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He is very convincing, but I don’t want to believe him. ‘Well, where did she say she was going?’
‘Somewhere away from the village and something like “far away from this life”, and then she winked at me. She didn’t leave a forwarding address so I have to keep putting her mail through her door until someone redirects it.’
‘There’s no forwarding address at all?’
‘Nope. Said she didn’t need one where she was going.’
He pushes an envelope through the letter box and leaves me alone again to try to make sense of what he’s said. But I can’t because it makes no sense at all.
I shuffle as fast as my legs will allow along the street, my stick tapping against the paving slabs. I turn left and head into an alley and locate the back of Meredith’s property. Her gate is unlocked, and scattered about the rear garden are half a dozen black bin bags. One has been ripped open by a cat or a fox and only contains cans and the remains of food packets. The back door is locked, but when I look around, I spy a rock that looks out of place. I’ve seen these keyholders before. I take the key out, unlock the door and make my way inside.
‘Meredith?’ I ask one more time, desperately hoping she replies. But my voice echoes around the deserted kitchen. I move intothe sitting room and her two armchairs and television are gone. Upstairs there are no wardrobes or beds. Yet still, I’m in denial.
I call her mobile number once, twice and a third time, but it keeps going to voicemail. I try to recall our last conversation and how she hadn’t answered the landline or her mobile for ages. And when she finally called me back, I remember the sound of wind blowing and people talking in the background. She said she was in the local hairdresser’s, but had she already moved away from the village?
I ring her again but this time I leave a message. ‘Meredith, it’s Connie,’ I say. ‘I’m in your house, but you’re not here and the postman reckons you’ve moved. What’s going on? Call me back as soon as possible please. I’m worried about you.’
Ten minutes pass as I sit at the top of the stairs, clutching the phone, willing it to ring back. But it doesn’t. And even now, surrounded by all this evidence, I still can’t accept the truth because Meredith leaving makes no sense at all. Where could she have gone? Why didn’t she tell me? What is moving ‘far away from this life’ supposed to mean? She wasn’t talking about suicide, was she? No, surely not. Meredith wouldn’t do that. She has no reason to. At least not that I know of ...
Bang!
It hits me with the force of a thunderbolt. The other reason I’m here to see her: to pick up Gwen’s will. A split second later and I feel the blood draining from my face.
CHAPTER 69
CONNIE
I hurry downstairs but lose my footing on the third from last step. My feet fly out from under me and down I go,hard, spine first on the edge of the tread. White-hot pain shoots up the right side of my back into the base of my skull and I cry out loud like an outraged child. For a long, miserable moment I don’t know which part of myself to hold to make it go away. When at last it subsides just enough, I reach for my stick and get back on my feet, then hobble to the chimney breast where I watched Meredith hide Gwen’s will. I feel around inside until I find the plastic bag. I drag it out, see the envelope through the bubble wrap which is still stuffed inside it. My writing is on the front,Gwen’s Willin blue biro. I tear through the bag and the envelope and don’t dare to breathe again until I have checked that it’s definitely here. Then I let out the longest sigh of relief.
I tell myself off for questioning Meredith’s integrity, but what else am I supposed to think when she’s emptied her house and upped sticks without telling me? This must have been a gigantic upheaval for her that’s taken planning. It wasn’t done on a whim.
My fingers are caked in grey dust from inside the breast and there’s nothing to wipe them on but the carpet. But as I do so, I lose my grip of the will and it falls to the floor. It opens on the last page. As I pick it up, I look more closely at it. No, that can’t be right. The final page is missing.
Now, a second tidal wave of panic emerges as I flick through the will page by page, desperate to find it. I need this seventh page, as it’s the one containing my signature, alongside Gwen’s and that of our witness, Reverend Eddie. It proves that Gwen wanted to give her estate to me. It has to be here somewhere, ithasto be. I lick my dirty fingers to get a better grip of the paper in case two pages are stuck together, but they aren’t. And I know for sure that before I left it here, every page was in order, all held together with a staple. I even double-checked it on the train journey to Meredith’s house.
This is the only copy I have. Without it, I have no claim over anything of Gwen’s.
I search the chimney breast again, desperate to find that missing page, refusing to believe that this is deliberate. The only thing up here is more dust. I tear the rest of the house apart but find nothing. I dial Meredith again and again and leave more messages. Finally, I return to the lounge and wipe away the tears that have been streaming down my face. I catch my reflection in one of the few objects Gwen has left behind, a mirror above the fireplace. I’m broken.
I hold my head in my hands and accept the truth. Meredith, the only person in the world who knew the whereabouts of the will, has ruined it for me. That kind, humble, lonely old woman was playing a game I had no idea I was competing in. I trusted her and she took it all from right under my nose. As Gwen’s only living relative, that house is now hers.Myhouse. I bet that’s why she’s moved from here and sold all her furniture. A new life awaits her in Avringstone. That old bitch. I don’t know to process this, howto feel. I can’t settle on one emotion. I’m devastated beyond words, I want to cry until I’m out of tears and scream until I’m hoarse. I want to lash out but there’s no one here to take it out on.
And then it catches my eye, glaring at me. The green porcelain cat that once belonged to Gwen and that I gave to Meredith is still here, perched on the windowsill, partly hidden by a curtain. I don’t know how I could have missed it before now. It’s been watching me this whole time, laughing at me. There’s a handwritten note poking out from underneath its paws.Look after Tom for me, it reads.
Tom, I think. So this is the mysterious Tom. The fucking cat. She knew all along to whom Gwen was referring. What else has she been lying to me about?
All my rage and frustration come to a head in one mighty explosion. I reach for my crutch, raise it above my head and bring it crashing down on that ugly cat. It shatters into a dozen pieces on the floor. Then something inside it grabs my attention – it’s another piece of paper. It’s been rolled up and placed inside a hole in the base. I unroll it. It’s dated three years earlier and has a crest at the top, and underneath, the words ‘Appraisal Certificate’. It describes the cat’s appearance, dimensions, its Chinese origins, and finally, its valuation.
I have just destroyed something worth £50,000.
Numbness takes over my body. I don’t know what to do. I look at what I have just destroyed, panic and hurriedly try and piece it back together. There must be a way, surely? But no, this fucking thing is too badly damaged to be worth anything.
I scream at the top of my lungs, lift the crutch up again and continue pummelling it until all that’s left are slivers of porcelain and dust, swallowed up in the pile of the carpet. And that is all that’s left of me too. Shards of my new self, scattered into too many pieces to ever put back together again.
CHAPTER 70
ONE YEAR LATER – MEREDITH HARPER
Oh my, the sun is certainly in glorious form today. It’s as blistering out here as I can ever remember. And only occasionally does it vanish behind cotton-wool ball clouds. But as much as I’ve relished being reacquainted with these temperatures after so many years spent in the self-exile of my little cottage, I’m in need of a little respite. I prop myself up on the sun lounger with my elbows, fold over the corner of my current page and place my book cover-down upon the sand. I lower my sunglasses and take in the sights surrounding me. According to a travel blog review I read en route, El Mirador is regarded as one of Cancún’s most beautiful locales, thanks to its ‘white sandy beaches that lead the way towards the remarkably motionless azure sea’. You won’t hear me disagreeing. It’s heaven.
