I close the notebook. All will run like clockwork. Mrs Hoskine is a saint, and with fresh food the meals will succeed. I won’t let two incomers ruin it and this George Russell will be fine. He knows the drill as a Harvard boy with the right credentials. I’ve met his type before and to my surprise have enjoyed their company. It won’t be long before I know what I think about Mr Russell. Anything will be better than my feelings about the Venns.

On the blotting paper, I see the impression of Allan’s writing. Taking a sheet of paper and pencil from the bottom draw I shade in the white sheet until I can see what was written. He must have used a ballpoint pen for it to be this clear. It was not like him, but it was his writing.

4 August

Meet me tonight as agreed.

My heart stops and I look over my shoulder in case someone is around and then methodically I go through the desk. Who? Why? Finding nothing else, I dash upstairs to go through Allan’s things. But aside from a missing cufflink, there is nothing out of place. Walking to the window I wrap my arms around myself. The sun shines relentlessly and I am slowly freezing from within as dread runs through me.

41. Diana

41

Diana

4 August 2018, 1.10 p.m.

Diana had whizzed through the shopping on Lottie’s list and was in the library sitting at an empty computer in less than a half hour. It didn’t take long to research her father’s death. She’d gone over the main facts many times before. The local news had been full of it, but the key fact she needed now, the name of the local policeman first on the scene – Pat Treneer – took a bit more digging. A few more searches confirmed he was still alive and living here in St Austell.

Leaning back in the chair, she listened to the librarian chat to a woman about the wonderful weather and hadn’t the rain a few days ago been a blessing. Diana couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken about the weather unless it was in regard to safety. It only interested her if it caused a famine or flood. By trying to raise awareness of people’s plight, she had shut off her own needs. Sitting in St Austell public library was not the time to have an existential crisis. Her work had given her life meaning. Nothing else mattered in the end. And yet her mother, nearing her death, had asked for forgiveness.