The Death of Mrs. Westaway Read online

  Praise for Ruth Ware’s instant New York Times, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times bestseller

  THE LYING GAME

  * A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick * Starred review from Kirkus Reviews * Starred Booklist Review * An Entertainment Weekly “Must List” Pick * Named by Today.com as one of “17 Summer Beach Reads You Won’t Want to Put Down” * Named by Elite Daily as one of “7 Books You Need to Take on Your Vacation This Year” * Included in summer book guides from The New York Post, Time, People, Parchment Girl, BookPage, Novel Gossip, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Cheat Sheet *

  “So many questions . . . until the very last page! Needless to say, I could not put this book down!”

  —Reese Witherspoon

  “Once again the author of The Woman in Cabin 10 delivers mega-chills.”

  —People

  “Missing Big Little Lies? Dig into this psychological thriller about whether you can really trust your nearest and dearest.”

  —Cosmopolitan

  “New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware and her new thriller The Lying Game will have you full of anticipation.”

  —Library Journal

  “A riveting, atmospheric thriller.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “From the author of the hit novel The Woman in Cabin 10 comes another edge-of-your-seat thriller you don’t want to miss.”

  —Bustle

  “A single cryptic text, ‘I need you,’ reunites four friends in the stippled light of an English seaside village just as surely as it signals readers that they’re in the hands of a pro. . . . The Lying Game makes good on its premise that tall tales have consequences, especially when they’re exposed to the glare of truth.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A very cinematically paced book about a bunch of friends whose secrets at private school come back to haunt them. . . . It reminded me of The Secret History but if you just took the most suspenseful elements and packed them into this book. . . . It’s spooky and suspenseful.”

  —Good Morning America

  “The author of The Woman in Cabin 10 delivers a thoughtful thriller about four friends whose shared childhood secret threatens them now. A gripping whodunit.”

  —Good Housekeeping

  “Fans of the mystery author who just won’t quit will recognize Ware’s singular ability to bait and switch in this wholly original story about four friends who conceive, innocently at first, a game of lies with dire repercussions.”

  —Marie Claire

  “Ware’s third outing is just as full of psychological suspense as her earlier books, but there is a quietness about this one, a slower unraveling of tension and fear, that elevates it above her others. . . . Cancel your plans for the weekend when you sit down with this book, because you won’t want to move until it’s over.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “Ware masterfully harnesses the millhouse’s decrepit menace to create a slow-rising sense of foreboding, darkening Isa’s recollections of the weeks leading to Ambrose’s disappearance . . . . With arguably her most complex, fully realized characters yet, this one may become her biggest hit yet.”

  —Booklist, starred review

  “One of ‘summer’s most intriguing mysteries’!”

  —Time

  “[A] page-turning psychological thriller with intriguing female characters.”

  —The Hollywood Reporter

  “I suggest you read Scout Press’s The Lying Game by Ruth Ware, bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10. I read this grabber in two days.”

  —The New York Post

  “[An] engrossing psychological thriller . . . Ware builds up a rock-solid cast of intriguing characters and spins a mystery that will keep readers turning pages to the end.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ware has become a household name in psychological suspense, and her third release is highly anticipated. . . . [The Lying Game is] sure to be her next summer hit.”

  —Elite Daily

  “Readers who’ve devoured Ware’s bestsellers The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark, Dark Wood won’t need much encouragement to pick up a copy of her latest thriller. This story . . . is as gripping and atmospheric as Ware’s previous books, with unexpected twists around every corner.”

  —BookPage

  “Perhaps one of the most twisty and suspenseful titles of 2017.”

  —Mystery Tribune

  “The Lying Game is tense, addictive, and not to be missed.”

  —Crime by the Book

  “You’re going to sit down and read this in one sitting.”

  —Weekend Today in New York

  “Ware writes with sharp dialogue and rich psychological drama. If you liked her earlier works, you just may love The Lying Game.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “This psychological complexity makes the novel more satisfying than the usual thriller, without slowing down its gripping plot.”

  —The Columbus Dispatch

  “The Lying Game is definitely more character-driven than Ware’s previous novels, it’s oozing with human conflict and characterization. . . . It was gripping, immersive, and had wonderfully fleshed out characters.”

  —The Emporia Gazette

  “Ware is a master of setting. . . . [Her] talents for twisting a tale, and for creating flawed, unlikable, and yet wholly realistic and familiar characters are on full display. . . . Readers looking for atmosphere, suspense, and complex relationships will find plenty to enjoy here.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Like Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train, Into the Water), British writer Ruth Ware is finding fans on this side of the pond with her psychological thrillers.”

  —USA Today

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  For my mum. Always.

  One for sorrow

  Two for joy

  Three for a girl

  Four for a boy

  Five for silver

  Six for gold

  Seven for a secret

  Never to be told

  29th November, 1994

  The magpies are back. It’s strange to think how much I used to hate them, when I first came to the house. I remember coming up the drive in the taxi from the station, seeing them lined up along the garden wall like that, preening their feathers.

