The Death of Mrs. Westaway(98)

Help! she tried to scream, but the icy water rushed in, choking her.

She awoke with a shock and a beating heart to darkness, and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, but then she saw. She was in Ezra’s car. They were in a lay-by beside a deeply sunken lane, and the snow was still falling, and Ezra had turned the engine off.

“Are we stopping again?” Hal’s mouth was dry, and the words came thickly.

“I’m afraid so,” Ezra said heavily. He rubbed his eyes, as if he too was very tired. “This fucking snow. I’m sorry, we’re not going to get through. It’s gone eight and we’re not even at Plymouth.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry. What about your crossing?”

Ezra shook his head.

“There’s no way I’ll make it. I’ve rung and they’ve said I can pay a fee to change the ticket to tomorrow.”

“So—so what do we do?”

Ezra didn’t reply straightaway, just nodded back along the way they had come. Hal bit her lip. The snow continued to fall with a soft patter on the glass of the windscreen.

“I’m sorry,” Ezra said, seeing her expression. “I did think about trying to push through, at least to Brighton, but I’m just too tired—and it’s too dangerous, none of these roads have been gritted.”

“So . . . we go back . . . ? To—” She swallowed. “To Trepassen?”

“I think we have to. It won’t take as long going back, the roads going south are pretty quiet. We can try again tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Hal said. She felt something shift inside her at the thought of returning to the cold house, and Mrs. Warren’s waiting figure, rocking by her fireside, mistress once again of all she surveyed. It was not an inviting prospect. But what was the alternative—a B&B? She had no money for a room, and she could not very well ask Ezra to pay.

“Okay,” she said again, trying to make herself sound—and feel—more positive. “Back to Trepassen it is, then.”

“It’s not likely to be a very warm welcome,” Ezra said, as he turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared out into the quiet. “But at least we won’t freeze.”

CHAPTER 44


* * *

Returning to Trepassen felt strange, like putting on the heavy pack that you’d downed a few hours earlier, the blisters from the straps still raw. Or sliding your feet back into wet shoes that were once soggily clammy, and had become in the interim downright unpleasant.

The gate onto the road was still ajar, but as they turned up the drive, Hal saw that the long stretch of whiteness was unmarked. No car had passed this way for many hours. Either Abel and Harding had thought better of leaving, or they had left soon after Hal and Ezra, and had not returned.

“There’s no lights on,” Ezra said beneath his breath as they wound round the last bend of the drive. The white marker rocks were hard to see, except in the places beneath the trees where the canopy had protected the road from the snowfall, and he had to slow to a crawl to ensure he didn’t slide off the path. “Mrs. Warren must be in bed.”

Good, was all Hal could think, though she did not say it.

They parked in front of the porch, and Ezra turned off the engine, and they both sat for a moment. Hal had an image of two athletes before a fight, strapping up knuckles, snapping mouth guards into place. Except it was not Ezra she was fighting.

“Ready?” he said, with a short laugh. Hal didn’t smile in return. She only nodded, and they stepped out into the falling snow.

The door was locked, but Ezra lifted one of the flat stones that formed the sheltered seating of the porch, and beneath it Hal saw a huge, blackened key—a thing from another era, at least six inches long. He fitted it into the lock and turned it cautiously, and they stepped inside, into the dark, breathing house.

“Mrs. Warren?” Ezra called softly, and then when there was no answer, a little more loudly, “Mrs. Warren? It’s just me, Ezra.”

“Do you think Harding and Abel have gone?” Hal whispered. Ezra nodded.

“Harding texted while you were asleep. They made it across Bodmin Moor before the road closed and holed up at a travel lodge near Exeter.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hal said. She felt a stab of guilt. “It’s my fault—if you hadn’t gone via Penzance . . .”

“No use crying over spilt milk,” Ezra said shortly, but the suppressed rage Hal had seen earlier seemed to have vanished, and there was only resignation in his tone. “Look, Hal, it’s very late, and I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered. Are you okay for me to head up?”

“Of course,” Hal said. “I’ll go to bed too.”

There was a short, awkward silence, and then Ezra pulled her into a clumsy hug, almost too hard, that scraped her face on his jacket, and left her bones bruised.

“Good night, Hal. And tomorrow . . .”

He stopped.

“Tomorrow?” Hal echoed.

“Let’s just get going as early as possible, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed. They climbed the first flight of stairs together, and then at the landing, they went their separate ways.

? ? ?

WHEN HAL OPENED THE DOOR to the attic chamber, the little room was just as she had left it—curtains pulled back, so that the pale snowy light filtered through the barred windows, covers thrown back, even down to the blown bulb on the landing.