The Couple at No. 9(83)

‘I’ll do it,’ says Tom, rushing forwards. ‘I don’t want you straining yourself.’ Saffy and Lorna watch as he stands on tiptoe and feels around inside the chimney breast. Saffy shrieks and jumps backwards when he dislodges an angry-looking spider. ‘Nothing here,’ he says, shaking dust and cobwebs out of his hair.

‘Let’s try yours next,’ says Saffy. ‘God, Mum,’ she adds, when they walk into Lorna’s immaculate bedroom, ‘you can make a mess, you know.’

It’s a smaller fireplace than the one in Saffy’s room and has a wooden surround, carved with flowers. It doesn’t take long to work out that there is nothing there either. ‘The little bedroom …’ begins Lorna, but Saffy’s already off down the landing.

The little bedroom is empty save for the boxes in the corner. Lorna can see where Tom’s made a start on removing the wallpaper. ‘It’s funny that this was my room.’ She goes to the window and looks out onto the garden. She tries to imagine her mother there with Daphne, digging away, burying a body. But she can’t. It’s like imagining Snowy with a human head.

‘Doesn’t look like there’s anything here either,’ says Saffy. Lorna turns to see her daughter feeling around the hearth, and above her Tom reaching up into the chimney breast. They look like they’re performing some comedy act. ‘Do you think Davies found it?’

Lorna sighs. ‘Maybe Melissa remembered it wrong. It was a long time ago.’

Saffy comes and stands next to her and Lorna snakes an arm around her shoulders, even though she has to reach up to do so. They stand like that for a while, in the room that used to be Lorna’s, staring at the fireplace as though it has all the answers.

They are just about to leave the house to meet Theo and Jen when Saffy’s phone rings.

She reaches into her bag and answers it, mouthing that it’s DS Barnes.

Lorna’s stomach turns over. What does he want now? Have they spoken to Victor?

‘Okay,’ Saffy is saying, throwing them both a worried look. ‘I see. And, you’re sure? Right …’ She pushes a curl behind her ear. ‘Yes. That’s fine. Thanks.’

She presses the end button on her phone and places it back in her bag.

‘What is it?’ asks Tom.

‘Forensics checked the other body against the dental records they have for Jean Burdon from when she was in prison, and the results have just come in. It isn’t a match. It’s not her.’





46


Rose



September 1980


The trouble with love is that it blinds you. And I was so blinded by my feelings for Daphne that I felt like I had vertigo.

I broke my one rule since fleeing Victor – to keep myself to myself.

But one thing nagged away at me.

Daphne knew too much about me.

And I, in turn, knew too much about her.

Her stolen identity, her infamy as Jean Burdon, her incarceration.

I knew I loved her but would our crimes bind us together? Make it hard for us to part in case one of us told on the other?

What would happen to her if her true identity ever became public knowledge? She’d be vilified by vigilantes. Her new identity after leaving prison had been Sheila Watts. But she’d shed that skin the day she ‘drowned’ herself so now there were no probation officers keeping tabs, no officials making sure she didn’t kill again. Not that I thought she would. I trusted her. After all, we were both killers now. And she had been an innocent, a child, neglected, abused, lashing out. I should have known better at the age of thirty-six.

No, if anything, Daphne had a hold over me. She could literally direct the police straight to the body.

But I assured myself that it was worth it because our love was the real thing: it was raw and true and for ever. That it would never come to the stage when either of us had to use our knowledge as a kind of emotional blackmail to make the other stay. Daphne wasn’t manipulative. She didn’t play games. I didn’t have to worry.

Daphne wasn’t like Victor.

At least, that was what I told myself then.

It was a beautiful morning in early autumn when the trees were just beginning to shed their leaves. You loved kicking through them on your way to playschool; the village looked so pretty, surrounded by red, gold and brown. It was brisk outside but sunny, and after I dropped you off I decided to walk the longer way home through the woods. It was peaceful, the sun slanting through the trees, and as I dug my hands into the pockets of my sheepskin coat I felt awash with happiness. As I rounded the corner on the path that led to the back of the cottage I noticed someone standing in our garden, by the stone wall that separated it from the woods. I stopped, hiding behind a thick tree-trunk. It was Daphne. And she wasn’t alone. She was with a man. My heart fluttered, my stomach turning over. Who was it this time? Not another journalist intent on finding out Daphne’s true identity?

I wondered if it was Sean, one of the farm hands. I’d never met him but Daphne had become quite pally with him at work, by all accounts. It sounded like he gave her things – spare eggs, the odd tin of paint, a pint of milk. I hoped he wasn’t taking these things illegally but Daphne said he was ‘all right’, which, from her, was quite high praise. It did cross my mind that he might fancy her, but I trusted her. I knew she loved me.