Dead and Buried by Anne Cassidy

things that had happened of which Rose had no memory It had taken place in 2007, their last summer together in Brewster Road.
    A golden time.
    And sometime during that summer Daisy Lincoln had been killed and buried in their garden. She had been suffocated and her hands were tied behind her back with Brendan’s tie.
    With a heavy heart Rose put her mother’s things back in the corner.
     
    She went to college but only stayed for a couple of classes. In the early afternoon she found herself on the tube heading for East London. Just after four thirty she walked up Brewster Road and stood across the road from the house that she had once lived in. It was a strange feeling to be there on her own. The police were no longer around and there was no crime scene tape. The street looked normal, like any other street – cars parked along each side, people walking, groups of young people standing talking. Further along a removal van was parked with the back open and a ramp sloping down to the tarmac. Men were walking up and down it carrying boxes. A woman in a shalwar kameez was standing at the gate holding the hands of two small children, a beaming smile on her face. A family was moving in, starting their new life in Brewster Road.
    Rose pulled her eyes away from her old house and walked along the road until she reached number fifty-four. She went to the door and rang the bell. Loud footsteps sounded along the hall and there was a shout of ‘I’ll get it!’ A woman of about forty-five answered. She had short dark hair and half-moon glasses which rested on the end of her nose. She looked quizzically at Rose.
    ‘Mona?’ Rose said. ‘I’m Rose Smith, Kathy’s daughter.’
    Sandy’s mother looked puzzled, then she took the glasses off, pushed each of the arms closed until the glasses lay flat in her hand.
    ‘Rose Smith. Goodness. Sandy told me she’d seen you and Joshua last week. Come in, come in. Sandy’s just upstairs bathing Jade. Come in.’
    Rose stepped into the hall. She placed her bag alongside a pushchair and took her coat off and let it hang over her arms.
    ‘It’s so nice to see you, Rose, and you’re so grown-up. Of course you are. You’ll be . . . seventeen?’
    Rose nodded.
    ‘Come and have a cup of tea. Sandy will be down soon.’
    From upstairs there was the sound of a baby crying. Rose looked up and Mona rolled her eyes.
    ‘I love Jade to bits but she was an unexpected surprise, I can tell you!’
    ‘I saw her. She’s very sweet.”
    ‘I know! Sandy was in the third year of her degree course and came home one weekend and told me she was giving it all up. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. But still, if it hadn’t happened we wouldn’t have little Jade.’
    Rose followed Mona into a large kitchen. By the radiator was a clothes horse covered with vests, socks, trousers and tops, as well as sleepwear and blankets.
    ‘Babies generate an awful lot of laundry! Will you have some tea? Coffee?’
    ‘A cold drink if you have it. A glass of tap water is fine,’ Rose said, laying her coat over the back of a chair and then sitting down.
    ‘How is Joshua? Sandy said he’s back in London.’
    ‘Yes, he’s at Queen Mary doing Engineering. He’s well.’
    ‘That is good.’
    There was a moment’s quiet when Rose realised that the baby wasn’t crying any more. She glanced up at a noticeboard on the wall and saw a card pinned there. It was white and the front had a series of deep red hearts overlapping each other. At the bottom it said, You’re My Valentine.
    ‘I’m sure Sandy won’t be long,’ Mona said, sitting down at the table opposite Rose.
    ‘Actually, Mona, it was you I came to see.’
    Mona handed Rose a glass of water. The outside of the glass was still wet to touch and Rose placed it on the table.
    ‘I know that you and Mum were quite friendly.’
    ‘Rose, I’m so sorry about your mum and Brendan and whatever happened to them. It’s all such a mystery. Everyone in the street was