How to Kill Your Best Friend
Page 24
“Hello? Je-em,” he calls loudly once I’m inside, making the name into two syllables. There’s no response. The portrait of Lissa is still propped on the table in the hallway, her pale, featureless visage almost luminous in the dim lighting. There’s something odd about it that’s nagging at me. Adam calls Jem’s name again, but my attention is still on the portrait. “Wait here a moment,” Adam says. “I’ll just check in case he’s asleep or not decent or something.”
Not decent. I almost laugh. We both know he’s not a decent man. The fire-engine red swimsuit in his pool cupboard is proof of that. But I suppose he might be in bed; after all, didn’t Lissa complain he wasn’t as much of a night owl as she was? Is. But I should say was. Oh dear God, I caution myself, I’m going to trip myself up here if I’m not careful. Even the use of tenses is fraught with danger.
The portrait is still insistently claiming my gaze, and as I stare at it, suddenly something moves inside me, like a tumbler dropping into place inside a lock, and I see what it’s been trying to tell me. It could be Maddy. The same delicate china features; the same coloring. It could be a grown-up Maddy. Did I truly never see the resemblance before? Surely at some level it must have registered with me. I hear Adam’s voice from the lounge, and seconds later, a deep murmur that must be Jem, and their voices drag me away from the bewildering revelation; there will be time to process that later, I tell myself. “Come on through, Georgie,” Adam calls to me.
“Hey,” I say to Jem, as I enter the lounge. He’s wearing his usual uniform—tailored shorts, white linen shirt—but the sleeves are carelessly rolled up, his feet are bare, and he has what looks like tortoiseshell reading glasses tipped up on his head. There are no guests left for him to be on point for, I suppose. I half expect to see a glass of something on the coffee table, or a bottle, but there’s nothing in plain view. The curtains are drawn, but I can still hear the rhythmic pounding of the rain outside, with occasional cascades of stronger beats when the wind throws the drops at the long glass wall hidden behind the drapes. Adam is putting his phone is his pocket; I realize he must have been showing Jem the photos of the vandalized room. “Sorry, I think we’re dripping all over your floor. It really is quite a storm.” What utter banality. But really, what else do I have to say to him? He doesn’t like me, and now I don’t trust him. Before, I wouldn’t have said I disliked him, but I also wouldn’t have said I had a great deal of time for him, either. When we first met, when he and Lissa were only newly coupled up, I thought, Well, that won’t last. Rebound relationship. Their engagement was a shock.
“Is Bron okay? That message—” He’s shaking his head.
“She’s okay,” I say. I see it again, in my mind’s eye. The lettering, bold and large. The swimsuit, the knife. “Shaken, obviously.”
“It’s so . . . weird. Cristina, and now this . . . We’ve never seen anything like that before; I can’t imagine what’s going on. I’m so sorry that this has sullied your experience of this place.” He appears genuinely troubled, but for some reason I think of him at the memorial service, barely inhabiting his own skin; the very embodiment of a man grieving. Surely that wasn’t an act? Bron has me doubting everyone and everything. “Though I can’t help thinking that the storm is a blessing in disguise; much better for you guys to get away from whatever that is all about as soon as possible. And, of course, silly for you to get stranded here if the road becomes impassable.” He turns back to Adam. “Can you send me those photos? I’ll need to pass them on to Jimi.”
I sidle toward the kitchen, where there’s a door that leads out to the pool area. “I’ll pop the pull buoy back in the cupboard while you’re doing that.”
Jem looks up from his phone. “You can just leave it here.”
“It’s no trouble,” I say, quickly dashing out through the kitchen before I can hear him reply. The lock on the kitchen door that leads outside is a simple turn-and-release mechanism; I’m outside in a flash. Like the presidential villa, the first floor of Jem’s villa partially protrudes over the pool terrace, providing protection from the unending rain, which cascades in a steady curtain from the overhang, colored yellow-gold in patches from the outdoor lighting. The cupboard is in the dry area, thankfully. I pop the pull buoy back on the same shelf I originally found it. Then I turn to my real motivation: taking a photograph of the red TYR swimsuit. I pull the boogie boards forward so I can get a better look, but the cupboard is too dark. I fish in my pocket for my mobile and activate the torch function, then sweep the beam over the back of the cupboard, but I can’t see any telltale flash of fire-engine red. I bend to take a closer look.
