The Birthday Girl

by Sue Fortin

‘I might have been wrong. I can’t think straight.’ I blow out a breath. It’s true, I am having a hard time keeping a handle on everything and what it all means.

  ‘I’ll go and see if I can find our phones,’ says Zoe. ‘They’re probably in Joanne’s room somewhere.’

  We sit in silence for a while, the only sound being Zoe’s footsteps as she moves around Joanne’s room right above us.

  My body feels weary and I rest my head against the sofa. ‘I can’t quite believe this is all happening,’ I say.

  ‘It’s been a bizarre weekend from the start,’ says Andrea. ‘All the secrecy leading up to it, and the business of actually getting here. And then that stupid bloody guessing game.’

  ‘I know. What was that all about?’

  ‘No idea.’ We lapse into a silence once more before Andrea speaks again. ‘What I can’t stop thinking about is, when I asked Joanne about the game, she said that the answer was staring us straight in the face. I’ve no idea what she meant.’

  ‘I haven’t thought much about it.’ I open my eyes and my gaze falls on the photograph of the four of us that Joanne took when we first arrived. A subliminal message nudges an unconscious observation to the fore of my mind. ‘The photo. It’s got to be the photograph.’ I jump up and take the picture from the mantelpiece.

  ‘I’m not with you,’ says Andrea.

  ‘The answer is staring straight at us. This photograph has been up there all along. I might be barking up the wrong tree, but at the time I thought Joanne was being rather fussy about where we stood for the photograph. And in an odd place too. Why the hallway? Why not in here or out the front?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Look at the background. Those stickmen with flags – that’s semaphore. Each of those pictures must be spelling out a word.’

  ‘How the hell are we going to work that out?’ asks Andrea.

  I go out to the hall and take the four pictures from the small nails that are tapped into the wall. It’s then I notice there is a fifth nail. A larger one. I look down at the picture propped up against the wall. ‘My guess is this big picture of the flowers was here originally and Joanne put these smaller ones in its place.’ On closer inspection, it’s more obvious that these have been produced on an office or home printer; they’re not the professional-quality prints you see in shops. ‘She must have made them herself.’

  ‘I still don’t get why, though,’ says Andrea, taking a picture from my hand and studying it.

  ‘Her idea of fun. The joke was on us, except we didn’t know it.’

  I look up as Zoe comes down the stairs. She pauses halfway. ‘I heard what you were saying. Look what was pinned to the back of my door.’ She unrolls a poster and holds it up for us to see: Semaphore Alphabet. Against each letter of the alphabet is a corresponding stick man with flags in various positions.

  ‘Good work,’ says Andrea. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ She nods to the red A4 notebook Zoe has tucked under her arm.

  ‘I’ll show you that in a minute,’ she replies. ‘First let’s crack the flag code.’

  We go into the living room with the four pictures and spread the poster out on the coffee table. We begin with the picture I was standing under. Letter by letter we write the word on to a piece of paper. I gulp as we read the final word.

  M U R D E R E R

  ‘What the …?’ says Andrea. She looks up at me. ‘Any idea why she’s put that?’

  Despite the fire burning and the warmth of Zoe and Andrea’s bodies, a chill rushes over me and my arms begin to prick with cold. I shake my head. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Let’s do the others,’ says Zoe.

  It takes a few minutes, but finally we have decoded the other semaphore pictures.

  Above Zoe the word S L U T is spelled out. Above Andrea the word F R A U D S T E R and finally, above Joanne is the word J U D G E.

  ‘What the hell was she planning?’ asks Andrea of no one in particular.

  ‘It’s starting to make more sense to me,’ says Zoe. Both Andrea and I look at Zoe, the questioning looks on our faces need no words to back them up. She picks up the notebook from where she left it on the floor and places it on the table. ‘I didn’t find the phones, but I did find this.’

  Andrea takes the notebook and opens it. Her eyes scan the first page and I crane my head to try to read from the other side of the table. Andrea flicks through some more pages. ‘It’s a dossier. On us.’

  ‘Let me see properly,’ I say, taking the notebook before it is even offered. Sure enough, there is a page on each of us. I automatically flick to the page headed up with my name.

