‘Why are you sorry?’ asks Mum, kindly, her eyes full of concern as they flick to mine and then to Gran again. ‘You don’t have to be sorry for anything.’
‘Are the police coming back?’
‘Now don’t you worry about the police. I’ll handle them,’ says Mum, firmly, producing a tissue, magician-like, and handing it to Gran. She always seems to have one about her person, goodness knows where in her tight outfits. Gran takes it and wipes her tears away.
‘Mum,’ she hesitates, throwing me a worried look, ‘can I ask you if you remember a man called Neil Lewisham?’
Gran blinks up at Mum with her big eyes but doesn’t say anything.
‘What about Sheila Watts?’ probes Mum.
‘Sheila Watts?’
‘Yes. You mentioned a Sheila before, remember?’
Gran turns to me, still dabbing at her cheeks. ‘Jean hit her over the head. Jean hit her over the head and she didn’t get back up again.’
‘Jean hit Sheila?’ I ask.
‘No. Jean hit Susan. Susan died,’ she says, sounding impatient now, like we should know what she’s talking about.
Susan? Who the bloody hell is Susan?
‘Is Susan the body in the garden?’ I ask gently, not wanting to spook her.
‘I don’t know if she’s in the garden,’ she says, frowning, shredding the tissue in her hands. ‘I don’t know where they put her.’
‘Who’s they, Gran?’
‘The people who came to take her away, of course. They weren’t just going to leave her there bleeding, were they?’
From the corner of my eye I see Mum’s perplexed expression.
‘So Susan is dead?’ I ask. My stomach is clenched with anxiety. Gran’s memory is like a stained-glass window that has shattered: the fragments mean nothing in isolation, but everything if they were put in the right order. ‘Do you remember her surname? This Susan?’
‘Wallace. Her name was Susan Wallace.’
I hear Mum’s sharp intake of breath.
‘And you’re saying Jean killed Susan Wallace and buried her in the garden.’
Gran shakes her head, looking distressed. ‘No, no, no, not buried her. No. But Jean hit her over the head. She hit her over the head and she died.’
‘And this happened in 1980 when you were living in the cottage?’ says Mum, leaning forwards.
‘I … I don’t know …’ Gran starts wringing her hands, the tissue now disintegrated in her lap. ‘I can’t remember when it happened. I … It’s all so foggy.’ Her face creases, and then she looks at me. ‘Here, who’s that?’ she says suddenly, out of the blue, as though the conversation never took place. She’s pointing at Mum.
‘It’s Lorna. Your daughter,’ I say, my heart in my feet.
‘Oh, yes … yes …’ She turns away from us to look out of the rain-spattered window.
I glance at Mum. ‘I think we’ve lost her.’
31
Rose
February 1980
We spent a glorious few days snowed into the cottage. I could have lived that way for ever, just the three of us, cut off from the world. We watched black-and-white films on the telly and ate Daphne’s home-made soup and I made a cake especially for you. It was like having a second Christmas. But on the fourth day I was dismayed to see that the roads were clearer, just sludge left behind, banked by mounds of snow, tinged yellow. I took you to playschool, the pavements slippery under our wellies, the snow compacted into ice.