Chapter 23
JEMMA
Even if I couldn’t hear her talking, I would know it was Suzanne at my front door from the chaotic sound of metal hitting wood, then metal, then wood again as she repeatedly misses the lock. She never stops talking, and rarely looks at a door while trying to insert a key into it.
Eventually I hear the door open, followed by her voice and Lottie’s quieter one, and then a scuffle of coat and bag divestment in the hall: rucksack scraping against wall, shoes hitting the floor.
‘I’m in here making supper,’ I yell, squeezing the juice of half a lemon over the mixture in the bowl in front of me: turkey mince, feta, parsley, garlic, red onion and mint.
I decided to cook a proper meal – one of my regulars, homemade healthy hamburgers – because after Simon left, cooking was the last thing I felt like doing.
I decided that choosing the opposite of what felt tempting and easiest in the moment was probably the right call, since all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry forever, in preparation for perhaps spending the next twenty years in prison.
The bowl I’m using for the hamburger mixture is too small, but it’s my favourite of the kitchen things I inherited from Mum, who bought it from a jumble sale at my playgroup.
It’s full of cracks now, and very likely a health hazard, with an uneven navy-blue rim and a pattern of bright yellow lemons that look as if they’re dancing.
My favourite thing about the bowl is that Dad lied in order to be allowed to keep it.
He told Marianne he’d been the one who’d bought it and was the only one who’d ever used it – that he’d picked it out especially because it ‘looked fun’.
‘So she said it was disrespectful based only on the shirt not being tucked in?’ Suzanne is saying to Lottie as they appear in the kitchen. ‘Like, there was nothing else to go on? No insubordination?’
‘I don’t know what that is, but no,’ says Lotts. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Wow. That’s wild.’ Suzanne shakes her head. ‘Like, there’s no way a shirt might escape from a teenager’s belt without that teenager noticing, of course – it has to be a planned act of rebellion.’
Normally I’d be feeling myself tense up at any hint of trouble at school, but I already don’t care about whatever this is, even before I’ve heard the story. A teacher being unfair to Lottie might soon be the least of her problems. Try: mother charged with conspiracy to commit murder …
Stop it. That hasn’t happened. It won’t happen.
Ollie once said that the worst problems we ever have are the ones we don’t have yet.
‘Eh?’ I said to him, getting ready to take the piss.
‘It’s true,’ he replied. ‘Because we can’t solve them.
There’s no action we can take to make anything any better.
How can you solve a problem that doesn’t exist? ’
‘Something smells delicious.’ Suzanne leans towards Mum’s bowl and inhales.
‘Please stay and have some,’ I say.
‘Can’t. Got a dinner date and I need to shower, wash my hair, do all the things. I should head home, start getting ready.’
I look at my watch. Nearly five. ‘You really should,’ I agree, feeling guilty for making her drive out here to the middle of rural nowhere.
Her flat and job are both in Rawndesley, not exactly close to our house or Lottie’s school.
She’s done the school run for two days now.
Paddy hasn’t felt up to all the driving, what with having to go to work as well.
He seems a bit more thrown by Marianne’s death than I’d have thought he’d be.
‘I’ve got a strong suspicion my hot date will turn out to be tepid,’ Suzanne says. ‘I’d much rather stay here with you and Lotts. Still, I’d better give the latest applicant a chance.’
Lottie laughs. She adores Suzanne, and seems as relaxed in her company as she always has. Thank God. She’s very different today from the hunched, haunted-looking Lottie I found at Devey House on Monday when I got back from the police station.
‘Tell me about this one,’ I say. ‘Is he also from the internet?’
‘Yup. Bumble,’ says Suzanne. To Lotts she says, ‘Will you listen to your mother? “From the internet”! Not all of us met our husbands when we were, like, three and before typewriters had been invented.’
‘His name is Bumble?’ I try to look open-minded.
‘Oh, my God.’ Suzanne puts her head in her hands. ‘No, Jemm, the app’s called Bumble. The dude is called …’ She breaks off suddenly, looking furtive.
‘You have to tell us,’ says Lottie.
‘Okay, look, it’s not great, but remember it’s not his fault. His parents chose the name, so he can’t be held responsible.’
‘What’s he called?’ I can’t help laughing.
‘He’s known as Diz, but his actual name is Digory.’ Suzanne sighs and holds up her hands. ‘I know, I know. It’s from the Narnia books. So … if by some remote chance it works out between him and me, my parents-in-law will be lunatics, apparently.’
‘Deal-breaker.’ I shake my head. ‘What’s the latest school drama, Lotts?’ I tip the turkey patties into a frying pan. ‘Did you get told off for an untucked shirt?’
‘Not me. A boy in my class did.’
‘Right. Well, you can untuck yours without reprisals, now you’re home,’ I tell her. ‘Why don’t you run up and get changed before supper?’
She nods. A few seconds later, I hear her footsteps on the landing above me, and questions and anxieties start to pour out of me: ‘How do you think she seems? Did she say anything about Marianne or what’s happened? Does she seem her usual self? What did you notice?’
‘Woah, slow down.’ Suzanne walks over to me and gives me a squeeze around the shoulders. ‘I’m much more worried about you than Lottie. She’s doing pretty well, I’d say, for a kid whose step-grandmother’s just been murdered. How are you doing? Bearing up okay?’
‘I’ll be fine if Lottie is.’
‘If she isn’t already then she will be,’ Suzanne says with certainty. ‘When I turned up, she was chatting away to her little gang of girly mates. But … there is one thing I need to tell you about. Lotts said something in the car this morning—’
‘Oh, my God.’ Fear floods my body. ‘What?’
‘Don’t panic, Jemm. It’s bullshit.’
‘Why didn’t you ring me straight away, if it happened this morning?’
‘Will you please calm down? I didn’t ring because my goddaughter begged me not to tell you she knows, and I wanted to have a good, long think before rushing into anything.’
‘Knows what?’ I say, and my voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere remote.
‘Thing is, she doesn’t know it,’ Suzanne says. ‘She can’t, because it’s not true. To be honest, I don’t even think she really believes it.’
‘Just tell me.’ Nausea curls around the back of my throat. ‘What did she say?’
Suzanne takes Mum’s bowl out of my hands, puts it down on the counter top.
‘That Paddy’s not her real father. Not her biological dad.’
‘What?’ Someone must have whipped my brain out of my skull and stamped on it before shoving it back in.
‘Oh, God, don’t cry, Jemm.’
If I could speak, I’d explain that it’s not sadness, it’s relief. Thank God. Lottie hasn’t confessed to killing Marianne. Of course she hasn’t, because she didn’t. Couldn’t have. Simon Waterhouse said so.
I didn’t know until just now that I’ve been carrying that subliminal fear around with me. Once I’ve recovered a little, I try to make a joke of it. ‘So who’s her real dad, then? Let me guess – who would she most like it to be? Andy Murray, the tennis player? She likes him.’
Suzanne doesn’t laugh or smile and, suddenly, I know what’s coming. I want to shout all my objections at once – That’s impossible. Did you tell her it’s impossible? – but I can’t make any words come out, and Lottie’s feet are moving again, upstairs.
Any second now, she’ll be back and I’ll have to … I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t imagine surviving the next five seconds, let alone anything beyond that.
‘She told me her biological dad’s name is Oliver Mayo,’ says Suzanne.