Contents ( 71)
- THE
- DAUGHTER
- MICHELLE FRANCES
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘No, wait—’
‘I’m busy.’
The door shut in Kate’s face. An unceremonious rebuff.
It was a moment before she recovered enough to walk back down the driveway. She stopped in the lane and glanced back at the house. Felt embarrassed. And that poor boy . . . was he ill?
But Becky had been here.
Why? This was a part of her daughter’s life that she knew nothing about. It might be something small, something random that had no bearing on anything else, but it was something she didn’t know. She suddenly, desperately wanted to. She marched back up the drive and rang the bell. Twice. The door opened in an irritated flourish but before Grace could say anything, Kate declared: ‘Becky was my daughter and the reason she hasn’t been in touch for a year is that she was killed in a road cycle crash last February. I’m here . . . I’m here because I think she may have been investigating something and . . . because I miss her.’
This time the door stayed open.
FIFTEEN
‘She asked us what it was like moving out to the country from London. So not really investigating anything, unless you count my horrendous baking skills. We came here when I was three months pregnant – that was nearly seven years ago now.’ Grace smiled. ‘We had this tiny little one-bedroom flat with no garden and there just wasn’t enough room for babies as well, so we went from an expensive London box to this place. Still not massive but it has a garden that you can actually get up speed in!’
Grace led Kate to the patio doors, which were open to the warm sunshine, and Kate looked out onto a lawn with a children’s goalpost at either end. The sense of space was intensified as beyond the chain-link fence stretched a field full of oilseed rape; tall green shoots about a metre high that were just starting to break into flower. It was the kind of garden that Kate had wished she could have afforded for Becky when she was little. After built-up London where you rarely saw further than the other side of the street, it was intoxicating to be on the precipice of so much space and such a vast blue sky.
‘Isn’t it wonderful? We feel very lucky. It’s so green.’
From across the lush field, with its yellow haze of just-blossoming flowers, a tractor was approaching. As it got closer to the house, the noise became deafening. ‘Spraying season,’ said Grace as she closed the patio doors, but not before Kate got a faint whiff of something that wasn’t particularly pleasant.
‘Yes, we love it here. It’s a bit harder now I’ve had to give up work but Nick – that’s my husband – he commutes up to London when he’s not at the hospital.’ She glanced across at the little boy, playing with his Lego at the kitchen table. ‘Arnie’s not been too well the last year or so but now the weather’s getting warmer, we hope to get out more. Just to the garden. He’s got leukaemia.’