not only to the people they are remembering, but to each other. And the kindness of strangers gives them strength to confront the secrets of their own histories, forging joyful and unexpected new connections... Praise for Ruth Hogan: 'Magical ... uplifting ' ANTON DU BEKE 'Told with wit and heart' BETH MORREY 'Every page is a joy' PIP WILLIAMS 'Delightfully uplifting' WOMAN'S OWN 'Full of hope' PRIMA Readers LOVE The Light a Candle Society 'Wow ... this book is so emotional, uplifting and powerful' ***** 'The story just grips you. Read it.' ***** 'Such a powerful read. It will stay with me forever' ***** 'A poignant, heartwarming story' *****

Leseprobe

Also by Ruth Hogan

The Keeper of Lost Things

The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel

Madame Burova

The Phoenix Ballroom

Published in hardback in Great Britain in 2025 by Corvus,an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Copyright © Ruth Hogan, 2025

The moral right of Ruth Hogan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

No part of this book may be used in any manner in the learning, training or development of generative artificial intelligence technologies (including but not limited to machine learning models and large language models (LLMs)), whether by data scraping, data mining or use in any way to create or form a part of data sets or in any other way.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 80546 074 9

Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 80546 075 6

E-book ISBN: 978 1 80546 076 3

Printed in Great Britain.

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An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

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Product safety EU representative: Authorised Rep Compliance Ltd., Ground Floor,71 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin, D02 P593, Ireland. www.arccompliance.com

This book is dedicated to Kylie Dillon and Jim Gaffeyand written in memory of those who die alone.

‘All the darkness in the world cannotextinguish the light of a single candle’St Francis of Assisi

It begins with an ending …

The young man with dark hair styled into an Elvis quiff lifted the gun and nestled the butt into his shoulder. The wood felt hard and cold through the thin cotton of his blue shirt as it pressed into his taut muscle. He took a slow, deep breath and fixed his gaze down the barrel before he fired a single shot. A young woman beside him clapped her hands with delight. Bullseye! All around them coloured lights flashed and spun to the sound of organ music, over the hiss of hydraulics and the rattle and clatter of the rides. A pungent tang of fried onions mixed with the scent of candyfloss and hot doughnuts trailed in wafts through the evening air. It was Saturday night and Dreamland was packed with people looking for excitement and a little bit of magic.

The man running the rifle range took back the gun and grinned at the young woman. One of his front teeth was missing. ‘Take your pick, love. Any prize you like.’

——

The poodle stood on the mantelpiece above the gas fire, its glass eyes glinting in the lamplight. They were still as bright as rubies after all these years, Kathleen thought as she gazed fondly at the cheap little ornament from the comfortable cocoon of her armchair. These days she might not always remember to take her pills or the name of that nice woman behind the counter at the corner shop – but she could recall every detail of that first date with Frank at Dreamland, even though it was a lifetime ago now. Back then he had styled his hair just like Elvis and that night his blue shirt had matched the colour of his eyes. She had thought him so handsome. Kathleen had worn a yellow dress with a daisy print, a spritz of her favourite Avon perfume and a dash of Persian Melon lipstick that she had bought especially for the occasion. Frank had won the poodle for her on the rifle range. She could have chosen anything as her prize. There were some great big stuffed toys and a few lonely goldfishes swimming listlessly in glass bowls, but it was the poodle that had taken her fancy. She had christened her Penelope and she had been with them ever since – through sixty-one years of marriage and several moves.

‘But you could do with a clean,’ Kathleen said to Penelope a little sadly.

The dog stared back at her impassively. If its sparkling eyes had been able to see, the poodle would have witnessed her mistress’s grief at the death of her beloved husband, Frank, two years ago, but also her determination to carry on and make what she could of the life she had left. Kathleen had never been a quitter.

But then, as physical frailty took its toll, the dog would have also witnessed the gradual and inevitable decline of both woman and home into gentle dilapidation. Kathleen had always kept their cosy flat spotless, but now the colours and contours of the sitting room were blurred beneath a fuzz of dust. And whilst her once trim figure may have softened and spread over the years and her complexion puckered into wrinkles like the skin on a rice pudding, she had always dressed well and had her hair washed and blow dried at Sally’s Salon once a week. But recently Kathleen had found it increasingly difficult to summon the energy to do anything other than what was essential to keep herself clean and tidy, and fed and watered. Simple tasks had become daily challenges, and every movement that she made required a conscious effort.

Kathleen hated the thought that she had let her standards slip, but at least she still had her independence and was living in her own home and sleeping in her own bed. Well, mostly. There had been the odd occasion when she had woken up to find herself still in her chair, her bones stiff with cold and the TV showing the morning news. But she definitely wasn’t going to let that happen tonight. She was going to make herself a cup of tea and take it to bed with a couple of biscuits to dunk. She might even listen to the radio for a bit. Yes, she was lucky, she thought to herself. She had so far dodged the care home ending that she had always dreaded. Of course, it would have been better if Frank had still been by her side, or perhaps a son or daughter – and grandchildren, even great grandchildren by now – to visit her and keep her company. But that hadn’t happened and couldn’t be helped. Besides, they had always had each other. Kathleen believed in counting her blessings rather than raking over her disappointments, and having Frank as her husband had been the greatest blessing of all. And they had had some lovely friends and neighbours over the years, but at eighty-nine Kathleen was the last woman standing. Or at least she would be if she could manage it, she thought as she gripped the arms of her chair and planted her feet down squarely, ready to haul herself up. She leaned forward and pushed, but the pain in her hips made her gasp and she slumped back for a moment’s respite before making a second attempt. She looked up and smiled wryly at the poodle. ‘Old age is a bugger, you know.’

