The Death of Mrs. Westaway

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 round 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.