Anna was waiting at the door when Rachel came down to open.
Rachel saw her through the glass before turning the lock. Anna stood to one side of the entrance, leaving room for somebody else to come and be welcome. She held a bag against her hip. Her hair was loose now. Without the cameras from the photograph, she looked smaller and more immediately difficult to evade.
Rachel put the key in.
“Anna.”
“I came yesterday. You were shut.”
“Yes.”
Anna glanced over her shoulder. A delivery driver was putting crates outside the cafe opposite.
“Can we talk?”
Rachel opened the door wider.
The shop still smelled faintly of the chips Tess brought back at lunchtime. Rachel had eaten standing over a sheet of pattern paper, Tess and Eli on the stools, the boy trying to fold his knees under the counter. That afternoon now seemed indecently recent.
Anna looked at the painted sign reflected in the window.
“You kept her name.”
“People knew it.”
“I expect they did.”
Rachel unhooked the doorstop, then put it back. She wanted to shut the door and disliked how quickly she wanted it.
“There's a place at the back.”
“I'm not here to shout at you.”
“I didn't say you were.”
“You were wondering.”
Rachel led her past the worktable. Anna paused beside the blue dress.
“That's nice.”
“Party on Friday.”
“For a girl?”
“Yes.”
“She'll spill something on it.”
“Probably.”
Anna touched the rail, leaving the dress alone. Rachel had prepared for anger, perhaps even a hand reaching for her, and was disconcerted by this ordinary prediction about a garment.
At the back, the shop widened into a little space used for fittings when a customer didn't want an audience. Two chairs, a shelf with flowers Rachel had forgotten to throw away, the sink beyond a half-height screen. Anna chose the chair which faced the shop door.
Rachel took the other.
“I heard about the appeal.”
“I thought you might.”
“Yesterday.”
Anna set the bag beside her feet.
“Everyone's heard. I've discovered that. They just don't all want to say it.”
“I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
Rachel looked at the flowers.
Anna waited. The question had not been offered as a trap. It required an answer all the same.
“For how long it's taken.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “It's been a while.”
She rubbed the edge of one thumbnail with another. Her nails were short and unpainted. Rachel found herself wondering what size dress she would wear. She stopped, angry with the part of her which could make a fitting out of anything.
“Have you been able to get home?”
“I went to Dad's.”
“And?”
Anna laughed once.
“Apparently home is where somebody else keeps their shoes.”
Rachel knew the red-laced trainers. Tess had complained they squeaked on the shop floor.
“I'm in a room,” Anna said. “Not his house. A room near the cinema. Near what used to be the cinema.”
“Paula's?”
“You know her?”
“I've altered things for her.”
“Of course.”
Anna sat back. Her gaze moved along the rail behind Rachel, inspecting the careful gradation of colours.
“What did you want to talk about?” Rachel asked.
“My daughter.”
Rachel's first thought was of Tess in the changing room, lifting the straps of the blue dress to show the customer why the fit was wrong. A quick, competent gesture, learned here.
Anna said, “Help me get my daughter back.”
Rachel put her hands together. There was no answer she could give quickly enough to hide the pleasure of being asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to see her.”
“I understand.”
“Not from a distance. Not a photo Dad says he'll print. I want to sit with her.”
“Has she—”
“She doesn't want to.”
Anna looked toward the entrance, then back.
“I know you can't just tell her. She's eighteen. Everyone says that as though I'll be surprised by her having birthdays.”
Rachel kept quiet.
“She used to sit on the kitchen floor while I washed up. I'd give her a pan and she'd make dinner out of whatever I'd leave within reach. A potato. A spoon. She'd serve it to Lee as if the effort ought to improve the meal.”
Anna's mouth moved. For a moment Rachel saw the younger woman beneath this one, talking too fast after a shift, asking Celia to wait another week for the money.
“Lee died,” Anna said. “Then everything else happened. Sometimes I think she's going to remember that kitchen better than she remembers me. Maybe she does.”
The flowers were dead. Rachel could smell the water now. She wanted to get up and remove them.
