THE TRYSTING TREE by Linda Gillard

died when I was quite young, so my grandmother stepped in. Dad was in the army and abroad a lot, so it was Ivy who raised me really. She’d always treated that archive with the utmost respect. Reverence, almost. But something must have caused a change of heart. Unless it was some kind of brain storm.’
    ‘Why did she destroy it?’ Phoebe asked.
    I sighed and wondered if she’d dozed off briefly. ‘That’s what we don’t know, Mum. That’s the mystery.’
    ‘No, I mean why did Ivy destroy it? Why not just hide it? Put it away in a box on top of the wardrobe. Or in a safe deposit box in a bank. Why did it have to be destroyed ? And why was she trying to destroy all of it?’
    Connor and I were silent for a moment or two. I must admit, I was impressed with the clarity of Phoebe’s thinking. Years of watching Murder, She Wrote had evidently paid off.
    ‘Well,’ Connor said, considering, ‘if she suddenly wanted to restrict my access to her stuff, it would have been awkward to explain.’
    ‘Was she the type of woman who could lie convincingly?’ Phoebe asked. ‘Make up some story to fool you?’
    Connor laughed. ‘Definitely not! Ivy would have been the world’s worst poker player.’
    ‘So she didn’t want to lie to you and she didn’t want you to see something.’
    ‘See something?’
    ‘Oh, yes, don’t you think so?’ Phoebe was well into her stride now. Despite the tragic subject matter, I could tell she was enjoying herself. ‘Your grandmother might just have had a change of heart, I suppose, but I think it far more likely she found something – a note, a photograph, something she’d never seen, or never seen in a particular light before. Perhaps it was a letter she’d never read properly. Something must have made her change her mind. And then her immediate response must have been, “Destroy the evidence.” But why all of it? Why not just destroy the offending article?’
    ‘Because she was angry,’ I said.
    Connor and Phoebe turned to face me. ‘Angry?’ Phoebe frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean, if Ivy had read something awful or looked at a particular photo and realised something shocking, she might have burned it. Maybe torn it up and hurled the pieces on the fire. That’s what you’d do, wouldn’t you? But Ivy went on and on, burning stuff, adding fuel to the fire. So I think she must have been very angry. Or in the grip of some other strong emotion.’
    Connor frowned. ‘So you mean it wasn’t just that she didn’t want me to know—’
    ‘She didn’t want anyone to know. Ever. Which makes me think it was something she hadn’t known and really didn’t want to know.’
    ‘But what?’ Phoebe said, gazing into space, her eyes narrowed.
    ‘I don’t see how we can ever know. Ivy’s dead and most of the archive was destroyed.’
    ‘Well, that’s not quite the case,’ Connor said leaning forward in his chair. ‘I told you she’d burned a great deal of stuff, but some survived and it’s still mostly legible. And there are copies of a lot of photos and documents on my laptop.’
    ‘The trigger can’t have been anything that survived though, can it?’ I said. ‘That would have been the first to go, surely?’
    ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Phoebe said with a groan.
    ‘But whatever it was,’ I conceded, ‘Connor might still have a copy.’
    ‘I might, but if I do, Ivy had already seen it because she was the one who gave it to me.’
    ‘Damn!’ Phoebe exclaimed. ‘Just when I thought we were getting somewhere!’
    ‘You see what I mean,’ Connor said, looking at me, ‘about a three-pipe problem?’
    ‘I certainly do. But you now have my mother on the case and she’s not one to give up easily. Nor, I suspect, are you. Perhaps between us we might be able to piece the story together. Or maybe a new piece of evidence will turn up. You never know.’
    ‘I certainly feel encouraged,’ Connor said, beaming at Phoebe. ‘Some sort of picture is beginning to