Chapter one

Even in her sleep, Kate heard the ravens. They fluttered behind her eyes, lining the lids, calling their warning clatter out to her. Invisibly, they perched disguised amongst her thoughts, talons clutching their talisman, ready to wheel up and strike. Just out of reach, they always hovered, like vultures, cadaverous, waiting for the dead to be revealed. Kate had been hearing the ravens since her teenage years but, this time, they had risen to silence her completely. And the dead had certainly been revealed.
As she stepped off the Penzance train, the edgy cacophony died away, leaving the swish of sea rushing over sand, and the quiet slap-slap of waves against the quay. Gulls wheeled overhead screaming their staccato message to an irascible, crying wind, and a soft melancholic rain drew its veil across Kate’s memory. She felt glad of the rain as she watched the smouldering, grey-torn clouds gather their twilight moments outside the station.
Away in her house on the cliff, Kate knew her mother, Jane, would hear the ticking of her heart and remember she should have met her daughter at Penzance ten minutes ago. Nothing would especially remind her of this, it was simply the way her mind worked, a mind affected by the passing years, currently ravaged by the unexpected and early death of her twin. But Jane was never on time for anything. It was a standing joke in the family that she would be late for her own funeral. Kate knew she would take her coat and handbag and go out to the car, shadowed by her dead sister’s huge shag-pile dog. Outside, the dog would eye her, standing by the car, tail wagging communicatively.
“No Bingo,” Jane would say, firmly. “You’re not coming. You only leave muddy footprints all over my seats.” He would just cock his head on one side, apparently listening. When Jane opened the door, intending to leave him wandering outside whilst she fetched Kate, he would be much too quick for her, as always. He would push past her into the passenger seat, using his very evidently superior strength to barge her out of the way, and arrange himself in it. His tail always beat a rhythm against the door as he looked into the driver’s eyes when he did this. It was a look Kate had learned to recognise.
“Oh God,” Jane would say, aloud, as if the dog could understand her. “I can’t do anything with you, can I?” The dog’s head almost brushed the ceiling of the car and Kate also knew he would turn implacable eyes upon Jane before she climbed resignedly into her own seat. Unexpectedly, Jane would feel a rush of affection for the dog.
“Poor old boy,” she would say, patting him slowly. “It’s not your fault she died. You must be wondering what has happened to you too.”
Then she would slam the door and push the key into the ignition, Bingo watching her every movement attentively.
“You’d drive away if you could, wouldn’t you?” Jane would end their conversation here.
At the sound of her laugh, the dog’s tail would begin beating afresh, and Kate thought of Jane stroking his reddish curls with more enthusiasm.
Switching the headlights on to cut through the rain, Jane would drive towards the gate. No point in driving speedily now: she was already late, she would be thinking. And she would know that Kate would just wait because this was how it had always been between them. As Kate imagined her turning on to the switch-backed lane leading away from the Sea View Hotel, the rain came down with more determination outside Penzance train station. She sat on her bags and tried not to feel frustrated.