When Sylvia entered the dining room for lunch, Gwendaline was already a few glasses of port down, judging by the way she was slumped in her chair.
‘Anything interesting, dear?’
‘Nothing to write home about,’ Sylvia replied breezily, looking at the buffet that had been placed in the middle of the large table. She helped herself to some salmon and potato salad before taking a seat.
‘Ever regret giving up the child?’ Gwendaline asked as Sylvia took her seat.
Sylvia remained quiet for a moment. Gwendaline knew all about it, of course. She’d arranged the visit to Switzerland.
‘I … haven’t thought about it in an age,’ Sylvia said at last.
‘Don’t lie, Sylvia, it’s such a waste of time,’ Gwendaline replied. ‘Of course you have. But it was just as well, don’t you think? Your grandmother didn’t rate your potential as a mother. Too cold, she said.’
Sylvia stiffened at the old woman’s cruelty.
‘I had the same thing happen to me when I was fifteen,’ Gwendaline continued. ‘Never leaves you, does it? Then the father, the cad, went and married your grandmother, of all the people. Died in the war, so that served him right.’ She paused. ‘That was a joke. A bad one, I know.’
Another sip, more of a gulp. Then she drained her glass.
‘Be a dear, dear,’ she said. ‘And fill my glass.’ She pointed at the drinks trolley. ‘In fact, just bring me the whole dang bottle.’
Sylvia rose and fetched the bottle, Gwendaline’s eyes never leaving her.
‘Maude and I had a complicated relationship as a result,’ 128Gwendaline said as she poured. ‘We had a hate-love relationship, you could say. We hated that we loved each other.’ She drank from her newly filled glass. ‘Best friends against the world when we were girls at school. And then … ’
‘The salmon’s lovely,’ Sylvia said. ‘You should, you know, actually eat some.’
‘Very good,’ Gwendaline nodded, and picked up her knife and fork. She cut off some salmon and chewed it slowly. ‘Poison,’ she said suddenly. ‘That’s how your mother died. Poison.’
‘I know,’ Sylvia said.
‘And I have to confess I supplied it.’
This last part was news. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Sylvia demanded.
‘It was in a little glass bottle with its own green velvet bag.’
Sylvia’s head shot up. Almonds, she thought. It smelled of almonds. Would it still be effective?
‘Oh, you’ve seen it?’ Gwendaline asked with a faint smile. ‘I wondered where it had got to. The story of the plane crash was for the wider public. We all love a romance, don’t we? As far as the family was concerned, they got the truth, or a version of it.’ She studied Sylvia’s face, waiting for her reaction. ‘That it was some kind of tawdry suicide pact.’
‘Yes?’ Sylvia sat back, tilted her chin up, daring this wicked old woman to give her worst.
‘I loved Georgia, your mother. Hated that she was Maude’s. She should have been mine. The daughter I gave up.’ Gwendaline pointed her knife at her chest. ‘Instead I became this dead block of a woman.’ Sylvia had never seen such a look of self-loathing on someone’s face, and it occurred to her that this revelation explained so much. ‘I was forced to abandon my child too. I was seventeen. Seventeen. Sent away to Switzerland. Same place as you. Then just a few months later, while I was away, George and Maude fell in love. Maude was a year or two older than me. Twenty when Georgia was born – a much more suitable age to have a baby. My 129baby.’ The wattle under her chin trembled. ‘Your mother came to me saying she wanted to kill your father because he was having an affair. I didn’t realise she was going to give it to you both and take it herself. I thought I was doing her a kindness.’
‘What, by giving her the tool to kill someone?’
Gwendaline ignored the question. ‘I took great satisfaction in telling Maude all of this, but she refused to believe me.’
‘You provided her daughter with the poison that she could use to kill her family,’ Sylvia said. ‘That wouldn’t have been easy to hear.’
‘Georgia should have been my daughter. Your grandmother took everything from me,’ Gwendaline spat. Then shrank from her own words. ‘I didn’t think she would kill all of you. Just him.’
Sylvia shook her head. There was little wonder she’d turned out the way she had. ‘Was there anything about my mother that suggested there was more than murder on her mind?’ she asked.
‘Hindsight provides clarity, Sylvia. I now see that your mother was damaged. Touched. Quite mad, actually. Your grandmother was on tenterhooks, worrying that you both might inherit that particular gene.’
Sylvia sat forward. ‘Wait. You said both.’
The old woman’s expression was bright with confusion. ‘Yes, both. You and your twin sister?’
‘I had a sister? A twin?’
‘Why, yes,’ she replied falteringly. ‘Maude didn’t tell you? She was stillborn, the poor mite.’
‘I had a sister.’
Everything silenced around her. Light faded. There was nothing but that thought, her dry mouth and heavy pulse.
‘I had a sister.’
And in the corner of her eye, movement. A shadow raising its hand.