The War Widow
While the bells of a Royal Wedding peel out to the fading echoes of war, danger stalks the coastline of Wales…Wales, 1947Injured and terrified after an attempted abduction, desperation drives artist Kate Ward to the idyllic scene of her ex-husband’s recent suicide. Labelled a hysterical, grieving divorcée, no one believes she is being pursued by two violent men demanding answers she cannot give. Not the police, not the doctors, and not the guests at the Aberystwyth hotel she has come to in an attempt to find out what happened to her charismatic photographer ex-husband, and why her identity – and her life – are now at risk.Kate can trust no one, not even the reclusive war-veteran-turned-crime-novelist, Adam Hitchen, a reserved widower and the only source of kindness in a shadowy world of suspicion and fear. And as ghosts old and new rise to haunt her, Kate must rely on all her strength and courage to uncover the shocking truth hidden within a twisted web of lies…
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HarperImpulse
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2018
Copyright © Lorna Gray 2018
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Lorna Gray asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008279578
Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008279561
Version: 2018-06-27
Table of Contents
For Harry and Mason
Thursday 20 November 1947
I might have done things differently had I had known today that I only had four more days of glorious solitude. That in four short days they would find me at last. That four short days would carry my race to the limit of this sea-ravaged coastline. That here I would feel the nauseating pull and draw of the waves and above it all, hear the darker overtone of footsteps as they strolled inescapably towards me.
I wouldn’t be thinking about myself at that moment. I would simply be waiting, defeated, quivering on the wooden harbour jetty and looking down into the murky water as it heaved beneath. Thinking about him and what he had done; and finally and absolutely admit that despite all my determined efforts to the contrary, I had lost control over both my mind and my freedom, with no hope left of ever regaining it.
But that would be four days from now. Today there were still four more days ahead of wonderful optimism. Today I was feeling the tug of the waves too, but in an altogether more peaceful way.
I had come to Aberystwyth in November two years after the war. I was climbing down from a rough little hilltop that overlooked the town a little after dawn and the view was glorious. The wide bay of terraces clung bravely to the curve where sweeping cliffs met dark granite seashores and today, as ever, it called to the artist in me.
I probably shouldn’t have been up there. The doctors had prescribed rest after my accident and I knew even the walk back to my hotel would have drawn their united disapproval. But at least it was quiet and calming in its way because very few people were about. Those that were cared little for a woman in a beige trench coat with the collar turned up who was walking briskly past shops declaring fresh stocks of corned beef and offal – a novelty in this time of rationing. Nobody noticed me walking past the shuttered tearooms either. These were papered with posters bearing the information that the cinema would be showing the full coverage of the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding just as soon as the newsreels got here. It was all wonderfully like being invisible. It was just unfortunate that the illusion abandoned me just as soon as I climbed the steps to my hotel.
“Good morning, Miss Word.”
The lady in the wood-panelled reception booth in the foyer was excessively genteel and her grey hair was done up in a neat bun. Her greeting was dignified and gracious but slightly marred by the fact that Word wasn’t actually my name. It was Ward but I didn’t tell her that. Just as I had been too embarrassed to correct her late last night when she’d said it after watching me sign my name on the registration form, and again after she’d taken custody of my ration book and handed me my key…
So this morning I repeated the peculiar habit of feeling guiltily responsible for having the wrong name and only stated warmly that it was indeed a good morning and moved bravely towards the dining room. It was the sort of room that belonged a largely imaginary bygone era that had never known the war. The requirement to be brave came from my reluctance to interact with the other guests. I didn’t want conversation today. And besides, the pages of the hotel’s guestbook bore the signatures of an intimidatingly large scattering of high society grandees, which I certainly wasn’t. It had prices to match. I never would have chosen to stay here at all if I hadn’t remembered it from a brief visit many years ago during my honeymoon and the fact that I couldn’t have faced any more decisions last night after such a day and such a long journey.
