It’s funny how different things can seem in the daytime. Morning has worked its usual magic, and I feel much better: even if there was someone there, and I wasn’t mistaken, the police officers were surely right. It would just have been opportunistic, someone trying to find out if any of these houses have been left empty for the summer. Well, now they’ll know mine isn’t.
I checked all the locks before I went to bed, twice. It’s a solid house, locks on the windows and double glazing, and bolts on the back door. And it still feels so safe up here, compared to London.
But I know this house could be a target, here on the fringes of the village, off a drive that could hide a car from the road. So I’m going to get an alarm sorted, soon, on top of all the locks. It’ll be absolutely fine.
Still, it was a long night. I didn’t fall asleep until the sky started to lighten through my window and I read, instead, resolutely not allowing my imagination to wander. I didn’t want to take a pill. Just in case I didn’t hear something.
This morning I woke up late, groggy and off balance, then I remembered what had happened. Then my next thought came: Lily. Now I find myself hurrying to get ready.
I want to check on her myself. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but I don’t bother showering, just pull on my running kit, and take the shortcut through the bushes between the plots again, quick as I can.
There’s an anxious minute after I knock and then let myself into Lily’s house, stepping slowly through the hall.
‘Lily? It’s me. Are you there?’
It’s quiet. Perhaps she can’t hear me? I can feel my heartbeat quickening.
But she’s in her sitting room as usual, in her comfortable chair, and my shoulders relax.
‘Oh hello, dear,’ she says, turning towards me with a smile. ‘This is a bit early for you, isn’t it?’ I normally come in the afternoons.
‘I just thought I’d pop by on the way to the supermarket, see if you needed anything.’ I’ve already decided I’m not going to mention last night. ‘I haven’t seen you for a bit. How have you been?’
‘I’m fine, dear. How are you?’ No, she definitely wasn’t disturbed in the night, I can tell.
I ask her what she’s been up to these past few days: how was her coffee afternoon at the church last week? She makes me laugh at how another of the ladies, Violet, is pursuing the lone gentleman Sidney – she seems to be wearing him down.
But I’ve heard this story before, down to her withering verdict. ‘She’s a trier, that one. I’ll give her that.’ I wonder how much of the last gathering she actually remembers. She doesn’t mention me coming round at the weekend, finding her sleepy and disorientated after her nap.
Yet she does seem more like the old Lily now, more alert and herself than she’s been for a while. Younger, even. Perhaps she’s better in the mornings.
We chat for a while, talking about her soaps, then there’s a lull.
‘I wanted to ask you something, Lily.’
She tilts her head a little. ‘Yes?’
‘About Nancy.’
‘Who, dear?
‘Nancy. The girl you mentioned the other day, who looks like my Sophie?’
There’s a beat, then she shakes her head, slowly. ‘I don’t think I know a Nancy.’
‘Nancy Corrigan? You know, she used to live in the big house. Years ago, now.’
‘No, dear, I don’t know.’ Her pause is almost unnoticeable. ‘I do hope I haven’t forgotten again.’
I decide to leave it, for now. I don’t want to push it further, and upset her by chasing yet another thing that’s slipped from her memory. Before I go, I head into her loo upstairs. I’m mulling over our conversation as I wash my hands.
So Lily doesn’t remember mentioning Nancy. Well, maybe she wasn’t even referring to the Nancy who used to live at Parklands. In fact, I ask myself, why would she even know about her? Nancy. Sophie. It could just be a coincidence, they don’t sound too dissimilar – a slip of the tongue.
I shake my head in the mirror. No, I don’t believe that. That’s too neat. I think the thought of Sophie the other day jogged her memory in some way – she remembered another girl who went away.
So at some point, she must have heard about Nancy. That would make more sense, if she’s lived here a while. People do talk. And then she forgot about it, I think, drying my hands on her embroidered white hand towel. Because she does forget things, all too often, nowadays.
But I feel cross that I’ve got no further. Frustrated. And now I feel the impulse, like an itch under my skin. I don’t need to. I shouldn’t. It would be an invasion of privacy. I don’t—
Before I can think about it any further, I just do it: I open the bathroom cabinet above the sink.
Yardley lavender scented moisturiser. Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass scent. That face cream she’s told me about, that Joanna Lumley uses. And her medicine bottles.
I pull out one of the brown glass bottles, filled with clear liquid. I don’t know the brand name, I don’t think – I squint at the smaller print label, wishing I had my glasses ‘… contains morphine’.
Jesus. I know what this stuff is. Liquid morphine, a powerful painkiller. I knew she had a bad hip but, wow. Poor Lily. She must be in real pain. And there’s so much of it – at least half a dozen of these bottles, some already near empty. How much morphine does she need?
I glance down again at the label: Mrs Lily Green, The Carriage House, Park Road, Vale Dean. It’s hers, of course. ‘To take as and when, for pain.’
There are pills too, I see, carefully easing out a packet: more of the same stuff in capsule form, with directions to take twice daily.
The doctors will know what you can take, of course they do. But even so … I frown. It’s trusting her a lot, with this stuff, to keep on top of her dosage and timings and the rest. Should she really have so much of it? They might not realise how she’s been, more recently. No wonder she’s been so dopey and confused – and if I’m right that she’s showing signs of dementia, as I fear, couldn’t all this be making it worse?
