Her mother finds her voice first. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Jemima,’ she says, her tone imbued with a warmth Kathryn rarely hears.
It seems to throw Peter, who mumbles, ‘Thanks.’
‘Can I offer you some tea? Coffee?’
Peter asks for tea and Una starts to leave the room but Elspeth stops her, her voice crisp. ‘You stay here, Una. Kathryn can fetch the tea.’
Damn it. Kathryn wanted to hear what Peter had to say. Goodness knows what her mother will reveal in her absence. She hopes Aggie is in the kitchen.
But the kitchen is empty. Kathryn boils the kettle and gets the tray ready with her mother’s tea things. Within five minutes she’s back upstairs.
‘I’m just trying to understand what happened,’ Peter is saying, when Kathryn re-enters the room. She places the tea tray on the coffee-table but only Una thanks her.
Her mother is sitting upright in her favourite armchair, looking like a formidable headmistress, her glasses on a chain around her neck.
Kathryn perches on the chair next to Elspeth. When there is a pause in the conversation, she asks Peter to help himself to the tea. When he doesn’t move she pours him a cup and he takes it, almost absent-mindedly, his gaze focused on Elspeth. ‘She would never have killed herself. Please. Can you talk me through that last day?’
Elspeth sits up a little straighter. ‘Well. I had to go to a meeting. Jemima would normally have accompanied me but she said she had a headache. She was acting a little oddly –’
He jumps in. ‘In what way?’
‘I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but in hindsight she seemed jittery. Almost a bit nervous. I sensed she was lying about the headache. And when I got back she had gone. I thought – I assumed she’d been unhappy here and didn’t have the nerve to tell me she wanted to leave.’
‘That would have been out of character for her,’ insists Peter. ‘Did you owe her any wages?’
‘I paid her the day before. I pay my staff weekly.’
Kathryn is proud of her mother. She’s giving nothing away.
‘What about the disagreement?’ he asks.
Kathryn’s heart speeds up.
‘What disagreement?’ Elspeth looks genuinely baffled.
‘When I spoke to your daughter, a few days later, she told me that Jemima had left after a disagreement.’
All heads swivel towards Kathryn. She clears her throat to give herself time to respond. ‘I didn’t say there was a disagreement. I wasn’t here. I just said there may have been a disagreement. My mother isn’t known to hang on to her staff.’
He frowns and inches forwards in his seat. ‘Wasn’t the last girl with you for two years? I remember my sister saying as much because she felt she had big shoes to fill.’
Kathryn wants to tell him to fuck off. Him and his probing questions. ‘Well, yes, she was …’
He frowns. ‘Do you know who Jemima was dating? She said she was going out with a guy who worked here too.’
Kathryn shrugs. This was news to her. ‘I have no idea.’
Peter stares at Kathryn for such a long time that sweat breaks out on her top lip. Eventually he asks, ‘And what about the necklace?’
Kathryn’s eyes dart towards Una and back to Peter. ‘Necklace?’
‘Una told me she found Jemima’s necklace in her room and gave it to you. You said you’d forward it to her. Why would you say that when she’d left in such a hurry? Did she leave you a forwarding address? I thought you weren’t here that day.’
Una has the good grace to look guilty and averts her eyes from Kathryn, studying her hands in her lap.
Kathryn breathes in deeply through her nose. ‘Because it wasn’t Jemima’s necklace.’
Una lifts her eyes towards Kathryn in surprise.
‘Initially I thought it was hers, but then I realized it must have belonged to someone else.’
Una opens her mouth to say something but Kathryn gives her such a withering look that she shuts it again, doubt creeping over her face.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ Elspeth’s voice cuts into the silence. ‘But, as you can see, we know nothing about what was going through Jemima’s head that day.’
Kathryn watches Una place her hand on Peter’s arm. Either in sympathy or reassurance. She’s not the only one who’s noticed this small act of togetherness.
Her mother looks furious.
Earlier, Kathryn had found the part-crocheted blanket and her heart had sunk because her mother had something in common with Una. Elspeth had tried, and failed, to teach Kathryn to knit in the past. Kathryn had found it too fiddly and kept dropping the hook.