Nellie shrieked and dropped the cup and saucer she was holding, tea soaking unnoticed into her skirt. ‘R-rose water?’
‘Everythin’ smells of rose water hereabouts,’ Cissy declared. ‘I noticed it soon as I came into your room the other day, Nell. And when all them women were here earlier, it were that strong it made me nose tingle.’
Jasper sat forward. ‘Did you smell it on anyone in particular?’ he asked.
Cissy sat back reflectively, her eyes closed.
‘You can’t really think—’ Rodney began.
Jasper waved him to silence. ‘Come on, Ciss, think.’
‘It were that little one in the black. Mary, I think her name is.’
Nellie gasped. ‘Mary?! Colin’s mother?’ She spat the name. Even if she had to welcome Jim back, she’d never let Colin set foot in this place again.
Jasper let out a low whistle. ‘By heck, that makes sense.’ He glanced at Nellie. ‘Far as she were concerned, she lost two people she loved because of this family. Colin – although that were no one’s fault – and Susan.’
‘But how’s any of that my fault?’ Nellie wailed. ‘I’ve done nothin’ to her? And yet she comes sneaking in here, makin’ my life hell, makin’ me question my sanity . . .’ Nellie fell back in her chair.
‘Right, I’m going to find her,’ Rodney said. ‘If she really is behind this, she needs to explain herself.’ Rodney slapped his cap on his head and strode to the door.
Nellie leapt up. ‘Rodney, go easy on her.’
He looked round at his mother in disbelief. ‘Go easy? Are you joking? After everything she’s done?’
‘It’s just . . . I think she’s not well. Her grief’s twisted something inside her, and I-I think I understand.’
Rodney nodded curtly and hurried down the stairs.
As soon as he’d gone, Nellie went to her room, claiming to need a few minutes to think. But in reality, she needed to know what else Mary had done while she’d been here. The smell hit her immediately, but this time it didn’t bring the usual fear. This time all she felt was fury.
Opening the windows, her eyes fell on the pillow, and for a moment, her heart stopped.
As if in a trance, she went to pick up the photograph then slumped down on the bed, staring at the image of her husband. Donald’s handsome face smiled back at her, at once achingly familiar, but also strange. ‘Why did she take you?’ she whispered. Aside from the fact that it wasn’t in its silver frame, it looked as it always had: the wrinkle across the middle that cut diagonally through his face, making his smile a little crooked; the dark smudges on the white background; his eyes sparkling with mischief. But then she turned it over and froze, her body erupting in goosebumps. Scrawled across the back of the photo, in handwriting that looked just like Gladys’s, were the words: ‘I know you killed him.’
With her new perspective, Nellie shivered with fear. How would Mary know anything about what happened to Donald? Gladys and Mary had been good friends, could she have told her what happened?
She thought back to that last awful row she’d had with Gladys, kneeling at Donald’s graveside. ‘He didn’t shoot himself, though, did he? His death is on you!’ The memory was so vivid, it was as if Gladys was in the room with her, screaming at her as she had then. Gladys had sworn she’d never told a soul, and Nellie had believed her. But maybe she’d been lying?
Swallowing back the nausea at the thought, Nellie lay back on the bed and stared unseeingly at the ceiling. It was time to tell everyone why Edie wasn’t talking to her. Tell them all about the poppy-head tea, and how she and Gladys had inadvertently given Donald too much. How it had driven Donald so mad that he had ultimately shot himself.
It was better that than the truth . . .