Page 12 of The Silent Appeal

From: Kevin MacDonald

Date: January 4, 2025

Subject: Re: Character breakdown

Celia,

Thank you. Whenever I send a group email your response arrives even before the automatic out-of-offices. I am delighted to answer your queries as follows:

Smoking. We’ll get a box of stage cigarettes. They are perfectly legal and nontoxic.

Props. No one knows what an Edwardian moletrap looks like. There’s an old popcorn maker in our garage, I’m sure Denise can do something with it. A quick scan of the props rental website reveals a choice of plastic lobsters. I’m sure someone can knock us up a sculpture. Failing that, it’ll be a job for the most wooden actor we can find.

The Angkatells. After the Norman conquest of 1066, land in England was divided up by the invaders, who were of Viking stock from northern France (Normandy). They built castles and a few National Trust properties, established fiefdoms, and became what we recognize today as the aristocracy. Angkatell is a Norman name, part French, part Germanic, and now 100 percent English as the Normans were known more for being posh and Caucasian than for their consistent spelling.

Cousin marriage and the preindustrial propertied class: laws of inheritance meant that property passed through the male line, a law that failed if a family didn’t have sons. To avoid a vast estate falling into the hands of a weaker (female) bloodline or another family entirely, cousin marriage was tolerated and, thanks to Henry VIII, legal. This problem was a significant one in history and our characters in The Hollow demonstrate it to a T. There are no male heirs to the Angkatell family estates so Lucy and Henry are trying to marry Henrietta off to Edward. If he marries Midge, whose mother was an Angkatell and therefore a weaker bloodline, the property moves out of the Angkatell male line.

After the long and illustrious career Nicky-Rose has enjoyed, she deserves some R&R with her family. There’s nothing to wonder about re: her return. Kevin

To: Nicky-Rose Dearing

From: Trina Neale

Date: January 4, 2025

Subject: I saw you

Here you are at 5:44 a.m. on January 1, recorded clear as day on our new security camera, trying four codes on the door before you finally hit the jackpot. At least you didn’t smash the place up this time. Anyway, I know what you did in the eleven minutes you were here.

They were in the safe, hidden behind my jewelry box. A regular thief wouldn’t have taken what they did and left the valuables.

To: Trina Neale

From: Nicky-Rose Dearing

Date: January 4, 2025

Subject: Re: I saw you

That’s the trouble with using birth dates for entry codes. Someone who knows you as well as I do can easily guess. Maybe don’t work with “friends” in the future? I know how your mind works. You could’ve destroyed all these, but wanted something to hang over me, keep me quiet. Well, that works both ways.

To: Nicky-Rose Dearing

From: Trina Neale

Date: January 4, 2025

Subject: Re: I saw you

Okay, so I just tried to call you, but you’ve either blocked my number or your phone doesn’t work over there.

If you show them to anyone, it would be a demonstration of your utter brainless fuckwittery. Every single document implicates YOU.

Message exchange between Denise Malcolm and Sarah-Jane MacDonald on January 4, 2025:

3:25 p.m. Denise wrote:

Lovely of you to take your sister for afternoon tea.