  Today there was one perched on the frost-rimed branch of yew right outside my window, and I remembered what my mother used to say when I was little and whispered “Hello, Mr. Magpie” under my breath, to turn away the bad luck.

  I counted them as I dressed, shivering next to the window. One on the yew tree. A second on the weathervane of the folly. A third on the wall of the kitchen garden. Three for a girl.

  It seemed like an omen, and for a moment I shivered. Wishing, wondering, waiting . . .

  But no, there were more on the frozen lawn. Four, five . . . six . . . and one hopping across the flags of the terrace, pecking at the ice on the covers over the table and chairs.

  Seven. Seven for a secret, never to be told. Well, the secret part may be right, but the rest is wide of the mark. I’ll have to tell, soon enough. There’ll be no choice.

  I had almost finished dressing when there was a rustle in the
leaves of the rhododendrons in the shrubbery. For a minute I could not see the cause, but then the branches parted, and a fox slunk quietly across the leaf-strewn lawn, its red-gold fur startlingly bright against the frost-muted winter colours.

  At my parents’ house they were quite common, but it’s rare to see one in daylight around here, let alone one bold enough to cross the huge exposed stretch of lawns in front of the house. I’ve seen slaughtered rabbits, and split bags of rubbish left from their scavenging, but they are almost never this bold. This one must have been very brave, or very desperate, to stalk in full sight in front of the house. Looking more closely, I thought perhaps it was the latter, for he was young, and terribly thin.

  At first the magpies didn’t notice, but then the one on the terrace, more observant than the others, registered the shape of the predator easing its way towards them, and it flew up from the icy flags like a rocket, chak-chakking its alarm, the warning loud and clear in the morning quiet. The fox had no hope after that. The other birds took to the sky, one by one, until at last only one was left, sitting on the yew, safely out of the fox’s reach, and like a stream of molten gold, it slunk back over the grass, low to the ground, leaving the solitary magpie on the branch, crowing out its triumph.

  One. One for sorrow. But that’s impossible. I will never feel sad again, in spite of everything, in spite of the storm that I know is coming. As I sit here in the drawing room, writing this, I can feel it—my secret—burning me up from the inside with a joy so fierce that I think it must sometimes be visible through my skin.

  I’ll change that rhyme. One for joy. One for love. One for the future.

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  The girl leaned, rather than walked, into the wind, clutching the damp package of fish and chips grimly under one arm even as the gale plucked at the paper, trying to unravel the parcel and send the contents skittering away down the seafront for the seagulls to claim.

  As she crossed the road her hand closed over the crumpled note in her pocket, and she glanced over her shoulder, checking the long dark stretch of pavement behind her for a shadowy figure, but there was no one there. No one she could see, anyway.

  It was rare for the seafront to be completely deserted. The bars and clubs were open long into the night, spilling drunk locals and tourists onto the pebbled beach right through until dawn. But tonight, even the most hardened partygoers had decided against venturing out, and now, at 9:55 p.m. on a wet Tuesday, Hal had the promenade to herself, the flashing lights of the pier the only sign of life, apart from the gulls wheeling and crying over the dark restless waters of the channel.

  Hal’s short black hair blew in her eyes, her glasses were misted, and her lips were chapped with salt from the sea wind. But she hitched the parcel tighter under her arm and turned off the seafront into one of the narrow residential streets of tall white houses, where the wind dropped with a suddenness that made her stagger and almost trip. The rain didn’t let up. In fact, away from the wind it seemed to drizzle more steadily, if anything, as she turned again into Marine View Villas.

  The name was a lie. There were no villas, only a slightly shabby little row of terraced houses, their paint peeling from constant exposure to the salty air. And there was no view—not of the sea or anywhere else. Maybe there had been once, when the houses were built. But since then taller, grander buildings had gone up, closer to the sea, and any view the windows of Marine View Villas might once have had was reduced to brick walls and slate roofs, even from Hal’s attic flat. Now the only benefit to living up three flights of narrow, rickety stairs was not having to listen to neighbors stomping about above your head.

  Tonight, though, the neighbors seemed to be out—and had been for some time, judging by the way the door stuck on the clump of junk mail in the hall. Hal had to shove hard, until it gave and she stumbled into the chilly darkness, groping for the automatic timer switch that governed the lights. Nothing happened. Either a fuse had blown, or the bulb had burned out.

  She scooped up the junk mail, doing her best in the dim light filtering in from the street to pick out the letters for the other tenants, and then began the climb up to her own attic flat.

