27. Starling
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
STARLING
“Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Beating Death, where we mix makeup and murder and delve into the gritty details of both how to look good and escape a serial killer. Today I will be re-creating a red-carpet look while we discuss a female killer. Yes, they do exist, and yes, they’re just as interesting, if not more so, to talk about.
Because what makes a woman a killer is often very complicated . . .”
I press pause. The video has, at this moment, thirteen views and two comments, and one of those comments is from my alternate account.
I invested in a proper camera and a proper editing program, and it’s not paying off yet.
But at least I look the part now, and that’s half the battle, isn’t it?
I just need to go viral somehow, and it’ll all work out in the end.
The upload was only two hours ago. Thirteen views in that time is actually somewhat of a record. Perhaps this will be the video that does succeed.
It’s easier to stress about this than to knock on Crow’s door.
She lives on one of those streets that look fancy on first glance, but further inspection reveals most of the houses have been converted into flats or multiple rooms, and it means the exteriors aren’t looked after.
Paint is peeling from the windowsills; green gunk stains the walls underneath the gutters; weeds poke through the dirty paving.
There are ugly gray doorbells with names written on stickers that have been replaced hundreds of times on the numerous buttons.
Crow’s house, at least, only has two options: her or a woman named Chelsea.
I am early, so I have been waiting on the other side of the road, watching my own TikTok.
The makeup I spent hours on earlier has been wiped clean for tonight, replaced with a simple concealer and beige lip.
And some mascara and eyeliner. It feels both right and wrong to dress up for this because it’s been so long, and I’m dying to know what they all look like now.
Crow has an Instagram she never uses, Wren doesn’t have anything, and Cuckoo has Instagram and TikTok, but I’ve only ever caught glimpses of her disguised by sunglasses or a turn of her head.
If Goldie was here she’d probably have a professional Instagram account, a true influencer, posting gorgeous photos daily.
As if she has read my mind, a goldfinch flies by and lands on the garden wall near Crow’s front gate. I watch it for a few seconds, my stomach clenched. It preens itself, sits still for a few seconds, then flies away.
She always come to me in this way: goldfinches, or a token of them, a painting or poem or photograph. Sometimes I wish I could see the real her, but there are no such things as ghosts. If there were, there are many serial killers who would be endlessly haunted.
I wait a couple more minutes, then accept I am too early and cross the road and ring her doorbell. It is an unpleasant trill, too high-pitched. The light comes on in the hall and then the door opens and here she is, Crow, in front of me after all these years.
The similarities are what I see first. The long dark hair, which Crow has clung to like a safety blanket her entire life.
Even now she hides behind it slightly, partly covering her face.
She is still pale, her eyebrows are still too thick, very nearly joined together but not quite.
But she is wearing an orange jumper and ordinary jeans, the kind of bright colors younger Crow would never have been seen dead in.
She hasn’t got any shoes on, revealing mismatched socks, another oddity in someone so organized.
Even though we’re not beyond twenty-five, she has a wrinkle on her forehead, which deepens as she frowns.
No surprise there. A smile was always so rare with her, other than when we . . .
“Starling,” she says, a name I haven’t heard in so long.
But we’ll always be birds to each other. I was never going to call her anything but Crow.
How does she see me? She’s doing the same thing, appraising me, looking me up and down with her intense eyes, but she doesn’t betray a reaction. She steps aside, gesturing me in. “Come on. I’m upstairs. Quick, before she comes out.”
I have no idea who she is, but I hurry up the stairs regardless. “Am I the first to arrive?” I ask, even though I know I am.
“Yes.”
“It’s . . . horrible, isn’t it?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Crow says. She opens the door to her flat, leading down a small corridor to a warm and bright open-plan living room.
There is a bookshelf in the corner of the room, and no television.
This comforts me; it is very much the Crow I know.
On the other hand, there are empty bottles of wine lined up along her kitchen counter waiting to be taken out for recycling; this is very unlike the Crow I know, who always pulled a face at every drink we tried together.
“Should I . . . take my shoes off?”
“Sure.”
There is a long silence while I untie my laces and tuck my shoes to the side of her sofa. It’s so awkward. Crow and I used to be the closest.
We should have stayed friends.
We could have done. But we used university as an excuse, an easy way to “drift apart” without having to blame the real reason.
“What do you do now?” My voice is practically falsetto. My TikTok voice, my showman voice.
“I work for a marketing company.”
“Are you still writing?”
I want to take the question back as soon as I ask it because if she was writing, she’d surely have led with that, but she shrugs.
“When I have the time,” is all she replies. She doesn’t ask what I do, so I don’t get to tell her about Beating Death.
The doorbell rings, rescuing us.
I follow Crow down because there is nothing else to do and because I want to see whoever it is myself too. I am nervous for either of them, but my insides twist when I see Wren because she is the entire reason we’re here.
Wren is smaller, somehow, like she’s shrunk into herself even more. She still has her wispy fringe which practically covers her eyes, and she doesn’t quite look at us straight. She is comfortingly Wren, shy and nervous and unintimidating.
