Margaret Holloway

Margaret Holloway does not live in Seabrook. She came down from Ealing in March to settle the estate of her late brother, who kept the Mariner’s Rest.

She is sixty-two and was born a Calder. Her brother, Edward Calder, ran the guesthouse for more than twenty years. He died in September 2025 after a fall from the pier during a storm, and the inquest recorded accidental death. The guesthouse, its contents and modest savings came to her. She has not decided whether to sell.

She was widowed two years ago. Her husband, David, did the driving for forty years, and she never learned. She came by train to Hartbury and by taxi from there, with a suitcase and a set of keys she had never used. Her last visit was eight or nine years ago, when her brother cooked a fish pie and they ate it in the garden.

The will named one object: their grandmother’s music box, walnut with brass fittings, kept in a locked oak cabinet in the sitting room. Mrs Holloway unlocked the cabinet and found a clean rectangle in the dust. The police left their card. She found the advertisement for Penrose Investigations in the Seabrook Chronicle.

Where you will find her

At the Mariner’s Rest on Pier Approach, a white house of three storeys with blue window frames. On her first evening she had the fish and chips at the Gull and Lantern.