“Good night, Harriet,” Abel said. He gave Hal’s shoulder a little squeeze that made her flinch, just a touch. She smiled, trying to hide her discomfort.

“Good night, Harriet,” Edward echoed. And with that, he winked, and followed Abel out of the room.

“Would you tell Freddie and Kitty it’s time to go to bed?” Mitzi called after them both, and Abel nodded, and said something Hal didn’t catch in reply.

“Dear Abel,” Mitzi said, as their shapes were swallowed by the narrow, dark stairwell down to the main landing. “Such a sweet man. It’s such a shame he never had children, he throws it all into his work instead.”

“What does he do?” Hal croaked.

“He’s a lobbyist on behalf of various children’s charities. Rather a well-known one, apparently, if you’re in that particular world. But he’s also simply one of the nicest people I’ve ever met—I can’t think where he got it from, or how he survived his mother’s treatment intact, but there you go. I’m sure it would have reduced anyone else to a bitter shell! But listen to me rabbiting on, distracting you.” She touched the soup tray with one finger. “You should be finishing your soup. You’ve hardly eaten.”

“I think I’m too tired to eat much, I’m sorry, M-Mitzi.” Hal stumbled over the name, unsure what to call her. Mrs. Westaway? Aunt Mitzi? It seemed more and more wrong, laying claim to a relationship she didn’t have. Fortunately Mitzi did not seem to notice, and only sighed and stood up.

“Well, manage what you can, but a good night’s sleep is probably what you really need. Sleep well, my dear.”

“Thank you,” Hal said, or tried to—but she found her throat was stiff, and the words stifled and lost in the noise of Mitzi’s feet as she turned and made her way back down the stairs to the others.

After she had gone, Hal pushed away the bowl of cold, congealing soup, switched out the light, and put her hot cheek against the pillow. The fire had died down, leaving only a red glow of coals in the little grate, but there was a gap in the curtains, and the moon shone fitfully in through the bare tree branches, making abstract patterns against the white walls.

My walls, Hal thought dazedly. My trees.

They are not yours.

The words whirled in her head, mingling with the yammering voices of the brothers, the thousand questions she needed to find answers for before tomorrow, the hundred whys and what-ifs and hows. . . .

If only, if only the legacy had been what she had been hoping for—a couple of thousand pounds, as befitted a long-lost granddaughter. That, she could have claimed with few if any questions, before slipping back into the shadows to resume her old life.

The reality felt like a terrifying millstone, weighing her down as she struggled to free herself from what she had done. There would be no quick claims here—no slipping back to Brighton to strategically “lose touch” with her supposed relatives. Whatever she did, whether she succeeded in fooling Mr. Treswick long-term or not, she was chained to this place now.

But why had Mrs. Westaway chosen to cut out her sons and leave everything to a girl she had never met, daughter of a woman she had not seen for years?

And why had she chosen to do it this way—springing the act upon her family after her own death? Was it cowardice? It didn’t seem to fit with the portrait her children were painting—the image Hal was piecing together was of a woman who was indomitable, unyielding, and quite unafraid.

She felt suddenly impossibly tired, her eyes heavy with an exhaustion that seemed to have washed over her all at once.

Closing her eyes, she lay still in the little cot, feeling the cool of the pillow against her cheek, and listening to the sound of the house settling down for the night, feeling the suffocating presence of the Westaways all around. There was a sudden spatter of fresh rain against the glass, and she thought she heard—though perhaps it was her fancy—the far-off sound of waves against a shore.

An image came into Hal’s mind—of rising waters, closing above all of their heads, while Mrs. Westaway laughed from beyond the grave—and she opened her eyes, a sudden flood of fear making her skin prickle and shiver.

“Stop it,” she whispered aloud. It was a trick her mother had taught her when she was a little girl—when the nightmares became too real, sometimes saying the thing out loud was enough to break the spell, silence the voices inside your own head, in favor of a real-life voice.

The image receded—back to whatever paranoid fantasy it had come from. But the flavor of it lingered . . . an old, bitter woman, gone beyond harm herself, and abandoning the living to their fate.

What had Hal got herself mixed up in? And what had she started?

CHAPTER 16

* * *

When Hal awoke, the attic room was bright with sunlight, and she lay still for a long time, blinking and disoriented. There was a strange heaviness upon her, and she had to fight off the thickness of sleep and force herself to sit up, yawning and gritty-eyed, trying to remember where she was.

Her situation came back with an unsettling rush.

She was not safe at home, in her tiny flat in Marine View Villas, waiting to make her way down to the pier for the day’s work—she was in Cornwall, in this strange cold house. And even before memory came fully back, she knew from the uneasy tightness in her gut that she was in deep, deep trouble.

For a few moments she sat quietly, letting the events of the day before come back, feeling the ache in her limbs, which were heavy and limp and reluctant to obey her. She was tired, no, not just tired, more than that—wrung out, thickheaded, as if the fog of sleep were still clinging in the corners of her mind.

As she forced her legs over the side of the bed, she remembered Edward handing her those blank, unmarked pills, and his insistence that she take them, and she shivered—not just from cold. But surely not. He was a doctor, after all. And besides, what would be the point?

More likely she was just suffering the hangover of the chill she had caught at the grave, and the effects of bumping her head. Cautiously, she put her hand up to the bruise beneath her hair, but although it felt a little tender, there was no swelling. She felt cold, but not the strange, trembly hot-cold of the night before. This was just normal, winter’s morning cold, her feet shrinking from the chilly bare boards as she padded across the room to her suitcase, where her phone sat charging.

7:27 a.m. Early, but not stupidly so. There was also an unread text message in her inbox, from a number she didn’t recognize. Someone at the pier?

Hal fumbled for her glasses, slipped them on, and then pressed the text message icon.

FIVE DAYS, was all it said.

No sign-off. But Hal did not need to wonder who it was from.

Gone was the sleep-fuddled dread. Instead she was suddenly wide awake, her skin prickling with fear, as if at any moment the man with the lisp and the steel-toe-capped boots might come through the door, drag her out of the narrow bed, punch her in the face. Broken teeth . . . broken bones.

She found she was shivering.

They can’t find you here. You’re safe here.

The words slowed her heart, and she repeated them like a mantra until her shaking fingers were steady enough to unzip her case.

You’re safe. Just get through today. One step at a time.

One step at a time. Okay. The little room was unbelievably cold, her breath huffing white as she pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. At the bottom of her case was her jumper. It was bundled up with a wad of other clothes, and Hal dragged it out hastily, not noticing the tin that was caught in its folds. It fell with a thud at her feet, the lid flew off, and the tarot cards scattered across the floor, like brightly colored autumn leaves.

On top was the card she had cut before the journey—the page of swords—his head cocked, staring defiantly out of the frame with a little half smile that could have been anything from a challenge to resignation. It was a card Hal had seen a million times, and she knew every detail, from the bird at his feet to the tiny tear in the top right-hand corner. But as she gathered it up along with the others, she paused for a moment, held by something in his face, trying to analyze what that could be.

Whatever it was that had stopped her, it eluded her, and she dropped the cards on the bed and, with a shiver, unfolded the jumper and pulled it over her head.