“Hello,” she mumbles. “I’m glad to see you.”
“How was Cambridge in the end?” Crow says. “You didn’t go to Japan after all.”
I expect Wren to crumple—the old her would have—but she is steely.
“It was okay,” she says. “You’d have loved it, I think. Felt right at home.”
Crow raises an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“And I haven’t gone to Japan yet,” Wren adds. “But I will.”
“Come in,” Crow says at last. “I’m upstairs.”
The atmosphere is even worse than when I first arrived.
We walk in heavy silence, footsteps loud on the wood staircase, and when we are in Crow’s flat, she busies herself with boiling the kettle and setting out mugs, even though we haven’t said we want a drink.
Wren stands uncertainly in the center of the living room, studying the space, and it gives me the opportunity for a second look around, at details that aren’t as obvious on first glance.
Threads coming loose on the sofa, a damp patch in the corner of the ceiling, a stash of opened envelopes poorly hidden under the coffee table.
There is a well-thumbed copy of The Goldfinch, which startles me, on an end table next to a stock photograph of the Eiffel Tower hanging on the wall.
She’s here with us, then. Intrigued by what we have to say and what we are going to do.
“Tea?” Crow finally says. “While we wait for Cuckoo?”
“Yes, thanks,” I say. “No sugar for me.”
“I remember,” she says quietly. “Wren, three sugars?”
“Just the one now,” Wren replies. “You have a lovely home.”
Crow says nothing to this.
Why is Cuckoo late? It’s typical of her to be careless, but surely not in a moment as important as this one.
Crow labors over the teas, letting them stew and standing over them as if preparing a complicated cocktail.
I try and make conversation, ask when she moved in here, but she gives short, clipped answers.
She’s stressed. We’re all stressed. We can’t believe we’re really doing this.
The mugs are placed on the coffee table (on coasters, of course) when at last the doorbell rings again. Cuckoo. She’ll be able to break this weird tension, surely.
“You can stay here,” Crow tells Wren and me, but we follow her anyway.
We are beaten by another woman, who has answered the door before us. The downstairs flat has its front door open, a view inside of another small corridor, decorated with several plants. She is tall and imposing and has her hands on her hips, and she’s giving Cuckoo an earful.
“Chelsea,” Crow mutters, but by this point the neighbor has turned to us, revealing Cuckoo behind her, and Cuckoo is all I can focus on.
She is almost identical to the Cuckoo I remember.
Still short, still bright blonde hair, still wearing her trademark grin.
Her makeup is terrible, eyebrow pencil filled in too much and foundation a shade too light, but she’s clearly made an effort.
She’s wearing a dress, which is a bit surprising, but the bottom is decorated with sewn-on cats, definitely on brand.
And she isn’t confused or appalled or concerned when she sees us—her face lights up.
She’s glad. It’s an emotion I—and I think Crow and Wren—had not considered.
“Who’s this misery?” she says, indicating her head at Crow’s neighbor, even though she’s still right in front of her. “Please tell me this isn’t your girlfriend.”
“Absolutely not!” Chelsea snaps. “I am another tenant of this property, and I am sick to death of the doorbell ringing every five minutes and the sound of you all galumphing up and down these stairs. How many more will there be?”
“I’m sorry, Chelsea—” Crow starts.
“Well, we’re expecting the marching band to show up any minute,” Cuckoo says. “They’re bringing all their instruments, obviously. We’re having a rehearsal, you see. I play the drums.” She bangs against the wall next to her. “Aren’t I amazing?”
“This is preposterous,” Chelsea says. “You cannot hold a rehearsal in your flat upstairs!”
“It’s an emergency,” Cuckoo tells her. “If we don’t perfect this routine before Christmas, Santa’s elves will vanish. They have to listen to our song once a year or they die.”
She hasn’t changed. A smile cracks across my face.
The ball has finally dropped for Chelsea, who narrows her eyes at Cuckoo. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Cuckoo replies. “The elves need me.”
“She’s the last one, Chelsea,” Crow finally says. “Sorry for disturbing you.”
Chelsea huffs. “Keep the noise to a minimum.”
She stalks away, slams her door dramatically, and at last, we are the four of us.
I never imagined we would meet again in a random hallway of a random house, that we would be adults, that we would ever truly reunite, as a matter of fact.
Cuckoo closes the front door, shutting out the cold draft, and then barrels forward and wraps me in an embrace.
She smells of cheap perfume and strawberry shampoo, and it’s so comforting I hug her back. And then she does the same to Wren and finally Crow.
“God,” she says. “It’s been too long. I’ve missed you all so much.”
We settle in Crow’s living room at last: curtains drawn, mugs of lukewarm tea, lamps instead of overhead light on. We speak in whispers because terrible deeds deserve no more.
“We know what we have to do,” I murmur.
“It’s why we’re here,” Crow says. “We wouldn’t have come together otherwise. But we have no choice.”
“So when are we doing it?” Cuckoo asks. “When are we moving Goldie’s body?”
The Goldfinch, balanced on the end table, clatters to the ground.