Salt Sisters

that looks delicious!’
‘It’s lumpy. And it doesn’t taste like Mummy’s,’ he said again, for Auntie Sue’s benefit.
My patience was stretched to a fine thread.
Auntie Sue caught my eye. ‘Listen you lot, we’re all trying here – nobody harder than your Auntie Izzy. Remember what we were saying about being patient and kind to one another? We all miss your mum, but sometimes we’re going to have to do things that are a bit different, just while we get the hang of things. And that starts with eating your dinner, right now.’
How did she always know what to say? I banked her lines for later use.
By some miracle, the kids ate most of their dinner, and I ignored the grumbling and downcast faces as I watched the food on their plates slowly disappear.
‘Thought you might need this.’ Auntie Sue pulled a bottle of wine from her bag as I loaded the dishwasher. It was a crappy Rioja, but I couldn’t have been happier if it was a bottle of champagne. I had to suppress tears of joy as she opened it and poured me a glass.
‘Are you OK?’
I took a gulp of wine.
‘It’s just been a long day. Make that a long week, actually. I’ve no idea what I’m doing with the kids, my mum is typically useless, my career is on life-support and most of all, I just miss my sister!’ I wailed onto Auntie Sue’s shoulder.
‘Come on now,’ she said, rubbing my back. ‘You’re doing a great job. Our Amy would be so proud. Let’s just take one day at a time.’
I smiled at her weakly. Right now, one day at a time was the best plan I had.

Chapter Eight
With that morning’s chores completed, I got in the Mini and headed up to Alnwick. It was another clear, bright day, and I took the coast road to appreciate the views at their finest. I had forgotten quite how lovely this corner of the world could be.
At the offices of Moore, Moore & Ridley, Jake poured me a cup of tea from a pot while I told him what I’d seen from Mike’s accounts and the conversation I had overheard before his mysterious last-minute business trip. He agreed that it sounded a bit fishy and promised he would look into it. I AirDropped him copies of the documents from my phone.
By the time we were done, it was 12.30 p.m. and Jake suggested going for lunch. We walked across the street to a cute little Italian place and I had a vague memory of going there with Amy, Mum and Dad after a school show or something. Normally I would have ordered a glass of wine, but I had the drive home, and that just didn’t seem right after what happened to Amy. Knowing I had to drive that day, I’d even skipped my morning special of vodka and orange juice.
Jake fidgeted with his cutlery.
‘I hope I’m not about to overstep the line here. But your sister’s life insurance policy… it’s enormous.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
He swallowed. ‘Most people don’t take out policies that size. It would have been very expensive. And it’s completely disproportionate to her income, assets and debts.’
‘But presumably Amy and Mike had their reasons for doing it,’ I said, thinking out loud.
‘Absolutely, I’m sure they did. Although it’s very strange that Mike wasn’t aware his wife had changed hers. If it does turn out that there were suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, a huge life insurance policy would be a red flag. And of course, the insurance company will wait until the coroner’s final report before paying anything.’
I could imagine exactly why Amy would take out decent life insurance – after what we had gone through, she would have wanted to make sure her kids would be well taken care of if anything happened to her or Mike.
Absentmindedly, I reached for my glass of water and took a sip. Jake blinked at me, spots of pink appearing on his cheeks.
‘That’s mine,’ he said, a shy smile dancing on his lips.
‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!’
Now it was my turn to blush. I wiped the edge of Jake’s glass with my napkin and sheepishly handed it back to him. His fingers brushed mine as he took the glass from me and there was a spark of something, almost like a shiver of electricity.
Was I seriously getting a crush on the senior partner of the family’s solicitor firm? What was wrong with me? I shook it off and quickly turned back to polite conversation. Jake seemed equally happy to move the discussion along.
It turned out that the Ridley in Moore, Moore & Ridley was actually Jake’s father, who had been a school friend and university classmate of Charles Moore Sr. The elder Moore and Ridley had shared lifelong passions for grouse-hunting, golf, vintage brandy, and the law. They had forced these pursuits onto their sons from a young age, but Ridley junior had shown no interest in any of it apart from a legal career. And even that was a stretch – Jake had hoped to travel the world as a crime writer, until his father had convinced him that the best route to literary success was to write as a sideline, once he was well-established in the legal profession.
I laughed as Jake told me he came from a long line of decreasingly distinguished law-makers, which he could trace back through the Ridley family archives through to his great-great-great-grandfather, a Sheriff of Northumberland. When his father had died, Jake’s inheritance had been tied with the practice and he had finally resigned himself to fate. Writing fiction would have to wait.
He asked me about growing up in Seahouses, and I told him all about Amy, entertaining him with the stories of how we used to keep each other amused. Jake was a good listener and was very easy to talk to. Besides, he had already seen my family – or what was left of it – at