* * *
—
So now we are four in a villa with exactly that number of bedrooms, although I suppose that’s one too many under the circumstances. Or perhaps not—I can’t quite tell: Adam and Georgie are certainly taking a very low-key approach. Maybe there’s trouble in paradise, or maybe that’s just how they are. Georgie was never really with anyone at university, so I can’t exactly rely on past performance. Georgie fucked, though. Georgie certainly fucked.
The villa itself is extraordinarily impressive. Having lived in London, anything with space seems remarkably decadent, and this place is enormous. The open-plan living space has three huge sofas and a dining table comprised of a slab of repurposed driftwood that could seat twenty, and there’s still enough space between the furniture for a game of indoor cricket. I take a quick glance at the kitchen, which Duncan told me knowledgeably is kitted out to professional chef standard (how can one tell?), and spot every appliance I can think of and a few more that baffle me as to their purpose. It should be fun, all being together: like a grown-up dormitory, except with separate bedrooms for each of us and luxury private bathrooms stocked with expensive toiletries. I would have loved it at university: zero chance of missing out if you’re all under the same roof. But if there was ever any fun to be had on what was always a funeral trip, Cristina’s death has ruled it out. Beautiful weather, perfect beaches and empty swimming pools be damned; we’re all just counting the minutes until we can get on the plane home. Except Jem, I suppose. I can’t think that there’s any light at the end of the tunnel for him, not for a long, long time. Though I feel myself redden even thinking about him: how embarrassing that anyone would think I would be naive enough to be seduced by Jem. Though in truth, if I hadn’t been hauled back to my senses through the interlude with Graeme, would I have been vulnerable to exactly that? Not that Jem would have tried anything. Or would he—was Lissa right? Did he have a soft spot for me?
Oh God. It’s going to be impossible to speak to him without excruciating awkwardness from now on. On the bright side, though, there’s just one more night to get through, and then tomorrow, we fly away and leave all of this behind us. I hope. Please let that be how this works out.
Nobody much feels like dinner after the dreadful events of today, so we go for a drink at the small bar right on the beach. I’m tired of the same company, the same faces; I’m missing Rob and the kids and home, but there’s safety in numbers. There was no way I was going to decline and remain in the enormous villa all by myself; for all that we seem to have an answer on the money stuff, the message on the mirror still nags at me, and the idea that there might be a crazed psychotic gunman on the loose doesn’t much help, either. We all shower and change as we would for any dinner on any of our holidays together, but it feels like going through the motions. I can’t bring myself to care that my hair is frizzy; I don’t even contemplate trying to style it. I reach for any old dress, then realize that all of mine emphasize my cleavage, and then spend five minutes dithering about that before I tell myself to stop being an idiot and put on a damn dress. When I finally emerge, I see that Georgie looks like she’s suffering from a similar level of malaise: she has scraped her shower-wet hair back into a messy bun and applied the barest minimum of makeup, though on her the effect reads like an off-duty ballerina. She seems uncharacteristically absentminded, too: she has a pull buoy in her hand, presumably borrowed from Jem, and I swear she’d have brought it to the bar if I hadn’t pointed it out.
There isn’t a bartender when we get there; Adam hops nimbly over the counter and bows to the rest of us, perched on the barstools. “Good evening, ladies, sir; I hope you’re enjoying your stay at our fine resort,” he says drolly. “What can I get you?” Georgie only wants sparkling water, and I’m after a simple white wine, but Duncan throws out the challenge of a dirty martini, which Adam sets about providing with a look of relish.
“You know, Dunc, I had no idea you owned forty-nine percent of this place,” Adam comments, as he amasses the right glasses.
Duncan ducks his head, mildly embarrassed. “Don’t shout about it,” he says awkwardly. “Not even to Steve; I’d rather the staff just thought I was a bog-standard guest. I wouldn’t want to muddy Jem’s authority.”
“I guess you really believed in the business model,” Georgie says, half teasing and half thoughtful.
