Again the trends change. Autumn brides seem to want more white this year. Instead of a swathe of the rich, warm palette, they want just a splash of it for accent – the orange, burgundy, rusts and pumpkin colours. I am opting for the softer, creamy whites, which work better in this mix – also in photographs. We have a really good supplier for gerberas and dahlias in the strong, statement colours. Gorgeous. I’m using masses of them.

I don’t mind more white, actually. So simple and classic, and I love that there are so many variations. Tony says, White is white, surely. Tell that to a paint chart, I say. Tell that to a rose. Or a tulip.

Today I have a whole range of whites spread across the workbench for a top table centrepiece. A favourite design – white roses just opening from the bud, with burnt orange calla lilies for the splash of colour. Very simple, but very striking.

I’m on my third coffee, working more slowly than usual. Seems to be the way these days. I daydream a lot, cannot help it, my thoughts often drifting to places I would rather they did not.

And now I pause, staring at the new secateurs in my hand. They still feel strange. Still unsure if the police will ever return my own. Evidence. Don’t want them back, actually. What I want back is the old version of our lives.

Before . . .

I check the clock. Just one more hour until closing. A sigh. I must press on, get this done and into the cooler. We don’t tend to get much trade at the end of the day, especially in the rain. Funny that the weather so affects what people buy.

And now I hear a rustle outside the door. The surprise of a late customer. The tinkle of a bell and the shaking of an umbrella. I stand and move through to the counter to catch her eye . . .

A shock. One of so very many.

For a time we just stand, eyes locked, and I do not know what to do. I can feel tears welling – the shock, I suppose, but it feels unhelpful. I wonder why she is here. Am nervous that she is here.

I am looking at her and I can hear my heart racing. I am remembering

Matthew’s voice on the phone.

They found Anna’s body in a freezer. At Tim’s secret flat – the flat that, according to the terms of his father’s will, he was supposed to let, to help fund himself through university, but which, instead, he used as a secret bolthole. The flat where they found his diaries full of photographs and mad and shocking rants. Watching and photographing Anna since she was very young. Hating her to talk to anyone else. Keeping a record. Watching. Always watching . . .

Apparently he would sometimes have dinner with the family and pretend to go home, but instead would camp out in an old stone shepherd’s building high on the ridge. Watch them all in the kitchen below. Watch Anna until she went to bed, making notes in his diaries.

‘Ella. I’m sorry to surprise you like this. Do you have a moment?’ What to say?

I look at her, eyes sunken and sad and changed forever, and I wonder if there is anything to say between us. Wonder why she is here.

‘Of course. Come through to the back. I was due to close soon anyway.’ My manners again. Always with the manners.

I move to the door to switch the sign to ‘Closed’ and pause a moment, closing my eyes to the picture. I do not want to think of: DS Melanie Sanders standing on their doorstep, sent to break the news.

She has been given a promotion off the back of the case, but told Matthew she did not want it because she felt it was his work not hers. He talked sense into her, but I do understand. Such a struggle to go forward. She still wants Matthew to go back into the force. But he can’t decide . . .

I move the spare stool through to the workbench at the rear but she opts to stand. Turns down coffee, also.

I wonder if it is my place to ask the questions. Do the small talk. How is she coping? But what’s the point? How does anyone cope with this? I decide to wait. And find that I need to sit even if she does not.

‘I was wondering how Luke is doing?’

Is this really why she came? I don’t think so. But I think of him and I think of Anna and feel guilty that I am so glad mine was the child to live . . .

‘Better, thank you. He is off the crutches. The shoulder is still tricky. He has quite a limp. But with physiotherapy, we hope . . .’

‘Good. I’m glad he’s improving.’

That’s not why she’s here. Why is she here?

‘I really am so very sorry about Anna, Mrs Ballard.’ ‘Barbara, please. Call me Barbara.’ She has looked away. My voice is cracking now, and so I pause. Take a breath.

‘I was the one who first brought him into the house, you know. Tim.’ She twitches her mouth to the left. ‘Into the family. Into Jenny and Anna’s

little gang. I felt sorry for him. His mother never took any interest. Always off with her men. Did you know she had a fling with my husband? I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Matthew told me everything. Tim’s diaries. He set up a camera in his mother’s room. To blackmail her lovers. Made some cash, then caught someone he did not expect . . .

Again we lock eyes, and I see her lips trembling as she nods. A jerky nod that says, Don’t make me cry. Don’t say her name again, please . . .

‘So, turns out it was my fault in the end. Tim. I felt sorry for him. Always out around the village on his own, even when he was quite little. I thought I was being kind. Feeding him up. Taking him in. But’ – she pauses – ‘turns out it was my fault . . .’

‘You mustn’t think that . . .’

I hear the echo of so many people saying the same to me, and regret the platitude. Guilt, we all learn, has its own rules.

‘He wants to come back, my husband.’ She is looking at the floor. ‘Funny thing is I am actually considering it. I miss him, you see.’

I find that I want to reach out to touch her arm. To offer some comfort.

Something. But I don’t.

I am wondering if she will go to the trial. Matthew says the charges are to be murder and attempted murder. Tim is expected to plead diminished responsibility, but Matthew believes the murder charge will stick. Turns out Tim set up the alibi in Scotland with chilling calculation. Picked an outdoor pursuits centre that he knew logged walking parties only as they signed in on day one. He booked in three days ahead of Anna’s trip to London, supposedly for a week, but stayed for just twenty-four hours – enough time to post a couple of pictures on social media, careful to moan about limited Wi-Fi and just enough ‘presence’ to fool the police, who made only a cursory check on his alibi. Later reviews of all the CCTV footage confirm he actually returned to Cornwall to sneak onto the London train among the final passengers, disguised in a hoodie and sunglasses. He then followed Anna and Sarah from the West End theatre to the club.

