The Stolen Baby by Diney Costeloe

Author:Diney Costeloe [Costeloe, Diney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789543322
Publisher: Head of Zeus

25

The next morning Stella went along to Maggie’s house. She wanted to have had a look inside to make sure everything was shipshape before she handed over the keys to David Shawbrook. In the hall she met Mrs Clay coming out and instinctively said, ‘Good morning.’

Mrs Clay looked at her suspiciously. Surely Mrs Peterson had said it was a man and his daughter. ‘Are you the new tenant?’ she asked.

‘No, Mrs Clay. We’ve met before. I’m a friend of Mrs Peterson’s. Stella Todd. I live at number fifty-three. I’ve come to open up the flat for the new tenants.’ She shook the keys between her forefinger and thumb.

‘She’s gone then?’

‘Yes, she’s taken the boy into the country, away from the bombs.’

‘Yes, she said,’ replied Mrs Clay. ‘Well, I can’t stand here gossiping all day, I’ve the marketing to do.’ And with that she simply turned and walked out of the hallway into the street, leaving Stella standing at Maggie’s front door, key in hand.

When she had unlocked the door of the flat, Stella paused a moment, feeling awkward. Maggie had given her the keys, but she wasn’t supposed to use them until Monday.

‘Don’t be stupid!’ She could hear Elsie’s voice in her ear. ‘What difference can it make?’ Well, it was too late to have second thoughts. By now Elsie would have told David Shawbrook that he could move in today, and he would come knocking on the door in an hour’s time. She drew a deep breath and stepped inside.

As she made her way through the silent flat she was suddenly glad that she had come. The flat, though fairly tidy, could have been made much cleaner for the incoming tenant. Maggie said she’d packed in a hurry and there was plenty of evidence of that. In the kitchen the washing up had been done, but though the crockery was clean it was stacked up in a rack on the draining board to dry. In the main bedroom the bed had been stripped, but no clean sheets had been put on the bed. Everywhere else was comparatively tidy, but the furniture needed dusting.

Oh well, thought Stella, I’d better see what I can do to smarten the place up.

By the time Mu arrived, Stella had run the carpet sweeper over the floors, cleaned the kitchen surfaces and put away the china. A bunch of marguerite daisies gathered from the back garden stood in a vase on the kitchen table, and the beds had been made up with fresh sheets from the cupboard.

Mu had arranged to meet her father at the flat, but she’d made a point of arriving some time before he did. She hadn’t seen the flat before, and she wanted to be sure that it was a suitable place and not just a stopgap. However, as she walked through the rooms and saw the kitchen, the living room, the main bedroom and the small box room set up with a single bed, she saw there was plenty of room for her father and Vera without them falling over each other.

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