The Death of Mrs. Westaway Read online

  “Very sorry for your loss,” the conductor said, and he nodded gravely, and passed on up the corridor and into the next carriage.

  Hal was putting the ticket back into her near-empty wallet when the train dipped into a tunnel, causing the lights to flicker out, so that for a second the only illumination was the glow of her laptop, and the sparks of the wheels on the track, like lightning flashes against the blackened brick of the tunnel.

  The screen of her laptop glowed emerald bright, the huge expanse of grass, the narrow snaking road, and suddenly Hal felt a kind of anger wash over her.

  How could one family, one person, have so much? The grounds of Trepassen House could fit not just Hal’s apartment block, but her entire road and most of the next one. Just the cost of mowing those lawns was probably more than she made in a month. But it wasn’t just that—it was everything. The ponies. The holidays. The casual acceptance of it all.

  How could it be right that some people had so much, while others had so little?

  The lights came back on with a strobing flicker, and another Facebook notification popped up. Another update from Richard. Hal clicked on it, and a picture filled the screen—Richard and his family against a backdrop of paneled wood, all of them beaming proudly. Harding had his arm clasped so hard around his son that the boy was staggering slightly.

  Richard has shared a Facebook memory, said the caption, and peering closer Hal read, Prize-giving day at St A’s. Ma doing the ol maternal pride thing so hard i thought she might rupture something. Just gotta make sure Dad makes good on our deal—500 squids for not flunking maths—and then HELLOOOO Ibiza!

  As the train swooped out of the tunnel into daylight, Hal felt again that fluttering sickness in the pit of her stomach—but she knew in that instant that she would not turn back.

  For the flutter wasn’t only nerves. It wasn’t even just envy. It was also a kind of excitement.

  CHAPTER 9

  * * *

  It was almost three when the train drew up at Penzance. Hal paused for a moment beneath the big clock hanging above the platform, the sounds of the station echoing around her, trying to decide what to do.

  TAXIS, read a sign above her head, and she shouldered her bag and followed the direction arrow to a rank at the front of the station. But a few feet away from the QUEUE HERE sign, she paused, and checked in her wallet.

  After a sandwich on the train—egg and cress, the cheapest on offer at £1.37—she had £37.54 left. But would that be enough to get her as far as St. Piran? And if it was, how would she get back?

  “You waiting, sonny?” said a voice from behind her, making her jump. Hal turned, but there was no one in sight. It was only when a face leaned out of the taxicab window that she realized it was a taxi driver who had spoken.

  “Oh, sorry.” She shoved her wallet back in her bag and walked across to the taxi. “Yes, I am.”

  “Sorry, my love.” The man’s face was red as she approached. “I didn’t realize—it was the short hair, see.”

  “It’s fine,” Hal said honestly. It happened too often for it to bother her anymore. “Listen, can you tell me how much to get to St. Piran’s Church? I’ve not got very much cash on me.”

  Or off me, she thought, but didn’t say. The taxi driver looked away, and began tapping something into a screen on the dashboard—a satnav, or a phone, Hal thought, though she wasn’t sure.

  “ ’Bout twenty-five quid, my darlin’,” he said at last. Hal drew a breath. This was it, then. If she got in this cab, she was stranded—no way back without relying on the goodwill of whoever she found at the other end. Was she really going to do this?

  “The train now departing from platform three is the delayed 14:49 to London Paddington,” said the tinny voice of the station announcer—breaking into her thoughts like the universe reminding her once again that she didn’t have to follow this through, that she could simply turn around and catch the train straight back home.

  Where Mr. Smith would be waiting for her in six days’ time . . .

  If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.

  “D’you ’ear me?” the taxi driver asked. His Cornish burr made the words sound less abrupt than they would have coming from a Brighton cabbie. “Twenty-five pound, I said, is that all right?”

  Hal took another deep breath, and looked back at the train station. The pictures from Facebook and Google rose up in front of her eyes—the sprawling expanse of land, the holidays, the cars, the clothes, like stills from a Jack Wills brochure. . . .

