Shilpa arrived slightly late to Olivia’s gathering. After her chat with Elaine, she had decided she needed a shower. It was a warm September evening, and she had been busy.
She had recently renovated her bathroom, and she had replaced the flock flamingo wallpaper with earthy tones and a stone floor. Just stepping under the rain shower relaxed her.
She had been so calm that she had spent ten minutes longer than necessary getting ready, and now here she was at the Ship Inn, flustered because she was late, again. She needn’t have worried, because the place was heaving. Tourists and locals had made the watering hole a favourite after its recent upgrade. She made her way over towards a few familiar faces and passed a young waitress serving crab-and-avocado canapés. She took one in a napkin and a glass of fizz from another server.
‘Olivia,’ she said without having a spare arm to embrace her friend. ‘Happy birthday!’ They caught up for a few moments before Olivia was whisked away by another friend.
Brijesh was sitting alone on one of the leather sofas. His pint was resting on the large driftwood shelf, and he was looking through the window out onto the water.
‘It’s over,’ Brijesh said as she approached. ‘Not sure why I bothered to come tonight.’
Shilpa put her glass next to his and wrapped her arms around him.
‘I did what you said,’ Brijesh added.
Shilpa leaned back. ‘What did I say?’ she asked, desperately trying to remember what advice she had given her friend. She was the last person who should be doling out relationship advice.
‘That I should give her an ultimatum.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Shilpa said. ‘I think I said something like tell Tanvi to stop playing hard to get and to move down here. I didn’t…’ she started, but then realised her defence was useless. Brijesh wasn’t listening.
‘She said she wouldn’t have a gun put to her head.’
‘Ever dramatic Tanvi,’ Shilpa said. ‘So that’s it. You’re not going to see her again?’
‘What can I do?’ Brijesh lifted his glass to his lips.
Shilpa stood up. She wasn’t sure about much these days when it came to matters of the heart, but what she did know was that Brijesh was the first man she had seen her friend fall for. The first man Tanvi had committed to for over a year. Brijesh adored Tanvi, and she wasn’t going to let him give up so easily.
‘Follow me,’ she said.
Two margaritas later, Brijesh was feeling much better. Shilpa ordered them two Long Island iced teas as Brijesh started to confess about his previous failed relationships back in Goa and how his mother always had something to say about his girlfriends.
‘I’ve never been to Goa,’ Shilpa said.
‘We’ll go together,’ Brijesh said. ‘It’s a crazy thing to say, but I want my mother to be happy with my choice of wife.’
‘Mothers are always right,’ Shilpa said. She turned to Brijesh. ‘Tanvi loves drama. What would your mother think of her?’
Brijesh shrugged and looked into his glass. ‘We were planning a trip to India this winter,’ he said. ‘I was going to take some time off work, and Tanvi too. We were going to go for three weeks.’
‘I’m going to call her,’ Shilpa said. She took her phone out. ‘She’s my best friend and–’
Brijesh put his hand on her phone and shook his head. ‘Even I know we’ve had too much to drink to discuss this now.’
Shilpa slipped her phone back in her pocket. ‘You’re so sensible even when you’re drunk. It’s incredible.’ She looked at her friend. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we sort it.’
There was a silence between them. Even though the pub was busy, Shilpa could feel Brijesh’s heartbreak. She was going to talk to Tanvi and make her see sense.
‘Work, how’s that going?’ Shilpa asked, trying to steer the conversation away from Brijesh’s shattered love life. They never talked much about Brijesh’s work. Brijesh was a pharmacist, and he was currently working in a local pharmacy, but last summer he had briefly worked at a phone repair shop. Shilpa and Tanvi had their suspicions that he was doing more than just repairing phones, but they had never really gotten to the bottom of it. Shilpa was certain that Tanvi liked the thrill of her boyfriend hacking into phones or whatever it was he was doing, which was why she never pried too much in case he told her the truth, which turned out not to be as exciting as she had allowed herself to imagine.
Brijesh hadn’t lasted long at the phone store though, and he was back in his lab coat a few months after. ‘Call it a midlife crisis,’ he had said, whenever Shilpa had asked him about it. It was quite handy though, having a phone hacker and a pharmacist as a friend. He had already helped her uncover the real reason for her uncle’s death and helped her solve that dreadful murder last year using his technological skills. So when his standard response came, she didn’t think it was fair to push it.
