Thinking of photographs, she remembered the one she had given to Ben Parker, of the fete and the red-headed girl who would grow up to be a PE teacher. Parker had said Fiona was there to pick up a certificate for some sort of nature scheme—on a whim, she put Young Nature Walkers Prize into the search engine. The scheme had ended some twenty years ago, but there were still a few remnants of it left online; someone had put the bare bones of a Wikipedia page together for it, logging the sorts of activities the children had to complete to get their certificate, things like rambling, pressing flowers, making a corn dolly. The scheme had been sponsored by Oak Leaf, the same environmental charity that had a hand in the very spa she was sitting in.
“More fucking coincidences.”
Except they couldn’t be. Heather sat back in her seat, ignoring her lunch. What did it mean? Did it mean anything at all? Inevitably her eyes were drawn back to the photo of her mother on the beach. Was it possible she had been with Michael Reave—her stomach turned over at the thought—while also seeing her dad at the same time? That could mean that the man who raised her was her dad, but she had no memory of her dad ever mentioning a commune in the north, and the idea of her mother playing two men off against each other felt wrong … But then, a lot of what she had thought she’d known about Colleen Evans had turned out to be a lie.
The other option was almost too horrible to contemplate.
“Doing more local research, Heather?”
She jumped. Bert, the old man who had made tea for them the other day, had appeared at her shoulder. Outside of his house and in the bright lights of the spa café he looked even more wizened, and he was peering at her with his head cocked, just as he had when they’d first met him.
“Uh, hello, Bert. Just, you know, getting a bit of work done while I’m here.”
He raised an eyebrow at that, and just as Heather was trying to sneak it back in her pocket, he saw the Polaroid.
“Is that of the beach? May I have a look?”
Heather froze. In that long awkward moment, she could think of no good reason not to hand the Polaroid over, so she passed it to him, feeling her face flush crimson. She was certain he would recognize Michael Reave. After all, he had one of the most infamous mugshots in British criminal history, and it was clearly the same person, down to the little flash of white hair at his temple. And then he would ask what on earth she was doing with such a photo … But instead, he just stared at it, his face very still. Eventually he nodded.
“Yes. How interesting. The Folly was in a bit of a state back then,” he said. “It went through an extensive restoration at one point, and I’m pleased to say it’s less of an eyesore now.”
“Do you know when that was? The restoration work, I mean?”
“Oh, in the mid-eighties, I think. Yes, that’s right.” He smiled, stretching dry lips across his long teeth. “They made the place habitable again.” He looked like he was about to glance at the back of the photo, but instead he passed it back to her politely. “Discovering you have history here, are you?”
Heather looked up at him sharply. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugged, a one-sided movement with his crooked back. “You said your mother’s friend was here at one point. Is that not her? In the photo.”
“Oh. Oh yeah, that’s right. Pamela.” She smiled. “To be honest with you, Bert, I just like looking at old photos.”
He tipped his head to one side, a motion that wasn’t quite a nod.
“Well. I’ll be letting you get back on with it then, lass.”
When he’d shuffled some distance away, Heather turned to watch him go. He didn’t seem like a typical spa customer, and she couldn’t imagine why he had dragged himself all the way up the hill on a rainy day, but as he reached the foyer she saw the blond woman come out from behind the desk to greet him, and watched as they chatted together for a few minutes. Perhaps, she reasoned, the receptionist was a relation—a granddaughter, or a niece.
She stayed in the café for another couple of hours, digging deeper into forums about counter-culture, about drug use and the history of Fiddler’s Mill, but didn’t find anything that suggested who might be trying to mess with her. Eventually, she packed up her things and left, heading out into a day that had grown a little brighter. The clouds overhead were breaking up, letting through tantalizing glimpses of a soft, dreamy blue sky, and she walked out across the grass with no clear thought as to where to go next. Nikki, at least, was away from the cottage and safe with Harry. They were probably downing pints in some quaint country pub by now, talking about old ghost stories and eating a ploughman’s lunch. The thought was a comforting one and she clung to it. Better to think about that than worry about what she might find when she got back—another note, a dead bird. Something worse.
She was so lost in those thoughts that when her phone rang it took her a few seconds to recognize the sound. Heather pulled the phone out, assuming