She took a deep breath and steeled herself to try again to stand.

‘But I can’t complain,’ she muttered as she finally got to her feet. She steadied herself for a moment. ‘It’s been a good life.’

An hour later, Kathleen was tucked up in bed listening to the soothing sounds of Book at Bedtime on the radio. A cup of tea with two ginger biscuits in its saucer sat cooling on the bedside table beside a framed photograph of Kathleen and Frank on their wedding day.

Yes – it’s been a very good life, she thought to herself as she sank back into her pillow and closed her eyes.

The next morning the sun rose as usual. But Kathleen did not.

Chapter 1

‘What do you think of my new shirt, then?’ George McGlory asked his wife as he puffed out his chest and grinned a little self-consciously. George had a penchant for colourful shirts, and he was particularly pleased with this one, which featured a bright orange parrot print on a navy background.

‘It was in the sale,’ he told her. ‘I’ve had my eye on it for ages and it was such a bargain that I couldn’t resist it.’

George’s wife, Audrey, said nothing. Which was hardly surprising given that she’d been dead for almost two years. George put down the canvas bag that he had brought with him and from it he removed a pair of shears. He trimmed the long grass around Audrey’s headstone, which the groundsmen on their ride-on mowers weren’t able to reach.

‘We have to keep you nice and tidy,’ he said, remembering Audrey’s favourite mantra of ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place’. It was mid-September, and although the early mornings now had the nip of autumn, the afternoon sun was pleasantly warm on George’s back as he worked.

‘I got a nice piece of haddock for my tea from Tesco,’ he said as he took the wilted dahlias from the metal vase on Audrey’s grave and tipped the putrid water onto the grass. ‘I thought I’d have it with some new potatoes and a few green beans from the garden.’

Since Audrey’s death, George had tried to fill the void left by her absence with activities, keeping himself busy rather than allowing himself to brood. He still worked at the library three mornings a week, and his fledgling efforts at growing his own fruit and vegetables had proved surprisingly satisfying – digging for distraction rather than victory, as the old Second World War slogan had advocated. George gathered the grass clippings and stood up, slowly unfolding his stiff back, which creaked in protest. Perhaps he should add yoga or Pilates to his schedule, he thought, rolling his shoulders and rubbing at the nape of his neck. He took a cloth from his bag and wiped the dust and dirt from the marble headstone. As he rubbed at a particularly stubborn spot of bird muck, he heard the soft purr of an engine and looked up to see a gleaming hearse arriving at the entrance to the crematorium. It contained a plain coffin unadorned by even a single flower. The undertakers slid the coffin from the car and hoisted it onto their shoulders. Waiting for them was a sturdy-looking woman in her fifties, dressed in a charcoal suit and sensible shoes. She checked her watch as she followed them inside, as though she had somewhere else to be. George stood and watched as the door swung slowly shut behind them. He assumed that the other mourners must already be inside the chapel, although he hadn’t noticed anyone going in. Odd, he thought, that no one else was waiting outside to follow the coffin.

He took the metal flower container over to the standing tap, gave it a good rinse out and then filled it with fresh water. Back at Audrey’s grave, he removed the yellow roses that he had bought from their brown paper and arranged them carefully in the container.

‘There you go, my love. I got you roses this week for a change,’ he told Audrey affectionately.

He caught a movement in his peripheral vision, and when he turned to look, he was surprised to see the pallbearers coming out of the side entrance that was used as an exit for funeral parties. Perhaps they were going to wait outside and then go back to usher the mourners out when the service was over. But they were immediately followed by the woman in the charcoal suit, who spoke briefly with one of them before striding off in the direction of the car park, fishing her car keys from her bag as she went. No one else came out of the building. In fact, small groups of people speaking in hushed voices were already making their way towards the chapel entrance to pay their final respects to the next dearly departed on today’s list. George strolled across to the rubbish bins with the grass cuttings and dead dahlias. He couldn’t help but wonder who on earth had been the unfortunate guest of honour at such a desperately lonely funeral.

The bins were positioned out of sight, at the side of a brick-built storage shed where the groundsmen kept their tools and other paraphernalia. Leaning against the wall of the shed with his eyes shut and his faced turned up towards the sun, one of the undertakers was enjoying a cigarette. George cleared his throat to alert the other man to his presence.

The undertaker opened his eyes and grinned broadly at George. ‘Caught me!’

George returned his smile. He had given up smoking years ago, but he still missed it. He pulled a crumpled paper bag from his pocket and from it took a mint humbug and popped it in his mouth. ‘I started on these when I gave them up,’ he said, gesturing towards the cigarette. ‘Much better for my lungs, but not so great for my teeth. Want one?’

The man shook his head.

