Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
BETH
The three parcels sit side by side on the coffee table.
Each one is addressed in the same neat, deliberate Sharpie handwriting.
Each one hums with a tension that presses against me, squashing and uncomfortable.
A part of me wonders if I should open them before the others arrive.
But it feels wrong. I need my friends with me.
I watched them step through the gates five minutes ago, Georgie and Tasha side by side, heads bent in whispered conversation as they headed to Tasha’s house, the children racing ahead of them, Henry in tow.
I didn’t hesitate when Tasha suggested she and Georgie collect Henry from school for me. None of us wanted to leave the parcels unattended after I grabbed them from the postman, who was happy to hand me all three.
And when Tasha suggested they leave the children with Marc – a convenient excuse ready, no doubt a ‘PTA emergency’ Georgie would whip up on the spot – it seemed like the perfect solution. Except now I’m alone. Just me and these three packages.
A headache starts to throb behind my eyes.
My stomach feels coiled tight. It’s the stress of the last week and the taunting threats in the Strangers on a Train WhatsApp group.
The voice note asked if we’d seen the Alfred Hitchcock film.
I remember it well. It was one of my mother’s favourites.
Guy Haines and Bruno Antony met by chance and planned a murder swap.
I also remember how it all went wrong. It wasn’t a blueprint for how to plan a murder swap. It was a tale of disaster.
A sound from the front door makes me jump. Three light taps. They’re here!
I rush forward, pulse still hammering in my ears, and throw open the front door to Tasha and Georgie.
Their heads are bent again like they’re whispering, then they’re pulling apart like teenagers caught out, and I swear a flicker of something I’m not supposed to see passes across Georgie’s face before it’s gone.
The knowing voice hisses in my thoughts. They were talking about you.
I refuse to think like that. These women are my best friends. We need each other now more than ever. I need them. Even if the Magnolia Close community is fracturing, our friendship will stay strong. I have to trust them.
We gather in the living room, Georgie and Tasha on the sofa, me in the armchair.
Each with a parcel on our lap. It’s like a nightmare version of the Christmas celebration we have each year.
A secret Santa for the children and a buffet dinner with crackers to pull and party hats.
Then when the children are playing or watching TV, the three of us gather to exchange our gifts.
Georgie always buys us Jo Malone candles and bath oils.
Tasha buys me earrings. I prefer to make them things.
Last year, it was a knitted scarf for Tasha in a beautiful soft yellow with flecks of gold.
For Georgie, I made a canvas bag from material of emerald green with mockingbirds on it.
I had to restart the scarf twice and the bag three times to get them perfect, but it was worth it when they both exclaimed with delight.
How many times have you seen either of them wear or use the gifts you made?
It’s the thought that counts.
But there is nothing celebratory about this moment as we sit with the parcels on our laps.
The silence drawing out, tension and fear and panic heavy in the air.
When I touch the parcel, there’s a tremor to my hands.
The parcel addressed to Alistair is long, and there’s a weight to it. Tasha’s looks soft. Georgie’s is small.
‘On three?’ Georgie asks, voice tight.
I nod.
‘One,’ Georgie starts. ‘Two. Three.’
There’s a rustle of noise as we each tear at the padded envelopes. Inside mine, I find a white dishcloth. I barely have time to consider the hard lump it’s wrapped around before Tasha lets out a gasp.
She’s out of her chair, scrambling away, pushing herself against the wall like she could disappear through it.
Her eyes are fixed on something on the floor, and I follow her gaze to the envelope and the contents lying beside it.
It’s a pile of yellow silk material. Tasha’s favourite top.
The same one she wore the night of the quiz.
Only now it’s streaked with a dark rusty-red stain that can only be one thing – blood.
My insides roil. The nausea is crawling up my throat again. It’s a fight to swallow it down. My gaze moves back to Tasha. She’s breathing loud and fast, hugging her arms to her body, head shaking, eyes wide and wild.
‘That’s not my top,’ she cries.
I flick a glance at Georgie. She’s staring back at me, brows raised.
