Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 151, Nos. 1 & 2. Whole Nos. 916 & 917, January/February 2018

Half-Life by Kate Ellis

The CWA Dagger in the Library is described by its presenters as “a prize for a body of work by a crime writer that users of libraries particularly admire.” It is one of the most prestigious U.K. crime-writing awards and Kate Ellis was one of six short-listed writers for 2017. She is the author of many short stories and nearly thirty novels; the latest, an entry in her Wesley Peterson series, is The Mermaid’s Scream.

Nature seemed oblivious to the crisis. Larks sang in the surrounding fields and shrieking gulls performed aerobatics in the cloudless blue sky. Only the insistent wailing of the siren indicated something was amiss. Like a banshee in some old tale it howled out its warning. The land was in peril and an unseen hand might be poised to deliver a silent, invisible death.

As the patrol car drew up outside Primrose Cottage, PC George Jenkins thought the place wasn’t as pretty as its name suggested. It was a bungalow with rotting window frames, a roof of crumbling pantiles, and a small front garden filled with flourishing weeds. Hardly “roses round the door.”

The cottage stood only a few yards inside the evacuation zone, but orders were orders. He already knew the occupant’s name and the neighbours had been happy to fill in a few details. Miss Rosa Cage, he was told, was elderly and kept herself to herself. She lived on the edge of the small community, down a narrow track that led nowhere except to her cottage. And, according to the neighbours, she wanted nothing to do with any living being — not human, not animal.

It was difficult to tell how old Primrose Cottage was, but it had certainly been there in the landscape long before the nuclear power station was built a couple of miles away on the fringe of the sea. When Jenkins looked around all he could see were fields and hedgerows and he knew that, should the worst happen, this land would be blighted for decades, even centuries, to come.

Jenkins stood by the rotten wooden gate separating Miss Cage’s garden from the outside world. He hadn’t bothered to lock the car door because prowling car thieves were unlikely to choose such an isolated spot. Until six weeks ago he’d worked in the teeming centre of London but things were different here in rural Suffolk.

The gate’s hinges had rusted half away and the thing fell to the ground with a thud as he tried to open it. He nipped through the gap and put the gate back in place, but now it stood at a drunken angle. He’d see to it later, he thought... once he’d done what he’d come to do. As he walked up the path he looked at the greying lace curtains at the cottage windows and wondered if he was being watched.

A pair of wires poked from an oblong of brittle grey plastic beside the front door where a bell push had once been, which meant the only way of getting the occupier’s attention was to rattle the rusty letter box. The dark blue door with its peeling paint looked half-rotten. One kick would have had it down, he thought. The old woman’s security was pitiful.

He lifted the letter box and let it fall before calling out, “Miss Cage. Are you there? Police. I need to speak to you.”

He waited, his ears tuned to any sound within the house. He was sure he could hear something, but when nobody answered he tried again, rapping on the door’s filthy frosted glass. To his relief, after a couple of minutes he saw a dark shape moving in the hallway.

“Hello, Miss Cage. My name’s PC Jenkins. Can you open the door, please?”

The shape was looming nearer and when it stopped behind the door he could make out a small figure, blurred and distorted behind the undulations in the glass, like some abstract portrait in muted, winter shades.

“Please open the door, Miss Cage. It’s nothing to worry about,” he lied. If this thing went badly, there’d be plenty to worry about. The news would be full of it for months.

The figure behind the glass made no move to unlock the door but he heard a faint, creaking voice, as if its owner was unused to speaking aloud. “I knew you’d come,” she said. Then she scrabbled for the lock and the door opened slowly.

Rosa Cage could see him behind the glass. He had come for her at last, just as she knew he would.

The sound of the car engine had brought her to the window to peer out through the veil of lace and filth. He was taller than she had imagined. And older. Somehow she’d always imagined him as a child or maybe a young man; the sort of handsome, clear-eyed youth who once went off to fight in some long-forgotten war. Eternally young. Eternally brave. Eternally dead.

