Chapter 32
Tara woke on Friday morning to the sound of her phone ringing.
It wasn’t by the side of her bed, which meant she’d had more to drink last night than she’d realised.
She found it in the bathroom, but only because she’d given up looking and needed a pee.
Several missed calls from Esther, the swim friend, which was odd, because of the whole group, Esther was probably the one Tara knew the least. It began ringing again as she settled herself down on the loo.
‘Hi,’ she said, hoping Esther wouldn’t correctly interpret the waterfall sound in the background. God, her head hurt.
‘Tara, I’m really sorry to be bothering you, but I’m about to go into meetings and I thought this was something you’d want to know.’
‘No problem, lovely,’ she said. ‘What’s up.’
‘Have you seen Facebook this morning?’
‘No, I’ve been in the garden since it got light.’ God, she was going to hell. ‘What about Facebook?’
‘Well, I hate to be a sneak, but I really don’t think it’s on. Maybe you can ask her to take it down.’
Suddenly, it was no longer just last night’s booze that was churning around inside Tara.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Becca put that photograph on her page. You know, the one she took of that solicitors’ letter. She doesn’t mention you by name, but she’s tagged you in it, so most people will probably work out it was you who received it.’
Tara had shared the solicitors’ letter and its accompanying token with her swimming buddies. She’d seen no reason not to. They’d written it off as a hoax, but not before Becca had taken a picture with her phone.
‘You are kidding me.’ Finally, she stopped peeing.
‘Sorry, I’m really not. And it’s attracting a lot of attention. A few people have shared it.’
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
‘There’s someone at the door, Esther. Thanks for letting me know.’
Ending the call, Tara grabbed an old dressing gown of Justin’s from the back of the bathroom door. It still smelled of him and she made a mental note to burn it.
The doorbell rang again.
Tara opened up Facebook as she made her way downstairs. Becca’s post with the photograph of the solicitors’ letter popped up right away. Sixty-three frigging comments. And four shares.
The bell again.
Through the glass surround Tara could see the outline of a woman. For a moment, she thought it might be Becca come to apologise, and then realised she couldn’t access the property without the code.
So, who the hell was it? And how had they got onto the drive?
Tara pulled open the door ready to yell and was surprised by the sight of an attractive young woman who looked familiar.
Wearing a red raincoat, buckled at the waist, and boots that Tara would have priced at somewhere between four and five hundred pounds, the woman had brown skin and a blow-dried black bob.
The perfect polish of her black boots was marred by scuffing.
Further down the drive a man carrying a huge camera was heading to the house.
‘Mrs Webb? I’m Jasmin Basri from BBC Cornwall. We’d love to talk to you about the letter you received from Logan Quick’s solicitors. Can we come inside for a moment?’
The woman’s self-assurance was close to intimidating; Tara had to stop herself from stepping back and allowing her in. She said, ‘How did you get onto my property?’
‘We rang the bell at the bottom of the drive several times. We thought perhaps it wasn’t working.’
Tara hadn’t heard the drive bell. Mind you, she’d also missed several calls from Esther. In the meantime, these two had climbed over her gates.
‘It’s working.’ She raised her voice to reach the bloke with the camera. ‘Point that at me and I’m calling the police.’
‘We’d love to get your side of the story,’ the journalist went on. ‘A set-the-record-straight piece. How did you feel when you opened the letter?’
‘I’ve nothing to say to you and I want you off my property.’
‘Do you know Logan Quick? Why do you think he’d leave you his money?’
‘I’m closing the door now. Leave.’
‘Do you know a Sabri Carter? She’s received one of these letters too? We interviewed her husband last night. Is she a friend of yours?’
Having closed the door on the news crew, Tara made tea and took it back to bed.
As she passed the landing window, she saw the tail end of a red coat disappearing over the top of the property’s huge entrance gates and remembered that saved somewhere on the house computer were the instructions that would allow her to change the code.
Maybe having to climb over the gate would put an end to Justin’s habit of dropping in unannounced.
Tucked up under the duvet, feeling her pounding heart finally starting to settle down, she soon found Sabri Carter on Facebook.
A brown-skinned woman, thin and horsey-looking, of about Tara’s age, she was married to a very good-looking white bloke and was a paramedic.
She wasn’t a prolific poster, just the odd family occasion, and had made no mention of receiving a token.
She did know Sabri Carter, she realised. She’d been driving the ambulance that had taken the hypothermic swimmer to hospital two days ago.
After several false starts, she typed out a message.
Hi. A journalist told me this morning that you’d received a letter from Barker, Momen and Dodds. I got one too. Do you want to talk?
She waited several minutes before getting up to find paracetamol. When she got back to bed, a message had appeared.
How do I know you’re not a journalist?
Fair enough. Tara found her photograph of the solicitors’ letter and messaged it back.
Why don’t you show me yours? She added to the pic. And waited. An image appeared. The same letter.
Want to talk? Tara texted. A second later, her phone rang. Someone calling her on Messenger. It was Sabri. Her heartbeat escalating, she pressed answer.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘This is Tara.’