Mum is packing. She doesn’t have much—the small bag she took with her to the Hope, and a few bits I’ve persuaded her to take from her own wardrobe at Oak View. I sit on her bed, wanting to beg her to stay but knowing it’s pointless to try. She won’t stay. She can’t stay. The police will be back, and next time they won’t let me off so lightly. It’s going to be hard enough convincing them I know nothing about my parents’ crimes, without worrying about whether Mum is well hidden enough.
“Won’t you at least stay for the party?” Mark said, when she announced at breakfast she would leave today. “See in the New Year with us?”
“I’m not really one for parties,” she said easily.
She loves parties. At least, the old Mum loved parties. I’m not sure about this one. My mother has changed—and I don’t mean just the weight loss and the dyed hair. She’s anxious. Subdued. Constantly watchful. She’s been broken, and now my grief is twofold. I am mourning not only a mother, but the woman she used to be.
I make one final attempt to keep her.
“If we told the police everything—”
“Anna, no!”
“They might understand why you did what you did.”
“And they might not.”
I fall silent.
“I’ll go to prison. You might, too. You’ll tell them you’ve only known since Christmas Eve that I’m alive, but do you think they’ll believe that? When it looks as though Tom and I planned this together? When the house is in your name now?”
“That’s my problem.”
“And when you’re arrested it’ll be Mark’s and Ella’s. Do you want that little girl growing up without a mother?”
I don’t. Of course I don’t. But I don’t want to be without one, either.
Mum zips up her bag. “There. Done.” She tries for a smile that convinces neither of us. I reach for her bag, but she shakes her head. “I can manage. In fact . . .” She breaks off.
“What is it?”
“You’ll think me ridiculous.”
“Try me.”
“Could I say good-bye to the house? Just a few minutes . . .”
I pull her to me, hugging her so tightly I feel the very bones of her. “Of course you can. It’s your house, Mum.”
Gently, she breaks away; smiles sadly. “It’s your house. Yours, Mark’s, and Ella’s. And I want you to fill it with happy memories. Do you understand?”
I nod, blinking hard. “Mark and I will take Ella around the park. Give you a bit of time to say your good-byes.”
I don’t think her ridiculous at all. A home is far more than just a house, far more than bricks and mortar. It’s why I wouldn’t countenance Mark’s suggestion that we sell; why I didn’t want to challenge Robert’s Grand Designs extension. This is where I live. I’m happy here. I don’t want anything to change that.
In the park Mark pushes Ella’s pram, and I tuck my hand into the crook of his arm.
“You haven’t had a call from the police, have you?”
I look at him sharply. “What do you mean? Why would I have had a call from the police?”
Mark laughs. “Relax. I don’t think the FBI have caught up with you just yet. The guy from CID said he’d ring today to let us know if they’d managed to get any DNA from the rubber band. I’ve had nothing on my mobile, and I thought they might have tried the house phone.”
“Oh. No, nothing.” The pram’s wheels leave puddle tracks on the path. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that and I . . . I think we should drop it.”
“Drop it?” Mark stops short, and I walk into the pram handle. “Anna, we can’t drop it. It’s serious.”
“The note said no police. If we drop it, they’ll stop.”
“You don’t know that.”
I do. I take my arm from Mark’s and begin walking again, pushing the pram away from him. He runs to catch up.
“Please, Mark. I just want to forget about it. Start the New Year off on a positive note.” Mark is a big believer in fresh starts. New chapters. Clean pages. Perhaps all counselors are.
“For the record, I think it’s the wrong thing to do—”
“I want to move on from what happened to my parents. For Ella’s sake.” I look down at her, as much to hide my face as to reinforce my point, feeling guilty for using her as emotional collateral.
He nods. “I’ll tell them we’re dropping it.”
“Thank you.” My relief, at least, is genuine. I stop again, this time to kiss him.
“You’re crying.”
I wipe my eyes. “It’s all a bit much, I think. Christmas, New Year, the police . . .” Mum. I get as close to the truth as I dare. “I’m really going to miss Angela.”
“Did you spend much time together when you were younger? You never talk about her; I didn’t realize you knew her that well.”
The lump in my throat hardens, and my chin wobbles as I try my hardest to stop myself from sobbing. “That’s the thing about family,” I manage. “Even if you’ve never met before, you feel as though you’ve always been together.”
Mark puts one arm around me, and we walk slowly back to Oak View, where twinkly lights around the porch mark the start of New Year’s Eve, and the beginning of the end of this terrible, wonderful, extraordinary year.
Mum’s in the garden. I slide open the glass door and she jumps, panic on her face until she sees that it’s me. She’s not wearing a coat, and her lips are tinged with blue.
“You’ll catch your death,” I say, with a wry smile she doesn’t return.
“I was saying good-bye to the roses.”
“I’ll look after them—I promise.”
“And make sure you put in an objection to—”
“Mum.”
She stops, midsentence. Her shoulders sag.
“It’s time to go.”
Inside, Mark’s opened a bottle of champagne.
“An early New Year.”
We clink glasses and I fight back tears. Mum holds Ella, and they look so alike I try to fix the moment in my memory, but it hurts so much. If this is what it’s like to lose someone slowly, I would pray for a sudden death every time. A sharp break to my heart, instead of the slow splintering I feel right now in my chest, like cracks crazing across a frozen lake.
Mark makes a speech. About family and reconnecting; about new years and new starts—this last with a wink in my direction. I try to catch Mum’s eye, but she’s listening intently.
“I hope the year brings health, wealth, and happiness to us all.” He raises his glass. “A very happy New Year to you, Angela; to my beautiful Ella; and to Anna, who I am hopeful might this year say yes.”
I smile fiercely. He will ask me tonight. At midnight, perhaps, when my mother is on a train to heaven knows where, and I’m grieving on my own. He will ask me, and I will say yes.
And then I smell something. An acrid burning, like melting plastic, teasing my nostrils and catching the back of my throat.
“Is there something in the oven?”
Mark is a second behind but quick to catch up. He moves swiftly to the door and into the hall.
“Jesus!”
Mum and I follow. The smell in the hall is even worse, and below the ceiling hangs a mushroom of black smoke. Mark is stamping on the doormat—black fragments of burned paper fly out from beneath his feet.
“Oh my God! Mark!” I scream, even though it’s obvious that whatever flames there were have been extinguished, the cloud of smoke already dissipating.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Mark’s trying to stay in control, but his voice is a notch higher than normal, and he’s still stamping on the doormat. It’s the rubber surround I could smell, I realize. Whatever was put through the letterbox has disappeared; would probably have burned itself out even without Mark’s input. Paper kindling designed to frighten us.
I point to the front door. Sweat trickles down the small of my back.
Someone has written on the outside of the stained-glass panels on the upper section of the door. I see the block capitals, distorted by the different thicknesses of glass.
Mark opens the door. The letters are written in thick black marker pen.
FOUND YOU.