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“Target in sight,” I say, adjusting my camera to focus on Christopher Trout.
He’s wearing a black suit, and the edge of his faded eagle tattoo peeks out above his collar. He’s five foot six and stout in stature, which will make him easy to overpower.
“We have the dosage ready,” Freddie’s voice crackles in my ear.
“Everyone should take their seats,” someone announces. “The service will begin soon.”
In a flash, Ralph’s at my side, putting his hand on my arm, ready to escort me. “We need to go inside.”
I shake him off. “I don’t need you to hold my hand.”
“Don’t cause another scene,” Ralph hisses. The tips of his ears turn red. “Or I won’t be there to get you out of it again.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” I rebuff. “We all know you’d help get me out of any situation if it protects our precious reputation.”
He battles to keep his composure as we rejoin our parents. Snatches of conversation are easy to overhear in the crowd.
“She went down a dark path, but we all know who is to blame,” Beatrice’s airhead friend gossips. “Sebastian was a bad influence on her!”
My mother’s posture stiffens. She halts like she’s readying for a confrontation, but my father steps in to steer her away.
“You saw what he was like at the ball,” another woman agrees scathingly while dabbing her crocodile tears away with a frilly handkerchief. “He’s unstable! It must be drugs. Maybe he’s the one who gave them to her.”
“They should have gone to rehab together,” a third chips in. “How can he even show his face here? The audacity!”
Ralph bristles. If rumours are being aired at a funeral, he’s likely calculating how far they’ve got around their social circles and what steps he’ll have to take to control the damage.
“How long will this take?” I ask Ralph.
“It’ll be a quick service,” he says.
He wants this over with as quickly as I do.
We file into the pews, and I keep Trout in my sights. He laughs loudly at something the man next to him says, making me hate him even more. Seemingly, he’s using this as an opportunity to network and gain connections.
The few remaining members of Beatrice’s family sit in the front row. Despite appearances, I sense they’re overjoyed to behere. They never thought they’d see a whiff of the McGowan fortune, but they’ll get it all now that Beatrice—her fathers sole heir—is gone.
“We’re in position,” Freddie says in my ear.
Is it bad to think about how much you want to kill someone in the house of God? My knuckles clench. No, Trout killed an innocent woman. He deserves to die. A-fucking-men.
“Get off your phone, Ralph,” my mother snaps.
His cheeks flush. “But I was—”
“Off!” she hisses, with a fake smile painted over her face. “It’s bad enough that we have to be here.”
“Darling,” Father warns, putting his hand on her knee. “Everyone knows the truth.”
She huffs and crosses her arms like a petulant child, seething on the inside. Thankfully, we’re spared one of her tirades as piano music plays. Everyone stands for a group of men carrying Beatrice’s coffin down the aisle. I bow my head and swallow down my guilt. She’d hoped to walk down the aisle in a white dress one day soon, not in a wooden box.
Beatrice was never my favourite person, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her. At least I could take some solace in knowing that we were working towards taking down the people responsible for her death.
When the coffin is in position, a clergyman stands in the pulpit and begins. “We’re gathered to celebrate the life of Beatrice McGowan.”
The service passes quickly. We sing a hymn, a few people get up to read poems and say a few words about Beatrice, and then it’s over. The next part requires us to walk to the burial site. From Bram’s earlier investigations, we already know it’s nowhere near the crypt. This will be my best opportunity to sneak out from under my family’s watchful eyes and get Trout alone.
Everyone puts on their coats and starts to leave the church in orderly rows. Even in times of grief, British people know how to form an organised line.
