Lynne Francis - Alice’s Secret - A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed

Once the journey was under way, the elderly man across the aisle tried to draw Alys into conversation. She was guarded in her responses, then felt bad. This was Yorkshire, after all, not London. It was normal here to chat, to be interested in others and what they were up to. This was something she was going to need to embrace: all part of reinventing herself and beginning her new life.

The approach to Bradford held both mosques and mills. It seemed like an odd juxtaposition, the graceful exteriors and gleaming domes of the mosques standing out against the soot-blackened and forbidding Victorian architecture, smoke stacks and minarets paired. No sign of towering office blocks or cranes creating yet more high-rises: this was a landscape new to her. The train rested at the station for longer than usual and, with only a few stops to go now, Alys suddenly felt a flutter of apprehension. What had she done ?

Rain was still coursing down the train windows when they pulled into Alys’s stop. She heaved her suitcase onto the platform. She had received a text from her aunt on the train, saying that she’d send someone to pick her up and that there was no need to get a taxi. Alys headed into the car park and looked around. She hadn’t thought to ask for any further details, she’d been so caught up in her thoughts. She’d have to call her aunt and find out who she should be looking for.

She dug into her rucksack, feeling around. She couldn’t locate her phone. ‘Damn’, Alys cursed under her breath, panic rising in case she’d left it on the train. She rested the rucksack on top of her case and began to dig deeper. It was then that a battered Land Rover, the old, green variety, roared into the car park, and pulled up beside her.

‘You must be Alys,’ said the driver, leaning across and flinging open the passenger door, without switching off the engine. ‘Hop in.’

Alys was rather taken aback. ‘How do you know I’m Alys?’ she demanded suspiciously. The driver was a man of about her own age, casually dressed in jeans and a jumper, and apparently oblivious to the weather.

He looked her up and down, taking in her rain-soaked hair, the escaped strands which were plastered to her cheeks for once, rather than springing wildly in all directions, the crêpe-de-Chine dress only partially covered by a rather horrid red-and-grey cagoule that had once belonged to her brother, and the army-type boots.

‘Your Aunt Moira gave me a pretty accurate description when she asked me to collect you,’ he said, with a wide grin.

Alys, feeling her cheeks redden, and trying to hide her embarrassment, attempted to pull her suitcase closer to the Land Rover. There was a grinding noise as one of the wheels caught in the paving stones. She tugged impatiently. The suitcase pulled free of the paving, but left a wheel embedded there and keeled over. Her open rucksack flew off the top of the case and upended itself, scattering her possessions everywhere. Alys watched, horrified, as her phone – clearly not left on the train after all – skidded along the ground and came to a halt perilously close to the grille over a drain.

‘Oh crap!’ Alys bent down and scrabbled around, trying to gather all her belongings before the rain soaked everything, stuffing them haphazardly back into the rucksack.

‘I’m Rob, by the way,’ said her driver, who’d now hopped out of the Land Rover, leaving the engine still running, and was trying to help Alys gather her things. She rather wished he wouldn’t – the emptying of the rucksack had exposed a muddle of dirty tissues, receipts, scribbled shopping lists, half-full packets of chewing gum and sweets, coins, a pine cone and a less-than-clean comb.

‘What about this?’ Rob held up a letter, now crumpled and damp, by his fingertips.

‘Oh!’ Alys almost snatched it from him. ‘I meant to post it before I left. Is there a postbox here?’

‘Maybe you should let it dry out for a bit first? If it’s important.’ Rob seemed to have judged from her reaction that it was. ‘Here,’ he took it back from her and flattened it out on the vehicle’s dashboard. ‘You can post it up in Northwaite later.’

He turned his attention to her suitcase, heaving it into the back of the Land Rover. ‘I see you’ve come to stay for a bit,’ he remarked, looking back at Alys over his shoulder. ‘Good job you didn’t try to fly up – they’d have charged you excess baggage!’

‘It’s mainly books,’ muttered Alys, on the defensive. It was partly true. Moira had asked for several cookery books for inspiration, and she’d tossed in some travel guides for good measure, so she could start planning for her trip.

‘Hope you haven’t been waiting long,’ added Rob, climbing back into the driver’s seat and patting the passenger’s seat to encourage Alys to get in. ‘The battery was flat, so I had to get a push down the hill and hope for the best. That’s why the engine’s running, just in case.’ And with that he slammed the Land Rover into gear and they were off. The letter to Tim sat on the dashboard, an uncomfortable reminder to Alys of something that she needed to resolve.

She settled herself rather gingerly in her seat, aware that it looked as though it might have held a dog or a muddy jacket until recently. She wrinkled her nose: yes, there was a definite aroma of wet dog. Alys looked away, gazing out of the window. The hill out of the town looked nearly vertical. Rob obviously knew the road well – he drove speedily but carefully. He didn’t say another word and Alys began to wonder whether she should try to make conversation. She looked at him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, registering wavy brown hair, a checked shirt topped with a ribbed navy sweater (holey at the elbows) and broad hands (none too clean) grasping the steering wheel.

‘Um, Rob – is that short for Robert?’ she ventured, to break the silence.

‘No,’ said Rob, shortly.

‘Oh.’ The silence grew, developing a portentous quality. Alys had the feeling that she had said something wrong.

Finally, Rob sighed, shifted up a gear as the road levelled out, and said, ‘Robin’.

‘Robin!’ Alys tried to stifle a snort of laughter. The name really didn’t suit him.

‘Ok, I know.’ Rob glanced sideways at her. She was relieved to notice the hint of a smile lifting his previously stern expression. ‘Blame my mum. When she was expecting me she was stuck at home with bad morning sickness. She fed this robin in the garden every day, apparently. It got so tame that it would fly over to sit on her hand as soon as she stepped outside the back door. She saw it as some sort of good omen, so she promised to name her firstborn after it.’

It was Rob’s turn to snort, sardonically.

‘Aah, that’s a lovely story.’ Alys was encouraged by how positively chatty he’d become. ‘Well, I don’t know who I’m named after. Alice in Wonderland, perhaps?’

‘Hmmm, that figures,’ said Rob, but before she could ask him what he meant by that, the Land Rover came to a halt and Rob leapt out, leaving the engine still running. He opened her door, and turned to haul her suitcase from the back.

‘Don’t forget your letter,’ he said. ‘The postbox is on the main street. Moira will be pleased to see you. That back injury has been making her feel a bit desperate. Can you manage now?’ He paused. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your case onto the path. It’s that door along there – the blue one. Don’t let Moira lay a hand on this case, mind, or she’ll be in hospital.’

Clearly finding this funny, he chuckled to himself, settled back in the driving seat and drove off, leaving Alys to struggle her one-wheeled case along the path that ran between a row of cottages and the church. She had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t made a very good impression and she couldn’t for the life of her work out why she even cared.