I chuckled and Helen went on. ‘A couple of months before she died, she got very distressed about something she’d read. She was babbling, making no sense. I was really worried about her – I thought she’d had a stroke or a funny turn. I stayed with her that night and she had bad dreams that made her cry out in her sleep. And in the morning she told me why.’
‘Why?’ I breathed, leaning forward.
Helen rubbed her forehead. ‘When my mother was nursing she had a best friend called Nelly. That’s who I’m named after, in fact. Nelly was badly injured in an air raid and she died during the Blitz.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘My mother moved to Ireland in 1941. She’d lost Nelly and she’d lost her brother and she was expecting me – I’d always assumed that she just wanted to get away from the bombing and the memories. She always said she’d come to see Nelly’s family and deliver a final message from her friend and then she liked it in Dublin so much that she stayed there.’
‘But there was something else?’ I said, thinking about the scribbled messages in the back of the book.
‘There was. My mother told me she’d read online that when they’d been digging out the basement of this hospital, they’d found a book full of messages written during the Blitz. She was shaking when she told me. Terrified.’
‘Because she knew that the book proved that she’d done something wrong,’ I said, suddenly putting it all together. ‘She’d killed Nelly. A mercy killing.’
Helen looked startled. ‘That’s right.’ She turned the pages of the album again and showed me a picture of Elsie arm in arm with another young woman, whose eyes flashed with fun. ‘This was her.’
‘She looks nice.’
‘Mammy always said she was a handful,’ Helen said looking at the photo. ‘She loved her very much – that was clear from how she spoke about her. And when she went to Ireland, she didn’t mean to stay with the Malones. But Nelly’s mammy took her in and made her part of the family. I called her Granny.’
‘So Elsie didn’t want anyone knowing what she’d done?’ I said.
‘She was so worried it would change everything. Of course, Nelly’s parents are long dead, and her siblings are all gone too now, but we’re all intertwined. I have three brothers younger than me and one of them married Nelly’s niece. Mammy thought the family would break apart if the truth came out.’
‘Poor Elsie, worrying about it all in her final days.’
‘She made me promise I’d travel to England and find the book and stop anyone finding out.’
‘So you came to Tall Trees?’
She looked sheepish. ‘It took a while to organise.’
‘You left behind your life in Ireland to fulfil your mum’s dying wish?’
A shadow crossed Helen’s face. ‘I did.’
‘You must have loved her so much.’
‘She was the best person I’ve ever met.’ Helen lifted her chin. ‘She was a wonderful nurse. An amazing mother. My father adored her. My brothers have dozens of children and grandchildren and they all loved her too. I know that if she helped Nelly die, then she did it for the right reasons. I don’t want her memory tarnished.’
‘Do you have children? A partner?’
‘No children,’ Helen said. ‘I have a partner. Or I did.’ She sighed. ‘Her name’s Julia and we’ve been together for twenty-five years. She thought I was bonkers doing this. I’m not sure she’ll still be at home when I get back.’
On a whim I reached out and patted her hand. ‘We’ll talk her round,’ I said. A thought struck me. ‘Why did Elsie have to leave? If Nelly was dying anyway, no one would have suspected your mother had helped her along. It seems so extreme.’
‘Someone saw her.’ Helen looked like she was going to cry. ‘This chap called Jackson had a bit of a crush on her. I think nowadays he’d be called a stalker. He followed her around and he’d got himself a job at the hospital and he saw what she did.’
‘God,’ I said, putting my hand over my mouth.
‘He threatened my mother and she was scared. So she left.’
‘But he didn’t tell,’ I said. ‘Because Elsie came back when the hospital closed to see her friends.’
Helen shook her head. ‘He was the only casualty in the bomb that fell on the hospital. He survived the blast but died a few weeks later. Of course, my mother didn’t know he’d died until a few months had gone by. And by then she was hugely pregnant with me and settled in Dublin.’
‘How did she get to Ireland?’ I frowned. ‘Could you just flit about during the war? I thought it would be like lockdown?’