‘I don’t blame you. They’re no substitute. Don’t worry – I won’t dob you in to your boss.’

The undertaker laughed. ‘It’s my wife finding out that I’m more worried about. She’s always on at me to give it up. And anyway – I am the boss! Edwin Bury at your service. And, yes, it is my real name.’

George grinned. ‘How very fortunate. I’m George.’

‘Pleased to meet you, George.’ Edwin took a final drag on his cigarette, ground it out under his foot and then dropped the butt into one of the bins.

‘Not much of a turnout for that last funeral,’ George commented as the two men began walking together towards the chapel.

‘No. Just us and Big Brenda.’

‘Big Brenda?’

‘Yes – she’s from the council. It was a public health funeral.’

‘What’s one of those when it’s at home?’

‘When someone dies alone and no friends or family can be traced, the council are obliged to give the deceased a decent send-off. It’s a quick no-frills affair but Brenda usually puts in an appearance – although, I sometimes wonder if she only comes to keep an eye on us,’ Edwin added with a wink.

‘But that’s such a shame – that anyone can end up dying completely by themselves.’ George shook his head in disbelief.

‘It happens more than you’d think. But at least Mrs Hooley had a good innings.’

‘Mrs Hooley?’

‘Yes. Today’s funeral was for Mrs Kathleen Hooley, aged eighty-nine, who died in her sleep, safe and warm in her own bed. I can think of worse ways to go.’

‘It still seems really sad to me. Will she be buried here?’

‘Cremated first and then her ashes will be buried in the council plot.’ Edwin checked his watch. ‘Anyway, it’s been nice chatting, but I’d better get a shift on or else the lads will go without me! We’ve got another funeral 3.30 pm.’ He hurried off round the back of the chapel to where his colleagues were waiting with the hearse.

George returned to his wife’s grave and collected his bag. He blew a kiss at Audrey’s headstone. ‘Bye love – God bless. I’ll see you next week.’

As he walked back to the car park, he couldn’t get the sight of that lonely coffin out of his head. He knew that it was just a wooden box that held only the empty packaging of what had once been a person, but it had looked so forlorn.

‘Rest in peace, Kathleen Hooley,’ he whispered as he climbed into his car. ‘I hope to God that wherever you are now, you’re not alone.’

——

George carried his tray back into the kitchen and loaded his plate into the dishwasher. The haddock had been very tasty and the beans from the garden nice and tender – just how he liked them. He had even treated himself to a can of beer with his dinner to cheer himself up. George McGlory was a good man and kindness was in his DNA. Kathleen Hooley’s lonely funeral had touched his heart and left a bruise. He returned to his comfortable chair in the sitting room and settled down to watch an old episode of The Detectorists. The familiar programme’s gentle humour soothed him, and soon he was completely absorbed by the exploits of The Danebury Metal Detecting Club. At 10 pm he switched off the TV and went upstairs to bed feeling tired and content. But he dreamt of Kathleen Hooley’s funeral.

Chapter 2

‘It’s got a blue cover with a castle on the front. Or a big house.’

George smiled patiently at the woman facing him across the counter, hoping for something more specific to help him identify the book she wanted to borrow.

‘It’s about a woman who murders her husband and then pretends to be her identical twin sister in order to frame her sister for the murder so that she can be with her sister’s husband.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not ringing any bells. Do you have any idea of the title – or perhaps the name of the author?’

The woman sighed. ‘It’s got the name of the woman in the title and the author is someone Richardson, or Dickinson – or maybe Parkinson.’ The irritation in her tone implied that George was being deliberately unhelpful.

‘Nothing springs to mind immediately, but why don’t you leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can come up with while you’re choosing your other books?’

The woman tutted. ‘That was the book that I came in for specifically.’

She waited, as though her presence might encourage George to conjure the book out of thin air. He smiled at her again but said nothing, and eventually the woman turned away and went off to browse the fiction shelves. One of the things George loved most about his job as a librarian was talking to people, helping them find what they were looking for and recommending books that they might like. Most of the people he dealt with were friendly and polite, but there was always the odd exception.

‘Miserable old bat!’ hissed George’s colleague Roxy as she sat down next to him with two mugs of coffee. ‘I don’t know how you put up with some of them!’

George nodded his thanks for the coffee and took a sip. ‘Maybe she’s having a bad day.’

‘Well, she doesn’t have to turn it into a group activity!’

Roxy opened a new tab on the screen in front of her and began searching for likely candidates for the book that the woman had described. Her intellect and temperament were as fierce as her facial piercings and her purple-streaked hair, but she was a loyal colleague and George was very fond of her.

‘As long as I have you to brighten my day, I’ll never let the likes of her bother me!’ he declared with a wink.

Roxy widened her eyes in mock outrage. ‘George McGlory! You’d better not be flirting with me. I’ll have to report you to HR!’

George laughed. ‘I forgot to ask – how was your date last night?’

Roxy was an enthusiastic user of an online dating app called DateMate, and the previous evening she had been going out for a drink with a tree surgeon called Ezekiel.

Roxy groaned. ‘Bloody awful, thanks. I assumed that with his job and a name like Ezekiel he’d be pretty cool with a sort of hipster lumberjack vibe.’

