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BRYONY

My grandmother was dead, and I was arguing about lilies.

Edith hated lilies almost as much as she hated being overcharged. The funeral director had added four arrangements to the bill after I’d approved roses. Charging a dead woman for flowers she despised felt particularly cheeky, so I spent twenty minutes getting them removed.

Sorting out the invoice was easier than missing her. I knew how to deal with bills. I didn’t know how to stop reaching for my phone to ask Edith a question before remembering she wasn’t going to answer.

It rained all the way across Leeds, and my coat was soaked before I reached Hargreaves and Pike. I caught my reflection in the glass doors on the way inside. My black dress was respectable. My long red hair had escaped every pin I’d used and was trying to attach itself to my lipstick.

I fixed what I could and walked up to reception. “Bryony Ellison. I’m here to see Arthur Hargreaves.”

The receptionist recognised my name and switched to the gentle voice everyone had used since the funeral. “Of course. He’s expecting you. Would you like me to take your coat?”

I shrugged it off. “Please. It’s carrying enough rain to qualify as a water feature.”

That earned a real smile. She hung the coat well away from the dry ones and led me down the corridor.

Arthur had handled Edith’s legal work for as long as I could remember. He’d attended every family crisis in the same dark suit, including my parents’ funeral when I was eight, although this was the first time I’d seen him behind his desk. He stood as I entered.

“Bryony, I’m so sorry. Your grandmother was a remarkable woman.”

“She’d be pleased you said remarkable. She’d have objected to anything softer.”

He almost smiled. He offered tea, but I’d already had too much funeral-office tea to risk another cup. I sat opposite him.

A thick file waited on the desk beside a narrow metal box. The box had a combination lock and several scratches across its lid. It looked far more interesting than probate paperwork had any right to.

“You said there was an unusual bequest,” I said. “How unusual are we talking? Edith once gifted my cousin a china dog because he complained about it every Christmas.”

Arthur sat down and rested one hand on the file. “The ordinary gifts are straightforward, and the rest of the estate passes to charity. She left you a separate property with a condition attached. I need to explain both before you decide what to do.”

“That sounds less entertaining than the china dog. Go on.”

He opened the file and turned a copy of the title register towards me. “Harrowmere Hall is still registered to Edith. She owned it until her death, and the will leaves it to you.”

I looked at the name twice. “Shit. That can’t be right. She told me Harrowmere was sold before I was born.”

“I checked the current register myself. There wasn’t any sale or transfer, and nobody had mortgaged it. Your grandmother kept the freehold and paid every expense through a separate property account.”

He sounded certain. I pulled the register closer.

Harrowmere stood in North Yorkshire, outside a village I’d visited once as a child. I remembered an iron gate and a staircase wide enough to race down. I also remembered Edith pulling every curtain before sunset and telling me to stay out of the cellar.

After that trip, she said the house had been sold. I’d believed her because I was eight and more interested in the tin of biscuits she kept above the cooker.

I checked the proprietor entry again. “Who’s been living there?”

“According to the reports, nobody. Contractors have maintained the roof and grounds. They’ve also checked the alarm from the entrance hall, but Edith wouldn’t allow them farther into the house.”

“So she paid people to inspect a building they weren’t allowed to inspect.”

Arthur’s expression suggested he’d already had that argument. “She signed a declaration each year saying she’d checked the interior herself. She wouldn’t tell us how she travelled there or whether anyone went with her.”

I checked the date on the latest report. “This was signed six months ago. Edith needed a walking stick to cross her own sitting room by then. Did you ask how she’d inspected a house that size?”

“Several times. She said her mobility was her concern and the state of Harrowmere was mine. When I pointed out that the state of Harrowmere was difficult to confirm from an entrance hall, she reminded me that she paid the firm to follow instructions rather than improve them.”