“Now what exactly would you be looking for?”
I whirl round. Jem is standing a few feet away from me, his hands in his pockets and his expression unreadable. The pool lights paint one side of his face golden.
“Jem,” I gasp. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I know you didn’t. What were you looking for?”
“Nothing, I was putting the pull buoy back, like I said.” I can feel myself flushing. I wave an arm at the cupboard and try for joviality. “And, you know, trying to be a good citizen by leaving this shocking mess in some kind of order.”
“Bullshit.” He’s no longer unreadable; there’s an ugliness to his expression now. He’s trying to intimidate me.
“Jem, I—” Where is Adam?
“You were looking for this.” He draws his right hand out of his pocket, and with it comes the red swimsuit, bunched in his fist. “You found it earlier, didn’t you? You found it before I did. You think I killed her.”
“No, I really don’t—”
“Bullshit!” he roars. I almost flinch at the violence of his delivery. “Don’t lie to me! Ever since you got here, you’ve been needling away, picking at every little thread. You’d love to show that I killed her, wouldn’t you? You could have just asked, you could have just approached me, but no. Not you. You’re looking for any chance to cut me down.” Surely Adam must hear him—except no, he won’t hear a thing above the noise of the storm, I realize; the pounding of the rain is cocooning us. And with the curtains closed, he can’t see us from the living room, either. Jem takes a step toward me, and I find myself backing up a step, like a dance—but I don’t want to dance. Not with him, and not like this. He’s a strong man, Jem: barrel-chested and gorilla-armed, and he likes his gym sessions. The strength in the skinny arms of the man who attacked me would be nothing compared to that of Jem. “You’d love to see me behind bars, stripped of my hotel, my livelihood. You couldn’t bear it that she chose to marry me—me!” He thumps his chest and moves one more step forward. I take another step back and feel a cupboard shelf butting into my rear. He has hemmed me in. Panic is rising: I can’t breathe, I can’t concentrate on what he’s saying, I just need to get away from here. Can I rush him? But he’s so much bigger than me. And decently agile, whereas I have a damaged knee and, in any case, I lean more toward endurance than sprint. “She chose me. I don’t know what the two of you did to each other before, and I don’t care, but she chose me. Me. And—”
“Don’t you come a step closer,” I explode, borderline hysterical. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
“Touch you? I’m not going to fucking touch you.” But he takes a step back, as if shocked into suddenly realizing how much he’s advanced. There are tears streaming down my face. I don’t remember starting to cry. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He looks at me properly, and something in his face changes. His ugly righteous anger falters. “Shit. Georgie. It’s okay. I’m sorry. Really, I’m not going to hurt you.” He takes another step back and extends a hand, palm down, as if soothing a cornered animal. I could run now, I think, except that I’m not sure if I can. My head is curiously light. It’s almost floating, yet my heart is pounding, my breath is coming in rasps and my feet feel rooted to the spot. “And for the record I didn’t kill Lissa, either.”
I take a dee
p breath, then another. Then another. “Then,” I say, with difficulty. Each breath is an effort, let alone forming speech. It must be a form of panic attack, a logical part of my brain recognizes. It doesn’t particularly help to know that. There’s a tingling in my fingers, as if I’ve gone to sleep on them. “Then how . . . come . . . a fisherman . . .”
He nods. “I know. It was wrong, I know.” He clenches his jaw as if temporarily grinding his teeth. “I just—I just needed it to be over. She obviously went swimming and got swept out, but without a body . . .” He shrugs. “Well, without a body the whole thing was—God, it was awful. It wouldn’t end, it was just lingering. No closure. And business was suffering. I thought that—well, I thought that maybe if there was a sighting of a body, that would draw a line under it. So I found a guy and paid him a few hundred dollars.” He shrugs and his mouth twists. “Though it didn’t make any difference in the end. I’m still having to close the hotel.”
