Chapter 44
I keep my head low as I duck under the police tape and head towards my car, but I should know better than to think that would stop me from being recognised.
‘Janine, wait!’
Sonya’s shouting hurries me along Maple Crescent, but she jogs to catch up with me.
‘What did the police say?’ she says, intercepting me. ‘How screwed is Otis?’
Her unashamed glee snaps something inside me. Everything becomes too much. Otis and his shapeshifting personality, Gabby and her refusal to accept that he might not be a saint, Sonya and her strange, self-absorbed ways. And in the centre of it all, Alexa Clarke, still missing.
I come to a stop with my hands balled into fists. ‘Do you even care about Alexa, Sonya? Or do you just care about getting one over on Otis?’
Stunned, Sonya blinks. ‘Of course I care about Alexa. She’s my best friend.’
‘A best friend you never visited! A best friend whose story you couldn’t wait to cash in on.’
Sonya’s cheeks colour. ‘What the hell, Janine? You’re supposed to be on my side.’
‘There are no sides in this! A woman is missing. All I wanted to do was find her. No secret motive, no using this story for my own gain. When you look back at everything you’ve done, can you honestly say that?’
‘You know nothing about how I’ve spent my last few days.’
‘You’re right, I don’t, but I’m sure I’ll read about it in tomorrow’s newspaper. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.’
I make a move to walk away but Sonya grabs me by the arm.
‘Aligning yourself with a killer, huh? There I was, thinking you had more of a brain than that. Clearly, you’re not as clever as your books suggest.’ I flinch, a reaction Sonya smirks at.
‘Did I hurt you? Good. We could have found Lex days ago if it weren’t for you thinking you could play detective. ’
‘Leave me alone,’ I say, pushing past Sonya before I say something I’ll regret.
‘You should leave solving crimes to your characters,’ she calls after me. ‘They’re the only ones who know what they’re doing.’
Even though I tell myself not to let Sonya get to me, her cattiness is hard to ignore. Tears blind me as I continue down Maple Crescent, but I refuse to break down with Sonya and the band of local gossips behind me.
Taking my phone from my pocket, I go to call Kamal, but as I unlock it, I spot several messages from Natalya in our group chat. My stomach drops.
The police are at Otis’s again and guess what? So is Janine! Looks like Margie was right… She’s been hanging around to scoop the story after all. How could we be so stupid to trust her?! x
Then the others, sent a few minutes later.
This is awkward. I obviously didn’t mean to send that in the group chat, but now a private conversation between me and Katherine is out in the open, I guess I can speak the truth.
Janine, it’s hurtful that you convinced me to write about Alexa Clarke while mining the story for a plot of your own.
Worst of all, you pretended to know nothing about what was going on.
If you’d been honest about your involvement, I would have backed off, but you lied to me and Katherine.
That’s not what we signed up for when we started this writing group.
I’m not sure I feel comfortable sharing my work with someone so dishonest. I don’t want to speak for Katherine, but I think maybe it’s best you don’t come to writing group anymore.
My lips part as I come to a stunned standstill. At first, I think my upset is indignation over Natalya accusing me of something I didn’t do, but when my chin wobbles, I admit the truth. My writing group is my lifeline, but as with everything else, I have found a way to fuck it up.
Tears well up in my eyes as I type then delete different responses.
Don’t come back? Fine! I don’t know why I went to meetings in the first place.
Don’t abandon me. Please. I need you and Katherine.
But whatever I type, it doesn’t make this situation hurt less. I feel like a teenager again, all awkwardness and insecurity, trying to keep up with ever-changing social rules I don’t understand.
‘Janine?’
I jump, startled to see Dorrit standing at the edge of her garden. Blushing, I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.
‘Are you okay?’ Dorrit presses.
Are you okay? – famously the worst question you can ask someone who is in tears.
As my face crumbles, Dorrit reaches her hand out. ‘Come on. This is nothing a cup of tea and a biscuit can’t make better.’
Even though I suspect she’s wrong about that, I slip my phone to Do Not Disturb and follow Dorrit towards her home.
The house is even more picture perfect close up than it is from the kerb, all old bricks and rural charm.
We enter through the back door, stepping into a kitchen that looks like something from an ‘Ideal Farmhouse Kitchen’ article from the nineties.
From a tartan dog bed in the corner, Magnus looks up as we enter the room.
‘It’s all right, Magnus. Janine is a friend,’ Dorrit says. Magnus lowers his head in relief. ‘I don’t know why he bothers. The last time he acted like a guard dog, my husband was still alive, and he’s been dead for six years.’
Before I can say how sorry I am to hear that, Dorrit indicates for me to sit at the rickety table in the centre of the room while she makes our drinks.
‘You have a lovely home,’ I say as I succumb to her orders.
‘Thank you. It’s too big for me to manage on my own these days, but I won’t sell it.