This man was in his forties and his steel-grey hair was so closely cropped that he looked almost bald. He was fat too, with a belly that stretched his crisp white shirt. And yet she knew it was him. She could see the likeness... the familiarity of those features.

She shuffled down the hall. This was the moment she’d been waiting for. The best moment of her life. Yet she still felt afraid.

The door had just opened a crack when George Jenkins’ radio crackled into life. He cursed under his breath before he responded.

“I’m there now. She’s the last,” he reported. “I’ll make sure she gets there. Okay?” He tried to sound calm and cheerful, aware that Miss Cage could hear every word. He didn’t want to frighten her, not now he’d made so much progress.

He heard Karen’s disembodied voice over the airwaves. “I told you I’d see to Primrose Cottage. Why didn’t you leave it to me?”

“You were busy. What’s the problem?”

He could sense PC Karen Dawson wasn’t pleased about something. She was an odd woman; earnest and secretive. But there are all sorts in the police service: It had been the same in London.

He could still hear the distant siren. If the summer breeze was carrying the sound his way, it could also be wafting something more sinister towards them. He knew that the “incident” was bad news. It had been called an “incident” from the beginning, never an accident. Accident would imply chaos and a lack of control. And chaos would spread panic. How easy it is to deceive with words.

A clawlike hand had crept around the edge of the door. He could see the bony knuckles, white and grasping tight onto the wood.

The door opened a little wider and at last he saw her face. It was a long face with a bulbous nose framed by lank grey hair, roughly chopped at angles as if the woman had cut it herself with a pair of blunt scissors and without the aid of a mirror. Her threadbare black cardigan and long grey skirt drooped off her scrawny frame but her eyes were bright and darted nervously, as though seeking an escape route. Jenkins knew she’d need careful handling.

“Have you heard the siren from the power station?”

She stared at him blankly.

“There’s been an incident and we’ve got to evacuate everyone from the area. Just a precaution. Nothing to worry about. We’re taking everyone to the leisure centre in Coldborough for the time being, so if you’d like to grab a few things and pop them in a bag, I’ll give you a lift there.” He forced out a smile. “All part of the service.”

He caught a whiff of something musty, her clothes, perhaps, or maybe the unwashed body beneath. Or perhaps it was just the smell of the bungalow after so many years of damp and neglect. And yet he knew the place hadn’t always been like that.

She closed the door in his face and he had no choice but to wait on the doorstep, listening to the birds squabbling in the nearby hedgerow... and the distant, insistent wail of the siren.

Mother had given her strict instruction never to let any man inside the bungalow and, although Mother no longer ruled the house, she had never gone against her wishes.

She could almost hear the old woman’s strident voice. “We keep ourselves to ourselves, Rosa. We don’t mix.” That had been her life from the time she was born — her and Mother against the world. Until they decided to build the power station on the coast overlooking the sea and money had been so tight they’d had to open their door to strangers.

The policeman was talking through the letter box, asking her to go with him, his voice wheedling, charming, just like the voice of that man who’d altered her life forever in 1965; the man who’d always been ready with a kind word and a compliment. She shut her eyes and saw the ingratiating smile he used to wear when he flattered Mother’s cooking. Because of him she’d felt alive back then. But that had soon changed.

“Do you mind if I come in and wait while you get your things together?” The man at the door sounded so gentle, so persuasive. “It is just you living here, isn’t it? There’s nobody else who needs to be taken to the leisure centre?”

As she undid the latch she saw that he’d inserted his well-polished police boot over the threshold.

“All your neighbours have gone already. Sorry to hurry you, but it is an emergency.”

He was in the hall now, towering over her, filling all the available space. She could tell this large man with his jocular way of talking and his London accent wasn’t the one she’d been waiting for and in a way she felt relieved. But she had waited so long for him to come to her that she felt a stab of disappointment too.

This policeman was a stranger. And she didn’t intend to go with him to any leisure centre... or anywhere else, for that matter.

As she began to back away she could hear her tired heart beating and the blood rushing in her ears. She would obey Mother’s orders and stay there. Somehow she had to get rid of him.

