Page 82 of Electric Kiss

“Always,” he replied and kissed her quickly, aware her brothers were watching her closely.

They left the room and closed the door, seemingly on her past. The group moved to the main room at the end of the hall and found Maggie, Melly and her mum on folding chairs, laughing and holding hands. Imelda looked up and stared at Daisy.

“You okay, sweetheart,” Imelda asked.

“Yeah, Mum. I’m good.”

“Come and look at this Polaroid. It is the last picture we had taken of us,” Imelda said.

Daisy and her brothers stood behind the three women and looked at the picture Imelda was holding.

“I was so tiny,” Daisy said.

“Six months old.”

“Look at Dad,” Jason said. “Archer, you look exactly like him. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this before.”

“It was the week I left the island. I’d forgotten about this photo,” Imelda said, stroking Freddie’s image.

“You don’t look well in the picture,” Jason said.

The girls joined them and passed the picture around and laughed at the brothers and how cute they looked.

“We suspected Cynthia was poisoning me, but we couldn’t prove it. Freddie made me eat food only Maggie and Melly had prepared but wouldn’t let me eat from anything in Turner Hall. I had my own special plates and cutlery. We still don’t know what she did or how she did it.”

“I think I know one part of that,” Luke said, taking the photo. “We found a list of ingredients for plant killer. When we showed it to Ralph, the gardener, he didn’t recognise it as something he had made up for Cynthia. Ralph spoke to his Dad, and he said the same, and Ralph’s dad took care of all the pesticides on the Turner estate.”

“I bet she sprayed the plates somehow. God, I was so ill, but when Freddie was home, I recovered quickly. I don’t think she meant to kill me. Just piss me off enough to leave.”

“She got her way in the end,” Archer said.

“It was that, or we feared she would die,” Melly said.

“I didn’t, and I’m here,” Imelda chirped.

“Why, though?” Daisy asked. “Why did she want you to leave? She couldn’t change the will or inheritance, so why go to the trouble of splitting you up?”

“She let slip about going into labour. As far as her father and grandfather were concerned, she turned down the man her grandfather had chosen for her to marry and swore she would never marry.”

“She never did marry,” Luke said. “We checked.”

“Fate had its way of stopping her plans,” Imelda said. “She had a child with Jonathan, the man she wanted to marry, but he wouldn’t marry her because her father didn’t approve of him. If her father didn’t approve of him, then Jonathan couldn’t live on the island. I think her father knewof a child somehow but couldn’t prove it. He had her followed, but no one ever knew she met with Jonathan every school holiday and spent time with her son part-time for short bursts.”

“Oh god, how history repeats itself,” Archer muttered.

“It was her doing that, that gave me and Freddie the idea. Freddie knew of Jonathan and of her child but never said anything. He, by chance, saw them, and then the idea of the two houses and him staying for a few days with me before he headed back to Copper Island was spawned from her sneaking off-island. He wondered why she went to so much effort to hide her child. But Freddie was safe in the knowledge that her child could never inherit. It’s written in the will and rules for Copper Island succession.”

“Wow, I wonder if she knows Freddie knew?” Erica said.

“I don’t care anymore,” Imelda said. “She went to extreme lengths to get you four to come back. But I guess it doesn’t matter now. You’ve all found happiness, had babies or are going to have them. You have a thriving business and live on this beautiful island.”

“What do you mean she went to extreme lengths? It was our choice to come back,” Archer said.

“Luke. Daisy said you found out that Jonathan and her son Benny are buried under unmarked gravestones.”

“Yeah, that’s right. It was in the ledgers Mrs Philbott gave us. The tin had the birth certificates.”

Imelda laughed. “Oh wow, where was it?”

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