‘Victor … Sheila …’
I rub my temples. I can feel a headache coming on. Gran is confused and so am I. It’s just the dementia talking, I tell myself. Before my last visit I’d never heard her mention these names.
Thankfully Joy walks over to us at that moment. ‘The police are here,’ she whispers, looking around to make sure the other residents haven’t heard. ‘I think you should all come with me.’
13
Lorna
They follow Joy into a room just off the hallway, which has a fireplace and flocked wallpaper in duck-egg blue. Saffy is holding her gran’s arm and Lorna’s heart is silently breaking. Breaking not only at the sight of her mother looking so much older than the last time she’d visited six months ago, but the shock that she doesn’t recognize her. She knows she hasn’t been to visit as much as she should. It’s been hard from Spain. That’s what she’s always told herself, anyway. Yet deep down she acknowledges she could have done it more often if she’d really wanted to. It’s only a ninety-minute journey by plane. But it had been easier not to think about her mother, fading away in the care home, her brain scrambled. It had been easier instead to focus on ridiculously buffed and unsuitable toy-boys. Now the guilt eats her up. She’s been a terrible daughter.
The two floral armchairs positioned either side of the fireplace are occupied by men, both in open-necked shirts, smart trousers and a sheen of sweat on their faces. It’s even hotter in here than it is in the day room. The older of the two – mid-forties, Lorna suspects, with receding hair, blue eyes and a chiselled jaw – stands up when they enter. The younger man – late twenties, short and stocky with spiky hair the colour of dirty dishwater – remains seated. He’s drinking what looks like a chocolate milkshake from a see-through Starbucks cup.
‘I’m DS Matthew Barnes,’ says the older one, shaking their hands across the coffee-table. ‘And this is my colleague, DC Ben Worthing. We’re from Wiltshire Police CID.’ Ben nods to them all. She notices his gaze lingers on Saffy.
DS Barnes returns to his seat and Joy fusses around them all, ushering them into chairs opposite the officers, taking their coffee and tea orders. Lorna and Saffy flank her mother, who looks small in the chair and very confused, her fingers knitted together in her lap, her eyes darting between the two men, like a nervous child’s. Lorna reaches out and takes her mum’s hand for reassurance. She’s relieved when Rose lets her.
‘Now, I don’t want you to worry, Rose,’ says DS Barnes, kindly. ‘This is an informal chat. We’re just gathering information at this point. Like we’re doing with everyone connected to the property.’ He has a notebook and biro on the table in front of him. He opens the notebook and takes off the lid of his pen, ready.
Her mother doesn’t say anything, instead staring ahead, sipping the tea that Joy kindly brought in.
‘So, first, can I just have some information, Rose? Like your date of birth?’
Her mother suddenly looks panicked, lowering her mug. ‘I … um … July … no, August … 1939, I think …’
‘You were born in 1943, Mum,’ pipes up Lorna. She turns to DS Barnes. ‘The twentieth of March 1943.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, 1943. In the middle of the war, you know.’ Her mother takes another sip of her tea and smacks her lips together. Lorna glances over her head at Saffy, who stares back at her anxiously.
This is surely going to be a disaster. How can they proceed with this when her mum can’t even remember her own date of birth?
‘And you’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?’ asks DS Barnes.
Her mother doesn’t say anything so Lorna adds, ‘Yes, last summer.’
Saffy fidgets in her seat. Lorna notices she’s hardly touched her glass of water.