The Daughter’s Promise
A completely gripping and emotional page-turner
Sarah Clutton
Books by Sarah Clutton
Good Little Liars
The Daughter’s Promise
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Available in audio
Good Little Liars (available in the UK and the US)
Contents
1. Willa
2. Annabelle
3. Sylvia
4. Willa
5. Annabelle
6. Sylvia
7. Willa
8. Annabelle
9. Sylvia
10. Willa
11. Annabelle
12. Sylvia
13. Willa
14. Annabelle
15. Sylvia
16. Willa
17. Annabelle
18. Sylvia
19. Willa
20. Annabelle
21. Willa
22. Annabelle
23. Annabelle
24. Willa
25. Sylvia
26. Sylvia
27. Annabelle
28. Willa
29. Annabelle
30. Willa
31. Annabelle
32. Sylvia
33. Willa
34. Annabelle
35. Sylvia
36. Willa
Good Little Liars
Hear More From Sarah
Books by Sarah Clutton
A Letter from Sarah
Acknowledgements
For my mother, Helen, and my big sister, Sam. And for my granny, Jude.
One
Willa
Willa stamped the snow from her boots. She placed the bundle of letters on the cluttered mud-room bench and peeled off her coat and gloves.
In the kitchen, the warmth of the huge black Aga began to penetrate her frozen bones. She’d walked around the entire suburb; more than six kilometres – four miles, she mentally translated for Hugo as she filled the kettle. It amused and annoyed her in equal parts that she was still translating distance for her husband after nineteen years here. The British were so outdated. Kilometres made much more sense. There were more of them, for a start, so you felt better about how much exercise you’d achieved. And you could divide them by a thousand, so it was much simpler in all respects. Still, she’d chosen to raise her family here in Oxford, so she supposed she’d just have to keep on translating.
‘Mum, there’s nothing to eat.’ Hamish loped into the kitchen, leaned his six-foot-two frame down towards her and gave her an easy kiss on the cheek. Her little boy had taken up residence inside the body of a gangly stranger, and Willa was unsure why this sometimes made her feel like crying. It shouldn’t. She should be happy he wasn’t a midget. That he was alive, here in their kitchen, towering over her. Giving her a kiss, for goodness’ sake. How many teenage boys kissed their mother for absolutely no reason?
Hamish pulled open the fridge and stood staring at the shelves, sending waves of cold air towards Willa’s chair.
‘Close it,’ she said, suppressing a smile. ‘If you’ve already looked and can’t see anything, it won’t have magically restocked itself. I’m going shopping soon.’
He grabbed the box of Cookie Crisp from the pantry shelf and headed back out of the kitchen towards his bedroom. ‘Can you get some more strawberry yoghurt, Mum? And some orange juice?’
Willa heard his words from the end of the hallway, a moment before the sound of a banging door. He’d be on his computer, probably playing some shooting game with his friends that involved headphones and yelling at each other and, according to Hamish when he was helping her to see the positives, lots of teamwork to find and exterminate all the baddies. Yes, there were rivers of blood, and disturbingly graphic and gruesome killings, but it also involved plenty of lovely synergistic collaboration, thereby making it excellent for future career skills. So that put her mind at rest. Obviously.
Willa sighed. She was just glad he liked being at home. She made a mental note about the yoghurt and orange juice, then looked down again at the letters and began sorting through them. Most were for Hugo. Investment, superannuation, insurance. She stopped as she noticed her own name on the final letter. Underneath the postmark was an unfamiliar business name: Enderby Jones Lawyers, 31 Elliot Street, Burnie, Tasmania.
A letter from Australia. From lawyers. Willa felt a swoop of anticipation in her gut, followed by a vague hum of unease. The whistle of the kettle interrupted her thoughts, and she placed the letter gently on the table before pulling a mug from the cupboard. She had never travelled to Tasmania. She knew no one who lived there. Well, not that she was aware of, although by now she was bound to have an old school friend who’d needed a change from Sydney and had uprooted their family to move to the furthest southern corner of Australia to grow organic mushrooms or start an alpaca farm.
Willa adored those life-change stories in her favourite Australian Rural Style magazine, which arrived monthly in the post. So many photogenic families living the dream: children in crisp cotton dresses and pristine wellington boots running through wheat paddocks or climbing gum trees or stirring home-made jam on stovetops in glamorous yet casually styled designer kitchens.
She dipped the tea bag into the mug of boiling water and added milk as she considered the possible reasons for an Australian law firm to be writing to her. Her mind was blank. Her mother’s estate had been finalised eighteen months ago. She’d barely kept in touch with her cousins in Perth over the years, so they were unlikely to send her anything through lawyers. She couldn’t be being sued for anything – she hadn’t been back to Sydney since her mother’s funeral three years earlier. And she wasn’t a witness in anyone’s court case, as far as she knew. And they were Tasmanian lawyers, from a town she hadn’t heard of, so she really had no idea what they could possibly want.