No, the only time I’ll leave this house is in a body bag.
’ As soon as the words leave her mouth, Dorrit glances over her shoulder at me.
‘I didn’t mean to be insensitive. Not with everything that’s going on with Alexa. ’
I duck behind my hair and study the grain of the wooden table.
‘You don’t want to believe death is what’s happened here? It is. They don’t send that many police cars for a woman they think has gone to pick up a loaf of bread and got lost on the way home.’
‘You don’t hold back, do you?’
Dorrit chuckles. ‘When you get to my age, you tend to become a little blunt. I’m sorry if my words are hard to hear, though. The good thing is, the end is coming, I can tell. I’m sure we’ll get answers soon.’
I look up as Dorrit approaches the table with an assortment of biscuits arranged neatly on a patterned plate. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I do, dear. The dark cloud that’s been hanging over Bramblethorpe will soon pass.’ Dorrit selects a cookie and hands the plate to me. ‘Eat. You look drawn.’
The bubbling kettle announces it has finished boiling as I accept the biscuit. Taking an obligatory bite, I watch Dorrit shuffle back to the counter.
‘Do you mind if I ask you about Alexa?’ I ask.
‘Be my guest, but I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know her well.’
‘I know, but you never know what might come up in conversation.’
Dorrit laughs as she carries two mugs of tea to the table. ‘That sounds like a line from a detective show,’ she says, lowering herself onto the seat beside me. ‘Go on then, what would you like to know?’
‘Everything, I guess.’
‘Then I’m afraid I’m the wrong person to ask. I told you, Alexa Clarke might be my neighbour, but I don’t know her. Not really.’
‘Well, would you say Alexa was happy?’
‘What a question! Are any of us happy? We’re all good at pretending we are, but are we? Alexa Clarke is my neighbour. I see her put the bins out or sit in her garden. I can’t tell if she’s happy. She certainly doesn’t seem it. But I can tell you one thing: she’s lonely.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because lonely people know how to spot other lonely people,’ Dorrit replies, and I find myself looking at her with new eyes.
Dorrit’s home is big enough for a large family, but now it’s reserved for only her and Magnus.
There’s an air of decay about the place, as if no matter how hard she cleans, the job is still too big for her to do alone.
In fact, now when I look around, I see that loneliness is such a way of life here, it’s practically ingrained in the walls.
‘Either way, happy or sad, Alexa changed during the time she lived here,’ Dorrit continues. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how reclusive she became. I never saw anyone go into that house and rarely saw Alexa leave. Other than for her walks, of course.’
My ears perk up. ‘Her walks?’
Dorrit nods. ‘Like I told the police, walking was the one thing Alexa did every day. It was pretty much the only time she left the house.’
‘Do you know where she went?’
‘Oh, here, there and everywhere, I imagine. You don’t have a figure like hers without working to maintain it. Even those genetically blessed reach a point where they must exercise,’ Dorrit jokes, patting her stomach.
‘Did she go out at the same time every day?’
‘She usually went in the morning. Mid to late morning, perhaps.’
‘How long did she stay away from the house for?’
Dorrit studies me sadly. ‘You have so many questions, dear. I wish I could give you answers, but I can’t.
Sometimes I’d see Alexa walking down Maple Crescent, other times through the fields opposite.
I suspect she went into the fields at the back of the house, too.
There was never a pattern. I think she just forced herself to go outside once a day. ’
‘Dorrit, I need you to think carefully,’ I say, trying to keep composed despite the pounding in my chest telling me we are getting close to something significant. ‘In all the times you saw Alexa go for a walk, did you ever see her with anyone?’
‘No. I told you, Alexa Clarke is as lonely as they come.’
‘Did you ever spot anything unusual about Alexa’s walks?’
‘Unusual about a walk? I don’t understand.’
‘It sounds silly, I know, but was there anything you can think of that struck you as odd? Anything at all?’
Dorrit’s wrinkled skin creases more than ever as she concentrates. ‘There is one thing that was a bit odd, now you come to mention it. Once or twice, I saw Alexa walking with a tennis ball. She’d throw it in the air and catch it as she went.’
My breath catches in the back of my throat. ‘Did you say a tennis ball?’
Dorrit laughs. ‘Is that not strange enough for you? I’ve never known anyone take a tennis ball for a walk. Not anyone who doesn’t have a dog, anyway.’
My focus darts to Magnus. He lifts his head to stare back at me, the light catching his brown eyes.
‘But what do I know? Maybe a tennis ball isn’t odd after all,’ Dorrit says, offering me a biscuit, but my mind is racing too much for me to take one.
It hits me like a bolt of lightning: the tennis ball the police found wasn’t left behind by a dog walker or group of children. Alexa had it with her the day she went missing. She had it with her because she was meeting someone that day.
And I think I might know who.