“Actually, I really did. And I still do; this is just a temporary setback. Luxury eco is the future for the hotel business, in my opinion, and Jem really knows what he’s doing. He’s the majority shareholder, I might as well be a silent partner. Although . . .” He stops, as if struck by something.
“What?” I ask. “Oh, thanks, Adam.” I take the white wine he’s holding out.
“Well, I was just thinking. There’s a clause in the shareholders’ agreement . . .” His mind is still ticking over; he’s muttering as if speaking just to himself. “Technically it won’t apply if nobody formally charges Lissa over the fraud, which I suppose they won’t given the circumstances . . .”
“What?” I repeat.
He glances across at me. “Oh. It’s something I insisted on.” He sounds almost shamefaced. “It’s just—well, I insist on it in all our private equity deals. If any partner commits fraud, then their shares are automatically offered to the other partners on a pro rata basis, for a dollar each.”
I do the math. “So technically you ought to own roughly seven twelfths now. You ought to be the majority shareholder.” I see Adam and Georgie exchange another of those glances.
Duncan looks uncomfortable. “Yes, but I’d never enforce it.” He shrugs. “I can’t anyway. They won’t charge Lissa.” But I can still see him thinking. “They won’t charge Lissa,” he mutters again.
“Evening, folks,” calls a voice. I look up to see Steve ambling toward us. “Oh dear, we can’t have the guests serving themselves. Let me take over,” he says.
“Don’t you dare; I’m having far too much fun,” says Adam. It’s true: he’s almost smiling.
“Are you okay?” Georgie asks Steve gently.
He runs a hand over his face. “No,” he admits. “It’s a shock. When we got her in the boat . . .” He stops, his mouth working soundlessly for a second. Georgie is closest to him; she places a hand on his arm, and he goes on. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t bear to be on my own, to be honest. I’m not intruding, am I?”
“Not in the least,” she assures him, to murmured assent.
“Lager?” Adam suggests.
“Thanks. No need for a glass.”
Adam pops the cap on a bottle and passes it across the counter to Steve, then turns to Duncan. “Your drink, sir,” he says, proffering the glass, complete with olive on a toothpick, with a bow. He’s even laid out a coaster for it. “Are you planning to leave soon?” he says to Steve.
Steve takes a swallow of his beer and shakes his head. “I’ll stay and help Jem shut up shop.” How does one shut down a hotel? Presumably all the linens and movable equipment will have to go into storage; it must be a massive job. “Nothing better to do anyway.”
“You’re a good man,” says Duncan earnestly.
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Steve reddens and drops his head as if physically shouldering away the compliment. “It’s not entirely altruistic. Jem will reopen; I’m sure of it. And I like it here, today notwithstanding.” He grimaces sharply. “I’ll want my job back when he does.”
“I’ll drink to that,” says Duncan. He takes a suspicious sip and then raises the glass appreciatively to Adam. “Good martini. If the bike shop business doesn’t work out, I think you’ve got an alternative career in tending bar.”
“How did Jem’s staff pep talk go?” Adam asks Steve. “That was before everyone heard about Cristina, right?”
“He gave it a good crack, but . . .” He shrugs. “People are scared; they have families to feed. There’s a hotel on
the other side of the island that’s hiring, and I heard the fish factory has jobs going, so—”
“There’s a boat coming in,” Georgie says suddenly. She’s swiveled on her barstool so that her back is to the counter, one elbow behind her resting on its surface. “Look.” She’s pointing with her other arm toward the closest of the two wooden jetties that jut out into Horseshoe Bay. Her eyesight must be excellent; I can’t see anything myself, though I can just make out the faint strokes of an engine.