At first he thought she was going to cooperate, but now she was edging away, keeping her back against the hall wall with its stained floral wallpaper. He had to get her out of there somehow, but using force on an old woman was out of the question. Perhaps if he explained the danger in simple terms she’d see sense.

“Look, love, there’s been an accident at the nuclear power station and we’ve got to evacuate the area.” She was cowering against the wall as though she was expecting him to launch an attack, so he gave her a reassuring smile. “Please, love, just get your things and you can have a nice ride in a police car.”

He knew he was talking to her like a child but he had to get her out of there. He thought of the letter in his pocket and suddenly felt impatient.

“Look, if you don’t get out of here you could be poisoned with radiation. And so could I ’cause I’m not leaving you. Come on.” He held out his hand to her but she stepped back towards the open doorway of a darkened room. She reminded him of a feral, cowering animal... and he knew what fear did to them when they were cornered. He imagined her clawing at his face with jagged, filthy nails. Maybe he should have left this to Karen after all. Perhaps the situation required a woman’s touch.

He was pondering his next move when the old woman shot into the room and shut the door. They’d reached a silent stalemate, but leaving her there wasn’t an option. Besides, once she was safely out of the way there was something he needed to do.

He could hear the throaty purr of a car approaching down the lane, then a small screech of brakes, like a whimper of pain, as it came to a halt. Jenkins turned and walked out of the front door. Whoever it was needed to be warned off: At least he could get something right.

However, he saw that another patrol car had parked beside his and Karen Dawson emerged from the driver’s seat. She was a thin, dark-haired woman of around his own age with the lined face of an enthusiastic smoker. Like him, she hadn’t pursued promotion over the years. But unlike him, she possessed an undercurrent of bitterness, as though she’d once had ambition which had long ago been thwarted.

Karen was marching towards him, her lips pressed together in a determined line. “Haven’t you got her out yet?” There was a note of triumph in her voice.

“She’s being awkward.”

“Where is she?”

“First door on the left. I’ve tried everything apart from force, but she won’t budge.”

Karen brushed past him as she entered the bungalow. She smelled of mint; toothpaste or chewing gum. “Have you heard anything?” he asked her disappearing back.

She swung round. “What about?”

“The power station. What’s the latest?”

“Haven’t a clue.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “Rosa. It’s PC Dawson here... Karen. Can I come in?”

Jenkins watched the door open slowly with a horror-film creak. Karen vanished into the void and emerged a minute later with the old woman shuffling beside her, head bowed. Karen supported her arm and shot Jenkins an I-told-you-so look.

“Get this place secured,” Karen hissed as she passed him. “And make sure you’ve got the key.”

Jenkins fought an urge to retaliate. The woman was treating him like an imbecile. But it was best to say nothing. He had things to do and he didn’t have time for distractions. He stood at the door and watched Karen’s car disappear down the track. It hadn’t been his fault, he told himself. Some old ladies respond to the feminine approach, that’s all.

“Engineers are trying to control the leak of radioactive material from the isolated Hawkswood Nuclear Power Station on the Suffolk coast. A spokesman for the Nuclear Power Authority said there’s no need for the public to panic. However, all residents within a two-mile radius have been evacuated as a precaution and are spending the night at a nearby leisure centre. Now on to sport...”

Jenkins switched off the radio. It was an old-fashioned radio covered in greasy grime and even the simple act of turning the switch had left a smear of dirt on his fingers. There was no TV, but somehow he hadn’t expected Miss Cage to have one. He looked around the room. The pattern of the carpet was practically invisible beneath the dirt of years and all the furniture dated from the nineteen fifties or sixties. Some of it had come back into fashion, but for those who remembered it first time round, it held little appeal. He had been born in 1965, two years, according to the poet Larkin, after the invention of sex, so his parents must have caught on pretty quick. The house where he’d grown up had been filled with furniture like this. His mother, being widowed, had had little spare money to keep up with furnishing trends so she’d made do with the old-fashioned stuff until she died.

