Eve turned off the car ignition and reached for the half-drunk cup of black coffee she had bought at a petrol station a few blocks away. It was below freezing, according to the dashboard display, and fat flakes of snow had started to drift down through the air like feathers, settling on the car window before slowly melting. The street-lamps were still lit, but the sky was gradually beginning to lighten and the small, suburban close on the outskirts of Grantham was coming to life, as people emerged here and there from their front doors to go to work, take their children to school or, huddled in thick coats and rubber-soled boots, walk their dogs gingerly along the frosty pavement. After seeing Dan the previous night, she had been so wired when she arrived home that she had stayed up until the early hours of the morning, mulling everything through. She had then left London just before five a.m., for the two and a half hours’ drive north. She usually managed well on little sleep, but she felt exhausted as she gazed across the road towards the small, modern, detached house with the blue door where Jane McNeil’s mother, Ruth, lived. The house was in a development of almost identical houses, each with a double garage to one side and a neat rectangle of lawn at the front. Ruth’s house was screened from the road by a sparse, newly planted evergreen hedge. A shiny red Honda Civic was parked in the driveway and a ginger-and-white cat sat huddled on the roof, watching the comings and goings in the street. Bearing in mind what Dan had said about Ruth practically slamming the door in his face when he went to see her, Eve had not rung ahead. Surprise was often the best policy and hopefully she wouldn’t have to wait long. Lights were on inside the house and she could see the shadow of somebody moving around on the first floor behind the drawn curtains. Jane’s mother had moved several times since her daughter’s death. According to Dan, she was now a widow and had reverted back to her maiden name, Weldon. Grantham was not that far from Lincoln, where Ruth and her husband had lived, and where Jane had grown up. Perhaps after everything that had happened, Ruth had wanted a fresh start, although many people in similar situations clung on as tightly as they could to the physical places and things that were filled with happier memories.
Eve’s thoughts kept turning to her conversations with Gavin from the previous night, first in the bar and then later, standing in the Earl’s Court Road, while they waited for Dan to appear. She could still picture the burning building, with the extraordinary, roaring, rushing, cracking noise of it, the fire engines, the crowds of stunned onlookers, the emergency staff running here and there, the air heavy with the acrid smell of smoke. She pictured Gavin, facing her, his back to the commotion in the road behind. ‘Why don’t you come with me. Stay with me tonight.’ He spoke quietly, urgently, leaning in towards her, conscious of the people around them. His eyes said how much he wanted her and strangely it didn’t scare her any longer. Part of her felt inclined to slip her hand in his and go with him then and there, wherever he wanted. It was as though reality was suspended and the last twenty years had never happened. She could forget about Jason’s murder, forget about the rape, the pain and all the terrible things that had happened, and lose herself with him for a while. All she needed was to take his hand, close her eyes and jump.
She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine. They’ve been all over my flat and found nothing. They’re not going to come back.’
‘If that’s what you want.’ Although he masked it well, she sensed his disappointment. Perhaps he had realized how frighteningly close she had been to letting go.
‘It is,’ she replied firmly.
He took a deep breath and placed his hands lightly on the tops of her arms, holding her square in front of him, as though he demanded her full attention. ‘Look, I need to get away for a couple of days and clear my head. My mother’s had a fall. It’s nothing too serious, but I’m going down to Lymington tomorrow night to check on her, then I’ll spend the following day on the boat. Why don’t you come? Whenever you like. However long you like.’
She gazed at him for a moment, her head full of doubt, still coupled with vague, bewildering feelings of longing.
‘There’s so much I want to talk to you about,’ he said, with a sudden intensity. ‘I mean properly, away from here and all of this.’ He gestured towards the crowd. ‘Will you come?’
What harm could it do? Maybe it was what she needed. ‘Alright. I’ll come.’
His face lit up and he smiled. ‘That would make me very, very happy. I’ll leave you to find Dan now, but text me as soon as you get home. Let me know you’re OK.’
There was a moment’s hesitation as though he wanted to say something else, then he kissed her lightly on the cheek, turned away into the crowd behind and was gone.
Eve drained the remains of the coffee. It was such a foolish, crazy idea. Would she go? Should she go? She was telling herself for the umpteenth time to stop over-analysing and put it out of her mind for now, when the blue front door opened. The ginger and white cat sprang from the car and took off into the bushes, as a stout, middle-aged woman with short, fluffy, blonde hair emerged on the doorstep. She wore an emerald green coat, with a black and white patterned scarf around her neck, and she was holding the hand of a little boy. He was dressed in school uniform and looked to be about five or six at most. The woman opened one of the rear doors of the Civic and waited as he climbed in. She fastened the seat belt around him, shut the door, then got into the front seat and drove off.
