Chapter 1
Saturday, 22 February 2020
It feels strange being in the house on her own. When she was growing up here, her mother always seemed to be in possession, even– mysteriously– when she wasn’t actually present. Ruth remembers coming home from school and feeling guiltily relieved when the double-locked front door meant that Jean Galloway was out at her part-time job. But, even as Ruth turned on the TV and raided the biscuit tin, there was always the sense that Jean was watching her, not just from the black-and-white wedding photo over the set– Jean in an uncomfortably short sixties dress, Arthur surprisingly dashing in a thin tie and Mod suit– but from every corner of the neat, terraced house. And now, even though Jean has been dead for nearly five years, there’s still the same sense that she’s hovering somewhere on the edge of Ruth’s consciousness.
Maybe Jean is hovering because Ruth is currently in her mother’s bedroom going through a shoebox of photographs marked ‘Private’. Ruth’s father has gone away for the weekend with Gloria, his new wife. When they return, Gloria wants to redecorate so Ruth has offered to go through her mother’s belongings. Gloria (however much she likes her, Ruth can’t think of her as her stepmother) has been very tactful about the whole thing. She hasn’t changed anything in the house since she moved in two years ago, living with Jean’s clothes in the spare room wardrobe and Jean’s pictures on the walls. It’s only natural that she would want to redecorate a little and, frankly, the house could do with it. Now that she doesn’t live there, Ruth notices the peeling paintwork, the faded wallpaper, the outdated furnishings. Once these were just part of what made up her home but, looking at the place with Gloria’s eyes, Ruth can understand the desire to freshen things up a bit. And, if Gloria has managed to persuade Arthur to get rid of his comb-over, there’s no limit to her powers.
Ruth is alone because her sister-in-law Cathy has taken her daughter Kate to the zoo, reluctantly accompanied by Kate’s seventeen-year-old cousin Jack. Kate loves animals and has been looking forward to the treat all week. Ruth hasn’t been to London Zoo for years but she has a sudden vision of the Penguin House, an art deco marvel of curves and blue water. But didn’t she read somewhere that penguins were no longer kept there because it turned out not to be suitable for them? She has the uncomfortable feeling that zoos, especially in the city, aren’t suitable for any animals. She braces herself for a debate with Kate on this subject when she returns. Kate is a great one for philosophical debate. Ruth can’t think where she gets it from. Kate’s father, DCI Harry Nelson, is allergic to the word philosophy. See also: art, archaeology, spirituality, yoga and vegan.
So far the photographs in the shoebox have not lived up to their intriguing label. There are a few pictures of Jean when she was young, as a schoolgirl in plaits and as a young bank clerk in a dark suit. Ruth peers at the faded prints, trying to detect any resemblance to herself, or to Kate. Ruth has often been described as looking like her mother, but she has always thought this was just because they both had a tendency to put on weight. Now, looking at the young Jean, she thinks she can see a faint likeness to Kate in her direct gaze and defiant stance, even in pigtails. It’s a real sadness to Ruth that Kate never really got to know the grandmother whom, she now realises, she rather resembles in character.
A picture of a fluffy dog is a mystery. Jean always refused to have a pet and thought that Ruth’s acquisition of two cats in her late thirties was a sign that she had, in her words, ‘given up’. Next there’s a picture of an older Jean in a long white dress, like a nightdress. What on earth? Then Ruth spots the grim-looking building in the background. Her parents’ church. This must have been Jean’s second baptism, when she was ‘born again’. Ruth doesn’t share her parents’ faith and, when she was growing up, she had bitterly resented the church’s influence on their lives. Finding God seemed to mean that her parents lost touch with everything else. For the truly righteous, religion is a full-time job. But the years have softened Ruth’s stance and she was particularly glad that her father had the church’s support after her mother died. In fact, the Christian Bereavement Group is where he met Gloria.
She shuffles through several adult baptisms until there’s only one photograph left in the box. It shows three cottages surrounded by flat marshland. Ruth looks again. It’s her cottage! Her beloved, inconvenient home, miles from everywhere, facing the Saltmarsh, inhabited only by migrating birds and the ghosts of lost children calling from the sea. Jean always disliked the house. ‘Why can’t you live somewhere more civilised?’ she used to say, a south London girl born and bred. ‘Somewhere with shops and a proper bus service?’ Why on earth would Jean have kept a photograph, a rather scenic one too, of the despised cottage?
But there’s something wrong with the picture. The cottages are painted dull pink rather than white and are surrounded by a low hedge rather than a picket fence. The car parked in front of the last house looks boxy and strange. Ruth turns the photo over and sees, in her mother’s characteristically loopy handwriting:Dawn 1963.
Ruth was born in 1968. She looks again at the picture, taking in the sepia tones and the rounded edges. There’s no doubt about it. Her mother had a picture of Ruth’s cottage, taken thirty years before Ruth ever saw the place.
Ruth takes the shoebox of photos into her room and puts it by her case. She’s sleeping in her old childhood bedroom, barely big enough for a bed, bookcase and wardrobe. Kate has Simon’s old room which was bigger because he was olderanda boy. ‘Boys need more space,’ Jean used to say, in answer to Ruth’s regular complaints. But Simon, unlike Ruth, was a neat, contained creature and would have fitted comfortably in the box bedroom. Ruth remembers that he never expanded to fill his room in the way that Kate has done over one night, clothes on the floor, open books on the bedside table. Ruth picks up the clothes, though she knows she should make Kate do it herself. Kate is eleven, after all.
