Just Like the Other Girls(19)

Holdsworth pours tea for herself and DC Phillips. She offers a mug to Kathryn but she hasn’t the stomach for it and shakes her head. Her mother takes one, although Kathryn notices she doesn’t drink it.

Holdsworth sips her tea and puts the mug on the table. ‘Did Jemima ever show signs of depression?’

‘No,’ Elspeth says vehemently. ‘Not at all. She was a sunny girl. A breath of fresh air. After Matilde …’

‘Ah, yes, Matilde Hansen. She died in a hit-and-run … What was it? Two months before you took on Jemima?’

Elspeth nods. ‘That’s right. I was very fond of Matilde. Very attached. She was my first companion and she became like family to me. Like a daughter.’

Like a daughter. The words stab at Kathryn’s heart.

Elspeth continues, oblivious, ‘Her family were in Denmark, you see, so she had nobody else.’

Kathryn clenches her fists at her sides. Oh, yes, her mother certainly doted on Matilde. There were times when Kathryn wondered if her mother loved Matilde more than her. Elspeth showered Matilde with gifts, like a lovesick teenager, albeit a rich one – designer shoes, beautiful dresses, the latest handbags. It had been sickening to watch Matilde blatantly taking advantage of her. Not least because the only gifts her mother has ever bestowed on Kathryn were on her birthday or at Christmas, and usually something practical, like an iron. In her mother’s eyes, it seemed Kathryn wasn’t deserving of beautiful things.

‘I see. I understand that Jemima also had no family. Is that true?’

‘She was estranged from her mother. She never mentioned her father. And, as far as I was aware, she had no siblings,’ says Elspeth, still cupping her mug.

Holdsworth taps her pen against her teeth, which instantly grates on Kathryn. She feels overly sensitive to any sound, as though all her nerves are on edge. ‘Unfortunately her mother passed away a few months before Jemima. She was an alcoholic.’

Elspeth puts her hand to her heart. ‘That’s awful. I didn’t know.’

‘But she has a brother. He wants an inquest into her death. He doesn’t believe she would take her own life.’

Elspeth sits up straighter, surprise on her face. ‘I would have said the same, but you never know what’s really going on in someone’s head, do you, Detective?’

Holdsworth murmurs her agreement. She takes another swig of her drink, then gathers up her belongings, much to Phillips’s apparent disappointment – he won’t get to finish his tea. ‘Come on, then,’ she says to the younger officer, standing up and taking her wet coat from the back of the chair. Phillips reluctantly does the same. ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘we’ll get out of your way. Sorry for disturbing you and for having to be the bearer of such bad news.’

Elspeth puts her mug down and stands up too, although she seems shaky on her feet and holds on to the edge of the table for support. ‘Thank you for letting us know.’

‘Sit down, Mother. I’ll show the detectives out,’ says Kathryn. She can’t get them out of the house fast enough.

‘Feel free to contact us again if you need any more information,’ she says insincerely, as she ushers them to the front door. The rain is coming down heavier now and both detectives do up their coats before braving the elements. ‘But, really, we hardly knew Jemima.’

She shuts the door on them before they can say anything else.

When the police have gone and Elspeth has picked at the ham ploughman’s that Aggie has prepared (Kathryn can’t face any lunch herself, the visit from the police quashing any appetite she previously had), she asks if Kathryn can help her upstairs.

‘I just need to lie down and rest for a bit,’ she says, as she clutches her daughter’s arm, climbing each step slowly, deliberately. For once she appears frangible, her bones thin beneath her cardigan. When did she start losing so much weight? She clings to Kathryn as they shuffle along the corridor to her room, and Kathryn helps her on to the four-poster bed. It’s as if all her energy has been snuffed out of her, and she looks as withered as a decaying flower. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she says, as she stretches out and rests her head against the plump pillows, her face white.

Kathryn gently removes her slippers, making sure she’s comfortable and tucked up, like a child. Just as Kathryn is about to leave, Elspeth grabs her hand. ‘Will you send Una up when she gets home?’

‘It’s her day off, remember?’

‘I know.’ She squeezes Kathryn’s hand, her grip surprisingly strong, her eyes closed. ‘You’re a good girl.’

Her words surprise Kathryn. Her mother isn’t one for praise, at least, not to her. It takes her back to when she was eleven years old and would do anything to make Elspeth keep her. If she was good, if she was quiet and respectful and considerate, if she did everything Elspeth asked of her, she wouldn’t send her away. Those little words, You’re a good girl, Kathryn, were music to her ears. It meant she was on the right track to being the perfect daughter.

The perfect daughter. Would she ever stop playing that role? It’s a full-time job.

She kisses her mother’s crêpy forehead, then walks around the huge bed to pull the curtains across the sash windows that overlook the suspension bridge. It’s still raining and the drops tap against the glass in a rhythmic thud that Kathryn’s always found soothing. Afterwards she leaves the room to the sound of Elspeth’s breathing.