Is she remembering the end of the quiz night, after we’d finished tidying the hall, when Tasha appeared with her jacket zipped up, complaining she’d spilled red wine on her top.
Her yellow top. I look back at the stain. It definitely isn’t wine.
Tasha must sense our disbelief because she tugs at her jumper with frantic hands. ‘Look—’ she says, revealing the same yellow top underneath. Clean and not soaked in blood or wine.
Georgie looks from Tasha to the floor. ‘That’s a slightly darker yellow, isn’t it?’
Tasha nods. ‘And it’s a round neck. Mine is a V-neck.’
‘You were wearing it the night in the pub as well,’ Georgie continues. ‘Keira must’ve bought a similar one and worn it…’ She trails off.
‘What’s in your package?’ I ask Georgie, delaying the moment I have to unwrap the white cloth sitting heavy on my lap.
My eyes keep dragging back to the bloody top on my floor.
In my living room. My home. It’s out of place.
Doesn’t belong. I want to snatch it up, throw it away, but I’m frozen in my chair.
As Georgie peers into her parcel, Tasha moves slowly back to the sofa, collapsing down before wrapping her arms around her legs, hugging herself tight and crying quietly.
‘I’ve got two things,’ Georgie says, pulling out the first item, holding the narrow white box up for us to see.
Tasha gasps again. ‘My dad’s sleeping pills,’ she says. ‘Keira must’ve taken them that night in the pub. Remember how I showed them to you?’
‘There’s this too,’ Georgie says, and this time she holds up a silver key. ‘It must be Jonny’s house key. How the hell did she get hold of this?’
We fall silent again. Neither Tasha nor I can answer Georgie’s question. I can’t drag my eyes away from the bloody top on the floor.
‘Your turn, Beth,’ Georgie says.
My mouth turns dry as my eyes shift to the white dishcloth on my lap. I peel back the edges. Inside is a plastic carrier bag. It rustles as I open it and peer inside.
‘What is it?’ Tasha asks.
Fear scrapes its way up my throat. I’m trying so hard to stay calm for the baby, but I can’t.
I’ve wanted this pregnancy for so long – years filled with the lonely ache of wanting.
I saw myself taking long walks in the mornings and spending the afternoons baking and knitting tiny cardigans, talking to my baby girl.
All those years, I never thought the weeks of my pregnancy would pass with my neighbour dead and a police investigation hanging over us.
What if the fear – this constant hum of worry – affects my baby’s development or leaks into her personality?
You really shouldn’t call the baby a girl, the voice whispers. You’ll only be disappointed if it turns out to be a boy.
But I feel deep in my soul that she’s a little girl. As clear as the knowledge that she is already more important to me than the air I breathe. I think of Alistair and Henry. Our perfect family. Our perfect life.
And a little baby girl who needs me.
She needed me to do everything I could to make sure she was conceived. And so I did. Keira’s comment in the playground the day after we found out Jonny was dead lingers in my thoughts.
‘Sure it’s not twins? You’re big for three months.’
The words creep into my ears again, cold and taunting.
Of course it’s three months. Three months makes the baby Alistair’s.
But four months ago, Alistair was ill with stomach flu.
It knocked him out for weeks. It’s another small white lie I tell.
Always planning the midwife appointments on the days I know Alistair has lectures and meetings he can’t get out of.
A white lie that’s worth the guilt that sits so hard in my chest for deceiving my kind, trusting husband.
Because I was perfect. I was doing everything right.
But Alistair’s sperm count was still low.
We were told a natural conception wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t likely either.
And so in March, I went to a fertility clinic to use a sperm donor.
It was the only way to give Alistair the second child he wanted as badly as I did.
Even if it meant a lie.
Then, of all the thousands of people who live in the city, the thousands more that visit every day, it was my neighbour who saw me on the street after my appointment.
Jonny.
I lied about my reasons for being there, but Jonny knew. Now he’s dead, and sitting on my lap in a white dishcloth is the knife used to kill him.