  ‘Each of those pictures ties in with what she’s written about each of us,’ says Zoe, as I scan the pages.

  Carys Montgomery

  Character: Mary Ann Cotton

  Crime: Murdered her children and her HUSBANDS.

  Secret: Carys Montgomery murdered her husband.

  Covered up what happened between Darren and Ruby.

  My hands slam down on the book, as if I can hide the words and un-see them.

  ‘I’ve already read it,’ says Zoe. ‘You might as well read what she’s said about us.’

  I move my hands away and turn the page to Zoe’s name.

  Zoe Coleman

  Character: Diana, Princess of Wales

  Crime: Had an affair with a married man.

  Secret: Zoe is having an affair with a married man.

  The married man is Tris.

  I look at Zoe. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Is it true what she said about you?’ replies Zoe. ‘Or you, Andrea?’

  ‘Give that to me.’ Andrea takes the book and opens it at her name. Once again, I peer across the table.

  Andrea Jarvis

  Character: Nick Leeson

  Crime: Defrauded bank.

  Secret: Andrea Jarvis has committed fraud.

  Conned me out of the gym.

  ‘What a bitch,’ says Andrea. She quickly reads through the pages, letting out a low whistle. ‘Joanne sure was pissed off with us.’

  ‘But I didn’t have the Princess Diana card,’ says Zoe. ‘She must have got muddled up.’

  ‘No, I think she did that on purpose,’ I say. ‘We were given each other’s cards because Joanne didn’t want any of us to get suspicious about what she was up to. She didn’t want us to guess the game was about our personal secrets.’

  We all fall silent as we take a moment to catch up with the theory. Andrea speaks first. ‘So Joanne’s game wasn’t a game at all. Or at least, not a nice game. She was going to expose each of our secrets. Or should I say, alleged secrets?’

  ‘But why?’ says Zoe.

  ‘Humiliation. Satisfaction. Revenge.’ I check each one off on my fingers. ‘We thought this weekend was a peace offering. We’ve all crossed swords with her recently for various reasons, that’s why she’s been distant. But this weekend wasn’t about reconciliation, it was so she could have her revenge.’

  ‘You’re talking as if it’s true, as if these allegations have substance,’ says Andrea. ‘I swindled her out of the gym, Zoe is having an affair with Tris, and you killed Darren over something that happened with Ruby?’

  ‘In her eyes, yes. Of course, I didn’t kill Darren.’ The words tumble from my mouth. I ignore the reference to Ruby. I don’t want to talk about that. My leg begins to shake involuntarily and I squeeze it tightly with my hand. The thought of those accusations being dredged up again makes me feel physically sick.

  Andrea is unusually quiet. I watch my friend look at the notebook again.

  ‘She was going to expose us,’ Andrea says at last. ‘Zoe, are you having an affair with Tris?’

  Zoe stands a little taller, her jaw clenching. It’s difficult to take Zoe seriously, standing in her checked pyjamas with a teddy bear on the front and the words Sweet Dreams underneath.

  ‘I don’t actually think that’s any of your business,’ she says.

  ‘That’s a
yes, then,’ retorts Andrea. She turns to me, ignoring the goldfish open-and-close motion Zoe’s mouth is making. ‘And what does Joanne mean when she talks about Darren and Ruby?’

  ‘Nothing. There’s nothing to tell,’ I reply.

  ‘Carys, this isn’t a game any more. There must be something to it, otherwise she would never have mentioned it. This is part of Joanne’s game. She wanted to expose our grubby secrets.’

  ‘Oh, God, please don’t tell me Darren and Ruby were having some sort of an affair,’ says Zoe. ‘Is that why you two split up?’

  ‘They weren’t,’ I snap. ‘And, no, that’s not why we separated.’ I fold my arms and sit in my chair. I have no intention of telling them the truth.

  ‘What did Joanne mean then?’ Andrea won’t give up.

  I consider denying it again but decide against it. I’ll have to offer some sort of explanation. I go for the least damaging: ‘It’s stupid and totally untrue,’ I begin, my brain working overtime. ‘Ruby asked Darren to help her with her personal statement for her university application. Naturally, Darren agreed, and he ended up helping her several times. Joanne didn’t like it. She thought Ruby had developed a crush on Darren and asked Darren not to help her any more.’ I look at the others. ‘That’s it. That’s all there is to tell.’

