Just Like the Other Girls - Claire Douglas Page 0,47

she told me she didn’t know where Jemima had gone.’

By the look on his face I can tell we’ve had the same thought. Why would Kathryn lie?

16

Kathryn

‘She keeps asking questions,’ says Elspeth, as they leave the gallery. They’d spent a good couple of hours with Fleur Honeywell, a willowy whimsical woman about Kathryn’s age. Kathryn had liked her a lot, but her mother had been less keen, her eyes glazing over when Fleur talked. She could tell Fleur’s paintings weren’t to Elspeth’s taste either – too bold and colourful. Her mother preferred pictures as delicate as everything else she admired. Still, Kathryn knew she had a better eye for what sold than her mother did. Kathryn disliked her job most of the time, mainly because there was a lot of waiting around, but she knew she was good at it.

‘Who? Fleur?’

Her mother tsks. ‘No. Una.’

She has to suppress a shiver and pulls the scarf further up her throat. It’s getting dark now, and the streetlamps have come on, giving the cobbled street a ghostly, almost Victorian glow. ‘What about?’ she asks, trying to sound nonchalant as she helps her mother over the cobbles, Elspeth gripping her arm too tightly. Maybe her mother won’t be enraptured by Una, after all. The right looks but the wrong personality. Too nosy by the sound of it.

‘About Viola. Aggie told her.’

‘Has Aggie been gossiping again? For crying out loud, Mother, why don’t you say something to her?’

Elspeth looks appalled. ‘Aggie has been part of this family for over thirty years.’

‘She shouldn’t be gossiping to the staff.’ Kathryn would never admit it to her mother but she loves Aggie. She’s like the mother Kathryn wished she’d had. She looked after her when nobody else would, kept her fed and warm, was a shoulder to cry on, even more so after Viola. But, still, she can’t have her gossiping. Who knows what she could reveal about their family?

‘I don’t like to be reminded of Viola.’ Elspeth’s voice sounds frail in the gloaming. ‘Can you talk to Una for me? Tell her that? I don’t want to have to fend off her questions all the time. It’s utterly exhausting.’

Kathryn inwardly sighs. This is what you get, she wants to scream, if you invite people into your home. If you employ silly young girls as your companions. ‘Why don’t you get someone else to run the gallery? I could stay and help you instead.’

Elspeth stops walking and turns to Kathryn. ‘The gallery will be yours one day. Don’t you want to run it?’ Her face is a white halo in the light.

‘It’s not that. It’s just … I don’t know. Maybe you should get rid of Una. Get someone to pop in a few times a day instead. Like a nurse.’

‘What is it about them that you dislike so much? First Matilde, then Jemima, and now Una. I need more than a carer, you know that. I get lonely. They’re harmless, Kathryn. They aren’t a threat to you.’

Aren’t they? Like Kathryn wasn’t a threat to Viola? Her mother is lying. Should she tell her? But then she’d have to confess that she’d read her will. That she knew what her mother had done.

She’ll never forget the shock she’d had when she first stumbled upon her mother’s will. She’d been looking for the buildings-insurance papers for the gallery after the boiler broke last July. Her mother had gone out somewhere with Matilde, and Kathryn had let herself into The Cuckoo’s Nest and found the key to Elspeth’s study – her mother always hid it in the same place, behind The Great Escape in the library. She’d found the will in the desk drawer, already signed and updated. She’d read it, of course. How could she not? And there it was in black and white. Half her mother’s money went to her, but the other half went to Matilde. A girl her mother had known for five minutes. In that moment she’d thought her mother must be losing her marbles. Why would she do that? Why not leave the remainder of her estate to Harry and Jacob? Everything, the shops, the foundation, the house – oh, God, the house – it would all be divided between her and Matilde.

Matilde, the manipulative little cow, had hoodwinked her stupid, gullible mother.

Elspeth starts walking again, pulling on Kathryn’s arm so she has no choice but to do the same. ‘Do you miss her? Viola?’ Kathryn asks, her voice thick. She feels like a