Brijesh looked up at her from his drink. ‘Work is work. I tell you what though,’ he said with a smile. ‘Even my boss was talking about that Arden fellow’s death.’
Roy Arden. No matter how much Shilpa tried to put his death to the back of her mind, he kept cropping up. The alcohol that was flooding her bloodstream said it was a sign, that it was her duty to find out more about what had happened. Her brain was fighting hard to get her to leave it alone. She had to admit though, talking about Roy Arden’s possible murder would be a welcome distraction for Brijesh. They took their drinks outside and sat on a bench under a heater. The tide was going out, and there was a breeze blowing. It was still light, and the seagulls were scavenging for chips and bread. The water receded, and as it did, Shilpa filled Brijesh in on what Elaine had said.
‘So she was there?’ Brijesh asked.
‘Remembers it as if it was yesterday,’ Shilpa said.
‘Well, you wouldn’t forget seeing your friend fall like that.’
Shilpa conjured up an image of a young Elaine and Roy. It wasn’t difficult. At Roy’s event there had been photos of him in his youth with friends on yachts and at parties. He certainly had been a social creature. She imagined Elaine, like most young girls, would have been in awe of his lifestyle. Shilpa understood why Elaine hadn’t said much about that day in the past. Her mother had warned her not to say too much. She didn’t want her daughter to get dragged into the commotion she knew would follow.
‘Of course, my mother knew something terrible had happened when I came home sobbing that day,’ Elaine had said. ‘She had already warned me about Roy Arden. I told you he had a reputation.’
Shilpa had nodded.
‘But she didn’t see if Cecelia was pushed or if she fell,’ Brijesh said. ‘So she isn’t much of a witness.’
‘She saw Cecelia and Martin talking in hushed tones. She saw Roy watching them with the look of the devil in his eyes. Her words, not mine,’ Shilpa said.
Brijesh slurped his drink through a straw. ‘So Martin finally got his way with Cecelia and so Roy thought, I can’t kill my brother; I’ll push her off instead. It’s a bit far-fetched.’
‘Elaine never told the police any of this, and she says she regrets it to this day,’ Shilpa said.
‘Elaine was drinking as well, wasn’t she?’ Brijesh said.
‘Yes.’
‘So she could have got it wrong. She was in awe of these people. She was more of an interloper than a friend.’
Shilpa frowned at her lodger. ‘She spent the entire summer with them. When you’re that age, you get to know people well in a short space of time because you all live in each other’s pockets. If the Arden boys were so innocent, then why did they cut Elaine out of their lives after that day? She wasn’t even invited to Roy’s birthday.’
‘Because, like I said, she was an interloper. She wasn’t really one of them. And probably because she reminded them of Cecelia. If both boys were in love with this woman, maybe it was too painful for them to be reminded of her friends,’ Brijesh said. ‘What happened to the girl’s family?’
‘I know where you’re going with this,’ Shilpa said. She had had the same thought herself. She would seek them out and get their side of the story, but as soon as she asked Elaine the question, she knew it was pointless.
‘They moved away,’ Elaine had said.
‘They believed Roy was responsible for their daughter’s death,’ Shilpa had said, recalling what Leoni had said to her, trying to jog her neighbour’s memory.
Elaine had nodded. It was clear she thought so too.
‘Where did they go?’ Shilpa had asked.
‘Up north,’ Elaine had said. ‘Somewhere near the Peak District – Bakewell, I think. They had little ones, so it made sense to get away. There was so much press about Cissy’s death at the time. After all, she was a beautiful woman at the start of her life and then tragedy hit. She’ll be forever young, and that’s what the press like, don’t they? Readers imagine it could have been their daughter, how lucky they are that it wasn’t. Youngsters get to read about a life they can only ever imagine. It sells papers.’
‘What was Cecelia’s surname?’ Brijesh asked.
‘James, I think,’ Shilpa said, recalling what Leoni had told her. ‘Why?’
‘If you want to find her family, it can’t be that hard. Although you know what I think about this fifty-year-old death? It’s irrelevant.’
Shilpa heard her phone beep and took it out of her bag. She read the message and slipped it back inside. All of a sudden, she felt like a coffee.
‘You okay?’ Brijesh asked.
‘Yes,’ Shilpa said, despite the unease in the pit of her stomach.