  I watch while they dissect this information and consider the plausibility.

  Zoe speaks first. ‘Fair enough. Although she never mentioned it to me at any point.’

  ‘It was just between us,’ I say.

  Zoe gives Andrea a nudge. ‘What about you? What’s Joanne’s problem with you?’

  ‘She accused me of buying the gym behind her back. She thought we should have been partners in the deal. The fact is, I asked her to come in with me, but she didn’t have the funds.’

  ‘Is that it?’ I ask, suspecting, as in the case of my own story, there must be more to it than that.

  Andrea huffs loudly. ‘All right, Joanne thinks, or rather thought, that I forged her signature on a document and withheld information about the sale of the business and its valuation.’

  ‘And did you?’ I press.

  ‘What do you think?’ Andrea drops the notebook on the table. The slap of the cover hitting the oak makes both me and Zoe jump. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  I allow the revelations to roll around in my mind for a while as I try to assess each one and its credibility. Or even plausibility.

  ‘Whether we deny these allegations or not is irrelevant,’ I say finally. ‘The fact is, Joanne believed them. She was so convinced, she set up this elaborate game to expose how we were supposed to have wronged her. And now, before the grand reveal, when we’re all getting close to working out who these mystery characters are and how their “secrets” connect them to us, she ends up dead. If I were a police officer, I’d say that each of us had a motive for killing her.’

  Andrea bursts out laughing. ‘You seriously believe one of us killed Joanne?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you,’ says Andrea. She opens the vodka bottle and pours another shot. Zoe pushes her glass forward for a refill and Andrea obliges.

  ‘What’s your theory?’ I ask.

  ‘Let’s run with your crazy notion that one of us did it,’ says Andrea. ‘We’ll come back to mine in a moment.’ She takes a big slug of vodka. ‘We were all together when we last saw Joanne.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Zoe nods.

  ‘Then we went upstairs and you stayed downstairs. Suddenly we hear you scream and run down to find you outside with Joanne,’ Andrea continues. ‘Now, who would you say the prime suspect is?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I say, registering the uncertain look on Zoe’s face. ‘I was in the living room, asleep. It was Zoe’s screams that woke me up. How do I know what you two were doing prior to that? You weren’t together, were you?’

  ‘You think one of us did it?’ Andrea gives a laugh. ‘We were both upstairs. Asleep.’

  ‘Carys does have a point,’ interrupts Zoe. ‘I was in my room with the door closed. I don’t know for sure what you were doing. Likewise, you don’t know what I was doing. Technically, you could have crept downstairs without Carys hearing or seeing you.’

  Andrea looks stumped and I give Zoe a mental pat on the shoulder. It’s true, I did close my eyes for a few minutes and the door to the living room was pushed to.

  Andrea shakes her head in disbelief. ‘And how do we know you didn’t do the exact same thing?’ she says, glaring at Zoe. ‘Either that or Carys could have crept out of the house, or something could have happened when Carys was talking to Joanne.’

  I glance away from Andrea, not wanting to meet her eyes, and then rub my hand over my face to conceal my guilt at the accuracy of this last statement. Something did happen when I was talking to Joanne, but she was definitely OK when I left her. I let out a long sigh and try to compose myself. ‘Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. All we’ve established so far is that any one of us could have done it.’

  ‘What about motive?’ asks Andrea. ‘Zoe, you were shagging Tris by all accounts, so you have a motive.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ snaps Zoe. ‘You have a motive too. You swindled Joanne out of the business. You know how much that gym meant to her and how she had plans to take it over, but you wouldn’t let her. In some underhand, illegal way, you conned her out of it.’

  Andrea holds up her hands. ‘Even if that was how it happened, it doesn’t make me a murderer – that’s no reason to kill someone.’ She turns to look at me. ‘You have the strongest motive, Carys. If there was something between Darren and Ruby, that would look very bad indeed.’

  ‘Why would that bother me now?’ I say, hoping my false bravado will deflect suspicion. ‘Darren’s dead. It can’t exactly harm his reputation.’

