‘This is outrageous!’ I looked at my solicitor, who was picking at his nails. ‘I’m telling you, I didn’t have anything to do with it. Someone is trying to set me up! What possible motive would I have for killing my entire family?’ I almost laughed, it sounded so preposterous.
‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out,’ said Rudolf gravely.
‘Is this a joke?’ I retorted. ‘Do you think I’m such an imbecile that I’d leave evidence like that lying around?’
Randolf didn’t answer, his expression steely and unfaltering. The photocopies lying between us vibrated slightly from my shaking legs beneath the table. My eyes furtively darted over the scrawled entries.
12thDecember 2025
… pink, blue, red, yellow … He held onto the string lights … sparks flying … But it wasn’t that that killed him– no…
I skimmed over another entry.
14thDecember 2025
I had meant to cut the tree down, I swear. It had been a long time coming for that lying, cheating son of a bitch.
‘No– no that’s not my writing,’ I protested, ‘I didn’t write that.’
The lawyer cleared his throat, pushing up his glasses with one nail-bitten finger. He leaned close to me and whispered into my ear, his coffee breath hot and cloying.
‘If you can’t provide an alibi,’ he said, addressing me but looking at Randolf, ‘perhaps we should consider the advantages of cooperation. There’ll be much more leniency with that route.’
‘I swear to you,’ I hissed at the inept lump of a man, ‘I didn’t do it!’
1
DRIVING HOME TO CATASTROPHE
Isat watching the Shropshire countryside fly by as Miles cranked up the volume button on Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home for Christmas’.I craned my head back to see the kids’ reactions; Callum predictably had his headphones in, and Martha looked out the window with an irked scowl. No one in the car, not even Miles, subscribed to Rea’s sentiment, ‘I can’t wait to see those faces’, but it was undeniably a great song.
Miles caught my eye and I squeezed his leg reassuringly. It was going to be fine. If we all kept our heads down and didn’t rise to the bait that would undoubtably be set for us, we would get through the next two weeks, and would not have to see the Weisses for the foreseeable. Once we moved to Australia in January… the excitement at not having to have Miles’s family in our lives caused a grin to creep across my face.
‘You look strangely happy for someone who’s about to endure my family for two whole weeks,’ Miles said, glancing from me back to the road.
‘I’m just thinking about Australia,’ I beamed. ‘Sun, surf and sushi.’
Miles huffed a laugh and made the right-hand turn off the road and through the immense wrought-iron gates.
Martha’s face dropped further into abject self-pity. Miles and I didn’t want to talk about Australia too much around her; she had just started seeing someone and had absolutely made her feelings clear that she did not want to move.
The gravel crunched under the tyres as we rolled up the long driveway, the imposing Georgian mansion looming larger with each passing second. A gap in the clouds let through a ray of sunshine, illuminating the golden stone of the house, causing the glass in the windowpanes to glitter momentarily, before the clouds won out once more. I felt my stomach tighten, the brief moment of Australian-induced joy evaporating as quickly as it had come.
‘Here we go,’ Miles muttered, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. ‘Seriously, I don’t know many women who could survive eighteen years with my insane family. I can’t believe you ever agreed to marry me.’
‘Well, when we first met I thought you were hot and rich. And then you trapped me by knocking me up with these two,’ I teased. ‘Perhaps we’re your consolation prize for dealing with them your whole life?’
Miles glanced back at the kids and smiled. ‘Is it too late to get a refund on these two?’
‘Oi!’ Martha whipped her hand across the back of his head and Miles chuckled.
Callum finally joined the land of the living and ripped his headphones off.
‘Do you think we’ll get anything good for Christmas from Gran?’ He eyed Weiss Manor looming ever closer.
‘What do you mean by good?’ I asked.
‘Well, like… you know how I’ve been asking for money for my new set-up?’
