‘They’re coming out,’ Felicity hissed, jumping back from the patio doors. ‘What do you think is going on? Mary-Beth isn’t with them.’
‘Maybe the podcast guy gave them his evidence, after all,’ Karla speculated. She scrolled through her phone and clicked Marcus’s number. ‘Babe, it’s me. The police are at the Kings’.’
‘Oh, shit, I wonder if it’s to do with Mary-Beth?’
‘That’s what we said. Do you think they’re fingering her for Erica’s murder?’
‘Erica’s murder? Fingering her? Shit, Kay, you need to watch a lot less TV. Anyway, I don’t mean that. I saw Pete last night and—’
‘They’re coming here,’ Felicity announced, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘They are coming. Up. The. Driveway. Right. Now.’
‘Shit. Marcus, get back here now. And call your lawyer,’ Karla hissed into the phone, and hit the ‘end call’ button.
‘Lawyer?’ Felicity’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell, Karla, I don’t have a lawyer. I mean, I know lawyers, for the business and all, but I’ve never actually needed to use one. I never thought I’d need one. What do you think they’re going to say?’
‘We’re about to find out,’ Karla grimaced as the doorbell rang.
She flung open the door and announced, ‘You will have to speak to my lawyer.’
The two police officers on the front step looked alarmed.
‘Your lawyer?’ the younger one repeated stupidly.
The older one grinned. ‘Celebrities,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Mrs Kaplan, isn’t it? If you wish to have a lawyer present while I ask you when was the last time you saw your neighbour then, by all means, go ahead and call them. We’ll pop back to you once we’ve asked the rest of the street. The ones who aren’t acting like they are on the set of Law and Order .’
Karla felt her face redden. ‘My neighbour? Do you mean Mary-Beth?’
‘Yes, her husband reported her missing yesterday evening, and we’re trying to get a picture of when she was last seen. Would you mind if we came in, or do you still want your lawyer?’
‘Sorry,’ Karla mumbled, stepping aside to let them in. ‘Got a bit carried away. We don’t have police here often.’
‘You’d be surprised at how many people go Miami Vice on us, start referring to people as “perps” and asking us if we’ve “fingered” the criminals. This is DC Allan, and I’m DS Harvey.’
Karla gave a tinkling laugh and scowled at Felicity, who had stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing. ‘Ha! Idiots. Wait . . . Harvey? You were here last year. You’ve lost weight.’
Harvey’s face coloured. ‘A bit,’ he admitted, before the other woman spoke up.
‘I’m Felicity Goldman.’ She held out her hand, and both officers shook it. ‘I’d say good to see you again, DS Harvey, but I’d be lying. I don’t know if you remember but I live across there,’ she pointed at her house, ‘next door to Mary-Beth and Peter. I can’t believe she’s missing, though. Are you sure she hasn’t gone to her mum’s?’
‘Does she do that often? Stay at her mum’s? Were there problems in the marriage?’
Felicity clapped a hand to her mouth. Dropping it, she pointed at the police officer. ‘Ooooh, I forgot that you’re good.’
‘Do you want a drink?’ Karla asked, appearing from the kitchen with a tray. ‘Hors d’oeuvres?’
‘We’re fine, thank you. So, Miss Goldman . . .’
Karla noted the annoyance on Felicity’s face. She bloody hated being called ‘Miss’. Said it made her sound about twelve years old.
‘. . . Mrs Kaplan, when was the last time you both saw Mary-Beth?’
‘Well, she was at the picnic,’ Karla replied. ‘On the gate, doing the tickets. She said she was going to meet us on the grass afterwards but she never came to find us.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been quite busy? Perhaps she couldn’t find you.’
‘Possibly,’ Karla admitted. ‘Although she’s got all of our numbers. I went to look for her when that post went up and I couldn’t find her anywhere.’
‘Post?’
Karla groaned. ‘Good job I’m not a criminal, I suck at it. I may as well tell you, I’m surprised Peter didn’t. There was a post, on the school Facebook page, that said our friend Erica’s death . . . that she was murdered. And that one of us did it. I know,’ Karla gave that tinkling laugh again, ‘it’s ridiculous, right? You were here, you know it was an accident. And then there was a podcast last night which threatened to dredge the whole thing up again and unmask a murderer. Completely vulgar. No respect at all. So I knew Mary-Beth would be upset – she was Erica’s best friend.’
‘And what time did this post go up?’
‘I’m not sure . . .’ Karla looked at Felicity.
‘The picnic started at twelve, so probably about twelve forty-five, maybe one?’
‘And you didn’t see Mary-Beth after that?’
Both women shook their heads. ‘No,’ Karla said. ‘We thought she’d taken off early.’
‘But you weren’t concerned?’
Felicity frowned. ‘Why would we be concerned? When you have children, a thousand and one things can stop you from doing whatever it is you have planned. When the twins were two years old, I clean forgot my own birthday. Just woke up, got on with the day and didn’t realise until I checked my emails at the end of the day and saw the date. We assumed she hadn’t even seen the post and had just gone to take the kids to her mum’s – they stay over on a Monday.’
The police officer smiled. ‘Okay, well, if you think of anything that might help – if Mary-Beth confided in you about her marriage or wanting to leave or anything at all that might shed some light on where she’s gone, be sure to let us know. In the meantime, we’ll look up this podcast, the timing does seem suspicious. Perhaps it upset her, and she went away to clear her head.’