She sat down at the table, digging her toes deeper into her Ugg boots. She pushed one frozen foot towards the Aga and with the other, rubbed Kettles along his black shaggy coat as he slept on his mat. She paused, trying to make her foggy brain think. No. Nothing. Her imagination had deserted her. She stared at the letter again and turned it over. No clues. She picked it up and in one quick movement ripped open the envelope and unfolded the thick sheaf of papers.
* * *
Dear Mrs Fairbanks,
Re: The Estate of Lillian Nora Brooks
Bequest to Wilhelmena May Gilmore Fairbanks
We act as executors for the estate of Ms Lillian Nora Brooks. Ms Brooks died on 15 November 2018, and enclosed is a copy of her last will and testament. As you will see, Ms Brooks has bequeathed to you a property, The Old Chapel, at 3 Lighthouse Lane, Sisters Cove. The property is a small converted church sited on a parcel of land of approximately three acres in the semi-rural beachside hamlet of Sisters Cove in Tasmania.
Ms Brooks knew that you had few ties remaining in Australia, and that you were resident in the United Kingdom, but it was her expressed intention that you visit the property before you make any decisions as to how you would like to proceed with respect to this bequest.
We are bound to advise you that there are two interested parties who would like to discuss purchase of the property from you, should you wish to sell it.
Enclosed are some documents that will need to be completed and witnessed, so that the title of the property can be passed to you in due course.
If you would like to visit the property and are able to travel to Tasmania, we would be happy to advise and assist you in this regard. Please confirm by return email that the following documents contain your full and correct details and provide us with your instructions. Please do not hesitate to contact the writer if you h
ave any questions.
Yours faithfully,
Ian J. Enderby
Solicitor & Barrister
* * *
Willa stood up, her chair clattering backwards. Behind her, Kettles grunted and shuffled his shoulders before settling back to sleep. She looked nervously around the kitchen, as if someone might be watching her, waiting for her reaction, but it was empty and silent apart from Kettles’ gentle snoring. She picked up the letter and began rereading it. Lillian Nora Brooks. She knew no one called Lillian. Or Mrs Brooks. Or Miss Brooks, for that matter. She looked at the letter again. Actually, it was Ms Brooks.
Why would this woman – whatever her marital status – leave Willa a house? An old chapel? She scrolled through her mind, trying to drag up the names of religion teachers she’d known at school who might own a little church. People she’d met through her parents, perhaps? Her mother had had a religious aunt who had sent Willa fifty dollars and a white leather-bound Bible for her confirmation when she was fourteen. At the time, fifty dollars had been a small fortune, and Willa remembered spending it on a gorgeous floral skirt and a matching midriff top. Her mother had been horrified. It definitely wasn’t something she could wear to church. Although since they only went at Christmas and Easter, Willa didn’t think it particularly mattered.
Aunt Enid. That was the woman’s name. She’d lived in Darwin, or maybe Cairns. Somewhere up north and hot, and so far away that they’d never visited her. Willa had written a thank you letter and that was the last she’d heard of the woman. But surely Aunt Enid would be long dead by now. Maybe she’d had a child called Lillian Brooks, who’d grown sick of the heat and moved south. Although, now that she turned her mind to it, she remembered that Aunt Enid had been a maiden aunt. A spinster. The word conjured an image of a crinkly old witch; someone with a withered womb. It felt like a long shot – giving poor old Enid an illegitimate daughter in Tasmania.
She looked at the letter again and felt a tiny shiver run up her spine. Her shoulders reacted by jumping upwards. She shook her head, annoyed with herself for allowing a frisson of excitement to enter into the equation when the only logical conclusion was that the whole thing must be a mistake. Was bound to be! It simply didn’t make sense any other way. In a few weeks’ time, Hugo would be regaling their friends with the story at a dinner party, telling them how they’d sorted out a strange case of mistaken identity with lawyers on the other side of the world. The real Wilhelmena Fairbanks actually lived in New York, or Budapest perhaps (much more interesting). Willa imagined her namesake wandering down cobbled streets between medieval buildings, ducking into a trendy café to drink a hand-roasted single-origin coffee, leaning against the ancient brick wall and admiring the quirky light installation suspended from the thousand-year-old ceiling, all the while wondering why she hadn’t yet had news of her inheritance from Great-Aunt Lillian.
The discovery of the real Wilhelmena had been no mean feat, she could imagine Hugo saying as he topped up the red wine glasses and their friends exclaimed in appreciative awe, speculating about how such a screw-up could actually occur in this day and age of technology and data-checking. But wouldn’t it have been fascinating, they would murmur, if their Willa had actually been the Wilhelmena in question? Imagine that. A mysterious woman leaving you a house on the other side of the world!
Willa picked up the letter again.
Ms Brooks knew you had few remaining ties in Australia and that you were resident in the United Kingdom.
