The Death of Mrs. Westaway(66)

CHAPTER 26


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Up in her room, Hal lay flat on her back, her forearm flung over her eyes to shut out the moonlight, and she could not sleep.

It was not just the moonlight, painfully bright through the thin curtains. It was not even the reading that weighed upon her, or not only the reading. It was everything. Abel’s expression as he fled. Edward’s exasperation. Mitzi’s whispered remarks as she held Hal close . . .

The deed of variation. The thought of it was like a noose around Hal’s neck, not yet tight, but slowly tightening, and already making it hard to breathe. When she had suggested it, it seemed like such a simple solution—she would refuse the bequest, melt away back to Brighton, disappear out of their lives.

But Mitzi’s last words—so kindly meant—made it clear that that was never going to happen. Even if she renounced this legacy, she would still be trapped in a web of bureaucracy and forms and ID—this tangle of family loyalties and resentments, dragging her under as it had the others. But what could she do? The only way out of it was to admit to her fraud.

Hal sighed, and turned from her back onto her front, pressing her face into the crisp white pillowcase to try to get away from the moonlight that pierced the thin curtains. It cast long dark shadows of the bars across the bed, and as she shut her eyes, she had a sudden, jolting image of herself as she would look to someone standing across the room—like the girl from the ten of swords.

Betrayal. Backstabbing. Defeat.

A prickle of fear ran through her, and suddenly Hal could no longer bear to lie still. She sat up, shivering in the cold, and then got out of bed and paced to the window. There she stood, looking out through the bars across the moonlit landscape.

It looked so different by night. The emerald greens and rain-washed blues were turned to a thousand shades of black, the moonlight serving only to cast long, warped shadows that, without her glasses, made familiar shapes blurred and strange. Even the sounds were different. The roar of the occasional car along the coast road had gone, the cawing of the magpies had fallen silent—and all Hal could hear was the far-off crash of the waves, and the hoot of an owl, hunting. Hal closed her fingers on the window bars and rested her forehead on the glass, wishing, wishing she were a hundred miles away, at home in Brighton, out of this nightmare tangle of lies and guesses.

HELP ME

The letters stood out clear and bright in the moonlight, and Hal suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that they had been scratched on just such a night as this, by someone even more desperate than her.

Perhaps this other girl had not been as lucky. Perhaps for her the shackles had been not just emotional, but literal. Perhaps she had sat here looking out over the frosty lawn, wondering how or even if she could escape.

Well, Hal was not trapped. Not yet. There was still time.

As quietly as she could, she pulled off her pajamas and got back into her jeans, top, and hooded sweater. Then she dragged her case out from under the bed, lifting it so that it made as little noise as possible on the bare boards.

Her spare clothes were already inside, neatly divided into clean and worn. Aside from that, there was only her wash-bag, book, and laptop to pack.

Hal’s hands were trembling as she pushed them inside and zipped up the case. Was she really going to do this?

You owe them nothing, she told herself. You’ve taken nothing. Not yet.

And, after all, what was the worst they could do? They had her address, but it didn’t seem likely she would be able to stay there for long, not now that Mr. Smith’s minders had tracked her down. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to disappear completely—simply scoop up her things, the most important papers, her mother’s photographs—and walk away into a new life. There were other towns. Other piers.

The idea of starting again was frightening, and Hal thought of the huddled bodies on the pavements in Brighton, people just like her who had taken a leap—and slipped, falling between the cracks to end up homeless and friendless and alone.

It was a risk—a real risk. Hal had no safety net—and if she fell, there was no one to catch her. For a moment Mr. Treswick had seemed to promise a very different existence, one with savings, and safety, and security. But that moment, that promise, had gone. And whether it was Mitzi’s words to her today or the scratches on the windowpane, something inside Hal had crystallized into a cold, hard realization: she had to get away.

Everything was packed—almost. The final thing Hal did was to settle her glasses on her nose and pick up her tarot cards, shoving the tin into her back pocket.

Then she turned the handle of the door and pushed.

Nothing happened.

Hal felt her breath catch in her throat, and her heart seemed suddenly to be beating painfully hard.

The bolts. The bolts on the outside.

But no—it wasn’t possible. She would have heard. Surely she would have heard? And who—why?

A fluttering panic rose up inside her.

Forcing herself to breathe slowly and steadily, Hal set the case quietly on the floor, wiped her sweating palms on the back pockets of her jeans, and tried again.

The handle was turning, but the door still didn’t open to her shove. It was bowing at the top, but stuck at the bottom.

Hal’s breath was coming quicker now, but she made herself slow down—think rationally. There’s no reason for anyone to lock you in. You’re only panicking because you saw the bolts. Yesterday this wouldn’t even have occurred to you. Remember what Mrs. Warren said—damp makes the frame swell.