The Dead Summer Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  About the author

  Helen Moorhouse, originally from Co Laois, lives in Drumcondra, Dublin, with her husband and two young children. She has worked behind the scenes, and occasionally on air, in radio, for the past thirteen years.

  Helen’s interests include a TV obsession, cinema and reading when she gets time. She is fascinated by the idea of ghosts while simultaneously being terrified in case she ever meets one. The Dead Summer is her first novel.

  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.

  Published 2012

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: [email protected]

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Helen Moorhouse 2011

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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

  ISBN 9781781990254

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  PRAISE FOR HELEN MOORHOUSE

  “Compulsive reading . . . a brilliant first novel, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine” – Irish Independent

  “Helen Moorhouse has a fresh, original voice. She has created a satisfyingly scary page-turner” – Irish Examiner

  “Read it” – Sunday World

  “Helen Moorehouse has applied skill, knowledge and respect to every word, making the squeaks and scratches in our homes take on a whole new meaning!” – Evening Echo

  “If you enjoy a good ghost story or if you just like to curl up with an unusual tale, then The Dead Summer is the right read for you”

  – Suburbia magazine

  “Thoroughly enjoyed this suspenseful tale” – New Books magazine

  “Atmospheric” – U Magazine

  “An excellent debut. I had tingles down my spine as I read this and I couldn’t read it fast enough” – Bookshelf.com

  “A chilling and sometimes heartbreaking read … fans of Linda Kavanagh will love this new author” – chicklitclub.com

  “Read this book if you want to be gripped by a fast-moving story populated with compelling, believable characters who skitter through exciting twists and turns” – Facebook reviewer

  “An exhilarating, enthralling and spooky read. A great debut novel that leaves you eagerly awaiting the next one” – author, Linda Kavanagh

  “A poignant historical thread is woven through this story of a haunting” – author, Martina Devlin

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I'd like to thank Paula, Sarah and the team at Poolbeg for liking this book enough to publish it & for your friendship and support throughout everything.

  Enormous gratitude also to Gaye Shortland, my editor, for whipping The Dead Summer into shape.

  To my mother, Claire, for the bedtime stories and ensuring that my library card was never out of date. Sleep tight and God bless.

  To my father, Seán, for his unswerving belief in me and his enormous devotion and pride throughout my life.

  To all my family, in particular my siblings, Margaret, John, Tony, Rose and Angela for teaching me that toys come alive at night, that spiders come down the chimney to get you & that the noises in the dark probably are something to worry about

  To the Heads for your critical eye and especially Petrina, for your constant friendship and support. PS, it's still not a comedy novel . . .

  Special thanks also to my wonderful in-laws, Avril, Alan and all the Moorhouses, for your continued support and love through thick and thin.

  To all of my friends – you know who you all are – for troubles shared and glasses raised over the years. You all knew I could do it, even though I didn't.

  To my colleagues and friends at UTV Radio Solutions and the UTV radio stations for your encouragement.

  A special special thanks must go to the doctors, nurses and staff at the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street, especially Darach Crimmins and the dedicated, hardworking, committed and amazing nurses and staff of St Gabriel's Ward – I can never thank you enough.

  To Florence – The Sequel, thank you. Lots of love from the lady who peers at you over the laptop.

  To my incredible husband, Daryl - I can't begin to thank you enough.

  And for Daisy, the inspiration, my hero. You have changed my life incomparably.

  Dedication

  For Daisy – my inspiration and my muse

  Chapter 1

  May 28th

  It was a balmy evening in Martha Armstrong’s garden in London and she and five friends were drinking champagne.

  “To Martha!” said Polly Humble and lifted her glass, insisting then in clinking it in turn against each of the five other glasses. It meant that she had to stand up out of her seat and lean over awkwardly to reach some of the others, but to Polly it had to be done this way or the toast hadn’t been done correctly at all.

  “To Martha!” chorused the other five.

  “On her great country adventure!” added Polly, who thought the whole thing a great lark indeed.

  All six took sips of champagne. Polly pretended to shudder with delight and rolled her eyes to the sky. Fiona smacked her lips loudly and Sarah said “Mmmm . . .” in an exaggerated fashion.

  Standing behind Fiona, Sue Brice made a face at Martha and stuck out her tongue at each of the people at the table. Martha looked downwards, trying to suppress a giggle but also feeling sad at the sham of it all.

  It took Claire Smith, one of Martha’s ex-colleagues, to finally say what the others were thinking: “So, Martha, what does Dan think about all this?”

  Sue opened her eyes wide at the question and cast a worried glance at Martha, who never flinched.

