The next thing she knew, she was waking up. Disorientated, a surge of panic rushed over her as she opened her eyes. In front of her, Millie was strapped into her high chair, with Ben feeding her a sandwich.
Ben registered her movement and looked across, seeing her alarm. ‘It’s okay, Grace, you fell asleep,’ he said. ‘You’ve been out for the count. I decided I’d leave you to it, though to be honest I don’t think an elephant stampede through the lounge would have woken you.’
Relief flooded over her. She felt momentarily weepy, but pulled herself together as she sat up. Millie held up her sandwich to show Grace.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said to Ben. ‘It’s a rare treat to have a morning nap.’
‘I can imagine,’ Ben replied. ‘And you’re welcome. Any time.’
‘Don’t say that unless you mean it,’ Grace laughed. ‘I might take you up on it.’
‘I do mean it, Grace.’ He held her gaze.
Grace felt compelled to break the protracted silence that followed. ‘I had a fall-out with Annabel,’ she confided, finding herself glad to talk to someone. ‘And she left while she was angry with me. We don’t usually fight, not seriously …’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ben reassured her. ‘My sisters argue all the time – always have. There’s invariably some sort of upset going on in my family. Of course, I’ve been on the outside for a long time now, but from what I can gather it still goes on. Everyone is so stubborn – they insist on blaming each other for their problems, so one drama gets replaced by another.’
‘I gather you haven’t seen your mum yet?’ Grace asked gently.
Ben grimaced. ‘Unless she meets me halfway, nothing will ever change.’
‘Have you tried to talk to her, or does she just know that you’re here?’
‘Claire’s been acting as a go-between so far,’ he admitted.
‘Perhaps you should cut Claire out and try speaking to her yourself,’ Grace suggested as she got up from the sofa.
‘You don’t know my mother.’
‘Actually, I do a little bit – and she’s pretty formidable. But what choice does she have if you confront her – she has to listen, surely. And there must be a part of her that is longing to see you.’
‘Perhaps …’ Ben didn’t look convinced, but he sat there in silence for a while, thinking. ‘Maybe I’m still not sure whether I want to see her …’
Grace waited for him to continue, but he added nothing further. She collected some yoghurt from the fridge, and offered Millie a few spoonfuls, before she said, ‘Ben … can I ask you a favour?’
‘Of course.’
‘I feel a bit of a wimp saying this, but catching mice is not my forte. Can you set a trap for me upstairs, and then check it tomorrow? One of those humane ones …’
Ben smiled at her. ‘I think I can manage that – although do you have the trap already?’
She shook her head.
‘Then I don’t know where you’ll find one round here. Not many care about seeing the mice live … But I’ll tell you what, I’ll try to make something if you like.’ He contemplated the idea for a moment. ‘I’ll need a plastic box or bowl, at least five centimetres high, then something like a nail file or a cocktail stick …’
An hour later, the homemade trap was ready to go. Grace had run about finding materials, then looked on in admiration as Ben had constructed it. He lifted it carefully and they headed upstairs to her bedroom. Grace set Millie on the bed.
‘I think it’s somewhere in here,’ she said, opening the door of the built-in wardrobe.
Ben put the trap down and knelt beside it. ‘I’ll just have a peek and see if I can spot where the little nuisance has been,’ he told her. He began checking the floor, and Grace watched him while she and Millie sat on the bed. He lifted up a piece of carpet. Then he paused.
‘Er … you might want to come and look at this …’
‘If it’s a dead mouse then I’d really rather not,’ she told him, staying put.
‘Well, there’s no mouse, but he’s left his mark,’ Ben said, and he lifted up a bundle of chewed bank notes.
‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Grace asked, beginning to understand what it was that she was looking at.
‘There’s a loose floorboard under here, with a space beneath it.’
‘Oh my god, that’s got to be the money Adam took out of the bank, the day before he disappeared. He told me he was going to get some cash to keep at the cottage, but he never told me where he was planning on putting it. And I could never find it … It was one of the reasons the police thought he’d run away …’
Ben sat back with his arms wrapped around his knees, studying her carefully.
‘But you don’t think he did run away now, do you, Grace?’