Outside, I walked down the concrete steps of the police station, sliding my hand over the cool railing. I stopped on the last step for a second to collect myself. All I wanted to do was call my mum, tell her everything. But I didn’t know where I would even start.
“Gwen,” a voice said behind me, interrupting my reassembly. I turned around to see Detective Lyons.
“Nope,” I said and began walking away.
“Just wait for a second,” he said. “Look, I know that was rough in there, but we’re just making sure we have all the information. It’s going to be okay.”
“Really?” I said. “Is that your professional opinion?”
I didn’t quite believe him, thanks to the sensation that my heart was about to hammer its way out of my ribcage.
“Yes,” he said, looking at me without blinking. “Yes, it is. I promise you, one way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of this thing.”
Thing. I thought that was a weird way to refer to what was fast amounting to a massacre of Eastbourne’s entire population of single men, but fine. I sat down on a step and stared at my trainers.
“I know this seems crazy right now,” he went on, “but I’m on your side. Let me give you a lift home. It’s been a hell of a day.”
He motioned to an unmarked car parked by the station.
“No, I can walk,” I said. “It’s, like, ten minutes from here.”
“Sure? Looks like rain.” Lyons squinted upward at the clouds as if the sky had asked him a difficult riddle.
“Nope. No. No way, it is definitely not going to rain,” I told him, hauling myself to my feet. “I’m walking.”
“You haven’t changed, have you?” Lyons said, shaking his head. He went over to the car, opened the door, and paused. “You can call me, I mean, you know, if you remember anything that might help.”
“Yeah, if I ever get my phone back.” I shrugged and began trudging back toward the flat in a daze. As specks of rain began to pepper my face, I silently cursed Lyons and his lovely dry Ford Fiesta. But I stamped onward, trying to make sense of the last three hours.
When I finally turned onto my road, I saw Sarah tugging a wheelie case out our front door.
“Hey!” she chirped. “I was worried I was going to miss you! Where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”
“Hiya,” I said, looking down at my now damp Converse.
“Gwen? You okay?” Sarah let go of the case handle and rushed toward me.
As soon as she reached me, I suddenly grabbed her in a hug and held tight.
“You look like shit,” she said, releasing me from her embrace and looking me up and down. “What happened?”
“Thanks!” I said, trying to smile. “I’ve, uh, I’ve been with the police. They think Rob’s death wasn’t an accident.”
“What the fuck?” she gasped. “The wet lad? Why are they asking you about that?”
“They just wanted to know what happened on the date, when I last spoke to him, you know, that sort of stuff.”
I looked back at my feet. It felt bad lying to her, but what could I do? Tell her I’d just found a dead body in a plastic crocodile, and I was now the number one suspect in a murder inquiry? That would really dampen her wedding celebrations. She’d cancel everything, and there was no way I was letting that happen. But once this was all over, I swore to myself I’d tell her everything.
“Bloody hell, Gwen,” Sarah said. “I hope you told them the guy was a total loser and you never wanted to see him again.”
“Yeah, right, that’s exactly what I said, Sar. Turns out the police absolutely love it when you tell them how much you couldn’t stand the victim.”
She made a face at me.
“What’s with the suitcase anyway? Where are you going?” I asked.
“Me and Mum are hitting the spa, remember? She insisted on a pre-wedding pamper.” Sarah rolled her eyes at the thought of spending hours trapped, naked, in a steam room with her mother.
“Oh yeah, of course, I totally forgot,” I mumbled. My heart sank a little. I’d hoped we’d stay together tonight and drink cheap wine in front of some trashy rom-com I’d seen a hundred times before.
“Richard’s gone off to Brighton with the mountaineering lads for a couple of nights. I’ve told him to stay out of trouble.”
“I’m not sure how much trouble you can get in playing Settlers of Catan,” I said, attempting a smile.
Sarah narrowed her eyes at me and touched my arm. “Gwen, are you okay? Usually when you’re making lots of terrible jokes, it means you’re trying to pretend everything is okay.”
“I’m just exhausted,” I said.
“Want me to cancel? We can get a bottle of cheap wine and just talk, if you like?”
“No,” I said firmly. “No, no, no. You need a pamper, for God’s sake, look at you.”
She laughed. “Okay, if you’re sure?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. Honestly, all I want to do is eat a Pop-Tart in the bath and go straight to bed,” I said. “Oh, hey, now, that’s a treatment they should offer at the spa.”
Sarah didn’t smile.
“You know I can postpone the wedding, right?” She looked me in the eye. “Never leave a sister behind, right? You’re more important to me than some silly big dress and a party.”
