‘But what about our jobs? And Gran? We can’t just … leave.’
‘There are nursing homes in Spain,’ she says. ‘We can take Gran too.’
‘If we go,’ says Tom pragmatically, ‘all our problems will still be here when we get back. We can’t run away, Lorna.’
That’s the trouble with Mum. She’s spent her whole life thinking it’s the answer to everything.
What exactly is she running from this time? Is there something she’s not telling me?
Mum fills me in on her visit to Alan Hartall as I’m driving us to visit Gran. Tom has stayed at home with Snowy to guard the cottage, saying he’s going to strip the wallpaper in the little bedroom. A sadness passed across Mum’s face when he said it. She’d remembered the wallpaper. It had been hers when she was little, a link to the past.
As we were leaving I made sure to give Tom DS Barnes’s number just in case there’s any sign of Davies lurking around the house. When I get home later I’ll call him myself to report what happened to Mum. Davies can’t get away with attacking women in the street.
‘So I think Sheila Watts stole Daphne Hartall’s identity. I’m sure the woman who lodged with your gran is one and the same.’
‘And she lied to Gran?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. We could try asking her about it when we get there. Anyway, I’ve asked your dad to see what he can find out about Sheila Watts and Daphne Hartall.’
‘I’ve already asked him about Sheila,’ I say, explaining about the file and how I’d found Neil Lewisham’s name on an article relating to a different case. ‘We need to go to the police, really,’ I say, knowing Mum won’t agree. ‘DS Barnes might be able to sort all this out.’
‘Who is Davies working for and what does he know?’ she says. ‘Urgh, it’s a mind fuck.’
‘Mum!’
‘Well, I’m sorry but it is. And trying to get anything from Gran is like pulling teeth.’
It’s raining hard, the windscreen wipers on my Mini squeaking as they work overtime. I’ve had to crank up the heating because I could see Mum shivering in her thin jacket. She refused to borrow any of my or Tom’s raincoats. Her dark curls, so like mine but shorter, have frizzed.
When we arrive Gran is sitting in her usual chair by the glass doors that overlook the garden; I think, as I always do, that she must miss pottering around in her greenhouse, tending her radishes and planting bulbs in her allotment. The sound of the rain drumming on the Velux windows, coupled with the tropical heat, gives the room a cosy feel. She’s wearing a green jumper I bought her for Christmas two years ago. In front of her is an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, the one we’ve done before with the picture of the dog. Her hair is thinning and fluffs like cotton wool around her face. I feel a lurch in my heart when I see her looking so small and vulnerable, like I do every week.
She smiles at Mum and me as we sit down in the chairs next to her. But it’s a polite smile. The type you give strangers. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks. I feel Mum tense next to me.
‘Gran, it’s me, Saffy.’
Her eyes light up. ‘Saffy!’
‘And your daughter, Lorna,’ says Mum.
‘Lolly!’
I wipe a tear that has seeped out of the corner of my eye, hoping nobody has noticed. I’ve never heard her call my mum by that name before and I wonder if she’s regressed into the past, to when Mum was a little girl.
‘Yes,’ says Mum, the relief evident in her voice. She takes Gran’s hands in hers. ‘It’s Lolly.’
‘I’m sorry, Lolly,’ says Gran, her face crumpling. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tears run down her crinkly cheeks and my heart feels like it’s going to break.