She peels off her wet blazer and kicks off her shoes, bending over to examine her heel where a blister has formed. She pads into the galley kitchen to put the kettle on. She’s tempted by the bottle of white wine she has in the fridge but decides against it. Later she can let her hair down in a way she hasn’t for ages. She leans against the counter while she waits for the kettle to boil and checks her watch. It’s nearly six. She should have enough time to straighten her hair before Alberto gets home. He promised to be back by seven.
She notices two wine glasses in the sink. She was sure she washed up before she went to work this morning. She never leaves a mess – the kitchen’s too small for that. It would make her feel stressed to see it cluttered. She’d left Alberto in bed, one tanned arm flung across his face this morning. He wasn’t due at the bar until 4 p.m., he’d said. So what had he been doing all day and, more importantly, with whom? She picks up the wine glasses and examines them for lipstick marks. There is nothing and she replaces them in the sink. She’s being ridiculous, she decides. This is where madness lies. She’s not normally like this. She’s usually trusting. Too trusting as it turns out – her last boyfriend, Sven, had left her for someone else after eighteen months together. She’d been living in Amsterdam then, had left England when Saffy met Tom. After she broke up with Sven she didn’t want to stay, and had decided to find a place in Spain instead. Within months she’d met and fallen in love with Alberto. Tall, ripped, tanned Alberto, six years her junior. She’d thought she’d feel younger but it has the opposite effect.
Her mobile vibrates on the worktop and she leans across to get it. Saffy’s name flashes up on screen and Lorna feels a lurch of happiness, followed by a quick stab of guilt. She hasn’t seen her daughter since Christmas and she misses her.
‘Hi, honey,’ she says into the phone.
‘Mum.’ Saffy sounds hesitant and straight away Lorna’s antennae twitch. She stands up, picturing her daughter’s beautiful and slightly anxious face.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes … well, no. Something odd has happened.’
No small-talk. She loves that about her daughter. She always gets straight to the point.
‘O-kaay.’ Lorna braces herself for the many catastrophes she tries not to worry about befalling her only child while she’s living so far away. Her stomach tenses.
The line crackles and Lorna moves into the living room as Saffy speaks. Did she just say something about dead bodies?
‘… ten days ago, in the garden, while the builders were digging …’ She sounds young.
Lorna sinks into her lime-green armchair, her mobile still pinned to her ear, her stomach dropping. ‘What?’ Her mouth falls open as her daughter fills her in. And why is she only hearing about this now? Saffy said this happened ten days ago.
‘The police are going to want to speak to Gran, although I haven’t heard anything about it yet,’ says Saffy. ‘Do you know the exact date she bought the cottage? I know Gran told us it was sometime in the 1970s, but she might have got it wrong.’
Lorna tucks her legs underneath her. The rain has soaked through to her blouse and she feels cold and damp. ‘I have no idea. I didn’t even know about Skelton Place until she told us about it last year. As far as I know she never lived there herself.’
‘You’ve got the deeds, haven’t you? It should say on there when Gran bought it.’
Lorna frowns. ‘I have them somewhere, yes. I’ll dig them out. But the police might already have this information.’
‘Even so, I’d like to know,’ says Saffy. ‘And the list of tenants.’
‘You might be better off speaking to her solicitor … I’ll see if I have their details.’
Saffy shouldn’t have to be dealing with this alone. Lorna knows how close she is to her gran. They share a bond that Lorna never had with her mother. She loves her, of course, but they’ve always been so different. Her mum kept herself to herself, never wanting to socialize or get involved, and as a result Lorna found herself rebelling at a young age. Drinking and partying at fourteen, pregnant at fifteen. Her mum had called her a wild child, resignedly, sadly. Saffy was the greatest gift Lorna could have bestowed upon her to make up for it. A quiet, studious daughter, who preferred staying in on a Saturday night to going out partying. It had warmed her heart to see how much they loved each other. And it had broken it, mostly for Saffy, when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.