Page 121 of Private Lives

Liz Hart shuffled inside, her manner unhurried and slightly weary. Anna supposed she was still a mother in mourning. Ruby had said she was forty-five, but the shapeless navy tracksuit, over-dyed hair and deep lines on her face made her look ten years older.

‘Ruby’s just gone to the Co-op to get some biscuits,’ said Liz, showing Anna into an old-fashioned living room that smelled of boiled food drifting in through a hatch in the wall to the kitchen. The front door slammed and Amy walked in holding a packet of Garibaldis.

‘Oh hi,’ she said, suddenly shy. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

When Ruby had called Anna three days earlier to ask her how she was getting on, Anna knew it was the moment when she could have admitted that she hadn’t found out anything concrete and finished all this amateur sleuthing right there. Instead she found herself volunteering to visit the Hart family in Doncaster.

‘I wanted to give you both an update, although I’m not sure I have that much to tell you.’

Liz Hart pulled out a nest of tables and put out a teapot and a plate of sandwiches that remained untouched as Anna told them about her meetings with Mandy Stigwood, Ryan Jones and Gilbert Bryce.

When she finished speaking, she realised that Liz Hart was crying.

‘Sorry,’ said the woman. ‘I’m finding this quite hard.’

Anna felt around in her bag and handed her a tissue.

‘Thanks, love,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes. ‘I mean it. Thank you, for everything you are doing for us. For Amy.’ She puffed out her cheeks to compose herself. ‘It’s just I can’t help thinking how it could have been. You send your kids out into the world and you hope for the best, but who knows if they’re making the right decisions?’ She shook her head. ‘When Amy got to university I thought she’d make a better life for herself. All those opportunities, all those nice people she’d meet, but as it turns out, she’d have been better off around here, wouldn’t she?’

Anna knew what Liz Hart meant. Life on the estate would have been hard and her choices much more limited, but at least she would have been alive, and for a mother, the only thing that mattered was your child being safe and well. She felt a swell of resolve. Over the last two weeks she had asked herself many times why she was bothered with looking into Amy Hart’s death. Of course she had been intrigued by a possible connection with Sam’s overturned injunction, but as she sat and watched Liz Hart sob softly, she knew it was no longer her driving motivation. Finding out how and why Amy died might not bring her back, but it might try and help Liz and Ruby make some sense of it.

‘When Amy died,’ asked Anna gently, ‘what happened to all her stuff?’

‘Gary, my fella, has got his own window-cleaning round, so he drove us down to London in his van,’ said Liz. ‘We cleared her flat. I put everything in her old room. I couldn’t bear to throw anything away.’

Anna looked at Ruby.

‘Can we go and have a look?’

‘For what?’ asked Liz.

Anna shrugged. ‘Maybe we’ll know when we find it.’

She followed Ruby up the narrow staircase and into a tiny room only just big enough for a single bed, which was covered in a pile of overstuffed black bin liners and a stack of cardboard boxes. The boxes were filled with magazines, make-up and knick-knacks. Anna opened one of the bags and saw that it was full of clothes. Tiny skirts, sparkly tops and high-heeled shoes. Expensive, most of them, clothes that had seen many nights out. She felt a pang of sadness. All this life, all this potential, it was all gone, crumpled at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

‘You’re sorry you got into this, aren’t you?’ said Ruby, perching on the dresser in the corner. Anna gave her a rueful smile.

‘When you first came to see me, I thought it was none of my business. Or rather, I didn’t want it to be my business,’ she said honestly.

‘So why did you get involved? I mean, you didn’t take my money, so what was in it for you?’

‘I thought it might have something to do with Sam Charles. I thought maybe he’d been stitched up as a way of diverting attention from Amy’s inquest.’

Ruby looked stunned.

‘You think Sam Charles

had something to do with Amy?’ she said incredulously.

Anna shook her head.

‘No, no, I don’t think he had anything to do with Amy’s death. But something you said on the phone made me think. When the news of Sam’s affair hit the papers, it was as if Amy never even existed. I wondered if Sam might have been set up, but I’ve spoken to Mandy, Ryan and Gilbert Bryce and . . .’

She trailed off. And what? What had they all told her, exactly? Nothing very much, if truth be told. Ryan thought he was being used, Mandy thought Amy was hiding something, and Gilbert, well Gilbert was clearly just thinking about himself. Taken individually, it all added up to nothing, but taken as a whole, it was setting off an alarm in the back of Anna’s head.

‘You believe me now,’ said Ruby quietly. ‘You believe that someone killed Amy.’

Anna was only half listening, her eyes scanning the wall next to Amy’s bed. There were lots of photos there, Blu-tacked reminders of good times, holidays and friends. You always smile in photographs, don’t you? she thought sadly. However you’re feeling, you always smile for the camera.