George nodded, even though he was unsure exactly what that kind of ‘vibe’ might entail.

‘I was wrong. He was a proper posho who kept going on about his family’s holiday home in Burnham Market, his mummy’s home-made gooseberry gin and how brilliant he was at windsurfing. Honestly, what man in his thirties still calls his mum “Mummy”?!’

George could certainly think of one who had – and he was definitely a proper posho with a sort of king vibe. ‘So, it didn’t go well, then?’

‘One drink and I was off! I think maybe I need to change my profile picture for one that looks a bit more like me. The poor bloke nearly choked on his beer when he saw the piercings.’

Roxy continued her online search while George went to retrieve some material from their archive room that had been requested by a lecturer from a local college. When he returned some half an hour later, Roxy was grinning from ear to ear.

‘I found madam’s book!’ she announced triumphantly. ‘It had a green cover with a photograph of an abandoned church, and it’s called Sister or Sinner? by Richard Jones.’

‘Well done you! At least she got part of the author’s name right.’

Roxy rolled her eyes. ‘It was the only bloody thing she got right.’

‘And I’m sure she was very grateful.’

‘Well if she was, she did a good job of hiding it! She spat out a thank you like a maggot she’d found when she’d bit into an apple.’

George laughed. ‘You really should write a book yourself, you know. You have a very colourful way with language.’

‘Yeah – I should write a book about working here and some of the oddballs we have to contend with! I could call it The Secret Trials of a Town Librarian. I could include some of our Habituals, like Mrs Biscuit.’

The garrulous Mrs Biscuit was a bustling, bosomy woman in her late sixties who came in every Friday to satisfy her seemingly insatiable appetite for crime fiction – the bloodier the better. If ever she was prevented from coming, she would always provide a detailed explanation for her absence to whomever was behind the counter on the day of her next visit.

‘I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t come last Friday,’ she would say. ‘But I had a doctor’s appointment, and they could only fit me in on the Friday on account of my normal doctor being off sick with kidney stones, which isn’t a good advertisement for a doctor if you ask me, so I had to see someone else on the Friday.’

Her soubriquet (her surname was actually Kettle) was the result of her pioneering approach to biscuit baking. Mrs Biscuit was in the habit of bringing them a batch of her latest creations each time she came in. Her choice of ingredients was imaginative but not always very palatable. Their favourites so far had been the lavender and lemon shortbreads, but they hadn’t been able to stomach the peppermint and orange creams, which Roxy had fed to some pigeons on the way home from work. Even the pigeons hadn’t been that keen.

Mrs Biscuit was one of several regulars – whom Roxy referred to as The Habituals – who used the library more as a home-from-home than simply a place to borrow books.

‘I could also feature a list of the things people use as bookmarks and leave in library books for us to find,’ Roxy said, warming to her theme.

George laughed. ‘What’s the strangest thing you’ve found?’

Roxy answered without hesitation. ‘A red lace thong.’

‘Good grief! What was the book.’

‘Not what you’d expect at all. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. What about you? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found?’

George considered. ‘It’s a toss-up between a rasher of bacon in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and a DVD of Alien in a Jamie Oliver cookbook.’

‘Bacon wins. Was it cooked?’

George grimaced at the memory. ‘Unfortunately not. And it was going a bit green around the edges.’

‘Is Alien the one where that snake thing explodes out of John Hurt’s stomach?’

‘That’s the one.’

Roxy grinned. ‘Maybe it was a comment on Jamie’s recipes!’ Then she grew serious. ‘You never know, I might have to give the writing thing a crack if this latest round of staffing cuts goes through. The library will be run by robots if the council has their way.’

George summoned an optimism that he didn’t entirely believe. ‘They can’t get rid of everyone. Who would find Mrs Misery-Guts her books then? Her search data is so inaccurate that any automated system would short circuit! And besides which, they’d get rid of me first because I’m only part-time.’

Roxy shook her head. ‘Which is exactly why they’d keep you instead of me – because you’re cheaper. No offence.’

‘None taken.’ George offered her a wry smile in place of any further hollow reassurances. ‘Speaking of the council,’ he continued, deliberately moving the subject away from things they could do nothing about, ‘I saw something really sad yesterday.’

‘If this is your attempt to cheer me up it doesn’t sound promising,’ Roxy joked, but then registered the pensive expression on George’s face and allowed him to go on.

‘I was visiting Audrey’s grave and I saw a funeral with no flowers and no mourners, just the undertakers and a woman from the council. The service barely lasted fifteen minutes. When I think about Audrey’s funeral, with all the flowers and music, and all the friends and family that came to remember her and say goodbye – it was heartbreaking, yes, but it was also heart-lifting. It was a tribute to an amazing woman who left her mark on so many people and they came together to remember her with love. It was a validation of her life. And when I saw that funeral yesterday, it made me think – surely everyone deserves that, don’t they? Some sort of recognition that they existed?’

Roxy was silent for a moment, considering her response. ‘Well, I’m not sure about everyone. What about murderers and sex-offenders and people who leave bacon in library books?’

George’s brief smile acknowledged the joke, but he was deadly serious. ‘But nobody’s born bad, are they? And how can a life become a death with so little acknowledgement? The funeral I saw was a practicality and no more. A box ticked off – literally.’

