39. Cuckoo
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CUCKOO
We should have killed them both when we had the chance.
It makes me itch, thinking of Cassandra Fletcher.
All the times I sat on the edge of her back garden, peering through her kitchen window and watching her, and I thought I was the one with the power.
I had killed her husband, and I could rejoice in knowing her life was never going to be the same again.
That was enough, that this dumb, shallow, materialistic woman was living a life of uncertainty, of never understanding what had happened to the man she loved.
I studied her, sitting at her kitchen table, feeding her cats, and never saw her as anything but what she presented as.
But all of these years, she has always been planning to come back to Bishop’s House. To take it from us.
Not only that, but take Goldie from us too.
How does she know so much? When she found Goldie, why did she move her body? Why send us that message pretending to be her? Why play these games?
But I should have known. In a marriage with such a twisted individual as Hugo, his wife cannot be too far from his caliber. I always knew she was bad; I should have known she was evil too.
I have become very good at noticing people when they don’t want to be noticed.
Spying, some might call it, but I call it being observant.
I notice my sister sneaking out to see her boyfriend, who Dad calls a “waster,” and to be honest he rather is, bottom in all his lessons and spending most of his time at the skate park, even when he’s meant to be in school.
His greatest ambition, Carly once told me, is to die at twenty-seven like all the rock stars do.
To this, I told her at least that means she only has nine more years of him, and she responded by hitting me with her pillow.
We still share a room because what other choice do we have, and she is far worse at sneaking out than I ever was.
It’s weird that she’s the age I was when I was doing it, in fact technically older, eighteen a couple of months ago, but it’s so different.
I hear her shuffling her covers, accidentally kicking something, muttering under her breath, her phone screen bright as anything.
She slips out to meet him and then comes back in the early hours, and I find I can’t sleep properly until I hear that click of the door, evidence that she has returned safe even though she’s not doing anything anywhere near as dangerous.
I notice Dad too. The gray hairs and wrinkles that seem ever more present, even though he’s still young, really, despite being years older than when I first thought of him as ancient.
He is ostensibly, by all first impressions, through his grief.
He smiles and laughs and he even has started meeting his friends again for drinks at the pub, and he has a steady job and he’s earning an okay wage and he’s not crying every morning.
But Dean tells me he still has moments where he walks into their room and Dad has Mum’s things out, a shoebox he created of her favorite trinkets that he can’t bear to get rid of.
And he’s surrounded by tissues and he shouts at Dean to give him a minute and his eyes are red.
I see that his nails are still bitten to the quick, that he’s always tired, that he goes out with his friends but he’s always the first one home.
And I wish, when I see him like this, that I could tell him.
I killed him, Dad. For you. For me. For Carly and Dean. For Mum.
Hugo doesn’t get to breathe, not when he stopped her from doing it.
It wouldn’t make him better, I know that. Not in the way I perhaps hoped when I did it. For myself too. I thought killing Hugo would take it all away, but actually I will never stop thinking of him. Not from any guilt or regret. There is a pleasure—perverse, maybe, twisted—in remembering him.
Wren’s old bedroom is closing in around me, the walls shrinking by the second.
My chest is tight, and each breath is more difficult than the last. I have to walk away, find myself opening the window and leaning down to breathe in the fresh air.
We knew someone was out to get us, but this makes it so much worse.
Cassandra Fletcher must know what we have done to her husband.
And now she is out to take her revenge.
“She lied to me,” Wren says. When I am able to lift my head and look at her, all I see in her face is betrayal. She is completely stricken. “She was so . . . I don’t know how to explain it. She had these cats with daft names, she made me a drink. She was sympathetic about the burglary story.”
“Gullible,” I say, and she droops.
“I didn’t mean to be. She lied, she wished good luck to the new owner!”
“She fooled you,” I say simply. “Really, she fooled all of us. We never seriously considered her as a threat.”
“She has the most reason to despise us,” Crow says. “We murdered her husband.”
“But how could she know that?” Starling murmurs. “We were so careful. No one outside of this room should know anything.”
“No more indirect confrontation,” I say. “We need to do what you two did with Patricia and bang on her door and demand answers.”
Starling balks at this. “Big mistake. And I don’t think Wren and Crow did the right thing with Patricia either, but it’s too late to fix that now.”
“Then what?” I ask. “We have to talk to her somehow.”
