Chapter 30
THIRTY
BETH
‘Beth?’ Georgie’s voice is a prod to the small of my back.
I look up. Open my mouth. Try to speak.
My hands continue to shake as I lift the dishcloth, unable to touch the object inside. ‘It’s a knife.’
The handle black plastic. The blade long and sharp. The metal shiny except for a smudge of dark-red blood.
‘Oh God,’ Tasha whispers, hugging herself tighter, trying to shrink herself down.
Even Georgie pales as I place the knife on the coffee table. I sit back, wrapping my cardigan tighter around my body, around my baby. The world feels like it’s spinning too fast. I can’t keep up.
I like order. I like lists. I batch cook. I colour-code the calendar on the kitchen wall. I plan. But all it’s got me is here – to a knife used to murder my neighbour. A knife now sitting on my coffee table and a bloody top dropped on my rug.
Somewhere outside, a car door slams. We all jump. I think of DS Sató and the other detective coming to this door. Finding the three of us here with this evidence.
Georgie is the first to speak. Her voice is low, her eyes locked on the knife.
‘This is how she did it,’ she says. ‘Exactly how we talked about. She let herself into Jonny’s house with this key.
She drugged him with your dad’s sleeping pills.
’ Georgie points to Tasha before her gaze swings to me.
‘Then she murdered him in his bed. With the knife. I bet she suffocated him too. She recorded our plan, and then she followed every step of it.’
Tasha is gasping now, her breaths short and ragged. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God. She’s got that recording. She’s got us actually saying it… and she… she actually did it. She’s crazy.’
Georgie nods. ‘But smart too. She made sure it could be pinned on us.’
‘We have an alibi,’ Tasha cries.
‘No, we don’t,’ Georgie snaps. ‘You spent a lot of that night in the kitchen, Tasha. How do we know you didn’t run back here and kill him?’
Tasha makes a noise in the back of her throat, midway between a cry and a sob. ‘Beth spent half the night in the toilets throwing up.’ She gestures a hand in my direction. ‘She could easily have slipped out and killed Jonny.’
A sharp pang of betrayal cuts through me. For Tasha to turn on me like this when we’re best friends. It stings.
‘You know my morning sickness is worse in the evenings,’ I murmur. ‘And I’m not the one acting weird,’ I add, throwing a glance at Tasha.
‘I’m not,’ Tasha replies, but there’s something in her expression. I’ve hit a nerve.
‘You have been,’ I push, turning to Georgie. ‘Hasn’t she?’
Georgie frowns before nodding. ‘I’m not saying you’re trying to cover up a murder, but you have been acting more stressed than usual, Tash.’
‘I…’ She wipes her hands over her face before looking back at us. ‘It’s Marc,’ she says. ‘He was made redundant.’
‘Oh,’ Georgie says. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘Because we’ve had a lot going on,’ she replies, motioning to the yellow top still sitting on the floor of my living room. ‘And…’ Tasha continues. ‘It happened three months ago, and he’s only just told me.’
‘But he’s still been going to work…’ My words trail off when I see the hurt on my friend’s face.
‘He was lying,’ she says. ‘He pretended to leave for business trips and to the office, and the entire time he wasn’t.’ Tears stream down her face. For a moment, it looks like she might say more but stops.
‘Did he say why?’ I ask.
Tasha shakes her head. ‘Just that he didn’t want to let me down.’
Georgie reaches across the sofa, squeezing Tasha’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I want to ask where Marc has been going if not to work.
And what Tasha is going to do. I can’t imagine Alistair ever lying to me like that.
We tell each other everything – every mundane detail of our days, every small worry, every little thing Henry does to make us laugh.
We’ve built our relationship on quiet honesty.
On solid dependability. If something was wrong, he’d tell me. That’s the kind of marriage we have.
If we can just get through this – past Jonny’s murder and these messages that keep coming and the police investigation – then I’ll live with the guilt if it means we can have the life we’ve dreamed of. The life we deserve.
‘We can’t turn on each other,’ Georgie says, dragging my thoughts back to the room.
‘I could’ve killed Jonny while you two were clearing up.
I took the empty bottles to the recycling bins, remember?
Can either of you say for sure how long I was?
But this wasn’t us. It was Keira. Whatever happens, we have to stick together. Together we are stronger.’
One of Georgie’s mantras isn’t going to save you from this.
But Georgie is right. Turning on each other now won’t help anything.
‘We need to get rid of this stuff?’ I say, staring again at the top on my rug. ‘If the police knock on my door right now, it’s over. They can never see this evidence.’