He stood listening to the silence and realised he could no longer hear the siren. Maybe they’d turned it off now everyone had been evacuated. Everyone apart from him, that is.

Jenkins put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out the letters. He needed to read them again. Maybe then things would start to make sense.

He glanced at the stained armchair and decided to remain standing as he took the first letter from its envelope.

“My darling Sal,” it began. “Got here safely and found digs in a place called Primrose Cottage. It’s out in the middle of nowhere and my landlady’s a Mrs. Cage. She’s a funny woman who doesn’t say much, but she knows how to make a decent breakfast — eggs from her own chickens and everything. I could get used to this country life.”

It continued for another page, mainly asking how things were at home. But it was the mention of Primrose Cottage and Mrs. Cage that interested him. All he had been told about his father was that he had vanished a month before he was born and that all efforts to find him had failed.

His mother’s more uncharitable friends had assumed he’d abandoned his pregnant wife because he couldn’t face the responsibility of fatherhood. But his mother had refused to believe it. After her death he’d found his father’s letters in a rosewood box, tied with blue ribbon, and when he’d read them, he couldn’t believe in his father’s perfidy either. That was why he’d sought a transfer. That was why he’d been trying to discover as much as he could about what had happened when his father joined hundreds of other construction workers to build the brooding, silent mass of Hawkswood Power Station on the edge of the North Sea.

Each time he’d called at Primrose Cottage before there had been no answer so he’d never actually seen the occupant until today. The fact she bore the same name as his father’s old landlady gave him a new thrill of hope. The Rosa Cage he’d just met must have been a teenager back in 1965, but he suspected that getting her to talk about her memories of that time might prove difficult.

He began to read the second letter, dated a week after the first. “My darling Sal. Hope you’re keeping well and the heartburn has gone. I wish to God I was there with you, but the money’s so good here and all I can think about is getting a bit put by for you and the nipper. I can’t wait to be a daddy and the foreman says I can take some time off when it’s born. Things are looking up now ’cause there’s a new bloke at Primrose Cottage. His name’s John and he’s from Ireland. He’s good company and livens the place up no end. He’s a real charmer but he’ll have his work cut out to get round Mrs. Cage.”

This was hardly the letter of a man who planned to abandon his wife and child. Something had happened back then to prevent him coming home and he needed to discover what it was. Finding someone called “John” from Ireland who’d stayed there all those years ago would be a difficult task. But many of the houses he’d visited nearby belonged to elderly people so there was a good chance they were around when the power station was being built. And if they were, they might well remember the men who’d helped to build it.

“Are you all right, Rosa?”

Rosa Cage’s eyes were watering and she couldn’t see clearly. But the voice was kind. And comfortingly familiar. Rather like Mother’s voice.

“Do you want anything? I can get you a cup of tea.”

The mist was clearing now and she could see the woman in front of her was wearing a white shirt. It was the policewoman who’d brought her here. Karen. She nodded and Karen stood up, touching her arm in a gesture of reassurance.

There were lots of people there in that huge room with its glossy wooden floor, marked with strange squares and half circles. The sound of chatter and crying babies echoed off the breeze-block walls and Rosa blocked her ears. She couldn’t bear to hear babies crying. Her baby had never cried... not in her hearing anyway. She remembered the agonising pain and the tiny body being torn out of her. She remembered the nurse with the cold statue face telling her it was for the best.

He had been one of the many men who’d travelled there to build the power station and he had been her first lover. First and last. Back then they’d said the power station was going to be good for the area. People who knew said that science held all the answers — until there was an explosion somewhere in Russia and people started avoiding the area. The power station had drawn him there and he’d said the money was good: That’s why Mother had been able to charge a lot for the rooms.

After her baby was born and taken from her, Mother thought it best that she went to the hospital and stayed there. Some called it an asylum, somewhere fearful spoken of in hushed voices. Mother said she’d been mad; feeble-minded were the exact words she used. Although she’d heard a doctor call her “morally degenerate.”