  ‘No, but it could harm yours. If it was to get out, people would no doubt ask questions about whether you were suspicious, or even knew. If you’re married to someone who likes young girls, then you’re bound to know things like that.’

  ‘Shut up, Andrea. You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I snap, and immediately regret it. This will only shore up her belief that I knew something.

  ‘Hit a nerve, did I?’ she says, clearly not deterred. ‘Then there’s Alfie.’

  Pinpricks of sweat pierce my top lip in an instant at the mention of Alfie’s name. I feel the muscles in my body tense and I fix Andrea with a glare through narrowed eyes. ‘Watch it,’ I warn.

  Andrea drums her fingers slowly on the table before speaking. ‘If it was to get out that Darren did have an affair with one of his pupils, who would suffer the most? Probably not you. Whatever comes your way, you can deal with. You’re quite a resilient and tough cookie underneath the surface. You’d be OK, but Alfie, he’s much more volatile.’

  ‘Best you stop now.’ I grind the words out.

  ‘Too late for that,’ says Andrea. ‘How would Alfie cope with being teased and taunted about his dad shagging a student? Calling his dad a paedo? Some might even decide to take justice into their own hands and make Alfie pay for his dad’s actions. It seems to me that gives you the strongest motive of all.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘You know what, Andrea?’ I say, my jaw tightening with anger. ‘You need to know when to shut up.’ The urge to jump to my feet and hurl a torrent of denials at her is almost overwhelming. It’s taking a Herculean effort to restrain myself.

  ‘I’m only stating facts.’

  I conjure up a tone of civility from deep within me. I’ve done this before. I can ride it out. Taking a deep breath, I tell her, ‘Leave my husband, my son and Joanne’s daughter out of this. If Joanne was here, she’d say the same thing.’

  ‘Would she?’ Andrea fires me a challenging look.

  ‘Hey, come on, you two,’ says Zoe. ‘Let’s not fight. I don’t believe any of us killed Joanne. It’s a ludicrous suggestion. What happened was an accident, that’s all. J
oanne was messing around, slipped on the patio and hit her head. Simple as that. A tragic accident. Us falling out like this isn’t going to help.’

  Andrea weighs up Zoe’s words. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.’ She looks at me and gives a small smile. ‘All this is freaking me out.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I reply, although I can’t say I truly mean it.

  ‘There is the other option mentioned earlier,’ says Andrea. She pauses to make sure she has our attention. ‘There could be someone else out there. And it may not have been an accident.’

  ‘Oh, come off it.’ Although I’m grateful the spotlight of blame has shifted away from me, I can’t help feeling we are all overreacting now. ‘Who would be out there? And why? Why would someone randomly kill Joanne?’

  ‘Perhaps they tried to attack her and she fought back?’

  ‘Andrea’s got a point,’ says Zoe, her eyes widening. ‘All that stuff yesterday in the woods. Maybe there is a weirdo out there, watching us. Maybe they followed us here.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I say firmly. ‘I’m sure that was Joanne’s warped sense of humour at work. She was having fun at our expense. I wouldn’t mind betting she made up that story about the mother sacrificing herself at the altar, to make us jumpy. I’m not buying that there is some crazed killer out in the woods.’

  Zoe dips her head. She reminds me of a scolded child. ‘Sorry. You’re right. I’m getting carried away too.’ Her bottom lip trembles and I go to give her a hug. Zoe waves me away. ‘No. Don’t. I’ll be reduced to a quivering wreck at this rate and be of no use to anyone. I wish we knew what happened out there.’

  ‘Let’s keep calm,’ I say. ‘And think what to do next.’

  ‘We can’t bring her in here,’ says Andrea. ‘I couldn’t cope with a dead body in the same house.’ She glances over her shoulder in the general direction of the back door. ‘Sorry, Joanne. No offence.’

  ‘There’s a shed out there,’ I say. ‘We could wrap her in a blanket and leave her in the shed. Probably the best place. It will be colder out there than in here.’ I bat away the images of dead bodies and the smell of rotting flesh. ‘We’d better do it soon. It’s dark enough as it is.’