“I'm sure she remembers you.”
Anna gave her a tired look.
“You haven't asked her.”
Rachel couldn't answer that honestly without giving more than Anna yet knew.
“I could speak to Leonard,” she said.
“He's spoken to her.”
“I mean about making a meeting easier.”
“He'll listen to you.”
Rachel felt the words land.
“Will he?”
“He listened when it mattered.”
Outside, the crates scraped against the pavement. The driver called to someone at the cafe. Anna's hands stayed still on her lap.
“I didn't kill her,” she said.
“I know what the court—”
“No. I didn't. I was there earlier. I hit her. You've known that for fourteen years. I told them because I'd done it. I didn't think saying one true thing was going to let them put everything else on top of it.”
Rachel looked at her. Anna was waiting to be believed, and there was nothing uncertain in what Rachel could give her. She knew. The knowledge sat upstairs beneath marriage papers.
“I'm glad you're out,” she said.
Anna lowered her eyes.
“I didn't come here to go through the case with you. I've got somebody who'll do that. Miriam. She's done enough of it to be sick of me.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don't know me.”
There was a little edge of humour in it. Rachel heard herself respond.
“I know Miriam's profession.”
Anna almost smiled, then looked toward the changing room.
“I need someone who's allowed to say I'm not a danger to her.”
“Tess isn't a little girl now.”
“I know.”
Rachel heard her own tone. She had joined the people saying it.
“What I mean is she'll have things she wants to ask. Or things she doesn't want to discuss.”
“I can manage a conversation.”
“I wasn't saying—”
“I know what you're saying. I'm supposed to do less of everything I want.”
Anna leaned down and moved her bag onto her lap. Rachel thought she was leaving. Instead she opened it and took out an unsealed envelope.
“I got this. I haven't given it to her. It's a card. Not a whole life story.”
She held it for a moment, then put it back.
“I'm trying,” she said.
Rachel wanted to take her into a room where Tess already knew how to be happy. The shop could do that. There would be things to look at, a drink to hold, interruptions if anybody needed one. Rachel could be there. Anna might be grateful, Tess might feel relieved, and something Rachel had dreaded could become a task she knew how to do.
“I could ask her about coming here,” she said.
Anna looked up.
“Just to sit for a little while.”
“When?”
“Soon. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“Would Dad bring her?”
“She can come by herself.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “Of course.”
The correction hurt her. Rachel could see it.
“I'd be here,” Rachel said. “If that would help.”
“It would help him.”
“And you?”
Anna looked at the dress rail again.
“I don't know yet.”
Rachel accepted that. It was more honest than anything she'd offered.
They discussed the time. Rachel said she would ring Anna after speaking to them; she couldn't promise what Tess would say. Anna gave the new number, repeating the last digits when Rachel entered them incorrectly. Neither woman commented on the tremor in Rachel's thumb.
At the door, Anna turned.
“If she says yes, don't make it sound like she's doing something for you.”
Rachel stayed with one hand on the lock.
“No.”
“I'll know. Even if I want it badly enough to pretend I don't.”
She left.
Rachel removed the dead flowers, washed the vase and put it beneath the sink. Then she went upstairs and stood by the desk without opening the drawer.
Tess arrived at ten for her extra shift. She was carrying two paper cups. Her phone had made a wrong turn on the way, she said, taking her to a coffee place which used to be a pharmacy. Rachel knew it was the place where Eli worked mornings. She didn't point that out.
“One's yours.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it's yours. Yours was the boring one.”
Rachel took a cup. It was much sweeter than anything she would have chosen. She drank it anyway.
“Anna came in.”
Tess stopped taking things from her bag.
“When?”
“Before you got here.”
“What did she want?”
Rachel had been rehearsing this while she washed the vase. Now the remembered words seemed too composed for Tess standing with a cup in her hand.
“To see you.”
Tess set the cup down.
“She has my number.”
“She knows.”
“Then why come to you?”
“Because she thought I could help.”
“You?”
Rachel tried to read the question. Surprise, perhaps suspicion, perhaps Tess's difficulty in imagining the witness and her mother sitting together.