They’d never told her whether her baby was a boy or a girl but the man she’d seen today was the image of one of the men who’d stayed at Primrose Cottage back then. That strong resemblance might mean that he was her baby returned to her. But her memories were confused and she couldn’t be sure whether he resembled the man who’d shared her bed or the other man, the one with the London accent. Time and the treatment she’d endured in the hospital had made the past so dreamlike and hazy that both men’s faces had become a flesh-tinted blur. But she was sure the man who’d called himself PC Jenkins resembled one of them. And she’d been afraid to speak to him in case she gave herself away.

Karen was handing her a flimsy polystyrene cup filled with hot tea, telling her to be careful not to spill it. Then she pulled up a plastic chair and sat down next to her.

“It’s a bit noisy in here, but we’ll get you home as soon as we can.”

Karen had been so kind and Rosa was tempted to confide in her. She felt she couldn’t keep it to herself much longer. She needed to tell somebody her son had come back to her.

She nudged Karen’s arm and put her face close to hers. “I’ve got a secret,” she whispered.

“What sort of secret?” Karen looked worried. Rosa didn’t want her to be worried — not when she’d been so kind.

“I think my son’s come back.”

Karen was staring at her now. “What do you mean, Rosa?”

“He came for me. He looks so like one of those men but...” She suddenly felt unsure and Karen was giving her a strange look she couldn’t quite fathom.

“Which men are you talking about, Rosa?”

“The ones who stayed with me and Mother when they were building the power station.” She shifted in her seat and a little of her tea spilled over the edge of the cup, leaving a dark patch on her skirt.

Karen nodded slowly as though she understood and Rosa was grateful that someone was treating her as if she was sane. Then Karen leaned towards her, keeping her voice low. “When this man stayed with you... Did you, er... sleep with him?”

Suddenly tears stung Rosa’s eyes. Karen gently took the tea from her hands and waited. How was she going to explain to this kind girl that it was like a half-remembered dream; that during those years in the hospital her emotions and memories had been muffled by pills and electric shocks.

She felt Karen give her hand a gentle, comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry, Rosa,” she said. “I’ll sort everything out.”

Rosa Cage’s nearest neighbours — a sprightly elderly couple called Parsons — had gone to stay with their daughter on the outskirts of Coldborough, twelve miles away from the danger. Jenkins remembered the way the woman had fussed and dithered when he’d called, wondering what clothes to take with her and changing her mind at least three times. He’d tried to emphasise the urgency, but some people won’t be told.

Mr. Parsons was the silent type, used to his wife’s whims after so many years of marriage. There had been times when Jenkins wished he had experienced the joys and pitfalls of marriage — but he’d had his mother to look after and when she’d died he’d been left with nobody to care for. That was when he’d discovered the story of his father that his mother had kept from him all those years. That was when he’d set himself the task of uncovering the truth.

He’d volunteered to double-check that the evacuation area was clear. As far as the power-station leak was concerned, his only information had come from the radio news and that wasn’t giving much away. The engineers were still working to bring the situation under control, it said. The cold fear of the residents who’d had their lives disrupted wasn’t reported. Neither was the fact that this green open land and the sea beyond might never feel quite clean again. But at that moment his main concern was discovering all he could about Rosa Cage.

The Parsons’ daughter’s house was detached and stood in a cul-de-sac of identical houses on a new estate. It wasn’t the sort of area where a police car was a common sight and he could sense hidden eyes watching him as he walked to the front door.

He was in luck; the old couple were in and, as their daughter led the way to the conservatory, she told him they seemed to be enjoying the adventure. She herself, however, was frightened that some unseen mist of radiation would reach Coldborough on the wind and deliver a slow and painful death to all its inhabitants. “They only tell you what they want you to know,” she said. “And those things have a half-life and can linger for years in the environment.”

Once the daughter had provided tea and the subject of the power-station incident had been exhausted, Jenkins put his cup down and smiled at the elderly couple.

“We managed to get Miss Cage to safety,” he began. “But I’m worried about how she’ll cope on her own.”

