We present an extract from The Woman in the Water, the new thriller by Henrietta McKervey, the best-selling author of What Becomes of Us, The Heart of Everything, Violet Hill and A Talented Man.
Pearl Day has always lived in the background - companion to her childhood friend, the dazzling and unpredictable Lady Eleanor Nicholson. Their bond was forged at Alderleigh, Eleanor's crumbling country estate, but now they share a sleek London home where Eleanor's life of indulgence is spiralling into chaos. When Eleanor shoots her lover in a drunken rage, Pearl becomes the key witness in a scandalous murder trial. But she knows more than she's revealed - and with Eleanor behind bars, she sees a chance to escape her quiet desperation. Their bond, once forged in friendship, is now warped by grief, envy and power. And Eleanor's reach is long.
Pearl is walking, endlessly walking, her feet weightless and floating in that strange way of the dreamer, following an unfamiliar twisting path towards a large house which she cannot see, yet somehow knows will be grey and forbidding. Dark shadows flit across mullioned windows, ivy-clad walls are fringed a sooty black. But the house never appears, no matter how many turns she takes. Treetops high overhead rustle in angry whispers even as knotted branches hang low, reaching out to grab her hair, scratch her skin. The hedges are no barrier to her, and she moves through them with ease until she finds herself by the sea. Waves crash like breaking glass onto a curved pebbled cove that slopes sharply down before disappearing underwater. A woman cries out, urgent and angry, yet Pearl cannot see another living soul.
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Listen: Oliver Callan talks to author Henrietta McKervey
She wakes with a start. The voice wasn't in her dream, it’s coming from downstairs! Within seconds, she is in the shadows of the darkened landing. Hickey and Eleanor are in the hallway on the ground floor. Despite their loud, angry voices, theirwords are confused and slurred. Eleanor, she thinks, is shouting something about Hickey cheating, but they are both so drunk it’s impossible to understand. Hickey has a glass tumbler raised in his hand as if about to throw it at Eleanor, but she moves forward quickly and hits him in the face, hard, more of a punch than a slap, her fist thudding against his cheekbone. He stumbles out of Pearl’s line of vision. She hears the sound of him pouring a drink, the short hiss of the soda syphon. Eleanor too disappears. Pearl’s viewpoint is a small square of the hallway and the final four steps of the stairs. A frame of celluloid in a movie, an empty screen waiting for the actors to enter: Eleanor from the left, Hickey from the right.
'Hickey,’ Eleanor mumbles as she steps into view, and then, louder and more insistent, ‘Hickey!’
Hickey lurches into the hallway, his face blazing, furious and hateful. Eleanor’s expression, Pearl notices, is blank, as if her entire being has just been destroyed.
Eleanor raises a gun. Pearl gasps in fright. Where on earth did she find that? Pearl had no idea there was a gun in the house! Hickey must be shocked into immobility, because he doesn’t move, nor make any attempt to grab it from Eleanor’s hand.
Pearl’s shout of ‘Eleanor, no!’ is drowned out by a single shot. A sharp, sulphuric smell immediately fills her nostrils.
Eleanor screams.
The landing outside Pearl’s bedroom is dark, with deep shadows cut through by a thin shard of light from the gas lamp outside. Behind it, the moon trains its spotlight on the street. Pearl is shaking as her hand skitters across the wallpaper in search of the light switch. Click. The dark instantly disappears, replaced by a low, flat yellow. Something of the sound, a queer heaviness, remains in the air.
‘Chicken, chicken,’ Eleanor wails. ‘Wake up, chicken.’
Eleanor stands at the foot of the stairs, swaying from side to side, an ermine stole wrapped around her arms and her back like a python. Her marcel wave catches the light.
Hickey lies on the floor with Eleanor standing over him. In her left hand she holds a broken cigarette. In her right, the gun. Eleanor moves to the side slightly, and Pearl’s view widens to include a spreading pool of blood on the floor.
Wake up, chicken,’ Eleanor cries again, her voice wild. ‘I’d never hurt you, baby, you know that. Come back to me, I’ll do anything you want me to. Anything. We’ll do it just like you wanted. Whatever you want.’
Eleanor wheels around and glances up. Her face is paler than usual, spectral and icy. ‘Pearl?’ She waves the gun wildly in the air. ‘Get down here. Quick, damn you!’
Unsure how safe she herself is, Pearl obeys, jumping awkwardly over the last step so as to land clear of Hickey and the pieces of broken glass beside him. The smell of brandy rises from a golden-brown puddle near his arm. His eyes are open, staring upwards. His mouth, too, gapes. It is peculiarly round, so different from the confident full-lipped smile Pearl is used to. It gives his face an oddly startled appearance. His black tie is undone, the celluloid poking out from his collar. The smell is strong, yet recognisable, similar to her own blood every month, but harsher, more like a butcher’s block.
He said’ – Eleanor gulps – ‘he said he was going to …’ She falters, shaking her head. She pauses, looking at Hickey, then through the open door of the drawing room. ‘He had a gun hidden in the bureau.’ She nods, a quick darting motion, her manner completely at odds with the chaos of a moment earlier.
‘Eleanor? Eleanor, sweetheart?’ It is a huge effort to keep her voice low and soft, the way one might coax a shy kitten out from behind a chair. ‘Come and sit down, please. Let me fix you a drink. Here – why don’t you give me that?’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor says, placing the gun flat on Pearl’s palm. It’s heavier than Pearl would have expected, the metal slightly warm. ‘Yes,’ she repeats. ‘He said he couldn’t live without me, nor I without him.’
The Woman in the Water is published by Hachette
