His father rounds on him, not looking the least bit guilty for hurting his son. ‘Don’t go through my fucking things again! Got it?’ he hisses. The restaurant falls silent, faces tilted towards Theo as his dad slams out of the door.

33

Saffy

IT’S LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND I CAN HEAR MUM IN the living room on the phone to Alberto. She’s had to use my mobile. Her own phone should turn up in the next day or so – she’d managed to track it down by calling the café in Broadstairs where she’d lost it. Luckily some good Samaritan had handed it in to the bar staff. It sounds like she’s telling him she’s staying on for another week, and as much as she can bug me, with her fussing and high energy and incessant chatter, I’d miss her if she left tomorrow. The thought of the long days in the cottage alone, the press outside, circling like a pack of wolves, and some shady private detective lurking in the woods, makes me feel panicky. It doesn’t help that my days are filled creating book covers for sinister novels. And there is still so much we don’t know, about Gran and the past and those dead bodies. About Sheila and Jean and Susan. It’s obvious Gran knows something and it’s getting scrambled in her mind, like that game she used to play with me when I was little, where the top part of a cartoon body doesn’t go with the bottom part. I constantly have this feeling of low-level anxiety and I’m not sure if it’s my hormones or this whole situation – maybe a mixture of both – that’s causing it.

I rang DS Barnes last night and told him all about Glen Davies’s assault on Mum. She tried to stop me, saying he’d threatened her about going to the police, but it was the right thing to do.

I plaster on a smile when Mum appears in the kitchen where I’m making tea. I hand her a mug, which she takes distractedly. I’ve finished work for the day, not that I’ve managed to get much done with Mum popping her head around my study door every hour asking if I’m okay, or if I need anything.

‘I don’t think he’s very happy,’ she begins, sipping her tea thoughtfully. ‘I think he’s going to move out.’

‘What? Because you’re not at his beck and call?’

She grimaces. ‘No. Not just that. There’s been something missing for a while now. And him, my life there, it just seems a million miles away right now. And I can’t leave. Not yet. Your gran knows something about this – that’s obvious – and we need to get to the bottom of it all. Find out what she knows, or if she’s protecting someone.’