Gramps appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’ He took the two steps down into the kitchen with care.

‘Perfect timing. Would you like a coffee?’ Alex asked.

‘Oh, no, far too early.’ He looked between them. ‘Joan?’

‘Sleeping – and Mum is sitting with her.’

He gave her a sideways glance.

‘I’ve told her to behave and I’m bringing coffee up now.’ She picked up the mug Alex had poured for her mother.

‘Fine.’

There was that word again. Nothing about this whole situation was fine. It was far from it.

28

Diana

4 August 2018, 7.20 a.m.

The sun beat down on her back as Diana traced her childish handwriting inside the front cover of To Kill a Mockingbird. She had been cheeky to do it. It hadn’t been hers and if Lottie had done it to one of her books she would have been livid.

Diana Trewin of Boskenna

Not of anywhere else, not of Moscow, not London where they had a flat, but Boskenna. At first, she hadn’t run from the house, but had been taken from it. How had she felt then? The words in front of her spoke of belonging but she didn’t belong anywhere. Her flat in London was only personalised by books and they could be packed into a few boxes. She hadn’t created a welcoming environment for Lottie . . . not like Boskenna. The house dripped in history and warmth, with silver picture frames speaking of happier times. But there were no displayed pictures of Diana’s childhood. Those had been locked away. Why? She shivered despite the warm breeze.

Reviewing the past sixty-four years she could see that she had done everything in later life to not be here and yet she returned in her dreams, pulled back by her sub-conscious when she wasn’t in control. What was she afraid of? She had faced terrorists with no fear of death. She’d watched the man she loved die for her. Die for the child he knew she was expecting, even though she hadn’t yet known. He had been so much more attuned to life than she ever would or could be. He died to set her free. Diana had felt more at home in the hovel that was her prison than she did here. She took a deep breath.

Here was alien, yet she knew it intimately. However, in her dreams the rooms had altered and this one she never entered. Looking around from the big wardrobe to the dressing table to the bed – nothing was familiar. Had she not found her father because her dreams never took her here? The only person who could tell her more was her mother.

She sat motionless except for a periodic rasp. Diana knew the facts of her mother’s life, but she didn’t like her or what she stood for. Joan Trewin Russell was a woman of the past, subservient. Yes, she’d had a career of sorts but once she had remarried, she’d thrown it in and become a housewife again. It was a wonder she had waited so long between husbands. Even now, she was beautiful. She would have been a ‘prize’ for any man, but she had chosen George Russell, a neat American. Diana had never seen the appeal. Her mother’s remarriage had pushed them even further apart, and Diana hadn’t thought that possible.