Mrs. Parsons sat up straight, suddenly on gossip alert. “I called Social Services once but she sent them away. I was quite relieved when that woman started visiting. I don’t know whether she’s from some charity or...”

“What woman?”

“She’s been there a lot recently, but I don’t know who she is. You’ll have to ask Miss Cage... if you can get any sense out of her.”

“You’ve lived there a long time. You must know Miss Cage well.”

It was the man’s turn to butt in. “Not really. The Cages have always kept themselves to themselves.”

“The cagey Cages we used to call them, didn’t we, Len,” the woman said, giggling at her own joke. “Mind you, when the power station was being built they did take in a couple of lodgers. Quite a few people let out rooms to construction workers in those days because I believe they paid good money. Even so, I was surprised when old Ma Cage allowed strangers into that bungalow.”

“Do you remember the Cages’ lodgers?”

“Oh yes. We used to chat to them sometimes, didn’t we, Len.”

Jenkins felt his heart beating faster. “Tell me about them.”

“One was called John. He was Irish — a real charmer. The other was from London. He was a nice bloke... quiet. Geoff his name was.” She hesitated. “He looked a bit like you.”

“What happened to them?”

The couple looked at each other. “No idea,” the man said. “They were there one day and gone the next. I assumed they’d moved on — had the offer of a better job or something.”

“Geoff probably went back to London. He told me his wife was expecting their first.”

Mr. Parsons looked at his wife. “You never told me that.”

“Why should I? It’s not the sort of thing that usually interests you. I don’t know what happened to John, though. That’s a bit of a mystery.”

Jenkins waited for her to continue. Something happened to prevent his father returning home for his birth. And sitting there in that sunlit conservatory with its view over the small suburban garden, he realised that this couple might unwittingly hold the key to the puzzle that had dogged him for almost half a century, always there at the back of his mind so that his life only seemed half-complete.

“Did anything unusual happen around the time the two men disappeared?”

The woman frowned and shook her head. But then Len chipped in with a nervous glance at his wife, as though he was afraid of speaking out of turn. “I was in the garden one evening and I heard raised voices. Sounded like a terrible row and I heard a woman crying... and a man’s voice telling someone to stop. Of course I wasn’t listening properly. It was none of my business.”

His wife shot him an exasperated look as Jenkins stood up.

“Thanks for the tea. I’ll see myself out,” he said as he made for the door. He had to go back to Primrose Cottage.

He drove too fast into the evacuation zone and when he brought the car to a halt outside the cottage he was struck by the silence. No siren now, nothing to tell of the poison that might be spreading over the land, borne on the light summer breeze. In that silent place his father had quarrelled with somebody that night all those years ago. He wondered whether he’d feel better once he knew the truth. Or whether it was too late for all that.

He gave the front door a push and when it flew open he stepped into the hall, listening and breathing in the musty air. Then he made for the back of the house. It would be best if he made a systematic search. And he’d start in the bedrooms.

After searching for an hour he found what he was looking for.

And fifteen minutes later the front door opened again... but he was too preoccupied to hear it.

A whole year had passed since the power-station incident. The government said it hadn’t been serious, and the residents who’d been evacuated as a precaution had been allowed to return to their homes after just three days. The official line was that the evacuation had shown how efficiently the authorities were able to deal with such situations. But there were many who hadn’t believed a word of it.

The incident had brought a whole new beginning for Rosa Cage. Her old life seemed distant now, as if it had happened to someone else. But strangely, certain memories had become clearer. She could remember leaving the hospital and coming home to live with Mother in her dank, lonely cottage. She could remember being with Mother until she died, then floundering alone in squalor once she was left to fend for herself.

Then everything changed when she was taken to that strange, crowded hall of echoes. And when she’d returned to Primrose Cottage a few days later she found the place cleared out and cleaned to a sparkle because her child — that tiny, bloody thing she had only caught a brief glimpse of — had come back into her life.

