Chapter 50
Three people were sitting on the mezzanine level of St Austell public library when Tara reached the top of the stairs, but only one of them looked up: a large woman in her early fifties.
Her hair was short and dark blonde and was either damp from the rain or in need of a wash.
She wore a scarlet cardigan over enormous breasts.
Her round, shiny face had a hint of a bruise on the right cheekbone, but she broke into a smile as Tara approached and got to her feet. Her hand felt podgy and damp.
‘You must be Cheryl.’ Tara kept her voice low, although the other two people, both of whom looked like students, were some distance away.
‘I am. Are you Tara? I like your coat.’
‘It’s nice to meet you. Shall we sit down?’
The two women pulled out chairs at the closest table and sat. Tara said, ‘Would you like to see my token? So you know I’m for real?’ She reached into her purse and held it in the palm of her hand. Cheryl leaned close. She smelled of cheap perfume and cooking fat.
‘I didn’t bring mine.’
Tara tucked the token back into her purse and put it in her handbag. She’d deliberately chosen one with a buckle fastening and a long strap that she could wear across her chest. ‘I wanted to ask you about that,’ she said. ‘It said on the news that you’d lost it. That you threw it away.’
Cheryl glanced around. ‘My mum threw it on the fire,’ she confessed. ‘But I got up in the night and rooted through the ashes till I found it. I only found the token, though, not the letter. Does that matter?’
‘So, you have it somewhere safe?’
‘Yes, it’s—’
Tara held up a hand. ‘No, don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone. To be honest, I think it’s best for you and your mother if everyone believes it’s lost. If only the two of you know where it is. Especially given what happened to you on Sunday. Are you OK now?’
Cheryl nodded. ‘I’ve got some nasty bruises but that’s all. And we’ve had the locks changed. So, no one should be able to get in. It’s worrying, though.’
‘It is,’ Tara agreed.
A cloud passed over Cheryl’s face. ‘What about the solicitors? We’re going this afternoon. Will they need to see the token?’
‘I wasn’t asked to show mine. I’d leave it where it’s safe if I were you.’
‘The woman I spoke to, the secretary, she said they would only see me and not my mum. That they would only meet with the person who’d been sent the token. And that was me.’
Tara was beginning to regret sitting quite so close to Cheryl. There was a stale smell coming from the other woman, of sweat and clothes not washed often enough. And of farts too, as though she had a nervous stomach.
‘Sounds right,’ she agreed. ‘They said that to me too.’
‘Mum went nuts when I told her. She says no one will keep her out.’
The woman had eczema patches on the backs of her hands and more than one scabbed-over sore.
‘Do you want your mum to go in with you?’ Tara asked. ‘Will you feel more comfortable if she’s there?’
‘No, I want to see him by myself.’ The frown lines between Cheryl’s brows deepened. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘The press conference said that whoever has the token gets the inheritance,’ Cheryl said. ‘So, if my mum takes it off me, will she inherit the man’s money?
Tara gave herself a moment to process the unusual question. ‘I suppose so. But she wouldn’t do that to you, would she?’
Cheryl’s silence spoke volumes.
‘Does she know you still have it?’
‘Not for certain. I told her it must have been destroyed by the fire. I keep finding her looking for it, though. She thinks I’m hiding it from her. Which I am, I suppose. Do you think I’m awful? Trying to cheat my mum?’
There was no way on earth this woman would cope with inheriting millions. What the hell was Logan Quick playing at?
‘I think only you can really understand your personal circumstances,’ Tara replied. ‘And I’m the last person to judge anyone.’
Cheryl nodded as though she understood. ‘You said on the phone that you were trying to get a – some sort of group together.’
‘A WhatsApp group,’ Tara said. ‘Of people we know for certain have got a token. There’s five of us so far. I can add you if you like. But you need a smartphone.’
‘I don’t have a smartphone,’ Cheryl reminded her.
‘Don’t worry, we can cope. And I’m working on a spreadsheet of us all. I’ll show you.’
Pulling her laptop from her bag, Tara opened it and found the Excel file she’d been working on.
‘I’m trying to work out what we might have in common,’ she explained. ‘The year we were born, where we were born, where we went to school, what we do for a living, that sort of thing. If we can find a connection, we might be able to work out how we connect to Logan Quick. And why he’s doing this.’
‘But …’
‘What is it?’
Cheryl’s face was creased with worry. ‘We don’t want to do anything to annoy him, do we? What if he changes his mind?’
Tara sat back in her chair.
‘Well, that’s a fair challenge. And you must decide for yourself what to do.
But I’ve spoken to some of the others and, to be honest with you, Cheryl, we’re all worried.
Sabri can barely leave her house without being leapt on by journalists and photographers and she’s terrified for her children’s safety.
I’m experiencing much the same thing and my estranged husband has cancelled his financial support on the grounds I don’t need it anymore.
That may eventually be the case but in the short term, I’m probably going to have to sell my house.
Holly and Robin have managed to stay under the radar so far, but Holly is a single mum with a young son and Robin … ’
She paused for a moment. Well, she’d come this far. ‘Robin insists he’s fine, but he doesn’t sound it. I think something’s happened to him and he doesn’t want to worry me.’
Cheryl looked down. Tara could see confusion, even distrust, on her face.
‘And you were set upon in the street,’ Tara reminded her. ‘People were prepared to hurt you to get your token.’
‘In my head,’ Cheryl said, her eyes still fixed on her lap, ‘there’s a voice telling me to give the token up, that I haven’t done anything to deserve someone giving me a lot of money, and that I’ll only regret being greedy.’
Tara said nothing. What Cheryl was saying rang all too true.
‘But, for the first time in my life, people are taking notice of me. All my life, they’ve ignored me. Now, suddenly, I matter.’
A light had crept into Cheryl’s eyes; it quite transformed the woman, turning her into someone to be wary of.
‘And you know what, Tara?’ she went on. ‘I like it.’