Tanvi kissed the top of Shilpa’s head where the white gauze was taped with micropore to her shaved skin. She put her arm around her friend and gave her a squeeze as the train pulled out of Totnes Station.
‘Well, that was a different kind of holiday,’ she said. ‘Definitely more exciting than Marbella.’
Shilpa tried a smile, but she couldn’t really manage it. It was all behind her, yet the memories of last weekend were still so vivid in her mind she had trouble sleeping at night. The therapist the police had asked her to see soon after her ordeal had told her to keep a journal, to write down and rationalise her fears. She hoped that in time she would heal. Talking was another therapy that she discovered was starting to help, and Tanvi had turned out to be a good listener. Brijesh was bringing out the best in her.
‘Thank you for extending your holiday,’ Shilpa said to her friend.
Tanvi waved away her gratitude. ‘So, it was Izzy after all. Ismene,’ Tanvi said. She pressed her lips together.
‘You can say it,’ Shilpa said.
‘Theo’s half-sister. Did Danny find out anything?’
‘Izzy was determined to make Mason hers. He had promised to marry her. In fact, he had already asked her and then one day he called it off and proposed to Harriet.’
‘I’ve seen a picture of him; he wasn’t all that good-looking to have three pretty women running after him like that,’ Tanvi said.
‘Alison was infatuated. She wasn’t used to getting attention. Mason gave her some and she became obsessed. Izzy was just after his money by the sounds of it, and like Theo said, she was just used to getting her way.’
‘So Harriet was the real deal?’ Tanvi asked as they pulled up to the Exeter station. ‘She wasn’t the one who went to Alison’s house that day then, the day Alison was killed?’ Tanvi asked.
Shilpa shook her head as the train started again, pulling out of the station. ‘Finley’s mother saw what she wanted to. She was convinced the Drews were behind her son’s death, so when she saw a woman with a scarf tied around her head talking to Alison the day she died, she was convinced that the woman was Harriet.’
‘Ah, so she only put two and two together once she found out Alison was dead.’
‘Exactly. I believed her though. It seemed too coincidental that both Harriet’s fiancés had died under suspicious circumstances and that she or her dad were not to blame. But it turns out that Finley’s death was purely accidental. A journalist looking at the Connolly case dug up the coroner’s report and associated investigation notes in Crete. She contacted me after my name was mentioned in the blog. The journo didn’t believe there was any foul play involved.’
‘Harriet was just a bit heartless getting engaged to Mason so soon after.’
‘It’s not a crime,’ Shilpa said.
‘It should be. Look at Jason,’ Tanvi said, pulling out her phone. ‘Phoebe sent me this.’ She showed Shilpa a picture on her phone of Jason with his arms around another woman.
‘Molly?’ Shilpa asked.
‘The same.’
‘I’m sorry, Tanvi,’ Shilpa said.
‘I’m not,’ Tanvi said, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulders again.
‘Izzy was the one seen speaking to Alison outside her apartment building the day she died. Danny told Olivia that the neighbour opposite, who was away at the time, had a camera outside her door. She thought someone was tampering with her hanging baskets, so she wanted to catch them.’
Tanvi laughed. ‘Only in Devon.’
‘They had clear footage of Izzy and Alison talking right before Alison was killed. She confessed to the crime when questioned. She could hardly deny it when they found Alison’s phone at her apartment.’
‘She didn’t get rid of it?’
‘She had hung on to the thing, and Margery Drew finally came forward saying she had seen Izzy follow Mason to the annex with the kitchen knife.’
‘Why didn’t she say anything sooner?’
‘Turns out she was glad Izzy killed him off for some reason or another.’
‘What a strange lady.’
‘Indeed.’
‘So it was all Izzy.’
‘Theo’s half-sister,’ Shilpa said with a distant look in her eye.
‘What a creep,’ Tanvi said. ‘You’re better off without him.’
‘He wasn’t all that bad,’ Shilpa said. ‘He saved me at the end. If he hadn’t let go of my arms, I wouldn’t have been able to escape. I’d have drowned in the estuary that night.’ Shilpa touched her bandage and looked out towards the green fields.
Tanvi pulled away slightly and looked at her friend. ‘Don’t take up for him, Shilpa. He tried to cover up what his sister had done. He prevented his officers from finding vital evidence in Alison’s apartment and made up the stuff about the foundation on the sink just to confuse you. He was a detective sergeant. That’s so unethical.’
‘He did tell me about the black dress. Although I don’t think for a minute he expected me to meet Alison and tell her.’
‘And look what trouble that bit of information caused. He should never have disclosed that, especially in his position. They have rules about that.’
There was a silence between the two friends.
‘Anyway, when have you been concerned with ethics?’ Shilpa said. ‘You know what it’s like with family. And don’t worry about Theo. According to Danny, it’s over for him. I don’t think he’ll be on the beat anytime soon.’
‘I should think so,’ Tanvi said.
‘He handed himself in soon after the incident on Saturday night. They found Izzy at her house, packing. She was pretty confident that she had time to pack! She was so delusional.’
‘I don’t suppose she’ll need much where she’s going now. And you need to stop defending Theo.’
‘I’m not defending him,’ Shilpa said, shrugging off her friend’s arm. ‘I’m just saying he could have been worse.’
Tanvi laughed. ‘I can hardly talk; it turns out I’m dating a hacker!’
‘You’re pretty happy about that, aren’t you?’ Shilpa said.
Tanvi gave her friend a wry smile. ‘Like I said, it’s more exciting than dating someone who fixes smashed phone screens.’
Brijesh walked down the aisle towards them carrying a tray of hot drinks. ‘Sorry, got stuck chatting to someone. Here you go,’ he said as he reached them. He handed Shilpa and Tanvi a cup each and sat down in the seat across the aisle from them. Shilpa watched as he put in his earphones and tapped something into his phone. He had insisted on accompanying them back to London, and Shilpa had to admit she was glad of his presence.
‘You ready to tell all to the olds?’ Tanvi asked.
Shilpa leaned back into her seat. Her parents already knew about Dipesh. The CPS had got to them before she had the chance. The investigation into Dipesh’s death was being revisited. John and Graham had been arrested. Her parents were angry at the initial injustice, but they were worried too, for Shilpa’s safety, wondering what kind of community she was living in. She hadn’t yet told them about Mason and Alison, Izzy and Theo.
Had she made the right decision leaving everyone and everything she knew in London to move to a small estuary town in Devon? She stared out of the window as Tanvi busied herself with a glossy magazine she had bought at the station.
Devon was so far from what she knew, from her old friends and family. But her uncle had left her his house, and she felt a duty to make a life for herself there. It felt right to be there, especially after the circumstances Dipesh had died under. If she hadn’t moved into his home, she never would have discovered the truth about his death. And murder aside, she was making a name for herself in Devon. Sweet Treats was gaining popularity in the short time she had lived in Otter’s Reach, and it was all her doing. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was achieving something, something good. She most definitely hadn’t found love, but she was making friends. Olivia and Danny had called on her every day since finding out about Theo and Izzy, Olivia wrongly blaming herself for introducing them. Leoni had come over with coffee more than once and for more than just a gossip. Even her neighbour Elaine Alden had ventured out of her home to visit her with the largest bouquet of flowers she had ever seen.
Shilpa Solanki looked out of the window and smiled. Devon, against all odds, was beginning to feel like home.
THE END