“She thought Leonard might listen.”
“He's not keeping me locked up.”
“I know.”
Tess unpinned her hair, then pinned it again, more tightly.
“What did you say?”
“That I'd ask you.”
“And?”
“I suggested a short meeting here. If you wanted.”
Tess looked at the chairs at the back.
“Like a fitting.”
“Not exactly.”
“I know. I'm being horrible.”
“You're allowed.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, too.”
She went to the worktable and lifted the blue dress by its hanger, looking at the chalk marks. Rachel waited. Tess hung it up again.
“I don't know what to say to her.”
“You could say that.”
“I don't know that she'd like it.”
“She might understand.”
“You said she was angry. At the time.”
Rachel hadn't said that today. She had said it years ago, over a cup of tea, while Tess wanted an explanation of someone she no longer visited.
“She had reason to be angry.”
“With everyone?”
“Not with you.”
Tess's mouth tightened.
“You weren't there.”
Rachel let the rebuke remain.
“No.”
Tess sat on the stool. One foot found the crossbar; the other stayed on the floor.
“If I come, can I leave?”
“Of course.”
“Without everyone looking as if I'm killing somebody.”
Rachel's skin prickled.
“I'd help,” she said.
Tess stared at the hem of the dress.
“I used to think if I saw her she'd ask why I hadn't come. And I'd have to think of something better than not wanting to.”
“She may have learned things about that.”
“Maybe.”
The cup was cooling on the counter. Tess reached for it and took a sip.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Only if—”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Half past eight. Before opening.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I'll be here.”
Tess nodded once. She didn't look relieved. Rachel wanted the nod to grow into gratitude and knew better than to ask for it.
“I'll do half an hour.”
“All right.”
“If that's awful, I won't do another one.”
“All right.”
“And don't buy biscuits. You always buy biscuits when you're making people do a thing.”
Rachel laughed because it was true. Tess smiled briefly, then looked away.
They worked for an hour without speaking about it again. Tess changed the display card for a dress Rachel had marked down, then asked why it was marked down.
“Because it's been here too long.”
“So have I.”
“Shall I put a label on you?”
“Not in that handwriting.”
At lunchtime Rachel rang Leonard. Tess went out of earshot to check a rail in the window, which meant she stayed within earshot if anyone needed her.
“She came to see me,” Rachel said.
He was silent long enough for her to hear a radio in the kitchen. She knew the station, the midday voices.
“Did she make trouble?”
“No.”
“I didn't think she would.”
Yet he had asked.
“I've spoken to Tess. She's agreed to a little while here tomorrow morning.”
“She didn't say.”
“We only just arranged it.”
“Are you sure?”
“About Tess agreeing?”
“About doing it here.”
Rachel looked across the shop. Tess was tilting the display card to remove the glare.
“I can make it easier for them.”
“I know you can.”
The trust in his voice was almost unbearable, then became useful. Rachel said it would be half an hour before the shop opened, that Tess could leave when she wanted, that they didn't need to make the encounter into an event. Leonard asked whether he should come.
“Not for the first one,” Rachel said.
“Right.”
“I'll be with them.”
“Right.”
He thanked her. Rachel looked away from Tess before answering.
Afterwards she rang Anna, who picked up immediately.
“Tomorrow morning,” Rachel said. “Half past eight.”
There was a sound at the other end which might have been a laugh if Anna had allowed more breath into it.
“She said yes?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ask you to be there?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
“Anna—”
“What?”
“Half an hour.”
“I heard.”
Rachel had intended to remind her to keep the questions small. Instead she said where they would sit.
“I know,” Anna replied. “I saw the chairs.”
They ended the call. Rachel put the phone down. She would normally have checked what biscuits they had, whether the cups at the back matched, whether a cushion would make the spare chair less forbidding. Tess looked across the room as though she knew.
Rachel lifted the blue dress and took it to the machine.
That evening, after Tess had gone, she moved the chairs at the back so the two women would face each other. Then she put a third chair beside them, close enough to reach either one.