Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
BETH
We stand in my kitchen like we’ve done hundreds of times before. But there’s no use pretending this is just another coffee after the school run. The air is too tight. The tension in the room feels like it hums around us.
I’m glad the children are at school. Henry is like me. He doesn’t like people in his space. Even friends. I feel it too. Especially with Georgie, who always surveys my colours and homemade touches like she’s cataloguing them.
But whatever this new WhatsApp group is, we couldn’t talk about it standing in the middle of Magnolia Close. It’s been painful to watch our community fall apart. DS Sató wants us to believe that one of us killed Jonny. If her aim is to drive a wedge into the community, it’s working.
Which meant standing in the middle of the close wasn’t an option.
But we couldn’t go to Tasha’s house with Marc there, looking after Lanie.
It’s strange he’s not at work again, but that’s a thought for another time.
And we couldn’t go to Georgie’s because of Nate.
Even though Nate seems nice and always asks thoughtful questions, there is an edge to Georgie’s husband sometimes.
Like he’s keeping himself apart. Like he’s observing us from the outside – animals at the zoo.
And right now we need privacy. So we’re here, in my kitchen.
I stand beside the sink, trying to find calm in the scent of vanilla from the candles I made yesterday, now lining the worktop in the reused glass jars. Each one is perfectly uniform, the wick dead centre. I only had to throw one away that didn’t measure up.
‘Maybe Keira just wants to invite us for a drink,’ Georgie says, trying for breezy, but it lands wrong.
‘Only one way to find out,’ I say, unlocking my phone and tapping the play icon on the voice-note file that’s been added to the WhatsApp group.
There’s a moment of muffled sound, the clink of a glass, then Georgie’s unmistakable laugh crackles from my speaker. It hits me. I know what this is before the words come.
The pub.
That night.
The conversation we never should have had.
‘I’d stab him,’ Georgie’s voice says from my phone. ‘Right in the gut. Three times. One for each of us.’
From across the kitchen, Georgie’s hands fly to her mouth. Her eyes widen with horror as they lock on to mine. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispers, gaze flicking from my phone to me to Tasha. ‘How did she get that?’
I force out the words I’m sure the others are thinking. ‘She must’ve been recording us that night.’ My pulse is thudding against my ribs. My phone shakes from the tremor of my hand and the recording that keeps playing from that night and our reckless, awful words.
‘I’d sneak up on him,’ Georgie says. ‘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 sneak into theirs, get the key, then sneak into Jonny’s and bam!’
Tasha’s voice follows, slurred from the wine but unmistakable. ‘I would use sleeping pills. These are my dad’s prescription tablets. They’d knock Jonny out so he couldn’t overpower me. And then—’
I look up and catch Tasha’s eye. Tears slide down her face. Her mouth is open, tension knotting her brow.
My voice is next, sounding alarmingly calculated. ‘Stabbing is messy. Suffocation would be better. A pillow over his face while he’s knocked out from the pills.’
The recording ends. The kitchen falls silent. Fear scurries over my skin as I stare at my friends. Their eyes are wide with shock and fear. We joked about killing Jonny, but there’s no humour in our voices. We sound deadly serious.
‘Keira.’ I say her name on a rushed breath. ‘I can’t believe she recorded us.’
We’ve been avoiding her all week, fearing she could tell someone what we talked about. Scared for how bad it looked. But this is so much worse.
Tasha lets out a strangled sound – somewhere between a sob and a gasp. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘She’s cut the recording,’ Georgie says. ‘She’s cut out the parts where she was pushing us to say more. Right?’ Her eyes land on me. ‘I know I drank a lot that night, but I’m not imagining it, am I, Beth?’
I shake my head. ‘You’re right. She’s cut herself out of the recording. It’s like she wasn’t there at all.’
‘Like it was just us,’ Georgie repeats.
Our eyes lock, and we share in a moment of horror.
‘If people hear that recording,’ Tasha chokes out, putting a voice to our fears. ‘If the police—’ She breaks completely.
Georgie rakes a hand through her hair. ‘I know,’ she says.
‘If this gets out, everyone – our husbands, the neighbours, the police – everyone will think this recording is us planning Jonny’s murder.
They’ll think we went through with it.’ There’s a tremor to her voice I’ve never heard from her before.
Georgie doesn’t panic. Georgie doesn’t lose control, and yet the cracks are showing.
It’s up to you to take control.
That’s what I’m doing.
‘But we didn’t kill Jonny,’ I say. ‘We should go to Detective Sató with this and tell her the truth.’ But deep down, the doubt gnaws at me. Would Sató see it that way? Or would she hear us all talking about murdering Jonny and draw her own conclusions?
I push the thought aside. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong, and we have alibis,’ I add, as much for my benefit as Georgie and Tasha’s.
Georgie’s head snaps up, her gaze on me sharp. ‘Do we though? The time of death was between eight and eleven. The quiz ended at nine. Everyone left soon after. The only people left were us.’