  She thought of the heel grinding into her mother’s photograph. Of the smashed ornaments in her kiosk, and the fear she had felt when that lamp clicked on. She thought of what she would give for just a couple of thousand pounds of that money—not even enough to buy one of those cars, a tenth of it maybe.

  They have everything already. They don’t need more money.

  She felt again that sensation of something sharp and hard crystallizing inside her, a kind of hot pain cooling into brittle resolve.

  If she failed, she would be stranded. So she would just have to ensure that she didn’t fail.

  “All right.”

  The driver reached back and the rear door of the taxi swung open, and with a feeling like she was about to step off a cliff, Hal pushed her mother’s suitcase inside, and climbed in after.

  • • •

  “LOOKS LIKE A FUNERAL,” SAID the voice from the front seat of the car, and Hal jumped and looked up.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “I says, it looks like a funeral,” the driver repeated. “At the church. Is that what you’re here for? Relative, is it?”

  Hal peered out of the window, through the lashing rain that had started as they left Penzance. It was hard to see much through the gale, but she could make out a small stone church perched on a headland with gray clouds swirling behind, and a little gaggle of black-coated mourners making their way from the entrance to the graveyard towards the church.

  “Yes,” she said, almost under her breath, and then more loudly, as the driver cupped his hand to his ear, “Yes, that’s what I’m here for. It’s . . .” She hesitated, but it was easier the second time around. “It’s my grandmother.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry for your loss, my darlin’,” the driver said, and he took off his flat cap and placed it on the seat beside him.

  “How much do I owe you?” Hal asked.

  “Twenty be fine, my love.”

  Hal nodded, and she counted out one ten-pound note and two fives onto the little tray between them, and then paused. Could she afford a tip? She looked at the coins left in her purse, counting them under her breath, wondering how she was going to get from the church to the house. But from here she could see the digital display in the cab, and it read £22.50. Damn. He had undercharged her. Feeling guilty, she put another pound on the tray.

  “Thank you kindly,” the driver said, scooping up the change. “Take care in that rain now, my darlin’, catch your death on a day like today.”

  The words made Hal shiver for some reason, but she only nodded, opened the door, and slid out into the driving rain.

  As the car drew away, its tires splashing in the wet road, Hal stood for a second, trying to get her bearings. The rain spattered the lenses of her glasses, and at last she took them off to peer through the downpour at the lych-gate in front of her, and the little gray church hunched against the cliff top. A low stone wall encircled the graveyard, and beyond it Hal could see a dark rift in the ground—it was too blurry to be certain, but from the shape, she felt fairly sure it must be the open grave, awaiting the coffin of the woman she was about to defraud.

  For a moment, Hal had an almost overwhelming urge to turn and run—no matter that it was thirty miles to the nearest train station, no matter that she had no money, and her cheap black coat and shoes were no match for the driving rain.

  But as she stood, hesitating in the downpour, a hand tapped her shoulder and she swung violently r
ound to find a little man with a neat gray beard peering at her from behind rain-misted glasses.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice a strange mix of diffidence and assertion. “Might I be of assistance? My name is Mr. Treswick. Are you here for the funeral?”

  Hal hastily put her own glasses back on, but they did nothing to make the face in front of her more familiar. The name Treswick rang a bell, though, and Hal searched frantically through her mental file of names, trying to match the figure in front of her with a family member. And then, suddenly, with a rush of mingled relief and trepidation, she found it.

  “Mr. Treswick—you wrote to me!” she said. She put out a hand. “I’m Hal—I mean, Harriet Westaway.” At least, put like this, it was not a lie. Not exactly, anyway.

  There was a pause. Hal felt her stomach clench with nerves. This was the moment of truth—or one of them. If the real Harriet Westaway was thirty-five, or blond, or six feet tall, it was all over before it had begun. She could kiss good-bye to even entering the church, let alone a legacy. It would be back to Brighton on the same train, with her wallet dented, and her pride considerably bruised.