The car was barely around the corner when the front door opened again and a youngish, red-haired man emerged, dressed in jeans, trainers and an anorak. Hands in his pockets, ducked against the flurries of snow, he walked hurriedly down the street and turned the corner in the direction of the station. Wondering if Dan’s information was out of date, Eve went up to the front door and rang the bell. The lights were still on inside but there was no answer. She tried the house next door and found a young woman, still in her dressing gown and slippers, who seemed quite happy to tell her, with the sound of breakfast TV blaring in the background, that the house with the blue door was occupied by the King family, Jimmy and Claire, plus their six-year-old son, Alfie, who was nearly the same age as her daughter. She thought the middle-aged woman was Jimmy’s mother. The neighbour had only just moved in a few months before and had no idea who had lived there before the Kings. She had never heard of Ruth McNeil or Weldon. It looked as though Ruth McNeil had moved yet again.
Eve got back into the car and rang the phone number Dan had given her. A woman answered the phone.
‘I’m looking for Ruth Weldon, or Ruth McNeil, as she used to be called,’ Eve said.
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s about her daughter, Jane.’
‘You’ve got the wrong number.’ The call was disconnected.
The woman on the phone hadn’t sounded particularly old, but voices could be misleading and Eve wondered if she had just been speaking to Ruth McNeil. Whoever it was, there had been a second’s hesitation before she said ‘who’s that’. From her intonation, Eve was sure the name Ruth McNeil or Weldon was familiar. It was the mention of Jane’s name that had made her hang up. If she had moved somewhere locally, she would probably have taken her phone number with her. Eve was on the point of calling Dan, to see if he could try and trace her new address, when the front door opened yet again and a young woman, who she assumed was Claire King, stepped out. She was carrying a briefcase and was smartly dressed in a black fitted coat with gold buttons, narrow-legged grey trousers and high-heeled boots. Eve got out of the car and crossed the road towards her.
‘Excuse me,’ Eve said. ‘I’m looking for Ruth McNeil. She may be using the name Ruth Weldon. I was told she lives here.’
Claire stared at Eve for a moment as though she didn’t understand the question. Snowflakes settled on her shiny, dark bob and as others touched her heavily made-up cheeks, she swotted them away like flies with her gloved hand.
‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’ It was the same clear voice from the phone. Claire clamped her dark pink lips together and carefully skirted around Eve, walking in choppy little steps on the icy pavement.
‘But she was living here a year ago,’ Eve said, catching her up.
Claire shook her head. ‘There must be some mistake.’
‘No. A friend of mine visited her here. I need to try and find her. I think you know where she is.’
Claire stopped under a street-lamp and turned to face Eve, studying her in a strangely intense way. Her eyes were thickly outlined in black pencil, like a cat’s, and there was something odd about her face, although Eve couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was the make-up, which gave her small, unremarkable features a frozen, doll-like look, particularly in the half-light.
‘That must have been before we moved here,’ Claire said crisply. ‘Now, I really must go. I’m late for work.’ She turned away and started to make her way carefully along the street.
Eve was used to people being evasive when put on the spot, but something definitely jarred. She replayed the conversation in her mind. She was convinced Claire knew who Ruth McNeil was, and possibly where she was, and was protecting her for some reason. Whether Ruth liked it or not, Eve needed to speak to her. She stood in the middle of the pavement and watched Claire totter out of sight around the corner. She shivered and felt for her gloves in her jacket pocket. She must have left them in the car. There was no point following Claire now and she would probably be gone for the whole day. She would have to speak to some of the other neighbours instead. There must surely be somebody living in the close who would remember Ruth and know where she had gone. She started back towards the car, but something still niggled, something she just couldn’t quite place. Was it something someone had said? If only she wasn’t quite so tired. What was it? Who had said it? Then it came to her. Out of the fog, a moment of sudden clarity. She heard Steve Wilby’s voice talking about Jane, something about an actress … Eve froze. She had always thought of herself as a good detective, certainly better than many she had worked with, and it took her by surprise when occasionally she overlooked the obvious. But it was staring her right in the face. She took a series of deep breaths, filling her lungs with the freezing air, tasting the snowflakes on her tongue, as she allowed herself a moment or two to digest it all. She reached back in her mind, working through the full, startling implications. It was so shocking, it couldn’t be true. Yet it was the only thing that made sense. She opened her mouth wide, took another gulp of air, then started to run as fast as she could without slipping down the street.