“There shouldn’t be anything coming in without permission.” Steve is frowning as he stands up to get a better look. Georgie has already scrambled down from her seat and is walking toward the water’s edge. “Where’s her bloody lights? It’s ridiculous coming in dark like that.” He turns and places his beer on the bar. “I’d better go see what’s going on.” He leaves, but he doesn’t follow Georgie; instead he jogs off down the path, surprisingly light on his toes for such a big man. It’s a longer route, but paved—he’ll beat Georgie there; she’s tracking along the shoreline through the sand, but at a walking pace. I slide off my barstool, too, and hurry to catch up. I can see glints of reflected light off the boat—which is now perhaps only sixty meters away from Georgie and me, and much closer than that to the jetty—enough to make out its shape: the familiar long-nosed shape of all the local boats, but even so, something about it nags at me. It’s headed directly for the jetty at a low speed, with minimum noise and wake, but suddenly, as Steve reaches the pool of light from the jetty lamps, there’s an indistinct shout. The engine revs up, and the boat wheels round in a flurry of spray and white water and noise, just dipping into the arc of the jetty light as it turns. I see that its hull is dirty blue.
I clutch Georgie’s arm. “It’s the same one.”
“What?” She glances at me, then back at the receding boat, which has already put tens of meters of distance between us, and then back to me again. “Same what?”
“That’s the boat that almost ran me over.”
“No, it can’t be,” she murmurs, almost desperately. Then, louder more urgently: “You’re sure? It’s pretty dark. You couldn’t have got more than a glimpse of it.”
I feel my teeth catching my lip. “I know.” I try to analyze, to weigh and measure. There must be hundreds of boats of that particular style and shape just in the local area. Presumably blue is a fairly common hull color. But still, that particular blue, with exactly that level of shabbiness to the boat . . . “I feel sure, but you’re right, there’s no way I ought to be.” But I am sure.
“It was going to dock until the driver saw Steve,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or herself. Steve is coming over to us. “Did you recognize the driver?” she calls to him. “Or the other person?”
“Were there two on it?” he asks. “I just saw the driver.”
“I think there were two,” she says.
I shrug. “I didn’t see.”
“Anyway, did you recognize the driver, Steve?” she presses.
“Sort of. I could swear I’ve seen him before somewhere.” He’s silent for a moment, then shakes his head in frustration. “Nope. It’ll come to me. I’m sure I know him from somewhere.”
“He certainly knew you, or at least knew he shouldn’t have been there,” I say.
“Yeah. I’d better call Jem and have him find some extra security. Until this place is properly closed down, it’s going to be a looter’s paradise.” He turns for the bar, but Georgie doesn’t follow. There isn’t enough light for me to see her face properly, but I can see that her eyes are still searching out to sea, as if she’s tracing the wake of the speeding boat, though there’s nothing to see out there now except blackness. Then suddenly she turns her head to me. “I’m sorry, Bron,” she says urgently. I can feel her hand gripping my forearm. “If I’d been around more, if I’d been there for her, I could have—I could have . . .” She trails off. Her eyes are gleaming in the dark. Are they full of tears?
What is she talking about? “Don’t be silly. None of this is your fault.” I twist my forearm, palm upward, and grip her back. She shakes her head, not speaking. “Georgie. Do you mean Lissa? Really. It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s Jem’s—I mean, what was he doing antagonizing her like that?”
“I know, but I should have been there for her. I had a responsibility,” she says, half wildly. This isn’t like Georgie. She’s starting to scare me.
“Rubbish. Lissa was a grown-up. She made her own choices.” I try to inject some humor. “If anything, blame the parents.”
“Oh, believe me, I blame them, too.”
She hasn’t laughed, like I thought she would; instead the bitterness in her voice could sear through steel. I try again, but I can’t think of different words to say. “Georgie, really, none of this is your fault. She was a grown-up. She made her own choices.”
“Yes. I suppose.” She takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t feel that way, but yes. Of course you’re right.” I can feel her trying to quell her agitation. I don’t quite understand why it’s erupted now. “Except for the grown-up part,” she adds wryly, sounding far more like herself. “She wasn’t ever that.”
I huff out a small laugh, though I know it’s too soon for both of us: every memory has a sting. “Yeah, except for that part.”
