The Christmas Mansion Mystery ( Part Two )

It was a cold Saturday morning and only three weeks till Christmas.
The house was quiet, only the clock ticking on Alice's bedside table could be heard. She awoke having put the alarm on for seven the night before, but was pleased when she was able to wake naturally. She turned over yawning and turned the alarm off remembering the argument she'd had with her husband, the night before...tempers were always frayed at this time of the year, what with Christmas looming up on them, 'only another two weeks to go and the boys would be home for the holidays,' she thought to herself.

Stretching and yawning once again, she slipped out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, it was very much a bathroom in her taste of Lavender and green, which she found very calming, Andrew had never really liked the colour she had chosen, he said, 'clinical white was more his colour,' but he wasn't really that bothered anyway, he was away more often than not.

After relieving herself, she leant on the bathroom sink to have a quick
wash, looking in the mirror she wondered what the New Year would hold for her, her face was pale and white, here she was at thirty seven and she'd given the best years of her life to Andrew and for what? A life of being unsure, of everything that was real to her, she wiped her eyes then brushed her shoulder length blonde hair back out of her eyes, she felt some more tears start to fall, 'I must stop feeling sorry for myself,' she thought and made her way back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.

Andrew had stormed out last night, which is what he did more or less after every argument they had, Alice wondered why she stayed with him, he was so cruel to her sometimes, but then she thought of the boys and knew she could never walk out on him. She put on her slippers and dressing gown, shivering slightly with the cold, she made her way over
to the window and pulled the curtains, it was still quite grey outside
which suited her mood, she opened the window slightly then she made
her way downstairs, she was very quiet, so as not to wake the rest of the house, being as it was a Saturday and everyone seemed to still be asleep. Alice walked to the kitchen and switched on the light, she filled the kettle with water and then put it on to heat up, she took a coffee mug down from the shelf and put some coffee and milk in, and wondered where Andrew had gone that night, there was a lot of suspicion as to where he might have gone, but Alice was not prepared to believe what she had been told, she felt it was up to her to keep the house together no matter what.

The kettle had boiled, so she poured the steaming hot water into the mug and stirred, picking up the mug, she felt the heat warming her hands up and went to sit down at the kitchen table. Thinking to herself again of her sons. Sammy who was their eldest, was at a private school, she'd had a phone call saying that he'd got in trouble, of course Andrew had blamed Alice, he would say, “Alice my dear, you spoil those boys far too much, they think they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”

Alice gritted her teeth, thinking about the fact the school had rung and
asked them to come down for a meeting...to talk about his behaviour,
apparently he had been caught passing drugs around the school and had
been cautioned, but then had been caught again. Alice could hardly believe her son would do such a thing. As for Andrew, he had said, “you will have to go on your own my dear, I'm so busy at the moment, I'm the one who has to pay for the boys private schooling and keeping you, in the manner you're accustomed too, so you will be fine sorting this problem out yourself dear.”

Alice just didn't understand, Sammy had always been a good student till he went to this new private school, he'd obviously got in with the wrong
crowd and to think that Sammy may be hooked on drugs, was more than Alice could bear to think of.

Sammy was fourteen going on forty, he was an intelligent boy and had
always excelled in his work, he had got straight A's in all subjects he took. His younger brother James was nine and very much into music, he played the guitar, flute and piano. Alice had always been proud of her sons, encouraging them to participate in as many things as they could, which was another reason why she couldn't understand Sammy's behaviour. 'Perhaps,' she thought, ' I was too lenient with them, but I was only doing what I thought was right by them.'

Alice was sick to death with the arguing and bickering, Andrew was
nothing like the man she had married all those years ago, “he never tells me he loves me any more,” she whispered to herself quietly.” Alice felt sure he was having an affair, sometimes she felt she'd be better off without him.

To be continued ..........