  There were no windows on the stairwell, and once she was past the first flight, it was almost pitch-black. But Hal knew the steps by heart, from the broken board on the landing to the loose piece of carpet that had come untacked on the last flight, and she plodded wearily upwards, thinking about supper and bed. She wasn’t even sure if she was hungry anymore, but the fish and chips had cost £5.50, and judging by the number of bills she was carrying, that was £5.50 she couldn’t afford to waste.

  On the top landing she ducked her head to avoid the drip from the skylight, opened the door, and then at last, she was home.

  The flat was small, just a bedroom opening off a kind of wide hallway that did duty as both kitchen and living room, and everything else. It was also shabby, with peeling paint and worn carpet, and wooden windows that groaned and rattled when the wind came off the sea. But it had been Hal’s home for all of her twenty-one years, and no matter how cold and tired she was, her heart never failed to lift, just a little bit, when she walked through the door.

  In the doorway, she paused to wipe the salt spray off her glasses, polishing them on the ragged knee of her jeans, before dropping the paper of fish and chips on the coffee table.

  It was very cold, and she shivered as she knelt in front of the gas fire, clicking the knob until it flared, and the warmth began to come back into her raw red hands. Then she unrolled the damp, rain-spattered paper packet, inhaling as the sharp smell of salt and vinegar filled the little room.

  Spearing a limp, warm chip with the wooden fork, she began to sort through the mail, sifting out takeout fliers for recycling and putting the bills into a pile. The chips were salty and sharp and the battered fish still hot, but Hal found a slightly sick feeling was growing in the pit of her stomach as the stack of bills grew higher. It wasn’t so much the size of the pile but the number marked FINAL DEMAND that worried her, and she pushed the fish aside, feeling suddenly nauseated.

  She had to pay the rent—that was nonnegotiable. And the electricity was high on the list too. Without a fridge or lights, the little flat was barely habitable. The gas . . . well it was November. Life without heating would be uncomfortable, but she’d survive.

  But the one that really made her stomach turn over was different from the official bills. It was a cheap envelope, obviously hand-delivered, and all it said on the front, in ballpoint letters, was “Harriet Westerway, top flat.”

  There was no sender’s address, but Hal didn’t need one. She had a horrible feeling that she knew who it was from.

  Hal swallowed a chip that seemed to be stuck in her throat, and she pushed the envelope to the bottom of the pile of bills, giving way to the overwhelming impulse to bury her head in the sand. She wished passionately that she could hand the whole problem over to someone older and wiser and stronger to deal with.

  But there was no one. Not anymore. And besides, there was a tough, stubborn core of courage in Hal. Small, skinny, pale, and young she might be—but she was not the child people routinely assumed. She had not been that child for more than three years.

  It was that core that made her pick the envelope back up and, biting her lip, tear through the flap.

  Inside there was just one sheet of paper, with only a couple of sentences typed on it.

  Sorry to have missed you. We would like to discuss you’re financal situation. We will call again.

  Hal’s stomach flipped and she felt in her pocket for the piece of paper that had turned up at her work this afternoon. They were identical, save for the crumples and a splash of tea that she had spilled over the first one when she opened it.

  The message on them was not news to Hal. She had been ignoring calls and texts to that effect for months.

  It was the message behind the notes that made her hands shake as she placed them carefully on
the coffee table, side by side.

  Hal was used to reading between the lines, deciphering the importance of what people didn’t say, as much as what they did. It was her job, in a way. But the unspoken words here required no decoding at all.

  They said, We know where you work.

  We know where you live.

  And we will come back.

  • • •

  THE REST OF THE MAIL was just junk and Hal dumped it into the recycling before sitting wearily on the sofa. For a moment she let her head rest in her hands—trying not to think about her precarious bank balance, hearing her mother’s voice in her ear as if she were standing behind her, lecturing her about her A-level revision. Hal, I know you’re stressed, but you’ve got to eat something! You’re too skinny!

  I know, she answered, inside her head. It was always that way when she was worried or anxious—her appetite was the first thing to go. But she couldn’t afford to get ill. If she couldn’t work, she wouldn’t get paid. And more to the point, she could not afford to waste a meal, even one that was damp around the edges, and getting cold.

  Ignoring the ache in her throat, she forced herself to pick up another chip. But it was only halfway to her mouth when something in the recycling bin caught her eye. Something that should not have been there. A letter in a stiff white envelope, addressed by hand, and stuffed into the bin along with the takeout menus.

  Hal put the chip in her mouth, licked the salt off her fingers, and then leaned across to the bin to pick it out of the mess of old papers and soup tins.

  Miss Harriet Westaway, it said. Flat 3c, Marine View Villas, Brighton. The address was only slightly stained with the grease from Hal’s fingers and the mess from the bin.

  She must have shoved it in there by mistake with the empty envelopes. Well, at least this one couldn’t be a bill. It looked more like a wedding invitation—though that seemed unlikely. Hal couldn’t think of anyone who would be getting married.

  She shoved her thumb in the gap at the side of the envelope and ripped it open.