‘It does sound a bit grim when you put it like that. But what’s it got to do with the council?’

‘It’s called a public health funeral. When some poor soul dies alone, without any family or friends, the council are obliged to give them a decent funeral.’

‘No wonder there weren’t any flowers,’ Roxy scoffed. ‘I’m surprised the coffin wasn’t made of cardboard.’

‘Actually, you can get coffins made out of cardboard.’ A man who looked to be roughly the same age as George, neatly dressed and peering out from beneath eyebrows that badly needed pruning, stood at the counter in front of them. ‘They’re much cheaper than conventional coffins and one hundred per cent biodegradable,’ he continued. ‘I’ve requested in my will that I’m to be buried in one myself.’

Roxy pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows to counteract an inappropriate smile. ‘That’s nice,’ she managed to reply. ‘How can we help you?’

‘I’m looking for a book about the history of fountain pens. I can’t remember the title but I’m pretty sure it has a red cover …’

——

It was another warm and sunny afternoon, and George planned to spend the rest of the day tending to his vegetable patch. His walk home took him past Sid’s Bargain Emporium on Castle Road, a second-hand shop that sold such a wondrous and peculiar salmagundi of items that George often went in just to look around. The shop’s clientele was as varied as its merchandise. Students came to Sid’s to kit out the kitchens in their rented accommodation as cheaply as possible. Avid recyclers brought things to recycle, and amateur interior designers bought hidden gems to upcycle. It was the kind of place where people dropped in when they were passing whether they needed anything or not. Sid was a principal part of the attraction. He was a big bear of a man with broad shoulders, a barrel chest and bulging arms that were comprehensively inked with intricate tattoos. His thatch of ginger hair had thinned over the years – sixty-seven on his last birthday – but his irrepressible vigour was that of a much younger man. Sid loved to talk – and people loved to listen to him. His voice was as rich and resonant as a double bass, but more importantly, Sid always knew all the gossip. And he was happy to share it.

When George arrived outside Sid’s shop, the man himself was unloading his van. As he stopped to greet George, he tripped up the kerb and the contents of the overfilled cardboard box that he was carrying toppled out onto the pavement.

‘Bugger!’ Sid exclaimed, but still with a grin on his face.

George stooped to help pick up the items scattered in front of him. There were a couple of small saucepans and a frying pan, some tea towels and cutlery, a crystal vase, a glass jar full of buttons, a Huntley and Palmers shortbread tin and various china ornaments.

‘No harm done,’ George said as he replaced the lid on the tin, which was full of black and white photographs. But then he noticed that one of the ornaments, a little poodle, had sustained a broken leg. ‘I spoke too soon,’ he said to Sid, holding up the casualty.

‘Never mind – just chuck it in the bin. At least the vase survived.’

‘Where’s it all from?’ George asked, gesturing towards the stuff they had now returned to the box.

‘A house clearance. I do a lot of those,’ Sid replied. ‘I’ve got a contract with the council to clear out their places when the resident dies and there’s no one else to do it.’

George saw once again that lonely coffin. How can a whole life be reduced to a few boxes? he thought. Whilst Sid was serving a customer, George noticed that one of the photographs was still lying on the pavement. He picked it up and studied it. It was a picture of a young woman at the seaside. Her hair was tousled by the wind, and she was holding an ice cream and laughing. The camera had captured for eternity a single moment of pure joy.

When Sid returned for the box, George held up the tin. ‘How much for the photos?’

Sid grinned. ‘Get away with you! You can have them. They’re not worth anything – just someone else’s memories and no one left to care. They’d probably just end up in the bin with that poodle.’

Chapter 3

The poodle lay on the kitchen table next to the tin of photographs whilst George rummaged in a drawer for a tube of superglue. It was the type of drawer to be found in most kitchens – the one that contained a muddle of useful things along with those that fell into the ‘just in case’ category. Keys kept just in case you remembered what they unlocked. A couple of small glass jars which might come in handy for storing something. A fridge magnet that had come apart, kept in case you got round to sticking it back together. A packet of birthday candles, an ancient bottle of Olbas Oil, a plastic syringe, a variety of corks and an inordinate number of elastic bands. And a tube of superglue.

When George had returned home that afternoon, he had dug up a few leeks and potatoes, picked some green beans and tomatoes, and watered and weeded where it was needed. He had worked steadily, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the smell of freshly dug soil and newly harvested vegetables. A robin kept him company, chirruping his excitement as he hopped expectantly on toothpick legs and darted down to snatch any worms exposed by the gardener’s spade. George had made leek and potato soup for his dinner, with Radio 4 playing in the background for company, and having eaten, he put the remainder of the soup in the freezer. Audrey would be proud of him, he thought. He hadn’t done much cooking when she had been alive, but now his repertoire had expanded well beyond the ready meals and cheese on toast that he had survived on for the first year after she had died.