It’s still not clear why he killed her. His diaries are rambling and incoherent – this obsession with other people looking at her.

I can’t bear the thought of it all, especially my poor Luke having to give evidence now. The truth? I wish Tim had died; that he never came out of that coma. That it was all truly over.

There is an incredibly long pause, during which Mrs Ballard says nothing at all, and so I fill it by babbling about the flowers for the wedding – my love of calla lilies, especially the rich, deep colours. Burgundy and purple. ‘I have something that I need to tell you. That’s why I’m here, Ella. Is it

all right to call you Ella?’

‘Of course.’ I smooth the fabric of my skirt, worrying and wondering what it is now.

‘I was going through Jenny’s room tidying up, and I found some stuff.’ I can feel my frown.

‘Black postcards.’ A new stillness.

‘I have talked to her, and she eventually broke down. Owned up. It seems it was Jenny who sent you the first two postcards. She is very sorry. Very ashamed. She was just very angry and lashing out. Like I did. I’m not saying that is any kind of excuse. But she is very young and she is very sorry.’

So Jenny? Anna’s sister . . .

‘There’s more, I’m afraid.’ She sniffs a little. ‘When you sent Matthew down to see me, Jenny panicked. I told her that you suspected me, you see. I was cross about that. And so she decided to confide in someone. Someone close.’

Oh my God.

‘Tim?’

‘Yes. Unfortunately . . . Tim. It seems that’s when he became more interested in you. Decided to send some more postcards himself. Also to start watching your shop. Such a twisted mind. We had no idea, but the police say he is very disturbed. This obsession with watching people. Anyway. That’s how he came to recognise your son. From the Ten Tors. Started watching him too. Got himself all muddled. All wound up . . .’

I hear a long breath escape. Feel the shape of my lungs change. I have wondered. Why Tim became interested in us.

‘So the point is I will completely understand if you want to inform the police.’ Her lip is trembling properly now. ‘Because you may well feel it is Jenny’s fault that Tim ended up taking an interest in your son.’

And so finally I understand.

Matthew said they found hundreds of photographs on Tim’s computer. Pictures from parties and the Ten Tors and school, with graphic and violent comments alongside the headshots of any boy he felt had taken an interest in Anna. Even spoken to her, completely innocently. However briefly. Luke was just unlucky. He genuinely doesn’t remember meeting her or talking to her.

I look down at the floor for a moment. I think of Luke, so proud when he finally put the crutches aside two weeks ago and walked across the room unaided. He has this terrible limp, but we are all pretending it will go. Hoping it will go. Also a dreadful scar on his thigh.

‘Thank you for coming here to tell me, but there is no need to tell the police. Nothing to be gained.’ I am thinking of Jenny – so young still. What would be the point? What does it matter if the police believe all the postcards

were from Tim?

Mrs Ballard closes her eyes, the relief coursing through the muscles in a wave – first her face, then her neck, her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Ella.’

I expect her to leave, but still she stands. I wonder what she is waiting

for.

She glances around the counter. To the cooler with the displays. ‘They have released her body now. For the funeral.’

Dear God . . .

I am fighting again. It will not help if I break down. Not my grief.

‘The director from the funeral parlour came last night to talk it all

through with us.’

She pauses and I say nothing. Can’t find any words. None. Mute.

I am thinking of Anna on the train, green eyes all bright and beautiful and excited. Sixteen years old . . .

‘The thing is, he showed me some catalogues for flowers for the coffin.’ Her voice is still quite steady but there are tears running down her cheeks. ‘And they were so terrible, Ella. The flowers. So awful.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Still she is staring at the flower cooler. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous. That it’s what people expect. A wreath. But I can’t have a wreath. I just can’t have something so sad and grown up and horrible. I don’t want a wreath for my daughter’s coffin.’

She turns back to me to check my response, which is at first pure puzzlement.

‘She’s so young, you see. Too young for a wreath, don’t you think?’ At last she wipes at her face with the palm of her hand.

Still I don’t know what to say to comfort her.

‘And the thing is, when I came here once before, I remember you had this extraordinary display in the window. For spring. Folds of greenery like hills. Like a meadow. With wild flowers. Primroses and wild garlic and hedgerow flowers.’

‘It was for a competition. I remember . . .’ I won a prize for it.

‘It was quite beautiful. And I was thinking on the drive here – that’s what I would like. For my Anna. A sort of blanket of greenery and meadow flowers. Nothing like a wreath. And I know it’s a lot to ask. Probably quite wrong of me to ask at all, given all that has gone on between—’

‘It would be my privilege. I would be more than happy to do this for

you.’

Our eyes lock one final time.

‘I am quite happy to pay, of course, whatever . . .’

She leaves her email address, and I tell her I will send my design to

make sure it is right. But already I have decided there will be no charge.

Already my mind is racing ahead as we part. Already I am sketching it in my head. And planning. And thinking how I can weave all the greenery through some kind of mesh to make the folds for the base. Like a meadow – yes. And primroses? I know a supplier who has forced primroses. Greenhouse-grown. I will order scores. All he has.

I am making notes in my book, tears on my own cheeks now, knowing this must be truly special. Like nothing I have created before.

I can see it exactly. How it needs to cover the sadness that will be the oak and the brass handles – with the scent and the wonder of the meadows near their home.

Primroses and bluebells. Wild garlic and campion. Pink and lemon and soft white petals. For a beautiful girl. Gone too soon.

For a girl – yes.

Much too young for a wreath.