‘Yes, to clear her head,’ Karla mused as she closed the door behind them. Or her conscience.
Taking a last look at both screens and seeing two small blonde heads, both face down, and pyjama-clad bottoms shoved into the air, Felicity set the monitors down on the patio table and crept around the edge of the garden until she reached the far end. She’d done this so many times that she had the perfect formula now; she knew the right shoes to wear (either her UGG boots or her fluffy booted slippers), knew where to stand to avoid the security lights flooding the entire back garden with stark white light, knew which boards behind the bushes on the left-hand side were loose enough to sneak through, which she did now, her blouse snagging on the branches of the conifers as she crawled in. She slid aside the loose feather-edge boards and squeezed her athletic frame through and into an identical set of conifers on the other side. Out of the darkness, a hand appeared to guide her through, which she grasped, pushing aside the branches and throwing herself into the arms of the man waiting beyond.
Peter pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her whole body, and in an instant, Felicity felt calmer, safer. He pressed his lips against the top of her head, and she breathed in his scent.
‘You’ve been smoking,’ she said, trying to keep her tone from sounding accusatory. ‘Mary-Beth will hate that.’
‘I know. I’ve just been listening to that fucking podcast again.’
Felicity grimaced. ‘Where are the kids?’ She looked up at the house beyond, which was clothed in darkness.
‘Mary’s mum took them to hers. In case . . . in case I had to go anywhere.’ Peter’s words came out strangled, and Felicity laid a hand on his arm.
‘You really have no idea where she’s gone?’ she whispered, studying his face.
He shook his head but didn’t meet her eyes. ‘I assumed she’d found out about you and taken off to teach me a lesson.’
‘God, when the police came round—’
‘You didn’t tell them about us, did you? That young one – he’s . . . I don’t think he believes that Mary-Beth ran away.’
Felicity shook her head. ‘Of course not. It’s not my place. So you’re saying Mary-Beth didn’t find out about us? Then why would she run away? Are you sure she did?’
Peter shrugged. ‘Maybe not. Maybe she had an accident?’
Felicity wondered why he couldn’t look her in the eye.
‘But—’
‘I don’t know, Fliss,’ he snapped. ‘There’s just literally no sign of where she went after she dropped the kids at her mum’s. Nothing is missing. There’s no suspicious activity in the accounts.’
‘You’ve checked all her accounts?’
‘What do you mean all her accounts? Look, do you want to come in? There’s no one here and . . .’
‘How’s that going to look if the police turn up? No, the twins are asleep but I can’t hear the monitor from inside yours. Listen, I know you must be going crazy over this but there’s bound to be an explanation. Do you think it might be anything to do with the podcast?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends what time she left. That post didn’t go up until after midday, and even then Mary-Beth apparently wasn’t mentioned until the podcast came out on Tuesday night. No one remembers seeing her car after the picnic, but no one remembers not seeing it either. This is all so fucked up.’ He ran his hands over his face and groaned. ‘Why wouldn’t she speak to me? If she was in any kind of trouble, if she had anything to do with what happened to Erica – why just run away?’
‘She couldn’t have had anything to do with what happened to Erica. Erica fell, it was an accident, the coroner said so, remember? And this guy – this Andy Noon, whoever he is – well, he knows nothing.’
‘And who is he? He’s got to be someone from in here, right? From inside Severn Oaks? Which means he’s been watching us – he could be watching us now.’
They both glanced around, as if they might see a periscope sticking up from over the fence.
‘And what’s all that about a diary? If that’s true, he’ll know exactly what Erica knew, which was pretty much everything about everyone. She never could keep her fucking nose out of anything.’
‘Did she know about me?’ Felicity already knew the answer. As Peter said, Erica knew everything.
Peter nodded, and Felicity’s heart sank at the confirmation.
‘She knew. About me and you, about the twins – who their father was . . .’
Felicity squeaked. ‘How the . . .?’
‘Don’t ask me.’ Peter shrugged, and Felicity knew in an instant he was lying. ‘She cornered me at the party and asked if we’d enjoyed the zoo – do you remember, we’d gone the weekend before, while Mary-Beth was away at that spa? A stupid risk, but I’d been so desperate to spend the day with you and the girls. And we were so pleased with ourselves that we’d got away with it. She said she was going to give me a chance to tell Mary-Beth myself – that she had a right to know – and if I didn’t tell her, she would. Then she fell out of that tree house, and Mary-Beth was so upset and—’
‘So what you’re saying is that Erica Spencer threatened to expose you as Dad of the Year on the night she died? That’s just brilliant, Peter. I’m not sure what that’s called in your world, but here in the real world, that’s called a motive. And it lands both of us in it. And now Mary-Beth is gone and . . . oh!’ Felicity clasped a hand to her mouth, felt her chest constrict, and her breathing quickened. ‘Oh God, oh God.’
‘What, what is it?’ Peter grasped her arm. ‘Are you okay? What’s wrong?’
‘They’re going to think you killed her. They’re going to think you killed Erica, and Mary-Beth found out, so you killed her too. And they’re going to think I was in on it. They’re going to think we killed them both, and we’re going to go to prison.’