She stared at me for a few moments, then let out a loud laugh. ‘Oh, Rose! Look at you, you’ve gone red. I promise I’m not going to be entertaining men in the bedroom. Honestly, men are the furthest thing from my mind.’
I sipped my drink in relief.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
I shook my head. ‘I try not to smoke around Lolly if that’s okay.’
She looked a little surprised but shrugged. ‘That’s fine. I’ll go into the back garden.’ She placed her drink on the side table and stood up. I followed her into the kitchen and through the back door. She stood on the patio outside, shivering in her ribbed polo neck and thin coat, and I felt so guilty that I told her we could stand in the doorway. She handed me a roll-up. We stood in silence, puffing on our cigarettes as a fine layer of ice coated the paving slabs in front of us.
‘Thank you,’ she said eventually. ‘For agreeing to rent me a room. I think this will work out well.’
I didn’t know if it was the alcohol, or the nicotine, or a combination of both, but I suddenly felt confident that she was right. We both wanted the same thing, I could already tell. Peace and quiet. Anonymity.
Standing there with her on that first day of a new year, a new decade, I never dreamed, in a million years, that her baggage, her past, would put us in danger.
17
Lorna
The next morning Lorna offers to take Snowy for a walk to give Saffy some space. Even though it’s been only four days, Lorna can tell by her daughter’s slightly harangued expression that she is getting under her feet. The more Lorna tries to be helpful around the house, the more Saffy looks like she’s sucking a sour boiled sweet. She’d thought, hoped, that this gruesome discovery would bring them closer together. She knows it’s selfish but now Saffy is pregnant she fears the gap will widen even further between them.
She realizes she made mistakes when Saffy was growing up. Lorna had been happy for her mother to take over. She’d shipped Saffy off every summer so that she could have a break, act like the teenager and then the young woman she’d been at the time, going to clubs and pubs, and, when she and Euan finally split up, hooking up with unsuitable men.
And now Saffy finally needs her. Really needs her. Even if she doesn’t yet know it.
She leaves Saffy in her depressing little study, hunched over her computer, and steps outside into the sunshine. She takes deep breaths, then coughs as the smell of the countryside hits the back of her throat. The skies are cloudless; she’s wearing a light top with her jeans and sandals. She probably should have brought flatter shoes. Heels aren’t the best for the slopes and inclines of Beggars Nook.
As she treads over the gravelled driveway with Snowy, she notices a large van parked up. A young, well-dressed woman in a purple suit and dark hair that doesn’t move in the breeze is talking to camera on the pavement.
‘This might look like just another idyllic Cotswold cottage,’ she is saying, into a microphone, in a sepulchral tone. ‘But looks are deceiving. Two bodies have been found here at Skelton Place.’ She turns to indicate the cottage and Lorna freezes, not sure whether to keep walking or stay still. The journalist’s face lights up when she sees her. ‘And here is one of the owners now.’ She moves towards Lorna. ‘It must have been a shock to discover the bodies,’ she says, thrusting the microphone into Lorna’s face.
Lorna bristles. ‘This isn’t my house.’
‘Oh.’ The reporter looks thrown and then professionalism kicks in. ‘I gather you’re not Saffron Cutler?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I understand this cottage used to belong to Saffron’s grandmother. Is that correct?’
‘No comment,’ says Lorna. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me –’