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correctly.’
    ‘Why are we having this discussion?’ said Esme, sitting back in her chair. She put her glass on the table and fiddled with the stem. ‘Why don’t you open it and find out who the culprit is?’
    ‘Open it?’ Gemma looked aghast.
    ‘Well, wasn’t that the idea of going over there and collecting the post?’
    ‘Only the bills, the things that needed sorting out. The gas, electricity, that sort of thing. Not private correspondence.’
    ‘How do you know it’s not a bill?’
    Gemma looked at it. ‘Because it doesn’t look like one.’
    ‘But even if it’s not a bill, you can’t ignore private correspondence. I’m sure the person writing would want to know what’s happened so you’ll need to open it to contact them.’
    Gemma continued to stare at it but said nothing.
    ‘If you don’t open it I will,’ challenged Esme. She felt in a strange mood, somewhere between irritation and recklessness. Her feelings over the past couple of days had ranged from loss to hurt to confusion. And back again. In some ways Elizabeth had become a complete stranger. Who was this woman who had called herself Esme’s sister but who wasn’t? Perhaps opening her mail would help answer the mound of questions Esme was building. If so, she wasn’t going to turn the opportunity down.
    The two women stared at the envelope, the ticking of the kitchen clock the dominant sound in the room coupled with the gentle almost undetectable bubbling of the Bolognese sauce in the background.
    At last Esme couldn’t stand the suspense.
    ‘Give it here, for goodness sake,’ she said, reaching over and taking it out of Gemma’s hand. She dropped it on the table while she hunted around for her reading glasses. Gemma seemed to be in a daze. If she objected to Esme’s intentions she didn’t try to stop her. So there was a modicum of curiosity in there, after all.
    Esme turned the letter over and looked at it, front and back. The envelope was slim, white and businesslike with an address window. The postmark was local. Sadly, since the Royal Mail had dispensed with franking marks carrying the identity of individual posting locations, all local mail was now stamped Shropton, so there was no way of telling whether it had been sent from town or country.
    ‘For God’s sake, get on with it, if you’re going to.’
    Esme looked up at Gemma’s outburst and saw her gulp a mouthful of wine. Esme slipped her finger under the corner of the envelope flap and ripped it open. She took out the single sheet of paper and read it.
    ‘Dear Elizabeth,’ it began. The letter went on to thank her for her help at a recent fund raising event and was signed by someone who called herself the secretary of the Friends Association.
    ‘So who’s it from?’ asked Gemma, interrupting Esme’s reading.
    Esme took off her reading glasses and looked at Gemma. She realised she was shaking slightly. ‘I think we’ve found out what W.H. stands for,’ she said handing the letter to Gemma. ‘It’s from a residential home called Wisteria House.’
    ‘A residential home?’ Gemma took the letter as if it held a contagious disease.
    ‘But there’s something more. Towards the end. About who your mother was visiting.’
    She watched as Gemma frantically scanned the letter, her eyes halting at the relevant line.
    Gemma looked up. ‘Roberts, you mean? She visits a Mrs Roberts.’
    ‘Exactly,’ said Esme. ‘That’s the name on the birth certificate. My guess is she’s in regular contact with her birth family.’

5
    Esme applied certain conditions to her work as a researcher. She wouldn’t touch any job unless its roots were fixed firmly in the past. Finding out about people already dead and what had gone before was by far a safer option than investigating current issues. It was far too easy in the contemporary world to stumble into dangerous territory. She’d seen the catastrophic results of that mistake and wanted no part of it.
    One current project was