‘I’D FORGOTTEN THAT AUNT MARIANA had sung in operas,’ Tom says when they’re outside Lily’s mother’s room. ‘What was it she sang at one of Dad’s shows?’
Lily closes her eyes and can still hear Mum’s silver voice soar over the terrace and Endgame’s summer-kissed grounds. ‘A Mozart aria, I think. I don’t know it in German. Something like, ‘Gently Rest my Dearest Love’. It was her favourite.’
When she opens her eyes again, Tom is looking at her with such compassion that she has to glance away.
‘You should be the one to get the key,’ he says. ‘She was your mum. And you solved it.’
‘We don’t know if I’m right yet.’
‘’Course you’re right. I’d almost forgotten that she had that overgrown forest for her wallpaper. Please – of all people – you deserve the key.’
Lily shakes her head. She feels sick at the thought of going in. ‘I can’t. Not yet. I’d rather you went in for me.’
Tom looks utterly miserable.
Lily feels her hands trembling and holds them out to him. ‘I’m a mess, I wouldn’t be much use in there. Anyway, think how much it’ll piss Sara off if you get the first key.’
‘Excellent manipulation, Lily,’ Tom says. ‘You should be a psychoanalyst. Right. I’m going in.’ He rolls up his sleeves as if going on an archaeological dig. Which, she supposes, he is. Digging up the past so she can build a future.
‘Try in the wardrobe first,’ Lily says. ‘I think that’s what the clue means by “cloth-lined wood” – Mum’s wardrobe was lined with cotton she dabbed with lavandin oil to keep moths away. And . . .’ Lily pauses, swallows rising bile. ‘And there’s a trunk of photos in there.’
‘Trunked falsehood,’ Tom says, ‘of course!’
He checks with her one more time that she doesn’t want to go in, then opens the door. Tom steps into a dance of dust motes. Lily turns away, heart pounding. She’ll go in, just not today.
She can hardly breathe as she listens for the wardrobe door opening, and then the trunk unlocking. The lid lifts with a creak.
‘There are no photos in the trunk,’ Tom calls out. ‘But there is something else. Hold on.’ A rustle of fabric. A clatter of metal on floorboards. ‘I’ve got it!’
Tom rushes out holding a brass key. He offers it to Lily. ‘Take it, please – you solved the clue.’
Lily steps back, holds her hands up. ‘I told you, I’m not here to get the house.’
Tom looks down at the key, then tucks it into his jeans pocket. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Without you, I’d be in the cemetery, trying to stop my cousins digging up dead pets.’ His hand flies to his head. ‘God, I hope Gray got to them in time.’
Lily feels suddenly tired, and has an overwhelming urge to slip into her room and shut the door. She can’t rest, though, she has to work on the deeper levels of the clue and find out what it’s telling her about Mum. ‘Go and see the others,’ she says. ‘Tell them today’s search is over.’
‘I will,’ Tom replies. ‘Though it’s tempting to let them keep going till lunchtime.’ Tom’s eyes twinkle. ‘Wait a minute.’
Tom darts back into her mum’s room, and comes back out holding a balding teddy bear. ‘Thought you might like this,’ he said, holding it out to Lily.
‘That’s Ada.’ She points to the label on the teddy’s side. ‘My mum’s Steiff bear. I think you got your love of puns from her.’
Tom thinks for a second, then gets it. ‘“Where animals are stiff and laid to rest”! Steiff and stiff! And it was on her bed!’
Lily nods, trying to close the flickbook of memories that just opened, running through moments spent in the room. Having tea parties with Mum, Christina and Ada. Rescuing Ada from the twisting trees on the wallpaper. Standing by the window, watching the ambulance take Mum’s body away.
She then remembers the first clue. How does it help her work out what happened to Mum? She turns to Tom. ‘Was there anything else in the trunk? Sounded like there was fabric.’
Tom runs back into the room, and re-emerges with a swathe of green fabric draped from fist to floor. ‘The key was wrapped inside.’ He folds the material and hands it to Lily.
As Lily examines the buttons on the fabric, her heart clenches. More images fall like torn leaves around her. ‘It’s a coat,’ she says. Her voice is so thin, so quiet, that Tom has to duck to catch it before it slips down the gaps in the floorboards. ‘It belonged to Mum.’
‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Do you want me to put it back?’
Lily brings the coat up to her face. She takes a deep sniff but even her pregnant super-nose can’t smell any trace of Mum’s perfume. A sob tries to break free but she manages to trap it in her throat.
In her peripheral vision, she sees Tom’s fingers tap against his sides. ‘I’m supposed to be the professional, ready to help with healing words, but seeing you like this . . .’ He stops, shrugs. ‘All I can think to say is how brave you are.’
Lily, though, is looking at the coat’s sleeves. Both are covered in dark stains, as if the cuffs have rusted. The stains are the colour of dried blood. And with that, Lily is slung back to stumbling through the maze and finding Mum slumped on the ground. This was the coat her mother died in.
And Lily doesn’t feel brave at all.