Home. A long, hot shower. I try to wash it all away. Will I ever be able to?
It’s late evening, and we’re all back together again, at my flat. I feel almost myself again – a little fragile, but OK, considering what I now think of as my near-death experience. And there are four of us this time, sitting in my living room, all still wired, all needing to talk, to share our accounts of the past few hours. Yes, Rhona’s here too. She can’t go back to her apartment at Jack’s; the house is, we’ve been told, likely to be sealed off as a crime scene for several days, and so I’ve said she can stay here, on my sofa. Johnny’s offered to have Nathan upstairs at his place. I can’t quite believe I’ve offered Rhona a bed, but I know I’m about to hear her story, and I know that I owe her, and so I sink down on the sofa next to her and reach for my glass. Somebody – Johnny probably – has opened a bottle of wine, and there’s pizza too, although we’ve barely picked at that. The boxes are open but still almost full, and the smell of cheese is heavy in the air.
‘Right,’ I say, and touch the plaster on my head gingerly. ‘Ouch,’ I add, and Rhona grimaces.
‘Sorry, again,’ she says. ‘Anyway, shall I start? Or maybe you should, Nathan, as it was you who got me involved in all this in the first place.’
They’ve already told me, a little earlier, that Rhona MacDonald is actually Rhona Ross, a private detective Nathan hired to ‘help you out and keep an eye on you’. I glared at him, astounded and instantly furious.
‘Erm, wasn’t that exactly what I suggested? Right back at the beginning?’ I spluttered. ‘And you said Jack would suss it immediately if we did that? That he was too clever? And… and what? You go and do it anyway, and put me in there as well? Why the hell couldn’t Rhona have done it alone? Why did you even need me?’
We were waiting in Jack’s hallway, about to get in the cars that were taking us home, and Nathan told me he was ‘so, so sorry’ for not being honest from the start and that they’d explain all later. Now, I look expectantly at him.
‘It was a two-person job,’ he says. ‘When I first met Rhona, we discussed her doing it by herself, but we quickly realised how risky that would be. As his housekeeper, Rhona obviously had access to most of the house, but we needed someone he’d let his guard down with, someone who could be in spaces that maybe Rhona couldn’t easily hang out in without raising suspicion. And we needed backup in case he did happen to realise quickly that she wasn’t who she said she was. You probably didn’t realise it, but Rhona helped you out quite a bit.’
‘Did you?’ I turn to Rhona, surprised. I was only aware of her lurking around, and the fact that she was always popping up out of nowhere.
‘I did, actually,’ she says. ‘I sized you up when you first appeared on the scene, and I thought you looked reasonably fit but probably not strong enough to put up a decent fight if Shannon turned nasty.’
That explains the way she was always looking me up and down, then.
‘I wasn’t very nice to you, but that was deliberate,’ she continues. ‘I couldn’t risk Jack overhearing or recording any sort of suspicious conversation between us, and I needed him to think I was on his side, a loyal employee, especially as I wasn’t on the scene much longer than you. I was too scared to do much searching of the house, either, for the same reason. Nathan and I decided it was better if you knew nothing at all about the real me. One of us could so easily have given it away with just a word or a look. But I helped you as much as I could. I stayed up as late as I could in the mornings when you were there, to make sure you were OK. And I think… I think I stopped Jack… making you have sex with him in front of a camera at least once. I used to listen at doors, sometimes, when you were together, and walk in on the pretence of wanting to clean the room if I thought you were in danger.’
I remember the night Jack suddenly ordered me to take my clothes off in the living room and then Rhona walked in, stopping him in his tracks. I meet her eyes and nod.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper, and she nods back. Out of the corner of my eye I see Johnny and Nathan exchange glances.
Rhona clears her throat.
‘I was basically there to facilitate you, as surreptitiously as possible. When I found you downstairs by the locked freezer, I told you the key was on Jack’s keyring, so you’d know where to look. I disabled a few cameras for you too. The dining room – I managed to smash that while I was dusting. I located it and dropped a heavy ornament on it. Jack never said anything because I made sure it looked like an accident, and I guess he didn’t want me to know he had cameras everywhere either. I did the same in the snug, and I tried to knock out the one in the attic too, but you walked in just as I opened the box. I pretended it was my own box, and just taped it up again, but it wasn’t. I blocked the camera when I put my own box down.’
I nod again, remembering the scene in the attic, and how I assumed Jack hadn’t bothered fitting cameras in the dining room or snug.