“Really?” I said. “You’d do that?”
“No, of course not.” She smiled. “I’ve got a three-K deposit on the catering. But I am worried about you, Gwendolyn. You’ve been through a lot lately.”
“It’s fine. I’m honestly fine,” I said. “The police have finished with me, it’s over. I can’t wait for next week, it’s going to be perfect.”
The wedding was going to be a predictably lavish affair, thanks to Sarah’s uncanny ability to organize the living shit out of everything. She’d booked (with minimal input from Richard) a beautiful converted eighteenth-century church on Eastleigh Island, about fifteen miles off the coast, for Valentine’s Day. We’d gone for a nose round together after the New Year, and it was like something out of Rebecca, or, as Richard commented, “a James Bond villain’s evil lair.”
Sarah gave me another hard stare, as if she was trying to decipher whether I was telling her the truth, and if I wasn’t, then working out whether arguing with me was worth it.
“Call me if you need anything at all, okay? Or you could even come join us. I’m only forty-five minutes away. I’m sure I can skip an hour of being lectured on my weight by my mother while being vigorously massaged by an old Greek woman.”
How could I tell her I wasn’t allowed to leave town and didn’t even have my phone? Say what you like about Sarah, but she was twice the friend I could ever be. With my dad, with Noah, she was always there to put me back together when my world fell apart. But this time, I wasn’t going to let my problems spoil her happiness.
“I’m really going to miss you when you move out, you know,” I blurted.
Sarah looked at me quizzically again.
“Now I know something’s up!” She smiled. “Don’t go all soft on me, Gwendolyn. I’ll be just down the road. And you’re far too busy dating anyway. You won’t even notice I’m not there.”
“Yeah, I know, but…” I hesitated. “You are totally, totally sure Richard really is The One?”
Sarah’s face soured for a second.
“For the millionth time, of course I’m sure. He’s the love of my life. I know that’s hard to hear, after everything that happened with Noah, but—”
“It’s not, I’m fine,” I said quickly. “It’s just—”
I stopped, and we stood there on the street in silence for a moment. I opened my mouth to say something else, but as I did, the heavens began to open.
“Look at this, I’m going to get soaked,” I said, holding my hand skyward and letting fat drops of rain splash into my palm. “Go.”
She grabbed her case and shoved it in the back seat of her car, hugged me, and climbed in the driver’s seat. Before she closed the door, she turned to me as she clipped in her seat belt.
“Here if you need, remember?” she said.
“Ditto,” I said. “Have fun. Don’t forget to nick all the Molton Brown—we’re almost out.”
“Gwen, when I move out, you know you’re going to have to steal your own toiletries, right?” Sarah said as she slammed the car door.
I stuck my tongue out at her as she drove off, then went inside and collapsed up the stairs to my bed. After ten minutes of lying there with my eyes closed, listening to the rain lashing against the windows, I gave up making any sense of what had happened over the last forty-eight hours.
I took the napkin out of my pocket and smoothed it out on the duvet. I grabbed my lipstick from the bedside table, and a cold shiver trickled through me as I dragged a thick red line through Josh’s name. Three dead men, all of whom had been on a date with me in the past week or so. Surely there had to be another connection, right? I mean, other than all being wankers.
I stared at the names again.
Rob. Freddie. Josh. Dev. Seb.
And, of course, there was the name I’d torn off the end of the napkin. Yes, they were all total knobheads, but none of them deserved to die.
I ran a bath and ransacked the flat for any rogue snacks. With zero Pop-Tarts to be found, I loaded a plate with barely in-date cheese, half a bagel, and the last scrape of Branston pickle, then gingerly poked my foot into the bubbles. My heart sank. The water was only lukewarm, but I was committed now, and I lowered the rest of myself in. As I sat, unsatisfied, in the bath, I couldn’t stop thinking about Parker, and why anyone would want to do this. I optimistically twisted the hot tap with my big toe and held my foot under it, hoping the water would warm up. It just got colder.
After a good few minutes of sitting in tepid bathwater scooping the remains of the pickle into my mouth, I got out and wrapped myself in a towel. As I dried off, I stared at the unrelenting rain from my bedroom window. By the glow of the streetlamps, just down the road I could see a car parked up by Mrs. Bradshaw’s house. Which was weird, because she always left it empty in the winter while she decamped to Benalmádena for Christmas. I rubbed away the condensation on the window and pushed my face up to the glass. I could just about make out a figure sitting in the driver’s seat.
Someone was watching me.