“Did . . . Jimi . . .”
He cottons on instantly, shaking his head. “No. No, he thought it was all legit.” He looks down at the red swimsuit in his hand, almost bemused. “I really did think she must have been wearing this. The police asked, and it was the only suit I could think of that I couldn’t find. I only spotted it today.” He shoves it back in his pocket, but a stray strap hangs down in a loop. His brow furrows. “I really don’t know which swimsuit she could have been wearing instead.” He’s silent for several seconds, as if hunting in his head for the answer. As if knowing what swimsuit she died in would make all the difference. I breathe and breathe. It’s getting easier. And reason is returning. He paid the fisherman. Did he also pay the worker who said he saw her swimming?
“The worker. The one who . . . saw her . . . in the . . .”
He shakes his head quickly. “No, I had nothing to do with that. He really did see her. She really must have been swimming in Kanu Cove.” He looks at me. “She really did drown, Georgie,” he says gently.
Kanu takes. Kanu takes who wants taken. But no, Lissa had too many scores to settle. She wouldn’t let herself be taken. Lissa didn’t drown. I shake my head, but he doesn’t react. He watches me sadly. “Are you okay?” he asks awkwardly, after a moment.
“I think so.” My breathing is almost normal. Speech is becoming easier now, too.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He truly seems it. “But I hate that you were closer to my wife than I was. I can’t look at you without thinking that, and it makes me so . . .” He twists his head away, his jaw clenched tight. I think he’s waiting for me to protest, to say No, no, you’re wrong; you and she were soulmates, but I neither believe it nor have the stomach for the lie. The unfilled silence settles between us. “Anyway.” He directs those remarkable sea glass eyes back at me. “Do you believe me? That I didn’t kill her?” I nod. “Are you going to tell the police about the swimsuit?”
I consider it. “I doubt there’s any point.” And in any case, your wife is most likely still alive, and bent on a vengeance that never had anything to do with you. “I expect you’re about to burn it.”
He nods shamelessly. “Yes. At the earliest opportunity.”
Suddenly Adam’s voice calls out, “Georgie? Georgie, are you all right?” He’s clattering out of the kitchen door at pace, but he stops abruptly when he sees Jem and me standing together. “Georgie,” he says warily. “Is everything okay?” Then he spots the strap hanging down from Jem’s pocket. Jem follows Adam’s gaze and sees it himself.
“I suppose she told you,” he says fatalistically.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t kill her. She really did go swimming and drown. It’s just, without a body . . . I just—I just needed it to be over.”
“Yes.” But Adam’s eyes are on me, checking me over. “I’m sorry, Georgie. He told me he was going to the bathroom—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I say quietly.
“Jesus, Adam, I would never hurt her. I just wanted to talk to her.” But Adam doesn’t respond. Jem looks at him for a moment and then turns away, his face hollow. “Come on, guys, let’s go back in.”
Something occurs to me. It’s been bothering me, in the scenario in which Lissa is still alive: Lissa’s cavalier treatment of Jem. What has he really done to be so thoroughly screwed over by his wife? Lied to and stolen from, and his livelihood reduced to rubble. “One question first.” Jem looks at me warily. “Did you ever cheat on Lissa?”
“What? Why?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter why. Just answer me.” He looks like he’s about to refuse. “You owe me for that little display before.” Adam looks as if he’s about ask what I mean by that, but I shake my head minutely at him.