HOW TO KILL YOUR BEST FRIEND
Method 6: Hit-and-run
It has some merit, I suppose. One could rent a car—something ten a penny, your average small, ubiquitous car, the sort of thing that umpteen rental companies rent out by the dozen—and obscure the number plates, and wear a disguise. You’d have to know where she’d be, though. You’d have to know you wouldn’t cause any hurt or injury to anyone else. It’s really just as bad as the cliff thing: what are the chances that she’ll be walking alone down a quiet road, at precisely the time that I need her to be? It’s too vanishingly slim. And even if, by some remarkable coincidence, there was indeed an opportunity, you couldn’t be sure it would be one hundred percent effective. What if she simply ended up paralyzed? Or merely scratched? It’s all or nothing. It’s always been all or nothing.
SIXTEEN
GEORGIE
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.
I got this wrong. I got this so very wrong—how could I have been so stupid? I was too fixed on what I thought I knew; I was too wedded to the things that I believed to be true. I look at my watch. Less than twenty hours until we all get on a plane. Less than sixteen before we leave the resort.
Strategy. Is there an immediate danger? I can’t tell. It doesn’t quite all hang together yet. It’s like watching an artist in the moments before the crucial brushstroke is applied, the one that makes sense of all that came before, the one that causes your brain to say, Aha, I know what it is now. I can’t see what’s to come, only what has been. The boat is the problem. Without having seen it, I could believe it was all over. That we could get on a plane and all would be fine. But I have seen it, and it means something, only I can’t quite make it fit.
But is there an immediate danger? Probably, if I make it clear what I know. Is that what happened to Cristina? Did she suspect something? Did she let that slip to the wrong person?
Strategy, though. I need strategy. Safety in numbers? It’s what Duncan has suggested after all. Does he know more than I think? Or am I second-guessing everyone now? Duncan, Bron, Adam, Jem, even Steve. I should tell someone, surely. But who?
Sixteen hours. Fuck.
* * *
—
“We should talk,” Adam says mildly. Duncan, Steve and Bron are playing cards at one of the tables that should be filled with suntanned hotel guests but isn’t. I declined the invitation to play; I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, and it would be noticed, since I’m the acknowledged card sharp of the group. So instead Adam and I are both still at the bar, sitting side by side, our legs almost but not quite touching, while Jack Johns
on croons melodiously in the background (Adam found the sound system). His body language is loose and careless—he has his elbows on the counter, and he’s holding a bottle of beer lightly between finger and thumb, as if it’s neither here nor there to him as to whether he drinks it or not—but there’s a thrum of tension in the gaze that rests on me.
I want to say: Really? Now? Aren’t there more important things to worry about? But, of course, he doesn’t know that; he doesn’t know that I’m counting off every second, every minute until we get away from here safely. So instead I say, “What do you want to talk about?” It’s a genuine question; I’m not being difficult. Or at least, I’m not trying to be difficult, despite the instinct to buck and kick—not only against the timing but also against the statement: nothing good in the world ever started with the words We should talk. But this is Adam: in the interest of future friendship, or at the very least, future civilized conversation, I should honor whatever pathway he’s alighted on to put distance between us.
“A few things. But first, I wanted to say sorry.”
I look at him, but I can’t hold his gaze. Instead I swivel on my seat to look out to the ocean that I can’t see. There can’t be much moonlight, or my night vision has been destroyed by the lights of the bar: I can’t even pick out where the waves are breaking, or any difference between sky and ocean. I wonder if the boat is still out there: circling, waiting. “What for?”
“How about you tell me what you want me to be sorry for, and we’ll start from there?” he says gravely, but somehow I know he’s both teasing me and mocking himself. I wasn’t expecting that. Unexpectedly, I feel the corners of my mouth twitching upward.
“Starter for ten, then.” I keep the tone light, mild; I keep my eyes on the invisible ocean with the possibly invisible boat. “You said I’m the most fucked-up person you know.”
How to Kill Your Best Friend Page 20