George hadn’t had the heart to throw the poodle in the bin. He didn’t know why. It was just a cheap ornament – and a broken one at that. But someone had loved it once. Someone had chosen it, kept it, dusted it. Someone had looked into its sparkly red eyes and smiled because it had brought them a little pleasure. And perhaps that was what had stopped George from throwing it away. Because it wasn’t just an object. The poodle was a reliquary of someone else’s memories and emotions. It was a treasure. George shook his head as he squeezed a blob of glue onto the poodle’s leg. Perhaps he was going soft in his old age. But Sid’s words had pressed on the bruise that yesterday’s funeral had left on him: ‘someone else’s memories and no one left to care’.

He positioned the leg back onto the poodle, and as he held it there waiting for the glue to take effect, tears pricked his eyes. Grief had shadowed George when Audrey died, a monkey on his back that he couldn’t shake off. But gradually it had loosened its grip, supplanted by happy memories of the life they had lived together. He could allow himself to be consoled by the fact that he had been with Audrey until the very end – ‘till death us do part’ – and that her final hours had been pain-free and peaceful. Her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at the age of just fifty-nine had been a complete shock and her decline swift, but there had been enough time for Audrey to make her wishes clear and to prepare George as best she could for life without her.

‘It’s me that’s dying, not you, love,’ she had told him. ‘And if you don’t get on with your life when I’m gone, then I’ll come back and haunt you – and not in a good way!’

George had held her hand and nodded, but at the time, the idea of a world without Audrey in it seemed almost inconceivable and his survival in such a world impossible. These days his grief was a more comfortable companion – an acknowledgement of the love they had shared. His tears now were for something else. He could fix the poodle, but he couldn’t fix the other things. He couldn’t prevent people from dying alone. He couldn’t stop them being buried or burned in plain coffins with no one to bear witness aside from undertakers and council workers. He couldn’t stop their lives being packed into boxes and picked over by people like Sid, who would decide which of their possessions were resaleable and which were rubbish. Until yesterday, George had been blissfully unaware of such things, but now the knowledge – and the sadness that it had brought with it – was like a dull ache that he was finding hard to ignore. He gently wiggled the poodle’s leg to test whether the glue had set. It held firm and he stood it on the table in front of him. He noticed that the little dog was a bit grubby and thought that he might give it a wash tomorrow, once he was sure the leg was secure.

George checked the clock on the kitchen wall. There was a programme that he wanted to watch on at 8 pm. It was twenty minutes to. He opened the shortbread tin. The photograph of the young woman with the ice cream was on top.

‘I suppose this was the lady that bought you?’ he said to the dog.

The photos were versions of the same images taken and kept by so many people before mobile phones became virtual photo albums. He spread them out on the table in front of him – a panorama of the lives of strangers, but the landmarks universal and familiar. Christmases and birthdays, friends and family, homes and holidays. There were numerous images of the same couple recording their journey together through the years. One of them had clearly been taken on the day of the ice cream photograph. The young woman was standing at the entrance to Dreamland in Margate alongside the man with whom she was to grow old. He was tall and handsome, with a shock of black hair and a confident smile, and he had his arm around her shoulders. George wondered if they knew already on that day that they would spend the rest of their lives together. It struck him that there were no baby pictures in the tin. No children riding bikes, building sandcastles or posing on first days at school in uniforms bought to grow into. Perhaps that was why a wholesale house clearance had been necessary – because the couple had been childless. George wondered who had been the one left behind, widow or widower.

He checked the clock. It was five to eight. As he began to gather up the photographs his phone rang. He cursed at the knowledge that he would miss the start of his programme, but his irritation was short-lived when he answered the call.

‘Hi, Dad, it’s me.’

His daughter, Elizabeth, lived in Edinburgh with her husband, Nick, and teenage children, Angus, known as Gus, and Amelie, known as Lil. George couldn’t understand all this messing about with names. Everyone called his daughter Lizzie, but to him she was always Elizabeth. She usually rang him a couple of times a week for a chat. George knew that she was also checking up on him. When Audrey died, Elizabeth had toyed with the idea of them moving back south to be closer to him, but George wouldn’t hear of it. The family had moved to Scotland when Nick had got a job as a senior operations manager at the airport. It had been a big promotion for him, and the relocation had worked out very well. The children had still been quite young and had quickly readjusted to their new lives. Once they had started school, Elizabeth returned to the career that she loved: teaching modern languages. When Audrey was alive, the two of them would take a trip up to Edinburgh several times a year, and in the summer, Elizabeth would always come to stay with the kids for a couple of weeks during the holidays and Nick would join them for a few days when he could.

‘You’ve got your own life where you are,’ he had told her when she had mentioned moving. ‘You and Nick have both got great jobs that you enjoy, and the kids love it in Edinburgh. You’ve got absolutely no need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.’

And he had been fine. Bedford was his hometown, and the familiarity of its landscape and people had been an anchor when Audrey’s death had cut him adrift. It had taken a while, and he still missed his wife every day, but he had made a different life without her, and he had grown to like it perfectly well.

Elizabeth told him all about the family’s summer holiday in Portugal, her suspicions that Lil might have a boyfriend and Gus’s hope of making it into the school’s rugby first fifteen in the new term. He had been training hard at the gym and had grown another two inches in height, making him almost as tall as his father. George told Elizabeth about his vegetable patch and his new shirt and regaled her with a few anecdotes from the library. By the time they said their goodbyes, George’s programme was almost over, but he wasn’t in the least bit disappointed. The photograph of the childless couple still lay on the table in front of him and George knew how lucky he was.