  “Oh, I think he’s actually quite pleased, to be honest,” Martha said casually. “Me moving to the country gets the fly out of his ointment, the elephant out of his room so to speak.”

&n
bsp; There was silence for a moment.

  “And is Ruby all excited about packing her case and moving away with Mummy?” chirped Polly in an exaggeratedly high-pitched voice, as if she were talking to a child or an idiot.

  Sue rolled her eyes, unseen by the group.

  Martha fixed Polly with a stare. “She’s six months old,” she replied drily. “She can’t really tell the difference between moving to the country and next Tuesday fortnight.”

  Polly looked sideways under her lashes at Fiona and Sarah. Martha observed the glance, thinking that they couldn’t wish to be gone any more than she wanted them to be.

  “Are you sure that this is what you want to do?” asked Sue later when the others had gone and it was just the two of them left. She stood by the back door, smoking a cigarette out into the garden, while Martha shuffled about the kitchen making coffee for them both.

  Martha stopped pouring milk into the two cups, picked up an envelope which had been tucked in beside the microwave and held it out to her friend.

  “What’s this?” said Sue, opening the envelope and drawing out a document. “Oh.”

  “Yup,” said Martha. “Decree Absolute. Arrived this morning.” She looked around her at the bare kitchen, all of the furniture sold or gone to Dan’s new home, save the white goods which were remaining for the new owners. She sighed and handed Sue her coffee. “Oh, Sue, you know as well as I do that there’s nothing left for me in the city.”

  “Your friends –” offered Sue.

  “Who?” Martha cut in. “Polly Humble? Fiona Oldham? Sarah James? They’re all wives and girlfriends of Dan’s friends, not mine. They only turned up tonight to tick the box, as it were. I know for a fact that Sarah had Dan and Paula to dinner when I was five months pregnant!”

  Sue blew out a cloud of smoke. “Oh yeah, forgot about that, sorry,” she said apologetically.

  “As for Claire . . .” continued Martha, sipping her own coffee and wandering over to join Sue in the doorway. “Well, she’s been a good old sort but I know tomorrow she’s just going to go into the office and get into a huddle with Liz and tell her that I’m storming off to the country and giving up my job because I’m all bitter and twisted about Dan. She’ll make it sound all juicy and then by next week I’ll be ‘Remember Martha?’ and pretty soon Claire will have moved on as well.”

  Sue dropped the cigarette butt and ground it with her foot. “And you’re not at all bitter and twisted of course!” She picked up the butt between her forefinger and thumb. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “Oh, plant it somewhere and see if a ciggie-tree grows! I don’t actually care any more – it’s not my house, right?”

  Sue smiled and flicked the butt out into the garden.

  “Oh, sod this!” said Martha and turned back into the kitchen. She poured her coffee into the sink and opened the fridge. “This was for the new owners but, screw it, let’s have a proper drink.”

  She took another chilled bottle of champagne out of the fridge and handed it to Sue who promptly ditched her own coffee and made her way back out into the dusky garden. Sue popped the cork and watched it bounce off the trellised wall and disappear into a flower-bed. She poured it into the two glasses Martha had set on the table.

  “Of course I’m bitter and twisted!” said Martha. “I was with the same bloke for ten years for heaven’s sake – had it all, I thought – the wedding in the country manor, the big house in the suburbs, baby coming along two years later, like I’d planned it. Shame it wasn’t what Dan had planned in the slightest. His plans only extended to when he could next do the dirty with Paula Bloody Gooding!”

  “Here,” said Sue, familiar with the routine of letting Martha rant since she had discovered her husband’s second relationship eight months previously. She topped up Martha’s glass and lit herself another cigarette. “To keep the midges away, of course,” she said, grinning at Martha.

  Martha sipped her drink and inhaled Sue’s second-hand smoke deeply, wishing at that moment she had never given up. “You know what bugs me the most, Sue? It’s that he carried on with everything that we had planned and he’d have carried on forever if I hadn’t found out. If Tom Oakes hadn’t commiserated with me when he saw them at the Ad Awards, then I’d probably still be blissfully unaware my husband had a long-term girlfriend. It was only when he got caught that Dan actually grew the balls to admit that none of this was ‘his bag’.” She glanced back at the four-bedroomed terraced house that she had spent five years lovingly turning into a home for her family, then pointed at the window over the kitchen. “The only good thing that came out of that marriage is asleep in that room and her father doesn’t even want to know her. And I think that he loves Paula Gooding more than he ever loved me, and more than he’ll ever love Ruby, and that absolutely kills me. So yes – in answer to your question I think I am absolutely doing the right thing in selling up and getting out of Dodge. At least for six months or so to get my head straight, instead of just moping around here trying to . . . to catch a whiff of the nasty, leftover stink of my marriage.” There were tears in Martha’s eyes which she was trying her hardest to fight back. “You know what else kills me? That my little girl will never have a brother or sister who calls the same man ‘Daddy’, that she’ll always feel left out at nursery or at school when kids talk about their dads – and what does she do if, say, they’re making cards for Father’s Day?”