“I—oh, okay. Whatever,” Jem yields. “Then: No. Never.” Those sea glass eyes meet mine without any hesitation. I believe him—and then suddenly he checks himself. “I mean, when we met I was still with my ex-wife; I don’t know if that counts. But ever since we decided to be together, it’s just been Lissa. One hundred percent Lissa.” I exhale sadly. There it is. He cheated to be with her. Their marriage never stood a chance. He looks away again, and suddenly he seems much smaller. “I really loved her, you know. I know we fought sometimes, but I even loved that about her, that she would never back down. She was . . . God, she was extraordinary.” He looks around again, as if his vision extends through the golden rain curtain, as if he can see throughout the entire resort. “This was our dream. We were going to grow old together here, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I actually mean it, in a way that aches at my very bones. I’m sorry for things he can’t possibly know that I’m sorry for. He nods absentmindedly, still looking out through the rain. “Come on. Let’s go back in.”
NINETEEN
BRONWYN
Packing. That’s what I need to focus on. Packing up all my things in a bedroom I didn’t even get to sleep in. After faltering in the doorway, I take a deep breath and force myself inside, though with the door left wide open; I can hear reassuring thumps and bangs as Duncan opens and closes drawers and wardrobes in his own room. I take another deep breath, then pull out my suitcase from where I’d pushed it under the bed. There’s no reason to look at the wall, at the tessellated blue-and-purple-diamond-patterned swimsuit still pinioned by that weighty blade, drooping down sadly like a lifeless flag; there’s no reason to allow my eyes to take in the black spray-painted letters as I open the wardrobe doors. Instead I glance at my watch. In twenty-five minutes we’ll be gone. Just twenty-five more minutes, and all of this will be nothing more than a bad memory, and I know how to lock those down. I’ve had practice.
Clothes from hanging rail, shoes from the bottom of the wardrobe, and jewelry and passport from the little safe inside. Underwear from the drawers. Chargers, for my phone and laptop; mustn’t forget those. Toiletries: I head into the (unsullied) bathroom to collect them, mildly regretful that I didn’t get a chance to enjoy the enormous tub that sits by the sliding glass doors that lead to a private outdoor space with a second shower.
The sliding doors are open. I stare at them for a second, trying to make sense of that, and then I realize, with dawning horror: I’ve miscalculated. I whirl round, meaning to scream, meaning to head straight for Duncan’s room, but it’s too late.
She’s here.
TWENTY
GEORGIE
“I’m so sorry; he must have snuck round to you through the bedroom French doors. I should have realized sooner . . . What did he say?” asks Adam quietly, turning himself so that he partially shields me from Jem. We’re back in the living room of Jem’s villa. Jem is on the phone, presumably ordering a buggy to take us to the reception, but I’m not really listening closely enough to follow his conversation. I’m too aware of time passing by, second by ticking second. Another and another and another. Each one brings us closer to . . . something. A reckoning. An awful, fateful reckoning.
“Georgie?” prompts Adam, barely above a whisper.
I shake my head. “I’ll tell you later.” My voice is equally low.
Jem is coming off the phone. “Sorry, we only have one driver at the moment. He’s at the presidential villa, presumably picking up Bronwyn and Duncan and your bags, but he’ll come here afterward.”
“I’ll ring Duncan’s mobile and find out if they’re nearly ready,” says Adam, pulling out his phone. I lower myself carefully onto the sofa, wincing a little as my knee is forced to bend. Jem watches me, then turns away, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, but that brings them into contact with the swimsuit; with a muffled exclamation, he yanks them back out as if burned. “He’s not picking up,” Adam says. “I’ll try Bron.” I twist my head to look up at him, seeing the unease growing in his face with every unanswered ring.
“Jem, you need to ring,” I say.
“Ring where?”
“The presidential villa. Now.” The urgency in my voice spurs Jem into action. He moves swiftly and wordlessly for the conference-style phone that sits on the desk next to his computer. It’s on speaker: we hear every electronic digit as he punches in a number and then the loud brrring of each peal of the call. My heart leaps as someone picks up—She’s there! She’s answering the phone!—but then I realize from the words that emanate from the phone that he’s simply called the reception. “It’s Jem. Put me through to the presidential villa,” he barks. Seconds later, the conference phone is making the same abrasive peals. One, two, three. No answer. Pick up, pick up, pick up. Seven, eight, nine.