As we neared the Dorset border the fog lifted and the sky brightened to a hazy blue. The satnav was doing a good job, and soon articulating: ‘You have reached your destination’.
Grace’s house – Dawn’s home, I reminded myself – was a whitewashed bungalow in a small close of similar residences. The front garden had been laid to gravel, dotted with shrubs and planters. They were empty now, but I guessed that in summer they would be bright with geraniums or petunias. I rang the bell beside the door, holly green, and recently painted, by the look of it, and heard the Westminster chime ringing in the house.
The woman who opened the door was much younger than I’d expected, not about Mum’s age as I had supposed. Slim, with short blonde hair and wearing leggings and a tunic, she was probably in her late forties. But there was a haunted look about her. Grace Burridge was still a very attractive woman – had been stunning, no doubt, in her youth – but the tragedies that had touched her life in the last year were etched in her face.
‘Sally?’ she said.
‘Yes. And this is my friend, Rachel. I hope you don’t mind . . .?’
‘No, of course not. Do come in.’
She showed us into a pleasant, open-plan room and indicated a cream leather sofa and matching chair.
‘Sit down. Can I get you a coffee?’
‘That would be nice. Thank you.’
She disappeared into the kitchen, and I looked around. There were photographs everywhere, lined up along the mantelpiece and, on top of a bookcase, some of family, including one of herself and her husband on a black-tie occasion, but mostly of Dawn. Her beautiful, photogenic face seemed to light up the room. It was a sobering thought that she would never again smile engagingly for a camera.
‘So,’ Grace said, returning with a pot of coffee and elegant little cups and saucers set out on a tray, ‘you were a friend of Dawn’s.’
I took a deep breath. I really didn’t want to lie any more to Grace Burridge, so I avoided the direct question.
‘What happened to her was shocking,’ I said. ‘I’m going to be honest with you, Mrs Burridge, I can’t help wondering if what happened to her was really an accident. It seems really strange that she was killed so soon after the fire, and I . . .’
I broke off. Grace Burridge had gone very still, the coffee pot suspended over one of the little cups, and she was staring at me, those sad eyes narrowed in a face that, I felt sure, would have been very pale if not for her make-up.
‘You think so too,’ she said.
This wasn’t at all the reaction I’d expected. I’d thought I’d meet with astonishment, denial even.
I nodded slowly, and Grace Burridge gave up trying to pour the coffee and set the jug down on the tray.
‘You have no idea what a relief it is to have somebody actually agree with me,’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘My late husband always told me I was imagining things, and Andrew, my son, thinks I’m just desperate for someone to blame. They may be right, of course. But they didn’t talk to Dawn as I did when she came home after the fire, and it was only after the accident that I started putting two and two together. She was frightened, Sally. Really frightened, not like my Dawn at all. Something was very wrong. And you saw that too, did you?’
‘Not exactly,’ I said carefully. ‘I don’t live in Stoke Compton any more, and I didn’t actually see Dawn after the fire.’ I was treading on eggshells here, and I wondered if Grace Burridge would realize that if I wasn’t living in Stoke Compton, I couldn’t actually have known Dawn at all. But she was too caught up in the moment, too relieved to find someone who actually agreed with her, to think of that.
‘It just wasn’t Dawn,’ she repeated. ‘She was always such a happy girl – his little ray of sunshine, her Daddy used to call her. And so beautiful! She had the sort of looks that made people turn round and stare at her in the street. She was so talented, too. She loved her acting, and she was so good at it. She could have made a career of it if she’d gone to drama school – would have done, I expect, if she hadn’t met George and wanted to be with him. The girl who left home was bright and happy, all her future before her. The one who came back . . .’ She shook her head and her chin wobbled with the effort of holding back the tears. ‘Oh, I’m sorry . . .’
‘That’s OK, Mrs Burridge,’ I said.
‘Grace. Please call me Grace.’ She picked up the coffee pot again, poured coffee and pushed the cups across the low table to Rachel and me, and the simple, everyday task seemed to restore her equilibrium a little.