Dead Time by Anne Cassidy

bottom,
Katherine Smith
. The K was huge and had a curlicue at the bottom. Rose had tried to copy it but couldn’t. She had pages of an exercise book full of ornate Ks and Rs but none of them came close to her mum’s handwriting.
    When her mother went missing Rose had spent time collecting those pairs of glasses together. She lined them up on her mum’s desk. Some of the cases were dented and scuffed. When Rose and Joshua had been taken into foster care she’d left them there for her mother when she returned. But she never had and Rose wasn’t quite sure what had happened to them. Years later Anna had told her that she’d employed a firm to clear the house for her. Most of the stuff there was sold but Anna had collected all of Rose’s things and brought them home along with family photographs and some possessions of her mother’s. Joshua and Brendan’s things had been sent to Newcastle.
    There had been no glasses.
    Rose let her eyes close. There were no tears, just a hollow feeling in her chest. The police had tried to explain. Her mum and Brendan Johnson, both police officers, had been transferred to a unit that worked on old cases. This was where they had met each other. The police inspector who had spoken to her said that in all probability her mother and Brendan Johnson had been killed for their part in one of these investigations. Months after they had gonemissing he had visited her. His words had been kind but firm.
I wish I could tell you something different but it is my conviction that Katherine Smith along with Brendan Johnson were both targeted by career criminals. It was a professional job and I doubt very much that any trace of them will ever be found.
    She thought of Emma Burke. In death Emma would leave traces. The investigation would pore over Emma’s body, her clothes, the path, the rose garden. They would look for clues; fibres, skin, hair, blood, saliva. Her killer’s body would betray him, would tell the police what they wanted to know and they would solve the murder.
    But they would never solve her mother’s …
    She shook her head. She would never say or even think the word.
    But it sat there in her heart, a splinter that wouldn’t budge, that burrowed deeper and gave her a thin sharp pain.
Murder
.

TEN
    There was a knock on her door. Rose opened her eyes. Her room was dark because the curtains were drawn. Grey light showed at the edges. She turned to her bedside clock and saw that it was 8.07. She’d slept for almost eight hours.
    The knock sounded again. Then the door opened a crack.
    â€˜Rose?’ her grandmother said.
    Rose turned away from the door and stared into the corner of her room.
    â€˜Are you awake, Rose?’
    Rose made a sound in her throat. She did not turn round to look at Anna. She felt the door open wider and imagined that Anna had stepped into her room. Just inside the door. Anna never came any further into her bedroom while she was in there.
    â€˜Rose, some unpleasant things were said last night and I wanted to apologise. I understand that none of what happened was your fault and …’
    Anna continued to talk but Rose wasn’t really listening. Anna always wanted
to apologise
after a row. It was an action she took, a form of words. It was polite and placed Anna back on the right side of the argument but she had never once used the words
I’m sorry
.
    â€˜â€¦ So you’ll keep in mind my offer to transfer you to the school in Hampstead Heath but I understand if you wish to stay where you are for the time being.’
    The door closed and Rose waited until the outside door to her study closed and then she sat up. That was it. When she went downstairs later Anna would act as though nothing had happened.
    But things had been said that couldn’t be erased.
    She lay there for what seemed like a long time. Eventually she got up and showered. Afterwards she went to her wardrobe and took out some clean