She ran. Up the first flight, her feet pounding the glass stairs. Her breath caught in her throat as her heart worked overtime.She turned right, flew down the corridor. Saw the two examiners in white paper overalls. They turned, surprised.
‘Miss, please don’t–’
But she was already past them. There, exactly as Magda had described, lay her beautiful broken mother. Julia Lassiter. Now unrecognisable. Blood streaked the floor tiles and glass stairs. Her left eye socket was smashed, the eyeball grotesquely positioned. Her cheekbone crushed. Face covered in blood, swollen and bruised, her perfect skin the most awful shade of grey. Lips that had kissed Molly goodnight a thousand times, tinged blue. Her cream silk nightdress ruched and torn, tie-dyed with red. It was a sight that nightmares and horror films were made of and in the second before she passed out, it seared itself on Molly’s memory where it would remain for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty-One
The kettle screamed on the stove, its shrill whistle rising above the muffled sobs coming from the next room. Magda turned it off with trembling hands. She had already made so many cups of tea and coffee she’d lost count but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Her body moved on instinct, repeating motions she’d learned in a different lifetime, one with Julia bustling in the background and the girls arguing over breakfast.
The kitchen felt ice cold despite the sun spilling across the floor. Magda sank into the kitchen chair, hands clutching a tea towel. Her world felt like it had splintered into a hundred pieces, glass shards beneath her ribs, stabbing her heart.
The memory of that morning looped again and again in her mind. The coffee cup and cafetiere rattling on the tray as she climbed the stairs. The morning sun slanting in through the landing window reminding her to dust the skirting boards later.
She’d known something was wrong. You didn’t work in a house for twenty years without learning the subtle shifts in silence. Julia was never still. Always up with the lark even if she’d had a sleepless night or a pounding hangover. Or a rare dayoff. The woman never rested. But that morning the silence was absolute. And then she saw her.
Magda closed her eyes and squeezed the towel. The blood. So much blood. It pooled on the stairs, sticky and dark, soaking into the hem of Julia’s lovely silk nightdress. Her limbs were broken in too many places. Her beautiful face crushed beyond recognition.
She would never forget it. Not in a hundred years. Not if she scrubbed the floors with bleach until her hands bled. And even then, the smell of bodily fluids and the image of Julia’s body would live in the creases of her memory always.
A cough from a few metres away snapped her back. Molly. When Molly had fainted at the sight of her mother’s body and two policemen had eventually helped her back downstairs, Magda’s heart had clenched. Now she lay curled on the corner sofa in the lounge, colour drained from her face, a glass of water trembling in her hand. Her skin was clammy, her lips pale. Dee hadn’t left her side, still clutching Molly’s fingers like she was trying to hold herself together with sheer will.
Magda watched the girls from the kitchen doorway, her heart torn in two. The ache of Julia’s absence hurt her chest, but it was the sight of those girls, alone, motherless, that made her bones shake.
The lounge was filled with soft sobs and the quiet, professional tones of the officers. The designer armchairs looked out of place now, too cheerful. Their upholstery garish in the mourning hush. The scent of jasmine from a nearby candle mixed strangely with the stale aroma of coffee left to cool.
One of the officers had asked Molly where she was last night. She’d answered calmly. But she left something out. Magda had known her long enough to read the moment of hesitation in her eyes, the way she shifted slightly before speaking. Her voice had been steady but was it the voice of someone hidingsomething? Molly had the face of an angel that had convinced Julia that her eldest was a good girl. But she knew that Molly had a mischievous side, nothing bad, just teenage deviousness that didn’t get past Magda. The niggles that she’d put to one side for a while now slid back into place, centre front, demanding attention. Again Magda denied them airtime, her loyalty to the family and respect for privacy reigned supreme.
The officer nodded, scribbling notes in a small, worn notebook, before mentioning that they had reached Mr Jones. He was on his way back from Glasgow but would be several hours still, by which time a detective would be on the scene.
Molly frowned then asked, ‘Why do we need a detective if you think she just fell?’
The officer looked at Magda. Magda’s stomach flipped. She avoided Molly’s gaze at first, staring instead at the officer but silence and lies wouldn’t help Julia now so he looked up.
‘Because of what I heard,’ she said quietly.
The room seemed to still further. Molly stared.
Magda took a breath. ‘Yesterday, we were both in the kitchen chatting when Shane appeared, I think he had been in the gym but he looked really angry, gave your mother a horrible nasty look when she commented about him taking the day off, then stormed upstairs without a word. Julia looked nervous and I offered to stay longer because Dee was out and I didn’t like the idea of her being here on her own with Shane. You know how tense things have been lately but she insisted I went home. So I left, but when I got to the end of the lane, I realised in the rush I’d left my phone in my overall pocket.’
Molly listened, a concerned look on her face while her eyes were dull with grief.
‘I came back. Let myself in. But when I got inside… I heard them. From upstairs. Shouting. It was coming from Julia’s suite. So loud.’ She paused. ‘They were fighting.’
‘What were they saying?’ Molly asked, her voice hoarse.
Magda hesitated, glancing at Dee, who had turned away, her shoulders trembling. She also didn’t want to admit that she’d climbed to the landing and listened, the sound of the argument flowing downwards and along the corridor.
‘Please,’ Molly said. ‘We need to know.’
Magda swallowed. ‘Julia said she was done, that she knew he was seeing someone. Said she wanted him gone and told him to get out. It is all a big mess in my head but that’s what I remember hearing.’
Magda couldn’t help noticing how a pink blush washed over Molly then faded back to white while her fingers gripped the blanket across her lap.
‘He told her,’ Magda continued, ‘not to threaten him. That he would have the last laugh if she tried to divorce him.’
‘What did she say?’ Molly asked, a slight tremble in her voice.
‘That she was tired of being held to ransom and it was about to end. Then she told him to get out and to give her love to the poor cow he was seeing. Oh, and she asked him who it was.’ Magda was sure that’s what they said, or something like that; it was all a horrible, jumbled blur.
