“I want to get a sense of them. In case.”
“In case…what?”
She looks up. “In case they’re the kind of people to take to social media or turn up at your door.”
Jon chimes in. “Yeah, it probably wasn’t a good idea to call to them.” Although he’s right, it irks me. I’m not good with criticism, I hate feelinglike a naughty child, and I’m in no mood for taking moral guidance from my husband right now.
Greta is still scrolling and nods agreement without looking up. “Nothing you can do will bring back Venetia’s sister and we don’t know if your message had anything to do with her death. It’s not a murder-suicide, remember.”
“I know. I should never have gone near their house, it was stupid.” Itwasstupid, and not like me at all. I don’t know if it’s because of Jon’s affair or this stuff with the message or Savannah’s murder, but I seem to have lost the ability to think straight and act like a rational person. “I really do want to get to the bottom of this,” I add. “I hate how self-centered this sounds, but if someone did kill Aimee because of my message, or kill Savannah thinking she was me, I need to know.”
Greta nods, still thumbing her phone screen. She stops suddenly.
“Oh my god.”
“What?” Jon and I say in unison.
Her eyes widen. “This is weird.” She holds up her phone, uncharacteristically lost for words. Onscreen, there’s anIrish Independentarticle about the murders with a picture that’s very familiar, one we’ve seen on election posters around the area over the last few years.
“What’s Albie Byrne’s photo doing there?” Jon asks.
“He’s Savannah’s ex-husband…” Greta says, her voice faint. “Jesus. That’s…weird.”
Jon’s mouth drops open in surprise.
Greta nods slowly, still dazed. “They’re divorced, according to this.” She looks up. “I didn’t know Albie well, so I don’t know why I’m finding it strange that he’s just lost his ex-wife and that she’s a murder victim, but somehow I am.”
I shake my head. “I get it. I felt the same when I realized it was Savannah who’d been killed, even though I’d never actually met her. It was still a connection. It makes it more real.”
I point at her phone screen, still open on Albie Byrne’s photo. “He’s only recently been elected—I wonder if this will be bad for his career. Associated with a murder…”
Detective Kellerman’s question yesterday morning comes back now—asking about someone called “Sam.” So not Savannah’s ex-husband, after all. I turn that over, but it brings me no closer to clarity.
Jon is quiet, looking down at his hands. He’d missed the whole rehash of Greta’s accident last night, but there’s no escaping it now, and the memories Albie Byrne’s name provokes. And for the first time since that night, I feel something more than guilt and awkwardness. If Jon had just done what he was supposed to do—remembered he was collecting me, left the pub for another time—Greta would have been tucked up on her couch that night. It’s everyone’s fault and no one’s fault, but right now, through the filter of his betrayal, it’s mostly Jon’s fault.
Greta passes me her phone so I can read the article. Albie was interviewed for the piece, and has lots to say about how much Savannah will be missed by friends and family, how amicable their divorce was, and how making our streets safer will be top of his agenda. “No woman should have to face what Savannah did,” he’s quoted as saying. “No woman should feel unsafe answering the door in her own home.”
At those words, a shiver runs across my skin. For the first time, I picture it. Savannah, answering her door. Answering to a friend, a neighbor, an acquaintance, a stranger?Which is worse?Either way, she opened the door to her killer.
Leesa’s words from Wednesday echo in my head:It should have been you.
26
Venetia
Saturday
Venetia can’t open her eyes. It’s the sleeping tablets. The chef from Bar Four arranged them when news of Aimee’s death broke. Venetia doesn’t quite know how. Her colleague isn’t a doctor, but it doesn’t matter. She got them, and they work.
Felipe was worried at first. What if the sleeping tablets were a gateway back to…he didn’t finish the sentence. There was no need; they both knew what he meant. But if she went back to her old habits, it wouldn’t be because of sleeping tablets, it would be because her sister is dead. And god how she’s craved it over the last five days. The fix that would give her oblivion.Lendher oblivion, at least. The sleeping tablets, for their part, give her dreamless sleep, six hours of peace. Until she wakes up, as she has just now, groggy and confused, before it all hits again. Aimee is dead. Her only family in the world. The weight of it. The sheer weight of that pain. Like a lead shroud covering every inch of her body. Every fraction of her mind.
A movement beside her tells her Felipe is here. She’s on the couch, she realizes, not in her bed. Scraps of something filter into her mind. A visit. A woman.
She turns her head, twists on to her side and curls her knees to her chest.
“The woman. Susan.” Her voice is croaky.
“Yes.”
