41. Crow
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CROW
Wren speaks before we can stop her. “Wh-where did you get that bracelet?”
We did not need any more evidence because we know what Goldie’s bracelet looks like.
We saw it every single day when we saw Goldie; the two were never separate, not even in death.
We did not need any more evidence, but the way Cassandra’s face finally cracks from its veneer of perfection, just a little, into a fleeting look of triumph, is enough to know beyond all doubt.
If this were a court of law, she’d have been guilty a thousand times over.
“Where did you get that bracelet?” Wren repeats, sounding frantic.
“You’re not a neighbor,” Cassandra says. “I think the five of us need to talk, like I said, don’t you? Follow me.”
She turns, swiftly, and we have no choice but to do as she says.
She hitches her sleeve down, but not before I get a glance of my favorite charm, the miniature dachshund with its sapphire eye, still there, gem winking at me in the light.
There is no mistaking it. We left that bracelet in the ground with Goldie, her most treasured possession, and we thought we would never see it again.
“She’s leaving,” Starling whispers urgently, nodding in the direction of the exit.
Sure enough, Cassandra is hurrying out of the doorway, not even looking back to make sure we really are following her.
“What the fuck do we do now?” I say.
“Keep your voice down,” Starling whispers, all too aware of the numerous people around us. “People will start staring.”
“We follow her, like she wants,” Cuckoo says. “We can’t talk here.”
We leave the events room mere moments after Cassandra and step outside into the cold, wet evening.
Down the road slightly is a line of taxis, but Cassandra heads in the opposite direction, along the street and round a corner to a smaller alleyway, the side wall of the hotel on one side and a row of small terraced houses on the other.
She ducks into an alcove along the hotel side, perhaps once used for their bin storage or deliveries but now locked off from the rest of the hotel, and finally turns to face us, folding her arms.
“I’ll make this quick,” Cassandra says. “There’s something you need to know about your friend. I’ll explain everything, but not here.”
Your friend. She knows.
“You know we’re Goldie’s friends,” Cuckoo says. “How?”
“One thing about buying another property is making sure it’s secure while it’s unoccupied,” she says. “I’ve been driving by at all hours, checking on things. Imagine my immense surprise when I saw the four of you leaving the grounds, jumping over the fence into the street.”
She saw us?
“I did some digging into you,” she says. She turns to Wren. “And then just think of my amazement when the door knocks a short time later, and it’s you, one of the very girls I saw scaling my gate.”
“You knew I was lying from the start,” Wren whispers.
She wore the bracelet on purpose. She did it to provoke us, to get us out here.
Goldie, inevitably, joins the fray. She’s finding this amusing, a smile curled at her lip, and I fight the urge to scream at her in front of everyone.
She is not wearing her bracelet, not now that Cassandra has it, and I can’t remember if I’ve ever looked for it on her before.
I’ve always been so keen to look away from her.
“Bishop’s House,” Cassandra says. “Seeing as you’re all so interested in it, that’s where we’ll have this conversation. Meet me there in an hour.”
“What conversation?” Cuckoo snaps. “Give us her bracelet back.”
“I will,” she says, “when you find out what I’ve discovered in that house. It’s about your friend. Are you going to come, or not?”
Cuckoo opens her mouth to argue some more, but I get in ahead of her. “Yes. We’re coming.”
“Perfect.” Cassandra smiles. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have an event I need to return to before we meet again.”
Cuckoo is furious after she leaves, rounding on me. “Why did you just agree like that? We don’t know what she’s planning.”
“I don’t get it,” Starling says. “Why has she not gone to the police? She found Goldie’s body. Why the hell would she keep that quiet—no, not even that, why would she move it?”
“Maybe she’s going to the police now,” I say glumly.
“No,” Cuckoo says. “She wants us to come to Bishop’s House. She won’t go to the police.”
“We have to kill her,” Wren says. “Don’t we?”
There is a silence after this, her words heavy.
Our breath leaves our bodies in visible puffs of air, and I’m reminded of when we were children and we’d hold our forefinger and middle finger together, mimicking a cigarette, and blow out as much breath as possible to pretend we were smoking.
Long before we tried the real thing together, when cigarettes were still one of the most daring things we could imagine.
Back when Wren said she could never kill anyone, no matter what they had done.
“I wish we’d killed her years ago,” Cuckoo says.
Good God. What are we doing to each other? What have we become?
“If we’re going to do that,” Starling says, “she’s picked the perfect setting.”
“Our setting,” I say, the words oily in my mouth. “Our nest. Bishop’s House.”