The Death of Mrs. Westaway(16)

Next, a couple of T-shirts, a hoodie, and her least-threadbare jeans. A spare bra. A handful of knickers. And finally her precious laptop, and a couple of paperbacks.

The last thing was the most difficult. ID. They would expect ID, and the letter had asked her to bring it. The problem was, Hal had no idea what information they already had. Her full birth certificate was out of the question, but she could take her passport, or her short-form birth certificate, neither of which made any mention of parents. Those simply confirmed something they already knew—Hal’s name. The problem was, both documents also gave her date of birth.

If they were expecting someone aged thirty-five, it would all be over as soon as they saw her—they wouldn’t even need to get to the passport. But Hal thought she could pass for anything from fifteen to twenty-five, maybe even thirty at a pinch. Unless Hester Westaway had married and had children very young, there was a good chance that the woman they were looking for was within that range; but if the solicitor’s documents showed a baby born in December 1991 and Hal produced a passport showing she was born in May 1995 . . .

Hal pulled out the letter again, scanning for acceptable forms. The second column, proving her address, was no problem. A utility bill, said the letter. Well, she had plenty of those. And the utility company couldn’t possibly tell the solicitors anything they didn’t already know, apart from the state of her overdraft.

But the first column was more of a problem. Passport, driving license, or birth certificate. She didn’t have a driving license, and a passport would be too hard to alter without access to serious cash. Which left . . . the birth certificate.

Hal rummaged in the box under the bed again, looking for the envelope she had cast aside earlier. When she found it, she flipped past her mother’s certificate to her own, beneath. There was the full one . . . and yes, there beneath it was the short form. Name: Harriet Margarida Westaway, it read. Born: 15th May 1995. Sex: Female. District: Brighton, East Sussex.

If they didn’t have a date of birth already, it would be easy—a simple question of handing over her real papers.

If they did . . . Hal peered at it, holding it up to the light, looking at the paper. It was not a very sophisticated document—the paper was watermarked, but that wasn’t obvious from the surface, and the ink looked nothing special. With a bit of time and a scanner, she could probably use the real document to forge something fairly convincing.

The crease lines were old and soft, and Hal folded it up carefully and put it in an inside pocket of the case, along with the utility bill.

She was zipping up the case when she stopped . . . and reached into her bedside drawer where a small tin box rested, battered and losing its paint. It had once held Golden Virginia, though it had long since lost the scent of tobacco.

Opening it up, Hal let her fingers rest on the cards inside, feeling their frayed edges, the soft pliability of the aging cardboard, watching the familiar images flicker past as she riffled through them, their faces watching her, judging her.

On an impulse, she tipped the pack into her palm and, without shuffling, made a single cut, her eyes closed, only one question in her mind.

She opened her eyes.

The card in her palm was a young man standing in a storm-swept landscape, at his back a sky full of scudding clouds, at his feet a tumultuous sea. In his hands was a sword, upraised, as if about to strike. The page of swords. Action. Intellect. Decision.

In that instant Hal knew, if she were reading for a client, what she would have said: The swords are the suit of the mind, of thought and analysis, and the page is a card full of energy and decision. There are stormy waters all around—but he is striding out with his sword upraised. Whatever the challenge he faces, the page is ready to meet it, and he is someone to be reckoned with.

There is no such thing as a clear green light in tarot, she would have said. But this card—this might be the closest thing to it.

But beneath the practiced spiel she could hear her mother’s voice, words she had told Hal again and again. Never believe it, Hal. Never believe your own patter. The actor who loses his grip on reality, the writer who believes her own lies—they’re lost. This is a fantasy—never lose sight of that, however much you want to believe.

And there was the slippery truth of it—the confirmation bias known so well to scientists and skeptics. She wanted to believe the page’s message. She wanted to believe in his green light, even as she clapped the two halves of the deck together, and slid them back into the tin, and closed the lid.

As she brushed her teeth in the tiny bathroom, gazing at her own reflection, soft-focus and unfamiliar without her glasses, Hal told herself, I don’t have to decide. I can sleep on it. Nothing is final. But she took her toothbrush with her when she went back into the bedroom. She stood uncertainly by her bed for a moment, shivering in the cold breeze from the drafty window, and then, almost defiantly, she shoved the toothbrush inside the open case and, with a rasping scratch, zipped it up, and climbed into bed.

It was a long time before she put her book down and turned out the light, and longer still before she slept. And when she slept, she dreamed—of a young man standing over her, his sword upraised.

CHAPTER 8


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Hal’s mother had taught her tarot, and she’d been familiar with the images on the cards almost before she could walk—the smiling High Priestess, the stern Hierophant, the scary Tower with the lost souls falling away. And she had accompanied her mother to the booth on West Pier often enough as a little girl, when school was off and her mother couldn’t find anyone to babysit. She’d sat quietly behind the curtain in the corner reading a book, listening to her mother’s skillful back-and-forth, and she grew to understand the tactics almost without realizing—the leading questions, the graceful forks: “A brother . . .”—a slight frown from the client—“no, wait, someone like a brother. A friend? A male relative?”