‘Well, you can ask Beth her side of things now, can’t you?’ said Josie. ‘But if she’d gone you’d probably have left sleeping dogs lie …’ She looked at Olivia, whose mouth had dropped open. ‘What?’

‘That’s exactly what Ralph said, that I’d not be able to leave sleeping dogs lie with Beth still on base.’

Maude raised her eyebrow. ‘Then isn’t the real question, why is Ralph worried about you hearing Beth’s version of events?’

Chapter Seven

Matilda Barnham sat by the fire leafing through one of her old diaries. Despite her husband’s insistence that it was a waste of his time going into the attic, she had appealed to his better nature with a bowl of scouse, and had shortly been rewarded with two diaries from 1923 and 1924.

She settled on the pages covering the week commencing the twenty-third of December and ran her finger down the daily jottings until she got to the day Olivia and her father had returned from Glasgow. Her eyes scanned the writing looking for any mention of William. She found one entry which referred to a conversation that had taken place between her daughter and her son-in-law.

Our poor Catherine’s broken hearted, after hearing their first grandchild wasn’t strong enough to make it. She asked William if there was any chance of burying the baby at St Michael’s, so that the family might visit the grave, but he said it was too late as he’d already buried the child in Glasgow …

‘I knew it,’ she muttered between pursed lips, ‘I blooming well knew it!’

Ivor looked up from his bowl of scouse. ‘Knew what?’

She turned the diary to show him, but he shrugged. ‘I can’t read that without my glasses.’

She read the entry, then looked at him expectantly. ‘Told you he was lying!’ she said with an air of triumph.

Her husband took another spoonful of scouse. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘But why tell our Liv he’d had the baby cremated when he clearly didn’t?’

Ivor swallowed his mouthful. ‘Why tell Ted she’d had the baby aborted? Who knows why that man lies, what’s more, who cares?’

‘I do!’ snapped Matilda. ‘Someone needs to have a word with William and let him know we can see through his lies.’

Ivor dipped his spoon in the bowl of half-eaten stew. He knew he shouldn’t have let himself be swayed by the promise of his favourite dish. ‘What are you planning, woman?’

She drew herself up to her full height, all four foot ten inches of it. ‘Nobody else dares to stand up to that man, but he’s broken our Liv’s heart in more ways than one and it’s about time he was stopped.’

Ivor stirred his spoon round as he looked for the best bits. ‘It’ll end in tears, and they’ll likely be yours.’

‘That’s as maybe, but it’s about time this nonsense stopped.’ Getting up from her seat, she collected her coat, hat and scarf from the cloakroom.