‘I honestly couldn’t say,’ he replies. ‘It was sad, really, afterwards like. Nobody came to clear out her flat. I don’t think she had any family. So I did it. And she hardly had any belongings. Just clothes left behind and food in the cupboards and fridge. It was a furnished flat. Nothing belonged to her. There were no personal items. No clutter, no mess. Nothing, really, that gave any clue as to what kind of person Sheila Watts had been.’

‘What about a purse? Or keys?’

‘The keys to her flat were in the trousers she’d left on the beach. No purse, or handbag. The police at the time suggested they might have been stolen when she was in the water. There were a few people on the beach that night.’

An idea begins to form in Lorna’s head, like a photograph being developed. ‘Do you think she could have faked her death?’

Alan sits back in his chair, his mouth an O shape. ‘That’s a bit of a leap.’

‘It’s just . . .’ She’s trying to arrange all the images she has in her head into some kind of picture that makes sense. ‘It’s weird that my mother has this newspaper clipping about Sheila, and her lodger was called Daphne Hartall. It’s not like Daphne Hartall is a common name, is it? It’s too much of a coincidence. There must be a link.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I could be so wide of the mark here. But . . .’ her heart flutters with excitement ‘. . . isn’t it possible that the Daphne Hartall my mum knew and the Sheila Watts you knew could be the same person?’

‘You think Sheila faked her death and stole my sister’s identity?’ He sounds incredulous.

‘People do. Did she ever seem particularly interested in Daphne?’

‘Well,’ he rubs his chin, ‘yes, I suppose, now you mention it. And there was one thing that niggled at me. After Sheila died, I was tidying away Daphne’s things that I kept in a little box on my bookcase, and I couldn’t find her birth certificate, but that could just be down to me being disorganized . . .’

‘Do you think Sheila could have taken it?’

He looks troubled. ‘Maybe. She had the opportunity.’

‘And what a perfect way to disappear if someone was trying to find her.’

The more she thinks about it the more convinced she is.

Sheila Watts and Daphne Hartall are one and the same.

24

Rose

February 1980

AS THE DAYS WORE ON I BECAME EVEN MORE INTRIGUED by Daphne. She was so strong in some ways, and in others there was a vulnerability about her that brought out my maternal side, even though we were around the same age. I wanted to protect her, just like I wanted to protect you. This slim, attractive woman who, I was now certain, had been terrorized by a man, just like I had.