Chapter 5
FIVE
GEORGIE
Disrupt. Evolve. Own it. The mantra from my Instagram story this morning flashes through my mind as Keira’s words hit the table. Her lips are quirked up, like she’s fighting a smirk at the bomb she’s just detonated on our boring Tuesday night drinks in this sleepy local pub.
Of course she’s joking. She doesn’t really mean we should kill Jonny.
Beth and Tasha’s faces – gaping mouths, wide eyes – though…
the laughter bursts out of me, head thrown back, that full-belly, wild cackle – what Nate calls my witch’s laugh.
The thought makes me laugh even more. And now they’re all giggling too, caught in it, like we’ve tipped over into a giddy hysteria we can’t control.
It consumes us. I can’t speak, can barely draw a breath.
Beth is doubled over, head practically in her lap.
I’ve never seen her like this before, and it only makes me laugh harder.
Tears fall down Tasha’s beautiful face, her long black hair slipping out of her ponytail as she gasps for air.
She waves her hands in front of her eyes, trying to stop the tears.
But they’re happy tears, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen anything but strain and sadness in my friend.
Finally, the moment begins to ebb, and Tasha wipes her eyes. Beth straightens up, her cheeks almost the same colour as her hair. ‘We must sound like a pack of hyenas,’ she whispers, shooting a look across the bar.
‘Let them stare,’ Keira says at the exact moment I’m thinking the same. She picks up her glass and winks at me.
I flash her a grin, deciding in that moment that Keira and I are going to become good friends.
I love Tasha and Beth. Tasha is always the first to offer to help.
Beth might be quieter, but she’s steady and reliable.
I wouldn’t be me without them. But they can be heavy sometimes.
Their emotions and their worries and their endless talk of their problems. I hate myself for thinking it, but sometimes – only sometimes – it feels like they suck the air right out of the room.
I don’t blame them. Life hasn’t been fair.
Not with what Tasha has to deal with every day with her parents, or for Beth and her fertility struggles.
It’s changed her. The bright woman I met when Nate and I first moved to Magnolia Close ten years ago no longer exists.
There are days when I shut the door after another coffee or playdate and exhale like I’ve been underwater.
But Keira looks like she’s all fun. She’s whip-smart but doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to play by the rules, and I love that.
So what if she lives outside of the close?
Maybe there are things we can learn from her.
Beside me, Keira refills my glass, and I feel her watching, like she’s trying to get the measure of me. I pull my shoulders back and run a hand through my sleek bob. I don’t know what test I’m taking here, but no way am I failing it.
Keira’s charcoaled eyes move to each of us in turn, and when she speaks again, her voice is low like a secret. ‘But would you do it?’ she asks. ‘I mean, if you could get away with it. If there was a way you could never be caught… would you kill your neighbour?’
My reply rushes out without hesitation or thought. ‘I would.’
Keira gives me an approving nod, and even though I’m thirty-nine years old, happily married, confident in who I am, I can’t help but feel myself glow under her praise. ‘Go on then, Georgie,’ she says. ‘How would you kill this Jonny fella?’
I think for a moment, tilting my head to one side, biting my bottom lip. ‘I’d stab him,’ I reply. ‘Right in the gut. Three times. One for each of us,’ I add, shooting a look to Tasha and Beth.
There is no shock at my words. No laughter. My friends know I mean it. Those lecherous looks he gives us all. The winks. The comments, especially to me.
‘That husband of yours is one hell of a lucky man, Georgie.’
‘That workout kit should be illegal.’
‘You’ll give a man a heart attack wearing that.’
‘Looking gorgeous today, Georgie.’
Tasha and Beth know I hate Jonny as much as they do. Even if they don’t know all the reasons why.
Keira looks to Tasha next. ‘What about you, Tasha? Would you kill your neighbour?’
Tasha swirls her wine, staring at the legs around the inside of the glass before replying. ‘Yes. But stabbing is too risky,’ she says. ‘What if he overpowered you?’ she asks me.
‘I’d sneak up on him,’ I reply. ‘Bill and Jean have a key to Jonny’s house from when the Gallaghers used to live there. I’ve got a key to Bill and Jean’s. I’d pop into theirs when they were out, get the key, then sneak into Jonny’s and bam!’
‘Poison would be easier,’ Beth says in a soft voice. ‘Something in his coffee machine or his milk.’
It’s my turn to shake my head. This is fun. This is real friendship – laying our fantasies bare.
‘Too much risk of collateral damage,’ I say, ticking off the issues on my fingers. ‘What if the cleaner eats some, or a guest? Or some poor delivery guy who accepts a coffee? I couldn’t live with myself.’
Keira looks thoughtful, and for a moment it’s like we’re actually planning this. The thought sends a giddy thrill shooting through my veins along with the wine.
