The Couple at No. 9(7)

It was in one of my grandmother’s more lucid moments, last November, when she told me and Mum about the cottage. This was the first time we even knew of its existence.

‘It’s in your name, Lorna,’ Gran had whispered, leaning forwards in her high-backed chair and holding on to Mum’s hand. ‘I transferred the deeds ten years ago.’ And I had marvelled at Gran’s astuteness. By putting the cottage in my mum’s name it wouldn’t have to be sold to pay for Gran’s care.

Afterwards, as Mum and I stood outside the care home saying goodbye, Mum, shivering in her bright orange coat, had turned to me and said, ‘I always knew my mother was a wily thing, squirreling her money away. She would have bought that cottage as an investment.’ She blew on her hands. ‘Anyway, I don’t want it. It’s yours, if you’d like it. I know you hate living in a city.’ And it had shocked me because, for once, I felt my mother really understood me.

‘But you haven’t even seen it,’ I’d protested.

‘What do I want with a cottage in the middle of nowhere?’ And I could see her point. A cottage in the countryside would be too mundane for Mum. No, she needed sunshine and sangria and exotic men who weren’t much older than me.

Mum had flown back to San Sebastián without even visiting the cottage. She couldn’t have been less interested in it. Which helped ease my guilt for accepting the offer. A free house. No mortgage. It meant the sort of financial freedom Tom and I had never expected in a million years, especially not in our mid-twenties. It meant I could give up my job in Croydon and go freelance, surrounded by idyllic countryside. A dream come true.

But now I revisit that conversation. Ten years ago Gran had transferred the deeds into my mother’s name. Why? Was it purely for financial reasons? To avoid inheritance tax? Or because she knew a murder had taken place?

But, no, that’s ridiculous. There’s no way Gran would have any knowledge of this. I know it like I know I love black coffee and peanut-butter sandwiches and the velvety patches of fur on Snowy’s ears and the smell of cut grass.

I take a deep breath and hold on to the steering wheel as though to steady myself. I can never predict when I visit which Gran I’ll get. Sometimes she’ll recognize me, at others she acts like I’m one of the staff, and each time it’s like losing her all over again.

As I get out of the car I notice a black saloon slowing down on the road so that it idles past me. I can’t be sure but it looks like the same car that was parked near the cottage earlier. The driver’s face is turned towards me as it coasts past. It’s a man but I can’t make out his features. Is it the same guy as earlier? Is he going to pull into the car park too? Then the car speeds up and drives off down the road. I stand for a moment staring after it, wondering if I’m worrying about nothing, or if this is something to be concerned about.





4





Gran is sitting in the day room by the bay window that overlooks the manicured grounds, a coffee-table in front of her and an empty chair opposite. The sun has come out and it streams through the net curtains, highlighting dust motes that dance around her head, like little orbs. My heart contracts with such love that my eyes smart. Seeing her here makes me ache with longing to go back in time to how it used to be: Gran bustling around her little kitchen making endless cups of tea the colour of treacle, or in the greenhouse showing my teenage self how to plant radishes.

Gran’s head is bent. She’s lost the plumpness to her face, the skin now hanging loose around her jowls, her cheekbones prominent. Her snow-white hair – it once used to be a beautiful coppery red, from a bottle Gran always claimed – is fluffy, the texture of cotton wool. She’s pushing the pieces of a jigsaw around the table and, for a moment, it takes me back to when I was a kid and we’d sit together in companionable silence in the evenings, as the sun went down, trying to work out the best way to construct the puzzle.

I stand in the doorway for a few minutes, just watching. The room is too warm and smells musty, like roast dinners and over-boiled veg. The carpet is the kind you’d find in an old-fashioned seaside guesthouse, all red and gold swirls.

‘Rose is having a good day,’ says a voice from behind me. It’s Millie, one of the carers, and my favourite. Millie is a few years younger than me with the kindest face and widest smile I’ve ever seen. She has short spiky black hair and piercings halfway up both ears.

‘Oh, I’m so pleased. I’ve some news for her.’

Millie raises an eyebrow. ‘Ooh. Good, I hope?’

I touch my stomach self-consciously and nod. I don’t want to think of the other thing. The bad news. The bodies.

Millie squeezes my shoulder encouragingly, then moves on to help an elderly man, who’s trying to get out of his chair. I make my way to the end of the room, weaving past some of the other residents clustered around the television and the old man reading a newspaper upside down in the corner, until I reach Gran.

She looks up as I approach and, for a moment, confusion flits across her features and I have to swallow my disappointment. She doesn’t recognize me. Today is not a good day after all.

I slide into the chair opposite. It has such a high back that I feel like I’m sitting on a throne. ‘Hi, Granny. It’s me, Saffy.’

Gran doesn’t speak for a few seconds, continuing to move around the pieces of the jigsaw even though she hasn’t started making the picture. The box is propped up at the end of the table. A black Labrador puppy on the front surrounded by flowers. ‘Let’s find the edges first,’ she always used to say, her weathered hands, the result of many hours’ gardening, nimbly seeking out the right pieces. But now there is no method, Gran instead just moving the pieces around aimlessly, her fingers gnarled and wrinkly.