“A public place is best,” Starling says. “Just in case. She could be dangerous, Cuckoo.”
“We’re dangerous,” I say.
“Even so,” Starling says, “we have to be careful. We can’t let that woman ruin everything.”
“The charity event,” Crow says. “She invited Wren to that charity event she’s running.”
Wren shakes her head. “You can’t seriously expect me to go to that? She obviously knows I’m not a neighbor. She’s up to something.”
“It’s the safest option,” Starling says.
“Crow’s right. She can’t do anything to you there, and she did say to bring some friends.
We don’t know she knows that. Alright, she lied about owning Bishop’s House, but that could be for any number of reasons.
For all intents and purposes, you’re her neighbor, we’re your friends. ”
Could this work? Even if Cassandra knows Wren isn’t really a neighbor, she can’t outright come and say it, can she? How is she going to play this?
“A charity event.” I roll my eyes. “Of course she pretends she’s a good person.”
“Maybe she isn’t such a bad person?” Crow ventures. “If she’s attending charity events?”
“This is the woman who stood by my mother’s killer,” I say quietly. “The woman who married him shortly afterward.”
Crow shakes her head. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just meant, maybe now that Hugo’s gone, she’s become a better person? Maybe she—”
“Maybe she what, Crow? Saw Goldie’s body in the ground and moved it out of the goodness of her heart? Gave her a proper burial, did she, but just didn’t think to tell anyone?”
I’m shouting now, but I can’t help it.
“She stood by Hugo when he was in the dock. She’s played the part of the victim ever since he went missing. She lied to Wren. She’s not innocent in any of this.”
“I’m sorry! Why are you like this? After everything we’ve done for you?”
“Crow,” Starling says. “Don’t.”
She whips round to glare at Starling. “Oh, everyone always takes Cuckoo’s side.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Starling murmurs. “We need to be on the same page here. We all need to calm down.”
I am anything but calm. Fuck Crow, and the way she never understands.
Her father might have left her, but he’s still around.
She knows where he lives. She can walk up to his house at any moment.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a parent.
Really, truly lose them. The only one who ever did understand was Goldie.
Goldie. This is about Goldie.
We have to focus on her. Starling is right.
“At this point, we have to assume it was Cassandra Fletcher who sent us the message pretending to be Goldie,” Starling continues.
“She’s the new owner of Bishop’s House. We know she’s been inside the property, so it stands to reason she’s explored the grounds too.
She’s the one who discovered Goldie’s body and moved it. ”
“But why move it?” Wren says, unable to hide her relief that Crow and I are no longer arguing. “That’s the part I don’t get. Why not call the police?”
“That’s what we’re going to have to find out,” Starling says. “If we can all get along. Cuckoo? Crow?”
Starling is so like Goldie in this moment, the peacemaker, pulling us together again.
It’s what Goldie would want.
I nod, begrudgingly. “We can get along.”
Crow nods too.
“Then it’s settled,” Starling says. “We have to speak to Cassandra Fletcher. And we have to suss her out, figure out who she is as a person. This charity event is perfect. She invited Wren, said bring along some friends. Well, we are absolutely going to go.”
Starling is excited, I realize. Her eyes are sparkling and her mouth twitches as if trying to control a smile.
This is exactly the kind of thing she’s always dreamed of: investigating, following up leads, infiltrating places.
I have to ignore the twist of resentment in my gut that she is enjoying this and focus on keeping us together.
We do this together, or not at all.
Goldie is waiting for me when I leave Wren’s house.
I take a deep breath.
Is going to this charity event a good idea? I ask her.
Goldie presses her lips together, frowning.
Are you going to speak to me?
You lost your temper, she says finally. Again. You always lose your temper.
At Crow, I am quick to inform her. Crow always says the dumbest things. It’s like she’s deliberately playing devil’s advocate.
Your way wouldn’t have worked.
I want to tell Goldie this isn’t true, but we both know I’d be lying. She’s so real I want to reach my hand out and touch her, but every time I work up the courage to do this, I’m certain she’ll slip through my fingers and vanish, and with the illusion shattered, I will never see her again.
How do you feel about Patricia now? she asks me, changing the subject.
I don’t want to think about Patricia, I say. You hated her. That’s enough for me.
We were so young, she says.
Where are you? Please tell me.
Oh, Cuckoo, she says. I’m right here.