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“That’s great,” she hears. “Now lean back against the banister. Tilt the chin?”
The coffee shop is tucked away behind the curve of the staircase, and she makes her way across the expanse of marble, painfully conscious of her dripping mac and rat’s-tail hair.
As she rounds the edge of the stairs, she sees Geraint sitting at a little bistro table, tapping at his phone. He stands, his face lighting up as he sees her.
“Hannah! Thanks for coming. Can I get you a coffee?”
Hannah pauses. Her instinct is to accept nothing from Geraint, but on the other hand, he’s the one who invited her here, and more importantly, if he pays, she won’t be held up waiting for the bill if she wants to make a quick getaway.
“Sure,” she says at last. “A—um… a decaf cappuccino and… maybe a biscotti if they have any.”
She’s feeling a little light-headed. Low blood sugar, probably—the midwife at her last appointment told her it could happen, and advised small, frequent snacks.
“November’s just texted,” Geraint says, “she’ll only be five. They’re just wrapping up. Right—let me get the drinks. I’ll be back in a sec.”
He walks up to the counter and Hannah sits there chewing her nail and wondering why she did this.
Geraint is just returning from the counter with an enormous green juice and a biscotti when he turns and looks at someone over Hannah’s shoulder.
“Ah! Perfect. We’re all here,” he says happily. “Hannah, this is November Rain. November, this is Hannah de Chastaigne—Hannah Jones, you would have known her as.”
Hannah stands, turns, and then her stomach seems to fall away from her.
Standing in front of her, willowy, inexpressibly beautiful, and most undeniably, unbelievably alive, is April.
AFTER
For a moment Hannah thinks she’s going to faint. Everything goes very far away, and there is a roaring sound in her ears. She holds on to the edge of the table with both hands, trying to steady herself, trying to tell herself this cannot be true.
“Hannah?” she hears Geraint saying, worriedly. “Hannah? Are you okay?”
“Hi,” the girl says. She comes towards them, shoving her mobile into the pocket of her silk harem pants. Her Louboutins click as she walks across the marble. She holds out a hand towards Hannah. “Hi. I’m November, really pleased to meet you.”
And then—something snaps into place. Hannah isn’t sure whether it’s the sound of the girl’s voice, which is very like April’s, but not April’s, or something in her eyes. There is no mistaking that expression; the girl coming towards her does not recognize Hannah and even April, superb actress though she was, could not have faked that.
“Who—who are you?” Hannah says, and her voice is harsher than she intended; it comes out as a kind of hoarse accusation.
“Oh God,” Geraint says, as if he understands only now what he has done. “I’m so sorry, I should have said—I thought you knew. November is April’s sister.”
Hannah blinks. And then, very slowly, she sits down. The girl—November—sits opposite her, and she smiles, a soft, sad smile that’s so like April’s it catches at Hannah’s heart, but she doesn’t have April’s dimple, and for some reason Hannah finds that obscurely comforting; concrete evidence that these are not the same people. Up close she can see that the girl is also much too young to be April. She is closer to the April Hannah remembers than April as she would be now—if she had lived. This girl can’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three.
“I’m sorry we never met,” November is saying. “I heard about you, of course, from April. I kept begging to come and stay in Oxford, but I was just her little snot-nosed baby sister at the time. And then afterwards, I think my parents wanted to protect me from all the coverage. I was never allowed in court or anything. I can understand why, to be honest—I was only eleven or twelve at the time.”
“I—I’m sorry too,” Hannah says. She is still trying to make sense of this. April’s sister—after all these years. And what was it Geraint had called her in his introduction? November Rain? “I’m sorry, did Geraint say your surname was Rain? Did you change it?”
“Oh…” November gives a slightly self-conscious laugh and brushes her short white-blond hair out of her eyes. She is wearing long feathered earrings, Hannah sees, the tips brushing her tanned bare shoulders. “Sort of. Rain is my professional name, I suppose you’d call it. I’m an Instagram influencer, but Clarke-Cliveden as a surname… aside from sounding a bit posh, it’s got all that… history. Rain… I suppose it was just a bit of a joke. The song, you know. And somehow it seemed to make the November part stand out less.”
Of course. Suddenly Hannah understands the photo shoot, the hotel, November’s effortlessly made-up beauty. Out of context the name hadn’t clicked, but even Hannah, who rarely goes on Instagram except to torture herself with memories of April, has heard of beauty influencer November Rain.
“I’ve been in Edinburgh all week doing a shoot for D and G, and, well, it just seemed like serendipity. When Geraint messaged me on Insta and said you lived here, and would I have time to meet…”
She shrugs. A waiter arrives with Geraint’s Americano and Hannah’s cappuccino and there is a brief pause as they sort out the drinks and Hannah refuses sugar.
When the waiter is gone Hannah takes a deep breath. There is so much she wants to ask November, so much she wants to discuss, but she has to cut to the chase here, she doesn’t have much time.
“November, I’m sorry to ask this so abruptly, but I’ve only got a short lunch hour. I have to get back to work pretty soon. Geraint said… he said that you knew something… about the autopsy?”
November nods.