  Mr. Treswick didn’t say anything at first, he only shook his head, and Hal felt her stomach drop away. Oh God, it was over. It was all over.

  But then, before she could think what to say, he took her hand, pressing it between two warm leather gloves.

  “Well, well, well . . .” He was still shaking his head, in disbelief, Hal realized. “Well, I never. How very, very glad I am that you could make it. I wasn’t certain you would receive the letter in time—it was not an easy task tracking you down, I must say. Your mother—” He seemed suddenly to think better of the direction the conversation was taking, and stopped, covering his confusion by removing his glasses and wiping the rain from them. “Well,” he said as he resettled them on his nose, “never mind that now. Let’s just say, it was touch-and-go that we found you in time. But I am so glad you were able to attend.”

  Your mother. In the sea of uncertainty, the words felt like something firm for Hal to hang on to—one fact she could begin to build upon. So it was as she’d thought—Mrs. Westaway’s dead daughter was her link to all this.

  Hal had a sudden picture of herself wading through shifting, clutching mud—and finding something solid to rest on for a moment.

  “Of course,” she said, and managed to smile, in spite of the way her teeth were clenched against the cold. “I’m g-glad too.”

  “Oh, but you’re shivering,” Mr. Treswick said solicitously. “Let me show you inside the church. It’s an absolutely filthy day, and I’m afraid St. Piran’s has no heating at all, so it’s not much better inside. But at least you’ll be dry. Have you—”

  He paused as they reached the lych-gate, opening it up and standing aside for Hal to pass through.

  “Have I . . . ?” she prompted as they stood in the shelter of the gate’s arch for a moment. Mr. Treswick polished his glasses again—futilely, Hal realized, looking at the stretch of graveyard they still had to cover.

  “Have you met your uncles?” he asked diffidently, and Hal felt a sudden flood of warmth around her heart, in spite of the chilly day. Uncles. Uncles. She had uncles.

  You do not, she told herself sternly, trying to dampen down the sensation. They are not your relatives. But she could not think like that. If she was going to pull this off, she had not only to pretend, she had to believe.

  But what should she say? How could she answer his question? She stood for a long moment, trying to think, before suddenly realizing that she was gaping at Mr. Treswick, and that the little man was looking at her, puzzled.

  “No,” she said at last. That at least was a no-brainer. There was no point in pretending she knew people who were standing right over there, and who could give her story the lie the instant they saw Mr. Treswick. “No, I never have. To be honest . . .” She bit her lip, wondering if this was the right path to take, but surely it was better to tell the truth where she could? “To be honest,” she finished in a rush, “I didn’t know I had any uncles until you wrote. My mother never mentioned them.”

  Mr. Treswick said nothing, only shook his head again, though whether in resigned understanding or baffled denial, Hal wasn’t sure.

  “Shall we?” he asked, glancing up at the iron-gray sky above. “I don’t think the rain is going to lighten at all, so we might as well make a dash for it.”

  Hal nodded, and together they scurried the short distance from the lych-gate to the church.

  On the porch, Mr. Treswick wiped his glasses yet again and tightened the belt of his mackintosh as he ushered Hal ahead of him, but as he was about to follow, his head cocked like a spaniel’s at the sound of an engine, and he turned back.

  “Ah, if you will excuse me, Harriet, I believe that is the funeral cortège. May I leave you to seat yourself?”

  “Of course,” Hal said, and he disappeared into the rain, leaving her to enter the church alone.

  The door was just ajar, as some protection from the driving wind and rain, but as she slipped inside, the first thing that struck her was not the cold, but the lack of people. There could not have been more than four or five people dotted about the pews. She had assumed that the group of mourners she had seen from the taxi were latecomers, joining those already in the church, but now she realized that she must have seen the arrival of almost everyone here.

