“And there was only Maria there at the time of the fire? She didn’t have friends staying or anything?”
“No. I’d remember that.”
“Are you sure? It would have been a man with a child?”
Mirren looked briefly as though she was going to ask questions of her own, but thought better of it. “Definitely not,” she said. “I wasn’t there at the time of the fire – Kit was still little, so I stayed at home with him, but Terry went down to help.”
“Your husband? He went to help with the fire?”
She nodded. “Terry was a volunteer firefighter. He got the call and went straight down there. I’d have known if there had been a child staying there. I’d remember something like that.”
“Yes, I suppose you would.” Which meant Lily must have got it wrong.
She scrubbed her hand over her face. It should have been a relief that Maria hadn’t been lying, but she still felt she was missing some fairly large pieces of the puzzle. Ones that would explain her forged passport.
The thought of it made her stomach lurch. She needed to stop focusing on twenty-year-old fires and put her attention on retrieving her stolen items.
“Sorry,” she said to Mirren, feeling slightly dazed as she stood. “I didn’t mean to disturb your afternoon.”
“You didn’t.” Mirren followed her to the door. “Are you okay?”
Lily nodded. That was all she could manage.
The gesture didn’t convey the truth in the slightest.
Back at the shop, Lily sent Jessica for a late lunch break. She tried to concentrate on customers while her brain whirred over her next move for tracking down her backpack. The only thingshe could come up with was to head back to the art retreat after the shop closed and use the excuse of speaking to Gideon about his paintings.
It turned out, all the time spent mulling over her next move was for nothing. Gideon Rowe called the ice cream shop in the middle of the afternoon.
“Len Marrack said you want to look at my paintings,” he said down the phone – straight to the point, no small talk. “I’m back at the studio now and will be available to show you my paintings for the next couple of hours if that would suit you.”
Lily stammered a little before saying that would be fine and she’d be over shortly. With Jessica more than happy to be left alone again, Lily didn’t bother waiting until closing time.
She was halfway to Gideon’s place when her phone rang. Flynn’s name flashing on the screen didn’t bring the usual sense of joy, and she found herself hesitating to answer. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to ignore the call.
“What have you been up to today?” he asked cheerfully.
“Not much. Just working.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“No reason.” He sounded oddly unsure of himself. “I called in at the shop,” he said after a brief pause.
“When?”
“Before lunch. Jessica said you were out somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where…” He trailed off. “And now it sounds as though I’m checking up on you.”
“Jessica must have forgotten to mention you stopped by, otherwise I’d have called you. I actually went to visit Maria.”
“How was that?”
“Uneventful.”
“Did you ask her about the fire again?”
“Yeah. She said Uncle Derek and I had already moved to Italy. So I guess I was imagining things that didn’t actually happen.”
