‘And then it was your birthday and I came back.’
‘But why didn’t you come back before?’ Libby asks Lucy. ‘When you turned twenty-five? Did you not know about the trust?’
‘I knew about it, yes,’ she says. ‘But I had no proof that I was Lucy Lamb. I had no birth certificate. My passport was fake. I was in a terrible, terrible marriage with Marco’s father. It was all just …’ Lucy sighs. ‘And then I thought, you know, if Henry doesn’t come for the house and I don’t come for the house, then it will automatically go to the baby, to you, because everyone thought you were my parents’ baby. And I thought that’s what I’ll do. I’ll wait until the baby is twenty-five and I’ll come back for her then. When I got my first smartphone a few years ago, the first thing I did was put a reminder into the calendar, so I wouldn’t forget. And every minute of every day since then I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting to come back.’
‘And Phin?’ says Libby, desperately. ‘What happened to Phin?’
Lucy sighs. ‘I can only assume he went somewhere that he would not be found. I can only assume that that is what he wanted.’
Libby sighs. There it is. Finally. The whole picture. Apart from one piece.
Her father.
IV
66
Libby sits with her thumb over her phone. She’s on her banking app where she’s been refreshing her balance every fifteen minutes, since nine o’clock this morning.
It’s completion day on the house in Cheyne Walk.
They sold it a month ago, finally, after months of no viewings and then a flurry of offers when they lowered the price and then two abortive attempts at exchanging contracts until, at last, a cash buyer from South Africa, all done and dusted, signed and sealed within two weeks.
Seven million, four hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
But her balance still sits at ￡318. The last dregs of her last pay cheque.
She sighs and turns back to the screen of her computer. Her final kitchen project. A nice little painted Shaker-style one with copper knobs and a marble worktop. Newlyweds’ first home. It’s going to look beautiful. She wishes she’d still be around to see it. But she won’t ever see it. Not now. Today is her last day at Northbone Kitchens.
It’s also her twenty-sixth birthday. Her real twenty-sixth birthday. Not 19 June after all, but 14 June. So she’s five days older than she thought. That’s fine. Five days is a small price to pay for seven million pounds, a mother, an uncle and two half-siblings. And now she’s not climbing some spurious ladder in her head to some arbitrary birthday, who cares if she gets there five days ahead of schedule?
She presses refresh again.
Three hundred and nine pounds. A PayPal payment she made a week ago has come out of her account.
It’s a beautiful day. She glances across at Dido. ‘Shall we go out for lunch? My treat.’
Dido looks up at her over the top of her reading glasses and smiles. ‘Absolutely!’
‘Depending on whether this payment comes through by then or not, it’ll be either sandwiches and Coke, or lobster and champagne.’
‘Lobster’s overrated,’ Dido says before lowering her glasses and returning her gaze to her computer screen.
Libby’s phone buzzes at 11 a.m. It’s a text from Lucy. She says, See you later! We’ve booked it for 8 p.m.!
Lucy’s living with Henry now in his smart flat in Marylebone. Apparently they are not getting on at all. Henry, who has lived alone for twenty-five years, doesn’t have the stomach for sharing his space with children, and his cats hate the dog. She’s already been house-hunting. In St Albans. Libby herself has her eye on a beautiful Georgian cottage in half an acre just on the outskirts of town.