‘What’s that?’
‘The last page. I didn’t give it to the police at the time. I’m sorry. You’ll see why when you read it. When they returned the letter to me I made sure to put the last page back before giving it to you. It was before … well, before Gran told us what she did. I was worried it would implicate her. It was wrong of me.’
Lorna frowns. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’ll know when you read it,’ says Saffy. ‘I was just trying to protect Gran. I really loved her.’
‘I know you did, honey. And I did too. I must remember that.’
They stand together, their arms linked with Freya between them chewing her toy.
‘I like to think that Rose is here,’ says Saffy looking out onto the garden. ‘The real Rose. Looking over us.’ Lorna smiles at her daughter. Always the romantic.
But she hopes it’s true, all the same.
Later, when she’s back in her apartment, she pours herself a glass of wine and goes to the balcony. The sun is going down and she watches as couples and friends, all dressed up, head out for the evening. She can hear the laughter and chatter of people sitting at tables in the restaurant opposite. Yes, this is what she likes, she thinks, as she settles down to read her letter. She likes to feel she’s in the middle of things. That around her couples are on their first date, or their last; friends are celebrating or reminiscing. She wonders what sort of person she would have become if her real mother had lived.
She takes the letter out of the envelope. It’s written on sheets of lined A4 paper, yellowing with age, with two horizontal creases, and she stares at it for a minute, at her mother’s flowery writing, imagining her sitting down to write it, almost like a diary. She runs her fingertip tenderly over the word ‘Lolly’， her eyes landing on the first sentence:
The village never looked prettier than it did the evening I first met Daphne Hartall.
As she reads she can almost hear her mother’s voice, melodious and soothing, as though she’s sitting right beside her, and she’s reminded of all those bedtime stories that she thought she’d forgotten. And as the sun fades and the stars come out she sits, entranced in her mother’s world, as she learns about her love affair with Daphne, her fear of Victor, and the night of the fireworks. The night she died.
And the last page, the final piece of the puzzle that Saffy had kept from the police in a misguided attempt to protect the woman she’d always thought of as Gran.
When she’s finished she clutches the letter to her chest and stares out at the moon reflecting in the water of the marina, tears on her cheeks, feeling she understands everything at last.
So now you know, my darling girl, my Lolly. You know everything. My confession. My sins.
And if you’re reading this, if you’ve found this, along with the evidence of the man I ran from, then I fear it means something bad has happened to me.
Because, you see, I no longer trust the woman I love. I found out tonight that she’d manipulated and lied to me in the worst way, and I think she has throughout our relationship. She said she loved me and, in her own twisted way, I think she does. And I have no doubt that she loves you. But tonight she has sunk to a new low. I fear that nobody walks away from Daphne Hartall with their life.
I’m writing this next to your bed as you sleep, your toadstool night-light glowing in the darkness, your eyelids flickering as you dream. I don’t want to leave you, my precious daughter. The thought of being without you hurts so much. And I never would willingly be apart from you, please know that.
Just now, after the fireworks, I thought Victor had found me. But I was wrong. When I felt brave enough to look again out of your bedroom window, I saw that the man on my lawn wasn’t Victor at all. I recognized him from the fireworks display. It was Sean. And in that moment it hit me what a fool I’d been to trust her. He resembled Victor from afar, as Daphne no doubt knew. And I suspect Daphne had told him to stand there to frighten me, to make me think Victor had found me. I think she also sent him to Melissa’s café, knowing Melissa would tell me someone was looking for me. Maybe she wanted my fear to bring us closer together, to push me into moving to the city with her. I think she knew I was having doubts about her. That I was on the verge of telling her to leave.