‘I kept her updated on what you were up to so she knew what you’d found and which rooms were next on your list to search,’ Nathan says. ‘And obviously, you now get why I wasn’t very helpful when you started wanting to look into Rhona’s background. I’m really sorry you’re only finding out about this now, but I hope you understand our reasons for keeping you in the dark?’ He pauses, a small smile briefly appearing. ‘No pun intended,’ he says, then his expression becomes serious again. ‘It would have taken twice as long and been twice as difficult if there hadn’t been two of you,’ he says.
‘And you were good,’ adds Rhona. ‘I was seriously impressed at how well you avoided the cameras and how thoroughly you were able to search the place. You’d make a good private detective.’
‘I think I’ll stick to books, thanks,’ I say quickly, but secretly I feel a little rush of pride. I did do well, didn’t I?
Except for Felicity, a little voice in my head says, and my stomach contracts. My gaze drops to the floor. Then I realise Rhona is talking to me again.
‘Well, if you change your mind,’ she’s saying, and she picks up her wine glass, raising it in the air before taking a drink. As she puts it down again, I see the scar on her hand and frown.
‘That scar,’ I say, pointing at it. ‘I’d actually begun to think you were colluding with Jack, that you were the female accomplice. That it might even have been you he got to stab him. That didn’t help.’
She looks down at her hand, and smiles.
‘Old gardening injury,’ she says. ‘That’s a good point though. We never did find out who the stabber was. Or find the jewellery, or work out who made the phone call to that jeweller’s for him. Maybe he’ll tell the cops, now he’s in custody.’
‘I wonder if it was Naomie, his assistant, after all?’ I say, and Rhona shrugs.
‘He must have had suspicions about us much earlier than we thought he would,’ says Nathan. ‘That’s obviously why he felt the need to check your phone messages, Heather. Because now we know that is what led him to Felicity, and—’
He stops talking, looking stricken. I feel a wave of nausea.
‘Nathan, I’m so, so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself, never.’
I can make excuses now. I can say that the way Jack was behaving meant I was so debilitated and confused through lack of sleep that I screwed up, and forgot to delete messages, and briefly left my phone unattended. But I won’t, I can’t make excuses. This is my fault, and the thought is almost unbearable. It’s my fault she’s dead, my fault she died an unspeakable death in a seedy alleyway, my fault she was dumped in a bin and left there alone in the dark. Felicity would still be alive if it weren’t for me. Tears fill my eyes, but immediately Nathan is there, crouching on the carpet in front of me. He takes both of my hands in his and squeezes them gently.
‘Don’t,’ he says fiercely. ‘We all knew the risks of getting involved in this. I will miss my sister forever. But look how much good has come out of it. Jack’s been arrested. Hopefully, he’ll go away for a very long time, and Lacey and I can feel safe again. Rose’s family will learn the truth about her death, and Amber will… hopefully she’ll be out of prison soon, and be able to live her life again. So much good, Heather. And I know, I know, that Felicity knows this too, and that she’s celebrating with us. It’s not your fault. Never think that, please. It’s Jack’s fault. All of this is down to Jack.’
‘Let’s take a break for a few minutes. This is a lot to deal with, and we haven’t eaten since breakfast. Come on guys, I’ll grab some plates.’
Johnny hasn’t said much for a while, sitting there listening quietly to the conversation, but now his murmured suggestion suddenly seems like an excellent idea.
I nod and wipe my eyes, and for a few minutes we nibble on the chorizo and mozzarella slices and drink our wine.
When the food has almost gone, I say, ‘I wonder what will happen to Yiannis? Do you think they’ve arrested him too? I guess he’ll realise now that the story I came to him with was totally made up. I sort of wish I’d had a chance to tell him myself.’
‘Once more, don’t feel sorry for him,’ Nathan says, a grim edge to his tone. ‘He deserves everything he gets.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I know so,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot we still don’t know, guys. But I’m hoping the police will answer our remaining questions over the coming days. We’ve got this far, and it’s further than I ever dared to dream we might get. It’s just so…’
He has tears in his eyes suddenly, and he swallows hard, then wipes the back of his hand across his face.
‘Sorry. For now, can we just raise a glass? To my sister, who started this with us, and didn’t make it to the end. Fliss, I owe you everything, and I’ll never forget you. To Felicity.’
I’m crying now too, and I raise a shaky arm in the air, holding my glass aloft. Rhona and Johnny, both looking stricken, do the same.
‘To Felicity,’ we chorus.