She shivered. The real Wilhelmena lived in the United Kingdom. And how on earth would a stranger know that she had few ties in Australia? And, now that she reread the subject of the letter and noticed her full name at the top, how likely was it that there was more than one Wilhelmena May Gilmore Fairbanks living in the UK? Gilmore was an odd middle name, passed down through the women on her mother’s side. Passed down, without fail, for many generations, to every daughter. Willa felt a heavy, dislocating sense of panic beginning to press in at the base of her lungs. Her arms started to tingle. She leaned forward and caught the table for support. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. It had been months since she’d had a panic attack. She dragged up the mantra she was supposed to use: Deep breaths, let your stomach expand. Remind yourself that everyone is safe and well. Remember that you can handle this. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.
She heard the back door open, then shut. She forced her eyes open and made herself stand up straight. There was the sound of stomping feet, then a brief pause before Hugo appeared around the corner and dropped his briefcase on the floor.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Hi.’ Willa tried putting a normal sort of smile on her face while holding tightly to the table with one hand. She glanced down at the letter on the table, then back at Hugo.
‘What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost.’ Hugo strode across the kitchen and put his hands on her forearms, trying to hold her gaze.
She looked down. ‘Fine. I’m fine.’
She took another deep breath, then picked up the letter and handed it to him. ‘I got this in the mail. Cup of tea?’
He began reading the letter, ignoring her offer of tea, and Willa slumped back against the kitchen bench, waiting for him to finish.
After a minute, he looked up at her, his head cocked to one side, his eyebrows drawn together. ‘Goodness. Who’s Lillian Brooks?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A friend of your parents?’
‘Really, I don’t know.’
‘A distant relative, perhaps?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You said you didn’t have anyone left in Australia apart from your cousins in Perth, though.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Well who can she be, then?’
‘I don’t have a damn clue who she is, Hugo! Honestly!’
‘All right, darling, all right.’ Hugo put the letter on the table and came towards her, drawing her into a hug.
Willa stiffened as she tried to force back the burning tingle of tears, but Hugo pulled her tighter, refusing to let her go as she sniffed and pushed ineffectually against his chest. Eventually she slumped against him and breathed out.
‘Well it’s a mystery, but not one we can’t solve.’
‘What’s a mystery?’ Hamish stood at the entrance to the kitchen with an empty glass in his hand.
‘Your mother has inherited a house in Australia from someone she’s never heard of,’ said Hugo, as he finally let go of Willa.
‘No way!’
‘Yes way.’ Hugo picked up the letter again, taking a second look before handing it to Hamish.
Hamish scanned it. ‘Holy shit!’
‘Language,’ said Willa irritably. Her head was beginning to throb with the telltale aftermath of her almost-panic-attack. She supposed she should be dancing on the table. What sane person wouldn’t be after finding out they’d just inherited a house? Except they didn’t really need the money it might bring. And she’d quite like to know why a strange woman – who had obviously done a fair amount of research on her – had singled her out from across the globe to inherit a house in a town so tiny she’d never heard of it.
A church, for pity’s sake. She wasn’t even religious. And in Tasmania. All she knew of the smallest and least populated state of Australia was that it was generally cold and was full of forests and people who loved to bushwalk. They were probably all lovely people, but if she was being honest, Willa didn’t really enjoy bushwalking all that much. She knew it was the sort of thing people like her were meant to enjoy – fit, environmentally focused people. She considered herself a prime candidate for enjoying a bushwalk; she was a strict devotee of recycling, she had a worm farm, last year she’d bought an electric car, and she did like to walk. It was just that she preferred to do it on the streets, and within mobile reception range where at all possible, so she could download podcasts to listen to as she paced out her kilometres, later to be translated into miles, all within shouting dist
ance of lots of other humans in case she should fall and twist her ankle, or require directions or a quick stop for a cappuccino.
‘You must have heard of her somehow, Mum,’ Hamish was saying.
Willa looked across at her beautiful boy and noticed a large pink pimple that was forcing its way out from underneath the stubble at the corner of his lip.
‘Mum?’
‘No. I haven’t,’ she said sullenly.
‘Let’s look at it on Google Maps,’ said Hamish, striding past her and across the living room to the family computer on the antique writing desk in the corner. He plonked himself onto the leather chair and began tapping furiously at the keyboard. Hugo followed him.
Willa felt an odd reluctance to make the letter into any kind of reality, but after a few moments, she joined them anyway.
After Hamish had clicked a few times, a patchwork quilt of green and brown paddocks came into view. They butted right up against the vast blue-green ocean. Small clusters of houses dotted the edges of the narrow laneways and roads that divided the paddocks. Every so often a blackish oval delineated a dam or a lake of some kind.
Willa realised she was holding her breath.
‘Go on Street View,’ said Hugo.
The Daughter's Promise (ARC) Page 1
