“What is it?”

“A recorder.”

“Tape recorder?”

“Yup. Digital. Everything you say, everything you whisper, will come up clear as crystal. It won’t miss a thing.”

“I didn’t know you used tape machines.”

Lucy Groves smiled. “I promise. It looks after itself. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not—”

The front door opened.

“Reinforcements,” Dougie Meelup called.

“Dougie?”

Something was wrong. Eileen’s voice told him that but he couldn’t quite tell how badly wrong. The young woman started up, and he noticed that the shyness had got hidden, that she seemed a slightly different person now, not fiddling with the hair clips, not looking down at her lap.

“Mrs Meelup, what I would like you to consider very carefully is this. You will get other people coming to see you. If we can find you, so can the rest of the others, and not everyone will play fair, I warn you. Now, I have a very, very good offer for you. Not everyone will offer you anything at all. I’m glad I got here first because we aren’t in the business of deceiving and cheating. You have a story to tell, we need your story. Your daughter Edwina Sleightholme stands accused on some very serious charges. Whatever the small details, those are the facts as everyone knows them and is talking about. They are talking about them, you can be quite sure c well, of course they are. You would, wouldn’t you? Now, what we want is to hear everything from you c about Edwina as a child, her growing up, school, friends and all of that, how she got on with you, with her sister and her father c the full story. If it’s interesting we would run it over at least a couple of weeks, maybe more and it could even be a book, so of course you’d stand to make even more. But our initial offer is just for the story. Exclusive to us. Now, clearly nothing can be printed until after the trial, it’s all sub judice, but the moment everything is over, we’d run with it c no one else would have it, and you can tell the truth, the whole truth c” She laughed a short little laugh.

Eileen sat staring at her. Dougie saw the confusion on his wife’s face, the shock and bewilderment, the uncertainty about what to say or how. He took a step forward so that he was in front of Lucy Groves.

“I think I’ll speak now if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, Mr Meelup, the man with the cakes! But the trouble is, you see, you’re not really anything to do with all of this, are you? It really is your wife’s story, the story of Mrs Sleightholme, not of Mrs Meelup. If c”

“I said I would speak now and I’d be glad if you would let me do it.”

She fluttered her eyelashes in mock surprise. “Well, please do.”

“Thank you. Now, young woman, when you came in here, I very foolishly didn’t ask you your business. You oiled your way inside and my wife took you for a policewoman, as well she might. Instead of which it turns out you’re a newspaperwoman. A newspaperwoman. Well, I thank you, but we don’t want you. I’ll ask you to put your things together and leave and I’ll ask you not to come back, not to dare to show your face anywhere near.”

He was shaking. Lucy Groves hesitated. He could see her, working it out, trying to see a way past him or round him or through him to Eileen but there was no way. He didn’t move. And then Eileen found her voice.

“You pretended to be the police,” she said softly.

“Mrs Meelup, I did no such thing.”

“You sat in my house and you took my trust.”

“I’m really sorry you see it like that. I’m here to try and look after you. Because, believe me, you are going to need it. You are going to need all the help you can get. It’s only a matter of time. And you’ll find, when you think back, that I didn’t mention the police.”

“What do you mean, I’ll need help?”

“I should have thought it was pretty obvious. Mrs Meelup, listen to me c I’m trying to help you here. OK, yes, we get something out of it, of course we do, but only if you run with us and trust us. Then we look after you when the going gets tough. Which is when people find out who you are c those that don’t know already. I’m amazed, frankly, that you haven’t had anything nasty happen so far.”

“I think you’d better go now,” Dougie said.

She ignored him. “You do know what I mean, don’t you, Mrs Meelup?”

“You took me in.”

Lucy Groves shook her head. She was putting the recorder away.

“The thing is, it’s all a big mistake. She’s done nothing, nothing wrong at all, and never these terrible things, not in a million years. Of course she hasn’t, you’ve only to know her. Of course she hasn’t.” Eileen stood up, summoning reserves of dignity and strength. “I know what the truth is. The truth is that there’s a dreadful wrong being done. Someone who took and harmed and killed little children is out there wandering the world waiting to do it all over again while Wee— while my daughter is under wrongful arrest. That’s the truth, and when it’s all sorted maybe I’ll tell it. Only not to you. Not to you.”

She turned as her courage drained away and her face seemed to fold in on itself. Dougie picked up the big bright green bag and stood holding it out to Lucy Groves, and in the end, she took it without saying anything else at all, got up and walked from the room with him close behind her. He thought if he hadn’t kept his arms folded he might have pushed her out of the door.

Forty-seven

The house was always shady. Only the kitchen got the sun for much of the day. The study was the coolest room in the house, so Magda had spent the hot days there. She had tried to work but it didn’t amount to much. Her usually clear, concise thoughts seemed to have gone through a shredder and she was appalled by the feebleness of what she had written.

Now, she lay on the couch half reading, half dozing. The window was open on to her small garden and a blackbird was hopping about on the mossy paving stone. The garden was in shadow from the high wall, apart from a wedge of brightness at the far end.

She closed her eyes. She felt weak and when she’d woken that morning she had been tearful. In hospital she had felt safe and had company, not so much people to talk to as to watch and think about. She had also been fed and nursed and now she realised that she had come to depend on that, which was why she had wept earlier. Daily life had become a slow and tedious struggle. In half an hour she would like a cup of tea but the effort of getting to the kitchen to make it would probably defeat her.

I am not like this, she thought. I have become a stranger to myself and it frightens me.

She had been in control all her life, an achiever, a strong, vigorous woman, independent in mind and body. Now, someone else lay on her couch and dozed and was lonely and dreaded the dark.

The blackbird came closer. She had never noticed birds. The garden was a secluded green space but she had never cared about flowers or plants. Animals took from you and gave nothing in return, she had always said. As a child, Jane had wanted hamsters and rabbits, a cat, a dog. “Animals are not equal companions for intelligent human beings.”

Now she watched the blackbird with fascination. Its whole life was a quest for food, without guarantee that food would be found. Perhaps it had come upon a reassuring supply here. She had no idea what blackbirds ate. Other people put out breadcrumbs and nuts for birds, a thing it had never occurred to her to do. But she felt a sudden surge of feeling for the blackbird. She had a few bits of food in the pantry and the fridge and she was never very hungry, but when supplies ran out she would somehow have to get more. Did grocers still deliver? Who could she ring and ask to shop for her? What had always been straightforward was now an impossibly complex challenge. Everything was a challenge, going from room to room, dressing, undressing, washing, bathing, sorting out clean clothes. She was a pathetic old woman and it angered her.