‘We can’t, Beth,’ Georgie cuts in. ‘Keira’s message said we have to keep it.
She has more evidence, remember? We didn’t play her game on Monday when she told us to kill her ex and look where it’s got us?
She’s escalated everything. We have to hide this stuff and play along for now or who knows what she’ll do next. ’
‘I can’t keep that in my house,’ Tasha whispers, pointing a shaking finger at her top.
‘We have to,’ I reply, feeling sick again. ‘Georgie is right.’
Georgie nods. ‘And we have to find a way out of this. The time to do nothing is gone. And no talking to DS Sató,’ she adds.
Tasha bites her lip but nods. ‘I want to go to the police, but I’m scared they’ll hear the recording Keira has and see all this evidence, and they’ll think it was me.’
‘But your DNA won’t be on that top, will it?’ Georgie says. ‘They might not—’
‘They will,’ Tasha cries. ‘They’re my dad’s sleeping pills, right? And I had the biggest motive for wanting him dead. You both didn’t like him, but I’m the only one who had something to gain from his death because we can get the extension now. DS Sató already suspects me.’
A tense silence winds itself like a noose around us. ‘We have two choices,’ Georgie says eventually. ‘We either go to the police and tell them everything, or we kill Keira’s ex and hope that’s the end of it.’
Tasha’s next inhale is sharp.
‘We’re not murderers, Georgie,’ is all I can say. ‘We can’t—’
The ping of another message cuts me off.
Georgie snatches at her phone and gasps.
‘It’s Keira,’ she hisses. ‘She says: “Either drive to the country lanes by Fordly Woods tomorrow at five p.m. and kill my ex, or I’ll come back to Magnolia Close again. How safe do you think your precious families are? I’ve shown you I’m capable of murder, and I won’t stop until I’ve got what I want.
Ignore me. Go to the police, and I will destroy what you love most in the world. ”
Another ping. Then another and another.
A sob catches in Georgie’s throat as she turns the screen to show us. The photo stops my heart. It’s the children. Henry and Oscar and Matilda and Sofia. They’re standing together in their school uniforms. Not at school, not on the road, but here – inside the gates of Magnolia Close.
‘Oh God.’ Tasha’s hands fly to her mouth. ‘That was taken just now.’
‘How do you—’ I start to ask.
‘Matilda’s lunch box. It’s new. I got it for her yesterday. This photo was taken less than an hour ago.’
‘Inside the close,’ I add, swallowing a fear that feels like it will never ease.
Georgie swipes the screen of her phone. ‘There’s another photo,’ she says.
I lean forward and stare at the image of a man. Mid-forties. Running kit. Short hair, grey at the temples. The kind of ordinary man you’d never look at twice in the street.
It’s followed by another message. Tasha and I both reach for our phones to read.
He’ll be running along Fordly Lane at 5.05 p.m. tomorrow. Hit him with your car and make sure he’s dead!
I’ve barely had time to finish reading when the messages are deleted.
Tasha and Georgie look up from their phones. Tears are streaming down Tasha’s face. ‘She’s going… she says she’ll hurt our children—’
‘Unless we kill her ex tomorrow,’ Georgie finishes in a trembling voice. ‘While she has a watertight alibi, I assume.’
The phone slides from Tasha’s fingers and hits the rug with a dull thud. ‘So…’ she stutters, ‘if we don’t do this, she’ll come back and hurt our families? Kill them?’
‘This was her plan all along,’ Georgie says, her voice hollow now, like the strength has been sucked out of her. ‘That night in the pub, we were letting off steam. It was a joke. But she egged us on, didn’t she? Kept pushing us to say more. She killed Jonny just so we’d kill her ex.’
I nod. ‘We can’t even think about going to the police anymore,’ I say. ‘We can’t risk her hurting our families,’ I choke, unable to say Henry’s name.
‘I can’t… …’ Tasha’s voice is broken by a sob.
That one is always unravelling.
‘What choice do we have, Tasha?’ I ask, clenching my jaw, fighting a flare of frustration. We need to start thinking clearly. There’s too much at stake for any of us to fall apart.
‘This isn’t about murder,’ Georgie whispers, looking determined once more. ‘It’s about survival. It’s about protecting our families.’
I sit still – heart thudding, nausea rolling – wondering if this one choice, this one irreversible act is about to destroy my life. Or if I did that already by lying to Alistair and trying to give him the perfect family we both deserve.