  “Relax,” said Sue. “I don’t think they do that any more – there are plenty of kids like Ruby with no dad, or kids with two dads, or twenty ‘uncles’ or two mummies.”

  “That’s true,” said Martha, comforted by this thought.

  “Of course you’re doing the right thing,” said Sue reassuringly. “I’ll just miss you both so much. We’ve never lived more than ten miles apart since we were at university.” She rubbed Martha’s hand lightly with her own.

  Martha drained her glass. “That’s another thing, Sue. I’ve got to do this writing thing as well, and everything in London is so tied up with the divorce that I can’t get down to it with a clear head. I mean, I’ve left my job to finally write the book I’ve been promising myself I’d write since I was a kid. I’ve got to give it a proper go, now that I can finance it with this . . .” she indicated the house which she would leave forever the following morning, “and with the maintenance, provided Mr Lover can remember to pay it. I’ve brought Ruby into a broken home – I have to be able to offer her the best, be a mum who is trying her hardest to fulfil her own potential if I’m to be any example to her. I can’t be someone who’s face down in a bottle of wine every night because I’m trying to blot out the thought of going to work in the morning. You know I hate advertising with a passion and this is my chance to get away, start afresh. My life’s just a great big bloody – toilet here in London.”

  Sue smirked, recognising that a combination of champagne and tiredness was beginning to speak instead of Martha. “Albeit a very nice toilet with a new Audi and lovely clothes and tons of handbags and shoes!”

  Martha grinned, glad that her friend was there to bring her back down to earth. “Okay, so it’s a gold-plated toilet with a thing that whirrs around to clean the seat for me!” she laughed. “But a toilet nonetheless, good madam! Seriously though, I’ve got to give this the best shot I can and if that means moving away then that’s what I’ve got to do.”

  Sue nodded. “Pity Party over?”

  Martha nodded. “Yes. Pity Party over. And please don’t use that phrase around me again. It’s going on the banned list along with ‘twenty-four seven’ and ‘do the math’. Oh, and another one – ‘so over it’!” She grinned. “I’m like totally so over that one!” she said, and the two laughed.

  “To Martha and Ruby!” said Sue, raising her glass.

  Martha followed suit.

  “May your stint in the countryside be as fulfilling as you dream it can be,” continued Sue, addressing the trees and shrubs in the darkening garden
. “And may you bloody well cheer up soon!”

  Chapter 2

  Eyrie Farm,

  Shipton Abbey,

  Norfolk,

  England

  February 1st, 1953

  Dear Caroline,

  Happy St Brigid’s Day to you and Happy 17th Birthday to me! Who would have thought when we spent my last birthday together that this year would see us so far apart – and not just by miles? We never thought we would ever be separated, did we? We were always so close since we were infants as we lived so near to each other, what a tragedy for me when you were four and I was three and you disappeared off to big school! But look at us now! We arrived here at Shipton Abbey in Norfolk about a week ago. You’ll be surprised, I’m sure, by the address at the top of this letter, but it’s true, this is where I will be living for the foreseeable future, until Daddy decides it’s time to go home, when the trouble has blown over.

  Worry not, Caroline, it’s not me who’s in trouble, but the trouble is certainly the worst kind. I pray that you can keep this a secret, and that the secret is not a burden to you as it is to me, but it is Marion who is in trouble. As she will undoubtedly begin to show very soon, Daddy has sent us here to Norfolk, to the care of an old friend, until her time has come and we see what’s to be done. I am here as her companion – you know what she’s like unfortunately. There’s no keeping her out of harm’s way but as the time draws near she’ll be less and less able for her old antics, we hope. And when the baby arrives, so too will sense and we may eventually be able to come home to Dublin, please God.

  I hope, my darling friend, you won’t be too shocked or disgusted by what I have revealed to you here. On the one hand I know that you are now Sr Agnes, a novice in the Brigidine Order, and as such you are more blessed than those of us who haven’t had the fortune to be called by Our Lord into his service. On the other hand, however, I know that a part of you must still be Caroline, my friend since childhood, from whom I have never kept a secret and from whom I could no more keep this secret than cut out my own tongue. What I am trying to beg of you is not to condemn us, please – I feel that I am implicated in my sister’s guilt by being here with her and have to keep reminding myself that I have not sinned! Can you forgive us, do you think? I beg you, please!