She thanked him, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps for treating her mother with dignity. Perhaps for believing, even if he hadn’t said it aloud, that something wasn’t quite right. She could just tell, the way he watched while his side-kick asked questions.
It was during the quiet, when the police had packed up their kits and the house began to breathe again, that she made the call to Nancy. Her aunt’s voice on the other end was choked and still disbelieving. Molly had kept it brief, clinical. She couldn’t afford emotion just then. Had she booked her flight? When would she arrive?
‘Have you told Gran and Granddad?’ she’d asked.
Nancy had. A neighbour was with them. She was arranging flights and would be with Molly and Dee as soon as she could. They would make the arrangements together and Nancy reminded Molly that she was still her and Dee’s legal guardian, an arrangement Julia had made shortly after Ronnie’s death, just in case. Nancy would guide them through it all, so not to worry.
There was no mention of Shane. It was unspoken but as though he was of no consequence. Surplus to requirements and for a very weird moment Molly thought that was cruel, and then she gave herself a dose of reality and remembered that only a marriage certificate had held him and her mother together for years. They were leading separate lives and hadn’t needed a death certificate to part them.
Now, in the bleak unveiling of the morning, Molly sat on the same sofa, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She hadn’t brushedher hair. She hadn’t eaten. Her stomach was hollow and tight with knots, her limbs leaden.
Dee stirred beside her but didn’t wake. Her small hand was still wrapped loosely around Molly’s, her mouth slightly open, her cheek pressed into the soft fabric of the cushion. Her eyelashes were dry at last, in her dreams she was free of sadness or so Molly hoped. She let her gaze wander to Shane and let her mind drift back to the hotel. There was something wrong with that night.
She thought about it again. The tenderness. The laughter. The way he had looked at her like he was memorising her. Like he’d really accepted it was over and that fact made her feel liberated and cast-off, all at once. Then she remembered waking in the early hours and finding him staring at the ceiling, unmoving. She had whispered his name, but he hadn’t answered right away, pretending he was asleep. When he finally did, his voice was warm and drowsy, but she now recognised the act for what it was. Practised.
Had he already known? Had she been lying in bed with a man who had killed her mother? The thought terrified her. She bent forward, pressing her hands into her eyes, stifling the sob that threatened to claw its way up. Dee shifted beside her, murmuring something incoherent.
‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ Molly whispered, brushing Dee’s hair from her face. ‘Go back to sleep.’
Dee didn’t reply. Her breath deepened again. Molly forced herself to breathe. It wasn’t just sadness anymore. It was suspicion. It was confusion. But more than that, it was guilt. Because she had been with him. While her mother died. She had wrapped herself in hotel linen and moaned into his shoulder.
And now Julia was gone. Molly knew she could never say what she’d done. And that if her worst fears were founded, and Shane had hurt her mum even unintentionally during a row andhe was cornered, would he blab? Would he kick out, expose her, take her down with him and ruin her life? Molly clasped her hands, at first to quell the shakes and then to make a silent prayer. That despite her fears, Shane was innocent.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Magda stirred a spoonful of honey into her coffee, the mood in the small kitchen made less sombre by the quiet sounds of the morning news playing on the radio. The cheery voice of the presenter seemed jarring against the sadness in her chest so she turned the volume down until it was just a murmur.
The terraced house was warm, lived-in. It smelt of cinnamon and baking. Curtains with faded sunflowers fluttered slightly at the edges where the windows were open to the morning breeze. A patchwork of family photographs covered the far wall, her wedding day, a summer barbecue in Norfolk, Erik in his favourite armchair with a book in his lap. The small space was crammed with soft furnishings, knitted throws, and cheerful clutter that bore no resemblance to the cool elegance of the Lassiter house.
Magda had lived in the UK for almost thirty years. She’d come to Manchester from Krakow in the early nineties with little English and even less money. Erik, a gentle man with kind eyes and an obsession with local history, had been her travelling companion and her anchor. They had built this life slowly. Brickby brick. When she first worked at ClearGlass, she scrubbed office floors and emptied bins. That was when she first met Ronnie, and then his wife, Julia.
Julia had been a powerhouse even then, fiercely ambitious and competitive but full of warmth which made ClearGlass feel like a family firm. She was why people stayed for years and remained loyal. Julia had taken time to speak to Magda, to learn her name, to ask about her family back in Poland, if she was homesick and to say if she needed someone to talk to. That small kindness had stuck with Magda. When Julia offered her the job as housekeeper not long after Molly was born, Magda had cried all the way home on the bus. Happy tears though.
Flicking a sad one from her eye, Magda took her mug and sat down at the table. Erik was already at work. He saw it as his duty to keep things running for Julia and the girls but she’d seen the hesitant way he’d tied the laces on his boots and picked up his rucksack. He was waiting for her to say, ‘Don’t go in today,’ so he’d be spared the ordeal of answering questions and facing the truth.
Across from her, Zuzanna, her close friend, perched on one of the chairs, her cheeks flushed from the sun. She held her cup but her gaze never left Magda’s face. ‘So?’ Zuzanna asked. ‘You were there. What happened?’
Magda stared into her coffee, then took a slow sip. ‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘Only that she died alone after a fall.’
Zuzanna tutted. ‘Yes, I know. It was all over the village this morning. But was it an accident?’
Magda didn’t reply straight away. She reached for the biscuit tin, offering it to Zuzanna, who waved it away. Magda took one herself, though she had no appetite.
‘The police think she fell down the stairs,’ she said, her voice flat.
Zuzanna leaned in, eager. ‘But what do you think?’
Magda’s eyes lifted slowly. ‘I think that Julia made it up and down those stairs many times, after parties, merry from the wine and she never fell. And lately, there was something else going on. Between her and that man.’
She saw the glint in Zuzanna’s eyes and battled the desire to trash Shane’s reputation but chose to remain loyal and respectful to her dear friend who wouldn’t want everyone talking about her private life.
‘She was not happy?’
‘Not with him. Who would be?’ Magda gave the smallest shrug.
Her comment was fair and frank, not too much. She wasn’t going to feed the gossip but found she couldn’t lie either. She’d spent the last few years watching that marriage slowly turn from something she didn’t condone to something she wished would end, for Julia’s sake.
Zuzanna sat back, nodding sagely. ‘You always said that man was no good.’
