She smiled. It was good to be understood by someone, to be seen. That’s what she missed most about Jim, that he really saw her for who she was, he knew her at her best and worst, through the miscarriages and the deaths of her parents, the depression in the aftermath, the cancer scare that turned out benign, the time Jenny had an emergency appendectomy, all of it. Even the spell when she lost her mind, hooked up with Lenny Turner again after twenty years, scared of domesticity and Scottish life and motherhood and a life surrounded by death, stupidly mesmerised by Californian sunshine and an old lover who still viewed her with lust. Even through that, Jim had understood. He was heartbroken, of course, but he seemed to sincerely forgive her, and that was the most amazing gift.126

No one else would ever have that level of shared experience with her, the knowledge of life’s mundane elements, the quirks and foibles, the likes and dislikes. She was seventy now, had spent fifty years with him, nothing would even come close.

But Thomas did see her, he understood her. It was like paddling in the shallows compared to the deep dive of a lifetime of experience, but sometimes splashing in the shallows was enjoyable all the same.

She pointed across the table. ‘The bag is Jim’s hair.’

‘OK.’

She wondered what to say that would not make her seem crazy. ‘The other sample is Rebecca Lawrence’s daughter.’

Thomas pressed his lips together. ‘And how did you get a sample of her hair?’

Dorothy watched two teenage boys clatter past on skateboards down the slope towards the Meadows. They were weaving between walkers with panache, showing off skills, full of energy.

She didn’t answer.

Thomas shook his head. ‘Was it legal?’

‘Technically?’ Dorothy said.

Thomas stared at her.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘O–K,’ he said, stretching the letters out. He put the samples down and rubbed his face like he was tired. ‘What do you hope to achieve with this?’

Dorothy sipped her tea, caught a whiff of something fishy from a nearby table, salmon or tuna. She was suddenly aware of the rustling leaves on the trees.

Saying it out loud would make it more real and she didn’t want that. It would also be obvious how stupid this was. But she leaned forwards anyway, touched her finger to Natalie’s sample on the table.

‘I want to know if Natalie is Jim’s daughter. Or maybe his granddaughter, maybe Rebecca is Jim’s daughter. Maybe she got in touch with him when she was pregnant with her own kid.’127

Thomas put his hands out wide. ‘But how would that tie in with Simon’s disappearance? Or the fact Jim was paying her money?’