For years she’d lived with the fear of being sent back to the hospital with its casual cruelty, its smells, and its sharp, stinging needles that brought cloudy oblivion. But now her child was there to look after her and everything would be fine.

She’d told her child everything she remembered. It had felt strange to let all the unspeakable secrets gush out but once she’d started it had been easy.

The man had come to her room that night so long ago and she’d rather enjoyed what they’d done together, although Mother had insisted later that he had taken advantage of her. Then when she’d started being sick in the mornings, Mother had become very angry and one night she’d quarrelled with the man. It had happened so fast; the sudden movement of the knife; the blade disappearing into the soft flesh, and the whimper of astonishment as John slumped to the ground. She remembered screaming and sobbing as Geoff, the other lodger, walked in and saw her lover lying there on the floor with blood surrounding his body like a glistening red halo. She’d screamed again when her mother thrust the kitchen knife into Geoff’s heart and carried on when she saw both men lying lifeless at her feet.

Afterwards Mother gave her something to calm her down and she remembered little after that. She had slept for many hours and when she’d awoken there’d been no sign of the blood or the men. Mother told her she’d imagined it all, that her disturbed mind had conjured a nightmare and that the men had simply left, but now a dreadful possibility was forming in her head. Mother had been a strong woman, used to hard work on the land during the war, and when she’d awoken the next morning with a dry mouth and sickness gnawing at her belly, she’d seen two patches of newly dug soil in the garden which hadn’t been there before.

Now she was standing at the kitchen window looking out into the garden. The weeds had vanished and her child had planted vegetables in their place. Some voices on the radio questioned whether the land had been contaminated by the incident at the power station but her child had told her that was nonsense.

There were three vegetable beds, slightly raised. Her child said those three special places were more fertile than the rest of the garden. And her child was right about everything.

Karen’s search for her biological mother had become an obsession. She’d never felt any affinity with her adoptive family so it had seemed logical to embark on the quest which had taken her years to complete. Over the years she’d followed the clues and now she’d found the woman who’d given her life. For the first time she felt contented. She’d even taken early retirement from the police force because these days she found tending her new garden much more satisfying than work.

The bungalow was no longer the run-down dump she’d found on her first visit. She’d had a new bathroom and kitchen installed and redecorated throughout. All the relics of the past had been destroyed; all those papers relating to her mother’s incarceration in that terrible asylum and all the letters from her natural father’s relatives begging for news of him — although she could hardly grace him with the title “father” as his role in her life had been all too brief.

It wasn’t until her mother had been allowed home after the power-station incident that she’d revealed her true identity. But she’d come to know Rosa well in the months before that, calling as a concerned friend and gaining her confidence. In those months Rosa had spoken about those events of 1965, unsure whether her recollections were real or whether they’d sprung from her imagination. She’d spoken of her mother’s crime and the child who’d been taken away from her, unsure whether it had been a boy or a girl. Karen had longed to take her in her arms and tell her that she was that child. But because of Rosa’s fragile mental state, she’d taken things slowly and, once Rosa had told her everything, she was determined that her dreadful knowledge wouldn’t interfere with their happiness. And now the past was over, Karen and her real mother had embarked on their new life.

She hadn’t meant to kill George Jenkins when she found him going through her mother’s things. But she knew that if that unfortunate incident back in 1965 came to the attention of the authorities, her mother’s life would be destroyed again as Primrose Cottage was turned into a crime scene and the garden excavated. She’d protected her mother from the consequences of her grandmother’s actions. And to do so she’d become a murderer herself.

She’d used her baton to knock him unconscious. Then, when he’d started to come round, she’d panicked and hit him again.

There’d been a space in the garden next to the two original graves so she’d buried him there. It was strange, she thought, that nobody seemed to miss him very much. And when his car was found on the coast, everyone assumed he’d been swept out to sea by accident or even committed suicide. He’d seemed a lonely man, after all, with no family or friends. A stranger in the area who’d never made much progress in his career and whose personal life remained a mystery.

She gazed out of the window at the three vegetable beds. They’d have a good crop this year. The place was returning to life.