Lottie made a mental note to google Tom Martin. While Mrs Hoskine chattered on, Alex was silent and her brain was racing with the help of coffee, but kept returning to Gramps. He had been here that weekend too. She would have a gentle chat. He’d always been a confidant. He was the missing key to unlock Gran’s actions. She was sure of it.

‘You mentioned that Gran seemed to be having a bit of a breakdown.’ Her grandmother must have been destroying evidence.

Mrs Hoskine stood. ‘I’ve held my thoughts close to myself these years but maybe this will help.’ She walked to the dresser. ‘It can’t hurt now, when she’s so close to leaving us.’

Lottie’s mouth dried. Mrs Hoskine pulled out the drawer and turned it over on the table, emptying the contents. From the bottom of it she pulled out a few sheets of paper stapled together with a black and white snapshot of a birthday cake with three Russian dolls on the top of it. Lottie’s hand shook as she opened the handmade book emblazoned with the words, Happy Birthday Daddy in her mother’s childish hand. The cake, the table, the guest, the bay. Her grandmother flanked by George and another handsome man. ‘Who is this?’

‘That would be Mr Carew.’

The next photo showed Allan chatting to some woman, but as Lottie studied the picture she saw a man in a white dinner jacket with his hand on Allan’s bottom. Lottie looked up and Mrs Hoskine’s mouth was pressed into a straight line. It wasn’t an accidental motion caught by the camera. It was deliberate. It was sexual. Lottie looked up and swallowed before saying, ‘Did you know?’

Mrs Hoskine frowned. ‘I had my suspicions but when I looked through Diana’s book, I knew.’ She picked up a cloth and wiped the clean table. ‘I went up to her room and took the book.’

‘Why?’ Lottie’s eyes narrowed.

‘I didn’t want the police to find it and ask questions that your grandmother didn’t need to face.’

Lottie turned to Alex and handed him the book. Had Gran killed Allan to protect Diana from the scandal of Allan’s homosexuality? No, that wasn’t Gran at all. Divorce, yes. Murder, no.

‘May I keep it?’

Mrs Hoskine nodded. ‘Will you show your mother?’

Lottie looked through the book again. ‘I don’t know.’ She put the book on the table. Maybe it was best to leave it here for the moment.

73. Joan

73

Joan

5 August 1962, 7.00 a.m.

Tom is reading the paper when I come back down the stairs.

‘This isn’t good. Khrushchev’s build-up in Cuba is nothing but provocation. I hope Kennedy will hold his nerve.’ He folds it and puts it on the table.