It doesn’t.
I can see the hope on Anna’s face; the promise of answers to the questions that keep her awake at night. I know our daughter. She never would have believed that you and I would have stepped off that cliff of our own free will.
She was right.
I see too, with painful clarity, what will happen now. Anna will go to the police. Demand an investigation. She’ll fight for the truth, not knowing that the truth hides nothing but more lies. More danger.
Suicide? Think again.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you. I have to stop Anna going to the police. I have to stop her finding out the truth about what happened, before she gets hurt.
I thought I’d seen the last of my old life, the day I drove to Beachy Head, but I guess I was wrong.
I have to stop this.
I have to go back down.
FOUR
ANNA
I ring Mark back. Leave a message about the card that makes so little sense I have to stop, take a breath, then explain myself again.
‘Call me as soon as you get this,’ I finish.
Suicide? Think again.
The meaning is clear.
My mother was murdered.
The hairs on the back of my neck are still prickling and I turn slowly around, taking in the wide stairs behind me, the open doors on either side with their floor-to-ceiling windows. No one there. Of course there isn’t. But the card in my hand has unnerved me as surely as if someone had broken into the house and put it directly into my hand, and it no longer feels as though Ella and I are alone in the house.
I stuff the card back into its envelope. I need to get out of here.
‘Rita!’
There’s a scuffle from the kitchen, followed by a skittering of claws on the tiles. The result of a rehoming appeal, Rita is part Cyprus poodle, part several other breeds. She has auburn whiskers that fall over her eyes and around her mouth, and in the summer, when she’s clipped, the white patches on her coat look like snow. She licks me enthusiastically.
‘We’re going out.’
Never one to be asked twice, Rita races to the front door, where she cocks her head and looks at me impatiently. The pram is in the hall, tucked beneath the curve of the stairs, and I push the anonymous card into the shopping basket at the bottom, covering it with a blanket as though not seeing it changes the fact that it’s there. I pick up Ella just as she’s morphing from contentment to grouchiness.
Suicide? Think again.
I knew it. I’ve always known it. My mother had a strength I wish I had a tenth of – a confidence I covet still. She never gave up. She wouldn’t have given up on life.
Ella roots for my breast again, but there’s no time. I don’t want to be in the house for another minute.
‘Let’s go and get some fresh air, shall we?’
I find the change bag in the kitchen, check for the essentials – nappies, wipes, muslins – and throw in my purse and the house keys. This is usually the point at which Ella will fill her nappy, or throw up her milk and require a full set of clean clothes. I sniff cautiously at her bottom and conclude that she’s fine.
‘Right, let’s go!’
There are three stone steps that lead down from the front door to the gravelled area between the house and the pavement. Each step dips in the middle, where countless feet have trod over the years. As a child, I would jump off the bottom step, my confidence growing with my years until – accompanied by my mother’s ‘do be careful!’ – I could leap from the top step and land square-footed on the drive, my arms raised before invisible applause.
Ella in one arm, I bounce the pram down the steps before putting her inside and tucking the blankets firmly around her. The cold snap shows no sign of lifting, and the pavements glitter with frost. The gravel makes a dull crunch as frozen clumps break apart beneath my feet.
‘Anna!’
Our neighbour, Robert Drake, is standing on the other side of the black railings that separate our house from his. The properties are identical: three-storey Georgian houses with long back gardens and narrow outdoor passages that run from front to back between each house. My parents moved to Eastbourne in 1992, when my unexpected appearance had curtailed their London lives and launched them into married life. My late grandfather bought the house – two streets from where Dad had grown up – for cash (‘it’s the only currency people listen to, Annie’) and, I imagine, for significantly less than Robert paid when he bought the neighbouring property fifteen years later.
‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ Robert says. ‘It’s today, isn’t it?’ He gives a sympathetic smile and tilts his head to one side. The action reminds me of Rita, except that Rita’s eyes are warm and trusting, and Robert’s …
‘Your mother,’ he adds, in case I’m not following. There’s a touch of impatience in his voice, as though I should be more grateful for his compassion.
Robert is a surgeon, and although he has never been anything but friendly towards us, he has an intense, almost clinical gaze that makes me feel as though I’m on his operating table. He lives alone, mentioning the nieces and nephews who occasionally visit with the detachment of a man who has never had, and never wanted, children of his own.
I wrap Rita’s lead around the handle of the pram. ‘Yes. It’s today. It’s kind of you to remember.’
‘Anniversaries are always tough.’
I can’t listen to any more platitudes. ‘I was just taking Ella out for a walk.’
Robert seems glad of the change of subject. He peers through the railings. ‘Hasn’t she grown?’ There are so many blankets around Ella he couldn’t possibly see, but I agree and tell him what percentile she’s on, which is probably more detail than he needed.
‘Excellent! Jolly good. Well, I’ll let you get on.’
The drive is the width of the house, but only just deep enough for cars. Iron gates, never closed in my lifetime, lie flat against the railings. I say goodbye, then push the pram through the opening and onto the pavement. Across the street is a park, a grown-up space with complicated planting, and signs that keep you off the grass. My parents would take it in turns to walk Rita there, last thing at night, and she strains now at the lead, but I pull her back and push the pram towards town instead. At the end of the row of town houses, I turn right. I glance back towards Oak View, and as I do I realise Robert is still standing on his driveway. He looks away, and walks back into his house.
We walk along Chestnut Avenue, where glossy railings flank more double-fronted town houses; bay-tree sentries wrapped in twinkling white lights. One or two of the huge houses on the avenue have been turned into flats, but most are still intact, their wide front doors uncluttered by doorbells and letterboxes. Christmas trees are positioned in bay windows, and I catch glimpses of activity in the high-ceilinged rooms beyond. In the first, a teenage boy flops on a sofa; in the second, small children race around the room, heady with festive excitement. At number six an elderly couple read from their respective papers.
The door to number eight is open. A woman – late forties, I guess – stands in a French Gray hall, with one hand resting lightly on the door. I nod a hello, but although she lifts a hand in greeting, the laughing smile is directed towards a gently squabbling trio wrestling a Christmas tree from the car to the house.
‘Careful, you’re going to drop it!’
‘Left a bit. Watch the door!’
A peal of laughter from the teenage girl; a wry grin from her clumsy brother.
‘You’ll have to lift it over the railings.’