The Couple at No. 9(103)

And now they know. They know the truth – my truth – before I slip further into myself, because one day I won’t have control over how I reveal it. And I wanted them to know I’m not a cold-hearted killer, I’m not a psychopath, that the judge was wrong about me all those years ago. I was a good mother and grandmother.

And that, despite everything, I loved Rose.

I really, really did.





60


Epilogue



One year later


Lorna observes her family, gathered in the garden of 9 Skelton Place. The bi-fold doors to the new kitchen are flung open and Snowy sits just inside, in the shade, enjoying the cold of the new slate tiles, his head resting on his paws. Sometimes, especially on hot summer days like today, it’s hard to believe what went on here nearly forty years ago.

Occasionally, when she closes her eyes at night, she has visions of Daphne kneeling in the garden, prising up the patio slabs to bury Rose alongside Neil. Sometimes it’s so sharp that she wonders if it’s a repressed memory and that she had witnessed it. It’s something she’s working on with Felicity, her psychiatrist. No wonder Daphne never sold the cottage and why it stood empty for a while before she rented it out. She couldn’t risk anyone finding the bodies.

But she won’t think of that today. Because today the scene in the garden is a happy one. The sun is high in the cloudless sky and there, on the lawn, fussing over their nine-month-old daughter, Freya, are Saffy and Tom. Tom’s laid out her colourful playmat on the grass and she sits, like the queen she’s become to them all, in her little yellow dress, surrounded with stuffed toys and teething rings. Saffy is lying beside her, propped up by her elbow. Lorna knows Saffy has surprised herself by how much she loves her little girl. And it’s given her a new confidence, a bloom that Lorna is proud to witness. Next to them on two sun-loungers, smiling indulgently, are Theo and a pregnant Jen. They got lucky on their first round of IVF and Jen is due in eight weeks’ time.

It’s worked out well for them all, she thinks, glancing around, a cold glass of Pimm’s in her hand. And she’s pleased for them, she really is. She’s happy to be living in England, has, for once in her life, put down roots in Portishead. She has even bought her own apartment overlooking the marina in the same block as the flat she rented when she first moved back from Spain – and sometimes, especially on a hot day, it feels like she’s abroad. A home-owner at last. And she’s closer to Saffy than she’s ever been. After Saffy gave birth they had a real heart-to-heart.

‘I love her so much it hurts,’ Saffy had said, holding her newborn daughter in her arms in her hospital bed. She’d stared at Lorna with tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for the things I said, doubting you. You’re the best mum in the world. And now I know … the love I feel for Freya. God, I’d die for her.’

‘Like I’d die for you.’

And they’d smiled at each other over Freya’s tufty hair. A smile of understanding. Mother to mother.

They meet at least once a week: sometimes Saffy drives over to Portishead or Lorna will come to the cottage. They are close in a way that Lorna never was with Daphne. There was always a gulf between them that she could never explain. But now she knows why. On some unconscious level she must have known that Daphne was an imposter.

She has been seeing Felicity once a fortnight, and she’s been great at helping Lorna work through her issues, mainly her worry about being the child of two murderers, not that she puts Rose and Victor in the same bracket. And Felicity has made her see she doesn’t have a dark heart, that it’s not genetic. But she has made Lorna understand that she does run away from her problems and she does have trouble forging romantic relationships. So that’s something she’s going to work on in the future. There is still a spark between her and Euan – he’s even been to stay with her in her new place. She doesn’t know where it will lead – if anywhere – but she’s excited to find out.

‘So,’ says Theo, lifting his glass. Tom is standing at the barbecue in the corner, a pair of tongs in his hand, which he raises instead of a glass. ‘To justice.’

‘To justice,’ they all echo.

‘And to the future,’ says Lorna, and Jen strokes her bump, reaching for Theo’s hand.

Yesterday they found out that Victor’s trial, which had gone on for weeks, had finally come to an end. Victor refused to plead guilty to murder; his plea of manslaughter was turned down. So a trial went ahead and he was found guilty of the murder of Caroline Carmichael, as well as sexual offences against the women in his folder. Twenty different women. He’ll be sentenced next month. Lorna knows Theo has never gone to visit him and she won’t either. She has no interest in getting to know her so-called father.

There was never enough evidence to charge Victor with Rose’s murder. Lorna’s heart feels heavy when she thinks of Daphne, lying in her care-home bed, admitting to what she had done. It was the first time she really felt the woman she had always thought of as her mother was telling the truth. Neither she nor Saffy told the police about Daphne’s confession. Maybe they would have if Victor had ever been charged.

She died a few days later. Pneumonia. Saffy took her death a lot harder than Lorna did. Saffy had found it in her giant heart to forgive Daphne but Lorna is unsure if she ever can. Daphne robbed Lorna of her real mother, a mother she can barely remember, and that breaks her heart.