‘Bit grisly, this one,’ remarked one officer, passing by the open window. ‘Appears there are around three bodies. Babies. We’ll know more once we get everything back to the lab.’

CHAPTER 18

Four minute skeletons were discovered in total, in three quite clearly separate graves. Apparently, it wasn’t possible to determine their gender conclusively, as they had been so young. Preliminary tests suggested that the three smallest were not full-term foetuses and so may never have drawn breath; two had been buried together in one grave, probably twins. But horrifically, the largest, which was identified as the most recently deceased, would have been at least three months old. The baby had sustained a fatal head injury, delivered, the pathologist confirmed, by a heavy blunt instrument.

They had lain, undiscovered, for maybe forty to fifty years. Curiously, each had extra digits – some on their hands, some their feet.

I gasped, remembering Mrs Barley’s scar. It made me feel quite nauseous.

‘What d’you reckon?’ I said.

Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think. The police have gone to interview her. It’s just horrible, knowing that we’ve been living next to this in blissful ignorance. I can’t get my head round it. I’m wondering if there are any more out there. It’s fucking sick.’

An invisible hand seemed to grip my intestines. Our rural idyll had become irreversibly tainted.

Thankfully, a thorough excavation of the whole garden over the next couple of days revealed no further remains. It was heart-breaking to look out and see Mrs Barley’s beautiful plants torn out and discarded, the turf ripped up, everything trampled irreverently and in disarray. Even the summer house had been pulled apart. I felt numb. I desperately wanted to speak to the old woman, to gain some understanding of what had happened. But then, would she have wanted to tell me?

I thought about my own past and shuddered. There are some secrets we’d all prefer to take to the grave.

*

Mrs Barley never saw her home again. Her distress at the police’s line of questioning brought on a second massive stroke. She never regained consciousness. I tried to console myself with the thought that she was now at peace and with her beloved Frank once more. In spite of the uncertainty about how the baby had died and whether she could have been involved in some way, I felt utterly bereft. I didn’t want to think ill of her.

DNA tests had confirmed that she was definitely the babies’ mother. Knowing how good she had always been with Elodie, I couldn’t believe that she was capable of harming any child, much less her own. Maybe in my subconscious the old woman had been a replacement for Auntie Jane – a second chance to repay the help and support that I had been given as a child and had, if I was honest, failed to reciprocate.