  There were three very elderly women in the second pew from the front, a man in his forties who looked like an accountant seated towards the back, and a woman in a district nurse’s uniform perched by the entrance, as if poised to make a quick getaway, should the service drag on.

  Hal looked around, trying to assess where she should sit. Was there a rule with funerals? She tried to remember her mother’s service at Brighton Crematorium, but all she could recall was the little chapel overflowing with pier folk and neighbors, grateful clients, old friends, and people she didn’t even recognize but whose lives her mother had touched. At the back they had been standing, crushing against the wall to make room for more mourners, and she’d seen Sam from the fish-and-chip kiosk giving up his seat to let an elderly neighbor at Marine View Villas sit down. Someone had kept a place for Hal at the front, but for the rest, she was not sure how they had decided who sat where, or what hierarchy of mourning might apply.

  Whatever the rules were, though, surely anyone who had never met the deceased ranked pretty low.

  In the end, she took a seat towards the back, but not so conspicuously as the accountant and the district nurse—three or four rows in from them, on the right-hand side. Her glasses were still streaked with drying raindrops, and she took them off to clean them, listening, as she did so, to the rustle of feet, and the drumming of the rain on the roof, and the occasional cough from the women at the front. She tried not to shiver.

  Hal had only two coats—the battered leather jacket she wore every day, and a dark trench coat mackintosh that had been her mother’s and was too big for her. The leather jacket was black, at least, but it hadn’t seemed right for a funeral, so she had worn the trench coat. It had felt warm enough on the train, but at some point in its long storage, its waterproofing had worn off, and the fabric had soaked right through in the brief run from the taxi. Now she sat in the cold church and felt the rain leaching through to her skin. Her hands, when she looked down at them in her lap, were bluish, and she had to shove them into the pockets of the flimsy coat to stop her fingers shaking with cold. At the bottom of one of the pockets she felt something round and rough chafe against her numb skin, and when she pulled it out, she smiled. Gloves. Something warm, at least. It felt like a present from her mother.

  She was just pulling them on when there was a blast of sound from an unseen organist, and the doors of the chapel were flung open, letting in a gust of wind that sent the thin paper orders of service scurrying down the aisle.

  The priest—or vicar, Hal was not sure which—entered first, and behind him came four men in blac
k suits, holding between them a narrow, dark-wood coffin.

  The rear left-hand bearer Hal recognized straightaway as Mr. Treswick, his mackintosh shed to reveal a black suit and tie beneath. He was struggling a little with his position, for he was shorter than the other three men, and kept having to raise his corner higher than was comfortable to compensate.

  At the front right was a balding man in his fifties who Hal thought must be Harding Westaway. She looked hard at his round, jowly face and pale, wispy hair, trying to imprint it on her memory. He had the air of a man who had eaten a good meal, but would always want more, nibbling at nuts and cheese and fruit, and then complaining of the subsequent indigestion. There was something both self-satisfied and yet self-doubting about him. It was a strange combination. As Hal watched, he brushed at his hair a little self-consciously, as though feeling her appraising eyes.

  To his left was a bearded man with dark blond hair fading to gray at the temples, who looked close enough to the images she’d seen of Abel Westaway for Hal to guess that the final bearer, on the rear right, must be the third son, Ezra.

  He was by far the youngest man in the group, and where his brothers were fair, Ezra was dark, and deeply tanned. He was also the only person in the whole church who was not wearing an expression of careful sorrow—in fact, as he drew level with Hal, he flashed her a curving Cheshire cat smile, and she felt a jolt of shock—it was so very inappropriate for the time and place.

  In confusion, she turned away, pretending she hadn’t seen, and faced the front of the church, feeling her cheeks burn.

  It wasn’t just the smile—though that was bad enough. It was that there had been something . . . something flirtatious in his grin, in the twinkling eye, close to a wink. He doesn’t know he’s your uncle, she told herself. He has no idea who you are.

  That’s because he’s not your uncle, replied her conscience, snippily.