Hugo finishes sniffing the lamppost and we move on.
“How much do you make in interest every month?”
“Varies. But roughly a grand. Sometimes two. Once I made three. Back in the day.”
She eyes me thoughtfully. “So, you could pay rent?”
“I’d rather not. That’s kind of the whole point of me sleeping on a futon in an attic for the last three years. I don’t want to pay rent.”
She nods. I can see machinations upon machinations. “I think,” she says finally, her voice thick with deep introspection, “that you should stay with me. Until you get your room back, and we will see what it’s like. To have a man in the house again.”
I cock my head slightly at her. What a strange thing to say, I think.To have a man in the house again.
“You mean like when your dad was around?”
“Yes. Dad was very handy. He was very strong. He was very… alpha. He fixed things, made things, kept us safe. He was useful, and me and Mum, we’re useless without him. Without a man. Totally. You’ve seen the way we live. You’ve seen us. I just think…” She looks at me with clear, bright eyes. “We need something. All of us—Daisy too. But you have to promise,” she says, touching my arm with clawed fingers. “Promise not to make me regret this.”
I look at her and smile. “Romantic,” I say. “Really. I’m touched.”
I wait for her to smile, to acknowledge my joke, but she doesn’t.
chapter twenty-seven
Before Jane and Dexter leave the handsome man in the Vale of Health, Jane turns back to ask him one last question. “Is there anyone else around here? Anyone we could talk to who might know what happened to Daisy? Who knows the family?”
“Not really,” says the handsome man. “People come and go, anyone who might have known the family probably left years ago, and the people who’ve stayed didn’t know the family. If anything, you hit the jackpot with George. He knows Daisy better than most people. But there is a woman—she lives just around there, up that path, Larch Cottage—and I know she sometimes used to collect Daisy from school and bring her home, sit with her for a while.”
“Oh! Amazing! What’s her name?”
“Jane, I think.”
“Same as me!”
“You’re called Jane?”
“I am.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Jane. I’m Spencer.”
“Nice to meet you, Spencer.” Jane shakes his hand, feels a hit of somethingpleasantly scintillating in the touch of his skin against hers, thinks:Down, Jane, down, and then says goodbye.
The Other Jane comes to the door of her tiny clapboard cottage. She is small and pretty and wears her silver hair in a bun, and lots and lots of eyeliner. She looks about sixty-five. Behind her Jane sees a strong aesthetic message: clashing patterns, rampaging wall art, bright colors, chandeliers. “Hello,” she says, “are you Jane?”
“Yes.” The woman smiles warmly, quite happy, it appears, to see randoms on her doorstep at four thirty in the afternoon. “What can I do for you?”
“I wonder,” says Jane, “if you happen to know anything about Daisy Black, the girl who lives up the lane? My stepson went to school with her and he’s trying to track her down for a reunion. But nobody seems to know where she lives these days. And the nice man around the corner, Spencer—”
“Oh yes, I know Spencer. Lovely man. Him and his lovely boy.”
Jane nods and makes a mental note of the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a Mrs. Spencer in the picture. “Well, he told us that you sometimes used to collect Daisy from school? When she was small? I wondered if maybe you’d kept in touch with her at all?”
Jane looks beyond Jane and Dexter, from left to right, as though there may be others lurking out of sight in this silent, deserted backwater. “Why don’t you come in?” she says. “If you have time?”
They follow her through the tiny door and straight into her cozy living room, which smells of scented candles and expensive furniture polish. She gets them each a glass of water and invites them to sit side by side on two small tapestry poufs.
At the back of the room, French doors open out onto a tiny courtyard garden crammed with potted plants. Jane spies a black cat curled up in a shaft of sunlight. She thinks: This is nice, small, manageable. She thinks: Icould live here. And then she remembers that she has four huge dogs and sighs softly.
“Daisy Black,” says the Other Jane. “Gosh. I mean, where to start. Such a funny little girl. Grumpy. Very grumpy. And then of course she went to big school, and I barely saw her again. But you”—she glances at Dexter—“you went to school with her?”
