The Silent Touch of Shadows Read Online Free PDF

She wanted to enjoy her stay at Ashleigh and was determined not to allow any depressing thoughts to ruin things. She stood up and went to get dressed.
    The large, rustic kitchen at the back of the house could have been copied straight from the pages of a glossy interior magazine. Stripped pine cupboards and granite work surfaces complemented the leaded windows perfectly. Worn flag-stone flooring, a pine dresser and an Aga completed the picture. Bunches of herbs and dried flowers, tied together with colourful ribbons, hung from little hooks in the exposed roof beams, their scent mingling with the aroma of cooking.
    A collection of copper pots gleamed in the morning sun, giving the room an aura of days gone by. This was reinforced by old-fashioned blue-and-white crockery, displayed in neat rows on the dresser. A large pine table, worn smooth with age, stood in the middle of the room looking as though it had been there for hundreds of years. Jolie was sitting at one end, already tucking into bacon and eggs, looking very much at home.
    ‘Good morning. You’re just in time,’ Dorothy said and handed Melissa a heaped plate, while preparing one for herself. ‘Do start, so it doesn’t get cold.’
    ‘Thank you, but you didn’t have to go to all this trouble just for us.’
    ‘It’s no bother, I love cooking, always have. I’ve missed having someone to cook for. Somehow it’s not the same when you’re on your own.’
    Melissa knew that feeling all too well. Although she still had Jolie to cater for, she missed the look of appreciation on Steve’s face every evening as he sat down to his meal. He’d been very easy to please in that department, eating anything and everything with enjoyment. She shook herself mentally, refusing to dwell on the past. Instead she concentrated on the conversation between Dorothy and Jolie.
    ‘So you liked my garden?’ Dorothy was asking.
    ‘Oh, yes, I would love to have all that space to run around in. And a dog.’ Jolie’s face took on a wistful look which Melissa tried to ignore. ‘Mum won’t let me have one.’
    ‘You know we’re not allowed to, so it’s not up to me. The landlord hates pets.’ They had already had this discussion at least a dozen times and Melissa didn’t want to be drawn into an argument in front of Dorothy. She decided to change the subject and looked around the kitchen. ‘This is so different from what we’re used to. We’re in a horrible rented flat, but I’m in the process of trying to find a better one. Our lease is running out soon.’
    ‘Why don’t you move to the country?’ Dorothy asked.
    ‘To be honest, I hadn’t thought about moving out, we’ve always lived in London.’ Melissa nibbled on her second piece of toast, which seemed to taste so much better here than it did at home.
    ‘Do you need to be in town for your work? You did say a lot of it was done from home, didn’t you?’
    ‘Well, yes, but I also travel around to various record offices.’
    ‘And you have to live in central London for that?’
    ‘No, I suppose I could reach them almost as quickly from outside London as from Putney. It might make the journeys slightly longer, but not significantly so,’ Melissa conceded.
    ‘What about you, Jolie? Would you be willing to change schools and make new friends?’
    ‘Sure, I’d love to go to a new school. I hate the one in Putney.’
    ‘You do?’ Melissa looked at her daughter in surprise. ‘You never told me that.’ Jolie shrugged, but didn’t answer. The school she attended at the moment had started off as a temporary measure until they were settled somewhere. Unfortunately nothing had come of Melissa’s attempts to obtain a mortgage and Jolie had ended up staying put for the last two years.
    After the divorce, Melissa and Steve had decided to sell their old flat and split the money. However, since they hadn’t paid off much of the mortgage, there wasn’t enough left over for a down payment on a new one. No matter how