What about on Johnny’s side? What about his mother? If Connie had been desperate, might she have confided in her? And then it strikes Marina. Harry saw the resemblance. Who else has seen it too? Victor? She thinks back to when they first met. She remembers that he held her hand a little too long, but can’t recall a flash of recognition. So perhaps not Victor – and, besides, if it’s all about her hair, she had deliberately worn it up both times they met, wanting to appear business-like. But Dorothy . . . She remembers the woman’s – what was it? Hostility? Shock? – when she first saw Marina. Yes. Dorothy is obvious. She definitely reacted oddly and was also the mother of Connie’s boyfriend.

Another thought comes to Marina. Dorothy is Johnny’s mother, which means, of course, she is also Marina’s grandmother.

Strange how she has always assumed that she would know her family if she met them, that she would look into their eyes and feel a warmth. There is nothing warm about Dorothy. She has the air of a woman eaten up by disappointment – or is it guilt?

31

Eva

January 1992

Eva looks at the clock. It is eight o’clock and she calculates that she has had approximately two hours’ sleep.

She yawns and gets up, makes hot chocolate and sweetens it further by eating Turkish Delight.

The petals from the rose have fallen now. She gathers them in the palm of her hand. They are brown-tinged, but still beautiful. She touches them gently, and without warning, she is struck by a flash of memory.

Little Eva pressing flowers: pansies and violets and dahlias. Someone is showing her how to do this, but it’s not her mother. The face of a young woman appears, smiling and kind. Dark-haired like the woman downstairs.

Eva shakes her head, sips her drink, eats more Turkish Delight. The woman downstairs had been kind. What was it about her that had caused Eva to confide?

Moving to the window she spots a figure approaching and recognises the landlord, Kenneth Quip. She shivers as if cold.

Kenneth stops outside the house. His gaze moves from the basement all the way up to the gables and the finials. Eva feels as if she is inhabiting his mind. Seeing what he sees. Living vicariously.

Precariously.

She clutches the windowsill. Her fingers press into the wood as if her life depends on it.

Life depends on it. Whose life?