Katy Ellis had known: the euphemistic references to Vivien’s health and well-being; the excessive concern over Vivien’s friendship with Jim-my; the letter she intended to write, telling him why he had to stay away. Katy had been desperate that Vivien not do anything to draw her husband’s ire. Was that why she’d counselled her young friend away from Dr Tomalin’s hospital? Had Henry been envious of the other man’s place in his wife’s affections?
‘Henry … I was scared …’
Laurel glanced at her mother’s pale face. Katy had been Vivien’s friend and confidante, it was understandable that she might know such a dirty marital secret; how though did Ma know such a thing? Had Henry’s violence spilled over? Is that what had gone wrong with the young lovers’ plan?
And then Laurel was seized by a sudden, awful idea. Henry had killed Jimmy. He’d found out about Jimmy’s friendship with Vivien and killed him. That’s why Ma hadn’t married the man she loved. The answers fell like dominoes: that’s how she knew about Henry’s violence, that’s why she was scared.
‘That’s why,’ Laurel said quickly. ‘You killed Henry because of what he did to Jimmy.’
The answer came so softly it might have been the current of the white moth’s wings as it flew through the open window and soared towards the light. But Laurel heard it. ‘Yes.’
Just a single word, but to Laurel it was music. Caught within its three simple letters was the answer to a lifetime’s question.
‘You were frightened when he came here, to Greenacres, that he’d come to hurt you, because everything went wrong and Vivien died.’
‘Yes.’
‘You thought he might hurt Gerry, too.’
‘He said …’ Ma’s eyes shot open; her grip tightened on Laurel’s hand. ‘He said he was going to destroy everything I loved—’
‘Oh, Ma.’
‘Just as I … just as I’d done to him.’
As her mother released her grip, exhausted, Laurel could have wept; she was overwhelmed by an almost crushing sense of relief. Finally, after weeks of searching, after years and years of wondering, everything was explained: what she’d seen; the menace she’d felt as she watched the man in the black hat walking up the driveway; the secrecy afterwards that she couldn’t understand.
Dorothy Nicolson killed Henry Jenkins when he came to Greenacres in 1961 because he was a violent monster who used to beat his wife; who’d killed her lover; who’d spent a decade trying to track her down and, when he found her, threatened to destroy the family she loved.
‘Laurel …’
‘Yes, Ma?’
But Dorothy didn’t say more, her lips moved soundlessly as she searched the dusty corners of her mind, grasping at lost threads she might never catch.
‘There now, Ma,’ Laurel stroked her mother’s forehead. ‘Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right now.’
Laurel fixed the sheets, and stood for a time watching her mother’s face, peaceful now, asleep. All this time, she realised, this whole search she’d been on, had been driven by a yearning need to know that her happy family, her entire childhood, the way her mother and father had looked at one another with such rare abiding love, was not a lie. And, now she did.
Her chest ached with a complex blend of burning love, and awe, and yes, finally, acceptance. ‘I love you, Ma,’ she whispered, close by Dorothy’s ear, feeling, as she did, the end to her quest. ‘And I forgive you, too.’
Iris’s voice was growing typically heated in the kitchen and Laurel itched, suddenly, to join her brother and sisters. She gathered Ma’s blankets up smoothly and placed a kiss on her forehead.
The thank-you card was sitting on the chair behind her and Laurel picked it up, intending to stow it in her bedroom for safe-keeping. Her mind was already downstairs fixing a cup of tea, so she couldn’t have said later what it was that made her notice then the small black marks on the envelope.
But notice them, she did. Her steps faltered halfway across Ma’s room and she stopped. She went to where the lamplight was brightest, slipped on her reading glasses and brought the envelope close. And then she smiled, slowly, wonderingly.
She’d been so distracted by the stamp that she’d nearly missed the real clue staring her in the face. The cancellation mark was decades old and it wasn’t easy to read, but it was clear enough to make out the date the card had been posted—June 3rd, 1953—and, better yet, where it had been sent from: Kensington, London.
Laurel glanced back towards her mother’s sleeping form. It was the