Ruth has packaged her mother’s clothes into two bin bags, one for charity and one for recycling. There was nothing she wanted to keep. Arthur has already given Ruth her mother’s gold watch on a chain and her diamond engagement ring. Ruth keeps these in a wooden box with Kate’s pink hospital bracelet from when she was born (‘Girl of Ruth Galloway’) and a shepherd’s crown, a fossilised sea urchin meant to bring good luck. This last was a present from her druid friend Cathbad.
Looking through her mother’s belongings has made Ruth feel sad and restless. She needs some fresh air. The house is in a residential part of Eltham, rows and rows of Edwardian terraces and thirties’ semis, slightly smarter than in Ruth’s day but still presenting a rather grey and forbidding aspect. There’s nowhere very exciting to walk, unless you make the trip to the park or the cemetery. Ruth decides to go to the local shops. It’s a depressing little parade but it has a Co-op where she can buy aGuardianand a cake for tea. As Ruth walks, she thinks of taking this route with her schoolfriend Alison. When they were children, they went to the newsagents every Saturday to buy comics. Later, they both had paper rounds, slogging through the early morning streets delivering theSouth London Press. Later still, they lied about their age to buy alcohol from the sleazy off-licence on the corner. On impulse, as she passes this shop, now a Tesco Metro, Ruth takes a selfie and texts it to Alison. She’s not very adept at doing this and cuts off half her face but Ali will get the message.
When she gets back to the house, Cathy, Kate and Jack have returned from the zoo. Kate is full of information about tigers, sloths and an okapi called Meghan. Jack is quieter but, in between mouthfuls of cake, tells them a quite frightening number of facts about spiders. Cathy shudders but Ruth says that Cathbad apologises if he disturbs a spider’s web. ‘They are great works of art,’ he says.
‘Is that your wizard friend?’ says Cathy. She has refused cake because ‘it’s a five hundred calorie day’ but she’s not a bad sort really.
‘He’s a druid,’ says Kate.
‘What’s the difference?’ says Jack.
‘Druids are real,’ says Kate. She specialises in unanswerable replies which can sound rude if she’s not careful. Ruth is just about to plunge in with more questions about the zoo when her phone pings. It’s from Alison.
R U in Eltham?
Ruth types back ‘yes’ though she knows Kate wants to remind her about the ‘no phones at the table’ rule.
OMG. It must be a sign! School reunion tonite! U up for it?
Is she?
Chapter 2
Nelson is looking at a photograph of a dead woman. This is not normally something that he would do at home, on a Saturday, but his wife, Michelle, has taken their youngest child on holiday to their native Blackpool and so he has the house to himself. He had decided on an afternoon of watching rugby and drinking beer, but this was spoiled by his German shepherd dog, Bruno, who stood in front of the television, sighing. Eventually, Nelson took Bruno out for a walk and, when they returned, Nelson didn’t seem to be able to recapture that Saturday afternoon feeling. He thought about Michelle and Georgie. They were visiting Michelle’s mother and Nelson was pretty sure that they would be at the Pleasure Beach today. It wasn’t Nelson’s favourite place and he spent several minutes worrying about safety harnesses and passing child molesters. Then he thought about Ruth and Katie in London. Ruth had said that she was packing up her mother’s belongings which must be a sad task. Nelson can’t imagine life without his mother, although he’s glad she lives two hundred miles away. But thinking of his mother makes him think of a conversation he had with her at Christmas and a decision he needs to make. He can’t think about that now, not with Bruno staring at him trustingly and Georgie’s toy garage in the corner of the room. So he takes refuge in work.
Samantha Wilson was found dead yesterday at six p.m. She was lying on her bed beside an empty bottle of pills. Her body was found by her adult son, Brady, who had called in to the semi-detached house in Gaywood when he became concerned at Samantha not answering her phone. There will have to be a post-mortem but all the signs point to suicide. And yet. . .
Samantha was fifty-two, Nelson’s age. She was divorced with two adult children: Saffron, a beautician, and Brady, a personal trainer. Samantha worked part-time at the local library. The scene was attended by two uniformed PCs who reported no signs of forced entry or struggle. The photograph, taken by one of the officers, shows a woman lying, fully dressed, on a flower-patterned duvet. Her face looks peaceful, her ash-blonde hair neatly arranged. Brady, who’d been too shocked for a proper interview, said that his mother had not seemed depressed or worried. This, in itself, is no reason to suspect foul play. Children, even grown-up children, don’t always know what goes on in their parents’ minds. No, what worries Nelson is the description of the kitchen. Sergeant Jane Campion has done a thorough job:Daily Mailon the table next to an empty coffee mug, vase of tulips, empty water glass upside down on the draining board, ready meal in the microwave. This last is what’s making Nelson wonder if the Serious Crimes Unit should be involved. Because who puts a Weight Watchers’ chicken and lemon risotto in the microwave if they’re planning to kill themselves?
His phone buzzes. Jo Archer. Why is Nelson’s boss ringing him at home?
‘Hi, Nelson,’ says Jo. ‘Look, it’s nothing to worry about.’
‘What isn’t?’ says Nelson, worrying.
‘I’ve been thinking about coronavirus.’