Chapter 4

Case no. 63542-7577

On the day of the move, it rained relentlessly. The sky was dark and disapproving, and water was smashing down on the flowers in the garden, shattering the blooms and battering their torn petals onto the sodden grass. As portents go, it wasn’t encouraging. But Derek didn’t believe in portents. When the removal man – Dan with a Van – had turned up at his flat in Hackney that morning and announced that they might do better with an ark than his aging Transit, Derek had smiled serenely and offered him a cup of tea – and a chocolate digestive. And now they had arrived in the picturesque, though currently rain-lashed, village where Derek was to make his new home with the love of his life. Jack was at the door to greet them as soon as they pulled onto the drive. A broad smile lit up his attractive face, and he ran his hand through his ever mussed-up mop of silver hair as he stood waiting for Derek to get out of the van. He had remembered to put on the navy check shirt that Derek liked so much, and his usually rumpled chinos were neatly pressed for the occasion.

‘Welcome home, my darling!’ he murmured, as he pulled Derek into a brief hug and then released him with a quick glance in Dan’s direction.

‘Don’t mind me,’ said Dan, pulling the first of the boxes from his van. ‘I’m Elton John’s biggest fan.’

Between them, they unloaded Derek’s belongings – getting drenched in the process – and Jack insisted on making Dan a sandwich and a mug of tea before he set off back to London. They sat in the kitchen, eating and drinking and drying off in the heat of the Aga, which looked strangely incongruous in the 1960s-built bungalow. It had been Jack’s retirement gift to himself. He had always dreamt of living in a large country house with a boot room and an Aga – he never missed an episode of Downton Abbey – but on a college lecturer’s salary, the bungalow had been the best he could afford. He had, however, furnished it as though it were a country cottage, its colourful vintage interiors completely and rather splendidly at odds with the building’s plain, boxy exterior. Continuing the theme outside was the epitome of a cottage garden, a feast for both body and soul. The regimented beds of runner beans, carrots, potatoes and onions, the fruit trees and raspberry canes and the riot of delphiniums, roses and honeysuckle made the bungalow they surrounded look like an imposter.

A haughty marmalade cat with tufted fur stalked the kitchen, inspecting them with his baleful yellow eyes before approaching Derek and rubbing his head against his calf. Derek leaned down to stroke him. ‘I’m honoured, Kathmandu. You never normally come near me.’

Jack laughed. ‘He’s trying to get round you now that he knows you’re moving in. He’s hoping for extra titbits.’

Once Dan had gone, they began to organise Derek’s things.

‘I’ve cleared some space on the bookshelves in the study, and your records can go with mine in the sitting room,’ Jack told him as he carried Derek’s suitcase into his new bedroom. It was cosily furnished with a single bed, a carved mahogany wardrobe and a comfortable looking armchair positioned next to a side table on which stood a handsome brass reading lamp.

‘Of course, I hope you won’t be sleeping in here,’ Jack said, with that slow smile that always made Derek’s stomach flip. ‘I’ll leave you to unpack.’

Jack kissed him lightly on the cheek and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

Derek sat down hard on the bed, allowing himself to bounce a couple of times with sheer happiness. He could hardly believe that he’d actually done it. After years of living alone and having no real friends – only work colleagues and people he knew from the pub – he had retired, sold his flat and moved to the country to live with his boyfriend. Derek smiled to himself. Boyfriend! They were middle-aged men and both of them drawing a pension. But Derek had never felt so young – and so full of hope for the future. His actual boyhood had been spent in a series of children’s homes, or ‘in care’ as it was so often called. But care wasn’t a concept that Derek had been familiar with back then. He had felt lonely, bullied, angry, afraid and sometimes completely invisible. But he couldn’t remember ever feeling cared for. Until now. Until Jack.

He got up and lifted the suitcase onto the bed. He opened it and began decanting his clothes. He didn’t have that many, having spent most of his adult life wearing the uniform of a police officer – specifically that of a custody sergeant for the past fifteen years. He was sure Jack would soon remedy that. Jack loved shopping for clothes, an activity that for Derek was on a par with filling out a tax return. But with Jack it would be more bearable. He might even learn to enjoy it. Perhaps he could use the John Lewis vouchers he had been given as a retirement gift by his colleagues. His departure from the force had been marked by a few drinks at a local pub. It had been well attended but had only lasted an hour or so before people began to drift away. Derek had never been that close to anyone at work. He had participated sufficiently in the day-to-day banter, pulled his weight and been a reliable member of whichever team he had been assigned to, but he had never socialised with any of them. His childhood had made him stubbornly self-reliant and reluctant to trust anyone, and being gay was an added complication. Yes, attitudes within the force had gradually changed over the years, and some of the younger officers were now officially ‘out’, but it hadn’t been something that Derek had ever felt comfortable sharing with his colleagues. Opening up to a friendship with any of them would have made him feel exposed and vulnerable, and Derek preferred the protective carapace that social solitude afforded him. Until Jack.

