Sunday 10th December 2023
Alice
They drive away from Marianne’s in silence. Alice is back in the days just before Robbie’s death, the dark swirl of memory threatening to pull her all the way down. If he did figure out Peter was Leo’s dad, how might he have felt about it? She thinks of his idolisation of Peter, his issues with his own dad. And the rivalry that always simmered between Leo and himself, even when they were almost inseparable.
She’s startled from her thoughts by a phone ringing in the front of the car.
‘It’s yours,’ Chrissy says to Peter. ‘Hang on, I put it in the glovebox …’ She opens it and starts rooting around.
Alice tenses, remembering what she saw in there yesterday. She is sure she sees Peter’s shoulders stiffening, too, from her seat behind him. Chrissy’s rummaging seems to go on for a long time. The phone keeps ringing. Two CDs fall out and there it is, the red marker pen, tumbling out alongside.
There is a moment of stillness. Chrissy frowns at the pen that has landed in the well between her feet. The phone rings and rings. Peter stabs at a button on the car’s control panel and Kiri’s voice comes through the hands-free.
‘Pete? Can you talk?’
Peter clears his throat. ‘Go ahead,’ he says, with something like relief in his tone.
‘It’s … it’s about Ben.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s … hurt,’ Kiri says, her voice strained. ‘Pretty badly. He’s been attacked, or so it seems.’
Alice sits forward. Chrissy, leaning down to retrieve the pen and the CDs, straightens up quickly.
‘What?’ Peter says, the car juddering as it pops out of gear. ‘What do you mean? Who by?’
‘That’s … the strangest part.’ Kiri leaves another pause and her breathing comes through the speakers. She sounds like she’s walking, hurrying. ‘I found him at Georgie Fallows’ house. Lying on the floor with a head injury. Conscious, when I got there, but only just.’
Alice’s brain seems to flip over on itself. Georgie? She can feel the same stunned confusion radiating from Chrissy and Peter, the marker pen forgotten. Georgie is odd, sometimes a little fake, hard to work out. But why on earth would she attack Ben? In her own home?
‘I don’t follow,’ Peter says. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘We’re still trying to work it out. Ben went there last night to pick up …’ She clears her throat. ‘Some evidence. When he didn’t show up for work this morning, I thought I’d go round there and check with her. But there was no sign of her, her car was gone, and when I tried Ben’s mobile again, I could hear it ringing in the house. So I called for backup and we got inside. Poor Ben, he was … he was in a bad way.’
‘Jesus,’ Peter says, glancing at Chrissy. ‘Is he going to be okay?’
‘I fucking hope so.’ It’s the first time Alice has heard Kiri swear. She wonders if she knows she’s on speaker, that she’s got an audience. Alice keeps quiet and Chrissy seems to be doing the same.
‘Is he talking?’ Peter asks. ‘Can he remember anything?’
‘He’s sedated. They’re checking his brain function. He said a few things on the way to hospital, though. He seemed a bit muddled, but … he kept mentioning Ethan Dean.’
Another baffled silence fills the car, but this one has a vibration to it, an undertow of dread. Chrissy turns in her seat to look at Alice. Alice stares back at her, struggling to understand.
Peter says, more quietly: ‘Ethan?’
‘Yeah. I know. It’s odd. From what I could make out, Georgie was making accusations of some kind, and Ben said something she didn’t like …’ She pauses and there’s the sound of a door opening and closing at her end. ‘I’m really not sure. Hopefully he’ll be clearer next time he wakes.’
‘But … she didn’t even know the guy,’ Peter says. ‘Did she?’ He looks at Chrissy again, and Chrissy puts a hand up to her mouth, her face pale.
‘We’re looking into it,’ Kiri says. ‘And we’re trying to track Georgie down. If you hear anything, you’ll let me know?’
‘Yes,’ Peter mumbles distractedly. ‘And likewise?’
Kiri hangs up and the car is silent again. Alice keeps opening her mouth to speak, then closing it. She hears Chrissy taking a breath as if she wants to say something too, but nothing comes out.
Then she sees Chrissy pull out her phone, open Safari, and type in Georgie’s name. Pictures of Georgie fill the screen, most of them corporate headshots. Alice can sense Chrissy’s anxiety, can hear her breathing more quickly as her finger taps and taps.
Then Alice sees her go still.
She leans even further forward. ‘What is it?’ she asks softly.
‘This hotel …’ Chrissy holds up her phone to show Alice a photo of Georgie and some other smartly dressed people, having cocktails in a swanky lounge. ‘In London. Ethan used to stay there when he travelled for work. And Georgie … by the looks of it … used to take clients there. This is from her old company’s website.’
Alice studies the picture. Georgie is wearing more make-up than she does around the village, and a designer suit with high heels rather than the indigo jeans and knee-length boots she’s adopted for her country life. She’s beaming at the camera, holding a martini. The caption reads, cocktails with some of our amazing clients.
‘Do you think she knew Ethan?’ Alice asks.
‘Yes,’ Chrissy says, with more certainty than Alice is expecting. ‘Yes, I do. I think she wears a ring that he gave her. I think … I think she’s been watching me.’
Alice pulls her seat belt away from her throat, suddenly feeling it cutting right in. She knows Chrissy suspected Ethan of having affairs in the past. And Georgie would be just the glamorous type he’d go for, to make himself feel important. Her stomach contracts with renewed hatred for him. She thinks of Kiri using the word ‘accusations’ and heat spreads up her neck and into her face.
Georgie sat in all those committee meetings, throwing around her marketing jargon, her shiny smile. Why had she really been there? What does she want?
‘We’re near the graveyard,’ Chrissy says, looking out of the window.
Alice looks, too, realising how far they’ve come. The turning for Shirebrook is only a mile or so ahead of them along the snowy road.
‘Let’s make another stop-off,’ Chrissy says, hard determination in her tone.
‘Are you sure?’ Peter asks.
‘I have a feeling,’ Chrissy says. ‘I just have a feeling.’
Peter says nothing more, but when he reaches the junction, he turns in the direction of Shirebrook and the church. Alice sits back in her seat, feeling faintly sick. It isn’t the winding roads, but the sense of drawing closer to Ethan’s grave. She tries not to think too often about that night, when Chrissy called her in floods of panicked tears, saying, I did it, I did it, I couldn’t stand any more. Tries not to recall rushing to the Raven, heart clanging as she climbed the stairs to the flat. Ethan was sprawled on the living room floor, looking both bigger and smaller, somehow, than he had when he was alive. His face was blue and there were thick red stripes around his neck. A purple dressing gown cord lay coiled on the carpet nearby.
Chrissy was hyperventilating and Alice knew it was bad, so bad, and it was up to her to make it okay, she had to make it okay. For Chrissy. For the person she loved more than she could even admit.
What they did after that haunted her for years. He was heavy and unwieldy as they hoisted him up. It took so long to fasten him to the ceiling, to make it look right; he kept flopping back down and his eyes were open, watching them the whole time. He’d been sick down his work shirt but all Alice could think was that it would make it look more realistic. Her mind seemed to separate into two: the half that was appalled and terrified; the half that saw a job that needed to be done. Both halves, later, would go into shock. And even later than that, would unite in one consoling thought: Chrissy deserved better than Ethan.
Now they are climbing the slope towards the churchyard where he’s buried, and Alice feels chilled to the bone. She reaches forward, instinctively, touching Chrissy’s shoulder. Chrissy’s hand immediately rests on top of hers. It’s ice-cold, too. But Alice’s skin starts to thaw and her courage trickles back as Chrissy’s fingers press against hers.