Steph took the phone and accessed the voice message. She listened to it twice. Elizabeth’s voice was younger-sounding than she had imagined and Steph tried to match it to the image she’d retrieved from the internet. ‘Hello, Mum, it’s me. Look, I’m sorry to call like this and leave a message. I really wanted to speak to you in person but … things aren’t too good here. I’ve got myself into something and it’s way above my head. I don’t like it. I have a bad feeling about it all. I need to come home. I’m going to leave this place. Leave Harry and come home. I’m not sure when, but it will be soon, just as soon as I’ve worked a few things out. Got to go. Speak soon.’

‘And you’ve no idea what this thing is that she said she’d got into?’

‘I assumed it was her marriage.’

‘Her marriage? I’m not sure that fits with what she’s saying.’

‘She shouldn’t have married into that family. They are way above her pay scale. All that money and property,’ said Sonia with a degree of disdain. ‘I’m just a working-class single mother. Elizabeth was born in a council flat. We never had much money and I worked two jobs to provide for us. I was and still am proud of my background but Elizabeth, she was ashamed of her roots.’ Sonia took a sip of her coffee. ‘She was ambitious, she wanted to better herself, make a name for herself, and I did everything I could to ensure she lived her dream. Only now, I wish I hadn’t.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious,’ said Steph, gently.

‘If she’d never met that Harry Sinclair, then she’d still be alive today. I’m sure of that. I blame myself for telling her she could be anything she wanted to be.’ Sonia looked down at her hands. ‘I gave her permission to be ambitious. I empowered her but never did I think it would end in such a bad way. I sometimes think I should have encouraged her to be content with what she had.’

Steph paused for a few moments to allow Sonia to regain her composure. Personally, she thought empowerment and ambition were good things but it wasn’t the appropriate time to challenge Sonia on this. She still had the phone in her hand. ‘Did you let the police listen to this voicemail?’

‘They weren’t interested at all. Said it was just Elizabeth moaning about her husband and it neither proved nor disproved anything. You know, Harry Sinclair has stopped returning my calls. He stopped about six months after Elizabeth’s death. He actually blocked my number recently.’

‘You continued to phone him?’

‘Of course! Even when he moved to France. He can’t get away from what happened that easily. I’m not giving up.’