I glance at the bottle in my hand again. I’ve still heard nothing back from the council. I can’t ask Lily. She’ll think I’m prying and just won’t see the danger.
For a moment, a wave of hot emotion rises up over me: I feel so overwhelmed. I lean against the basin. I can cope, I can. But it’s all coming at once. Sophie. Lily. Nancy.
Lily pretending not to know about Nancy.
Why do I think that? ‘I hope I haven’t forgotten again.’
Why is that worrying at me? She didn’t seem distressed, like it touched a chord. Quite the opposite in fact: she was calm, resigned even. Even though she’d forgotten something. Again.
And then I get it. That was it: this time, she wasn’t the least upset.
Checking in on Lily as I leave, I see she’s asleep in her chair, and pull the curtains closed, so the sun’s not shining on her face. I’m not in a hurry now, so I’ll walk down the drive – fewer insects, and branches – rather than the cut-through between our houses. And I am about to turn left, back down to my house, when I pause.
Instead I turn right, following the rest of the drive up to Parklands. Because what if there was someone in my garden, and they were heading this way? You hear all sorts about squatters. I’ve an idea that’s normally in cities, not places like Vale Dean, but I just want to see for myself, in broad daylight.
It just another fifty metres perhaps, but I feel almost like I’m trespassing as I walk up – I’ve never come up here before, close as it is. It’s even quieter here than at my house; further back from the road, with the trees around blocking out the sound. You could be anywhere at all, really.
There’s the iron gate, a big chain clasping the bars closed. But I simply walk over where the wooden fencing’s collapsed to one side of it, and then back onto the driveway.
It’s even bigger than it looks from further away: solid and imposing, the overgrown garden making its grand proportions look too big for its plot. It must be what: three, four storeys? The front lawn’s like a meadow now, the long grass brushing my hands.
I shiver. What am I doing here? What do I do if I find that there is somebody coming in here, a squatter or – what? Some confused junkie, jumpy and aggressive when he’s disturbed? I don’t know what I’d do. I should leave this to the police.
But still I keep going, my feet crunching up the path, stepping over a smashed purple-grey slate that’s fallen from the roof. Up close I can see how old and tattered the plastic sheeting is up there, the remaining legs of scaffolding looking less like a support than some structure simply abandoned by builders. Someone probably stopped paying them. It’s still beautiful though, the soft Cheshire brick banded with pale stonework that runs round the building, carved with rosettes. There are hundreds of these shapes – roses, not rosettes, I realise – spiralling over the brickwork.
And now I’m going closer still, up the stone step into the roofed porch where the air is cooler, old leaves filling its tiled corners and piled up against the heavy double doors. It’s still impressive up close: the stone door arch carved with more of the pretty floral motifs, each with its neat little inner ruff of petals. But the paint on the doors has bubbled and warped, the paler wood showing through in places.
I reach for the brass door knob on the right and twist gently, then harder. Of course it’s locked. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been through for years, judging by the drifts of leaves everywhere, but I reach for the one on the left and—
I whirl around. ‘Oh!’
The man’s a dark silhouette against the sunshine, black against the green of the trees and the yellow grass behind him. Then I place him: Nicholls, incongruous in his suit and tie.
‘God, you scared me.’ I didn’t hear anything, I don’t know what made me turn round. I start to laugh nervously, my hand to my throat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wouldn’t want to scare you.’ He’s not smiling. ‘I heard there might have been an intruder round this way. Last night?’
‘Oh, of course. That’s quick.’ I didn’t think a detective inspector would be that interested. The officers last night seemed much more junior. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘There’s no evidence of any break-in here. It seems secure. But all the same,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t suggest you start trying to find any trespassers yourself.’
‘Ah no. Of course not.’ I put my hands behind my back guiltily. A thought occurs to me. ‘Is your car down there on the road then?’ I didn’t pass it coming up.
He shakes his head. ‘Turns out you can park in the lane, that way,’ gesturing to behind Parklands. ‘There’s a little path that cuts through to the road behind.’
‘Oh,’ I say uselessly. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I can walk you out, if you like.’
I bristle a little at being dismissed. ‘Actually, I wanted to ask you – what’s happening now, with Danny, now you’ve got Sophie’s diary? So, would he be out on bail now?’
‘No, he’s not out on bail.’ I close my eyes, relieved. ‘Because he hasn’t been arrested, or charged with anything.’
‘He wasn’t? I assumed from the way you were treating the diary that …’ I trail off.
‘We’ve no reason to do so, Mrs Harlow. There’s no suspicion of a crime.’
‘So are you even talking to him still?’ I say sharply. ‘And what about the call, have you got anywhere with the charity?’
‘When I’ve information I can share with you, I will of course do that.’ His face is a blank.
‘I see.’ So Danny’s out and about, to do what he wants. And they haven’t traced the call, I’d put money on it.
Suddenly I want to go home again. ‘Right I’d better be off,’ I shake my keys, a meaningless gesture. ‘I’m just back down the drive. Bye.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Harlow.’
I can feel his eyes on me as I walk away, my footsteps loud on the gravel. It’s stupid, I know, but for some reason, I feel like I mustn’t turn round, or hurry – like it would be a mistake, somehow. Just act normal. Everything is fine.
But my heart’s still thumping in my chest as I get back into my house.
I don’t know why I feel like I just escaped something.