Kathryn closes the door to the gallery behind her and is just about to head towards the antiques shop, which is only a few doors down, when she notices her mother and Una ambling towards her, deep in conversation. Her mother is dressed in her smart Burberry coat and Una is wearing her Julie Christie fur hat. They haven’t seen her and she watches them, heads bent together, arms linked. Elspeth is laughing at something Una is saying and a hard ball of jealousy lodges in Kathryn’s chest. Will she be cast off too? The inheritance that she desperately hopes will transform her life one day and get her and Ed out of debt recedes in front of her eyes. Those girls, she thinks, as she darts into a card shop before they see her, are like bindweed: they look pretty but they’re deadly, entangling themselves around the other flowers, eventually strangling them. And it doesn’t matter how many times they are cut down, another always grows in its place.
I’m not going to let anybody stand in my way. Certainly not you. You with your youth and your beauty. You, who beguiles that old witch. I’ve been planning this for a long time. And you are my prey. I’ve watched you hanging out with your tarty friend, her short skirts and her fake hair. I’ve watched you sitting together in your favourite café, or your local bar. I even know where she lives. Courtney. Common Courtney, with the loud laugh and the big brows. Although she’s not a patch on you. But I expect you know that. Oh, yes. I know everything about you. And when the time is right I’ll step from the shadows and show you exactly who and what I am.
14
Una
‘Wait! So you’re saying she threatened you?’
Courtney sounds incredulous on the phone and I lower my voice even though it’s just me and Elspeth in the house and Elspeth went to bed over an hour ago. After the awkward experience in the café we went home and fell back into our usual routine, as though nothing had happened. I made sure not to ask any more questions, just listened when Elspeth wanted to talk, my heart lifting when she suggested we begin our crocheting. As we worked she opened up to me, about her husband Huw and how adrift she’d felt after he died, although she didn’t mention Viola. ‘You know, you spend so long with someone that you’re not even sure if you love them in the end or if it’s just companionship,’ she’d said cryptically. ‘It was the done thing back then. Marry and have children. If I had my time again, my choices might have been different.’ She didn’t elaborate and I felt I couldn’t ask. And then she changed the subject, telling me she had theatre tickets for a play at the Hippodrome that evening. It was a bit stuffy, but Elspeth enjoyed it and it was good to have an opportunity to dress up. I tried to look as conservative as possible in black trousers and a satin shirt. She ordered a taxi to drop us off at the entrance and I was surprised when we were shown to our seats in one of the boxes, with a great view of the stage.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, moving a pile of clothes I’d discarded earlier to the end of the bed. ‘It did sound a bit threatening but she’s been lovely to me since.’ I tell her about the crocheting and the play. I lie back against the headboard. The curtains are closed, the only light coming from my bedside lamp. ‘Why would you deny your daughter’s existence?’
‘I don’t like the sound of that woman. Maybe you should move back in here. Get your old job back.’
I sigh. ‘I need the money. And you have Kris living with you now. Anyway, she’s harmless enough. I mean, she’s old. She’s not exactly a threat, is she? I’m not saying she murdered Jemima or anything. When she wants to be, she can be really kind.’ Although she still hasn’t given me my T-shirt back. When Carole – a short, dark-haired woman in her forties – came in to clean yesterday I asked her if she’d washed it and she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.
‘Still, you have to admit it’s odd that both of the girls who worked there before you are now dead. The McKenzies could be like some Mafia family and the girls had found things out about them.’ She puts on a rubbish Marlon Brando voice: ‘Don’t go asking questions.’
I laugh. ‘Maybe they’ve got dodgy business dealings or are doing some money laundering. Whatever it is, I couldn’t care less. I was just being nosy about her daughter.’
‘You couldn’t care less if they’re involved in something criminal? Christ, Una.’
I cross, then uncross my ankles, noticing a hole in the knee of my pyjamas. ‘I’m only joking. Of course they aren’t criminals.’