‘That still gives us an alibi,’ Tasha whispers. ‘It’s like Keira said in the pub. We just have to stick to our story. As long as we don’t say anything to the police, we’ll be OK.’
Georgie is already shaking her head. ‘If DS Sató hears this recording, she’ll assume we’re all guilty,’ Georgie explains.
‘She’ll think we planned it together and one of us snuck out and killed him, just like Keira suggested we could.
If the police hear this, they’ll think we’re covering for each other and our alibi won’t mean anything. ’
A sob catches in Tasha’s throat. ‘Everyone in Magnolia Close already thinks it was me.’
‘We all had our reasons,’ Georgie whispers.
I watch my friend then. Georgie, who laughed off the school mum who called her ‘too much’ and mocked her behind her back.
Georgie, with her mantras and her positive outlook.
She isn’t someone who holds a grudge. But she never forgave him for making a pass at her during the welcome street party last year.
And suddenly I’m wondering if there’s more to it.
You think you’re the only one hiding something?
‘We can’t go to the police,’ Georgie says, and suddenly she’s the old Georgie again. The one making the decisions we follow without thinking. But this isn’t a fundraiser or a Magnolia Close event. I can’t allow Georgie to take over and drag us further into trouble.
‘It isn’t just about whether DS Sató will believe us,’ Georgie continues. ‘If Nate hears it, he’ll never forgive me. He and Jonny were friends, and I’m talking about how I’ll kill him.’ Georgie looks like she might say more but pins her lips shut.
Tasha nods, freeing more tears that spill onto her cheeks. ‘No one in the close will believe we didn’t do it. We can’t go to the police. We can’t tell anyone.’
Tasha tugs on her ponytail. ‘I just don’t understand why Keira recorded us?’
Georgie shakes her head. ‘That’s not the question that matters, Tash. It’s what she wants from us.’
‘Is it possible she thinks we actually went through with it and killed Jonny?’ Tasha asks. ‘It’s a massive coincidence he was killed the same night we talked about murdering him, isn’t it? Maybe she’s going to ask us for money. She wants to blackmail us.’
Tasha and Georgie continue to talk, voices low and fast, bouncing theories off each other. I stare again at the phone in my hand. It’s been fifteen minutes exactly since that recording was sent. A prickle runs down my spine as another ping rings through the kitchen.
I don’t breathe as all three of us unlock our phones to see the voice recording disappear from the chat. Replaced with a message:
You can’t avoid me forever. It’s time to talk.
‘Where did that recording go?’ Tasha asks.
I glance down at the now-empty WhatsApp group before my eyes move back to Tasha. I can see the panic coiling around her. She’s seconds from unravelling. I shoot a look at Georgie. Her mouth is a flat line, her hands rubbing at the pressure point on her palm.
‘Disappearing messages,’ Georgie mutters. ‘Or she’s deleting them the moment she sees one of us has viewed them. It means we have nothing to show anyone. Nothing to prove what she’s sent us.’
The kitchen feels suddenly too small, the air thick with our fear for whatever is coming next. My heart is banging against my ribcage.
Getting upset won’t be good for the baby.
As if I don’t know that. I close my eyes for a second, my hands gripping the counter, holding on to something solid.
Another ping sounds on our phones. I check the time. Exactly five minutes have passed since the last message. This time it’s another voice recording.
A fresh chill rolls through me as Georgie presses play and Keira’s voice fills the room. It’s quiet, like it was recorded in a car or outside, but the Irish accent is clearly hers.
‘Let’s talk movies,’ Keira says, her voice casual, like we’re still in the pub.
‘Ever seen Strangers on a Train? Alfred Hitchcock. Two strangers – each needs someone dead. They swap murders. One kills for the other, giving airtight alibis on both sides. No connection. No motive. Completely untraceable.’
There’s a pause in the recording. My gaze lifts. Georgie’s face has drained of colour. Tasha’s eyes are wide and glassy. Blood roars in my ears. Everything is muffled, like I’m underwater. I feel the panic everywhere in my body.
‘My ex is called Richard Philips,’ Keira says.
‘He’s just like your Jonny. A piece of shit who is making my life hell.
He works at Fordly Woods Business Park and runs back to town just after five p.m. every day.
It’ll be easy. All you have to do is hit him with your car.
That quiet stretch of lane – no one around.
I’ll be at a Pilates class tonight. Make sure you do it then. ’
The voice note cuts off.
Silence. Thick and suffocating. ‘What does that mean?’ Tasha asks. Her voice is childlike. Terrified. ‘What is she saying?’
I can’t answer. My hand instinctively moves to the soft swell of my stomach. To my baby and everything I have to lose. Everything I must protect.
Georgie presses her fingers to her temples, her voice barely a whisper. ‘It means… Keira murdered Jonny.’
Then she lifts her eyes, staring at both of us with a wild terror. ‘And now she wants us to kill someone for her.’