As he hung his shirts on the hangers in the wardrobe, he recalled their first meeting a little over a year ago. It had been on a Saturday in The National Gallery. Derek had been standing in front of Bathers at Asnières by Georges Seurat. He didn’t know much about art, but he knew what he liked, and he enjoyed visiting galleries and museums in his spare time and absorbing rather than analysing what he saw. The painting was one of his favourites. He loved the muted colours and the languid poses of the bathers. The picture conveyed an otherworldly serenity that Derek found mesmerising.

After a while he had become aware of someone standing next to him and had glanced across to see Jack staring at the painting. They had stood in silence for several minutes before Jack said, without looking at him, ‘It’s wondrous, isn’t it?’ Jack always chose his words so carefully, and his description had been perfect. They had both been standing there lost in wonderment at the picture before them.

They had exchanged a few pleasantries, Derek reluctant at first – his natural reticence reinforced by the assumption that Jack was an academic and his own ignorance of art would make him look foolish. But Jack’s warmth and humour had won him over and they had ended up going for a drink. From that first day, Derek had felt safe with Jack. And over the months that feeling had expanded and elaborated into trust and finally love, and now here he was.

There was a knock on the door. ‘Are you done yet?’

Jack came in and glanced at the wardrobe, which now contained the contents of the suitcase but was still half-empty. ‘I can see that we need to take you shopping. But perhaps we could start with a few online purchases’ he added, seeing the expression of mock horror on Derek’s face. ‘Now, come and have a glass of wine and talk to me while I cook dinner.’

Derek followed Jack through into the kitchen where the table had been laid with a white tablecloth, silver candlesticks and flowers rescued from the garden. Sade was playing in the background and something that smelled delicious was simmering on the Aga.

Jack handed him a glass of wine and raised his own in a toast. ‘To us!’

——

Derek was horribly cold when he woke up on the floor. He tried to move but a bolt of pain shot through his head. His left side was numb, and his limbs lay immobile – uncooperative and useless. When he attempted to call out, the only sound he could manage was a guttural moan. He tried to remember what had caused him to fall. The headache had arrived without warning – intense and agonising. He had been on his way to the kitchen to get some painkillers when he had suddenly collapsed, as though the headache had blown the main fuse to the rest of his body. How long had he been on the floor? He couldn’t move his arm to see his watch, but it had been lunchtime and now it was dark outside. It was dark inside too. Derek wondered if he was going to die. He couldn’t raise the alarm. His phone was charging in the kitchen, and he couldn’t even speak let alone shout for help. How long would it take for him to be found? Days? Weeks? Months? No one came to the bungalow except to deliver post and parcels. Would anyone in the village notice his absence? He doubted it. They might just assume that he’d gone away for a bit. He wasn’t afraid. In fact, it would be a relief.

Since Jack had died, Derek had disengaged from the world, merely going through the motions of a life rather than living one. It had become a mechanical but meaningless process to survive, and after six years he’d had enough. Six years – twice the amount of time that he and Jack had had together. If only he had known that they would have only three years to do everything they had planned, to say everything that needed to be said, to love each other enough for a lifetime. Just three years to squeeze out every last drop of happiness. Jack had died two days before his seventy-first birthday.

Derek tried to lift his head again, but nothing happened. He closed his eyes. He didn’t feel so cold any more. In fact, he couldn’t feel anything.

Jack, he whispered in his head. And as the blackness closed in, he heard a voice reply,

‘Welcome home, my darling.’

Chapter 5

‘“Heart of Glass”,’ George said triumphantly to Roxy, who wrote down the answer on their entry sheet.

‘Are you sure?’ said Gary, frowning. ‘I could have sworn it was “Sunday Girl”.’

The pub quiz at The Duck and Donkey was a serious business, and George’s team rarely finished below the top three of the teams that regularly took part.

‘No, “Heart of Glass” was definitely Blondie’s first UK number one – “Sunday Girl” was the second,’ George replied with complete conviction.

Gary didn’t look convinced, but as the official scribe, Roxy decided in favour of George. The team had originally consisted of George and Audrey, and Gary and his wife, Sally. The pub had a decent restaurant where George and Audrey used to have dinner every so often. It was there they had met Gary and Sally, and the four of them had become friends. When the pub had started running quiz nights, they had formed a team.

‘Question thirteen – unlucky for some!’ joked the landlord, Lachie, who relished the role of quiz master. ‘What’s the largest lake in England?’

‘It’s between Windermere and Ullswater,’ said Roxy, who had fortuitously holidayed in Cumbria the previous year.

‘What about Loch Lomond?’ Gary suggested.

‘That’s in Scotland,’ Roxy replied a little impatiently. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s Windermere.’

After Audrey had died, George hadn’t the heart to go to the pub for several months, but Gary and Sally had kept in touch, never intruding but letting him know they were there if he needed anything. One evening, on the spur of the moment, George had decided to go for a drink. He had forgotten that Thursdays were quiz nights, and there at their usual table sat Gary and Sally.

‘So,’ Gary had said, getting up to buy George a drink, ‘are we putting the band back together?’

They were hardly the Blues Brothers – a film they both loved – but George was happy to return to the quiz team. He had subsequently invited Roxy to become their fourth member but now they were a woman down again, as Sally had taken up pottery classes which were also on Thursday evenings.

‘I’m happy to go with Windermere,’ George agreed.