‘You’re right,’ Keira says. ‘No poison. It’s not just the collateral damage. There’s too much risk he’d survive. But Tasha is right. Men are stronger than us. It’s a fact, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. Stabbing is too risky.’
Tasha nods. ‘I would use sleeping pills,’ she says, rifling through her bag and pulling out a box. ‘These are my dad’s prescription tablets. They’d knock Jonny out so he couldn’t overpower me. And then—’ She makes a vague stabbing motion that has me grinning.
‘What about you, Beth?’ Keira asks. ‘If poison’s off the table?’
I’m surprised Beth is joining in, rather than shaking her head and staying quiet like always, but she’s as caught up in this as the rest of us.
‘Stabbing is messy,’ she says. ‘Suffocation would be better. A pillow over his face while he’s knocked out from the pills,’ she says, nodding to Tasha’s bag.
That’s Beth. Always wanting things neat and tidy.
Keira claps her hands, her grin wider than ever.
‘Yes. That’s perfect,’ she says, leaning forward and placing her palms flat on the table.
‘So you’ll slip him some food laced with sleeping tablets.
Wait a bit. Then go in and kill him. Either stabbing,’ she says, gesturing to me and Tasha.
‘Or suffocation. Or both.’ She laughs. ‘And it gives you a window.’
‘What window?’ Tasha asks, a hiccupped giggle slipping free.
‘A window of time when the murder happens. That’s when you need to make sure you all have an alibi,’ she replies.
A bubble of laughter threatens to spill. ‘But if we have an alibi… how do we actually kill him?’ I ask.
Keira’s voice is still low as she flicks a glance to the near-empty pub before looking back to us. ‘You’d be each other’s alibis,’ she explains. ‘You lie to the police. You lie to everyone except each other.’
There’s a pause. A breath where it feels like the air shifts.
‘You could murder Jonny next week, during the PTA quiz night,’ Keira continues. ‘It’s perfect! Those things are always wine-fuelled chaos. One of you could slip out and kill Jonny. Then all three of you swear you were with each other all night.’
Tasha’s wine glass hovers halfway to her lips. The air is sparking with something dangerous. It’s just a game – a bit of fun. And yet the mention of the quiz night makes it feel suddenly real, and I’m no longer sure if I should laugh.
My heart pounds like I’m about to sprint into something unknown, something dangerous, and, secretly, I love it.
My life is bright and wonderful. I have my gorgeous Oscar and my husband, Nate, and Magnolia Close and my part-time job, and Tasha and Beth.
I keep busy and I keep fit, and one day soon my Instagram Mum Mindfulness account will go viral and I’ll be a proper influencer.
I already have over ten thousand followers.
Just one perfect post and everyone will see that I’m someone.
But the waiting and trying can drag me down sometimes, pull me too close to the mundane.
Nights like this, shaking things up – having fun – feel like fuel. Like pure energy.
Tasha exhales in a breathless laugh. ‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘That’s because it is,’ Keira replies with a shrug.
‘You’ve got a plan for how you’d do it. You make sure he consumes the sleeping pills before you get there.
Then you’ve got a window during the PTA quiz where there’d be lots of witnesses who won’t notice one of you slip away for half an hour.
You’ve got each other to be alibis too. There’s just one really important thing to remember. ’
‘What?’ Beth asks, her tone light as she rolls her eyes, like she’s waiting for Keira to deliver the punchline. To burst into another fit of giggles and tell us she’s joking.
But there’s no humour in the way Keira lifts her glass and takes a long sip of wine, allowing a dramatic pause. I swear we’re all holding our breaths, waiting for her reply.
‘Whatever you do’ – her voice is stone-cold, her eyes fixing on each of us in turn – ‘you have to lie to the police. Your alibi has to be watertight. You stick to your story. You were together all night, running the quiz. As long as you say nothing to the police, you’ll get away with it. No one will ever know.’
Beth lets out a nervous laugh. ‘Obviously you’re not serious?’
Keira tilts her head, no longer smiling. ‘What if I am?’ she asks.
That’s when the mood shifts.
Tasha sets her glass on the table and pushes it away.
Beth’s laughter dies in her throat. The words no one will ever know seem to vibrate in the air.
The wine is suddenly thick in my head, the room spinning in the edges of my vision, but it’s not enough to muffle the unease I feel when I glance at Keira.
She’s watching me again, dark eyes steady.
Then she laughs. A loud, brittle laugh void of humour. I glance at Tasha then Beth. They look rattled and uneasy. For the first time tonight, I feel out of my depth. Like we’ve swum too far from the shore and don’t know how to get back to safety.
Keira has made our talk of Jonny’s murder feel all too real.
This was just for fun… right?