Yes, that’s exactly what I thought.I made a request and a man – N.P. Pelphrey – told me to forget it, in a tone that was blunt-verging-on-rude. I decided his response was typical of the rudeness of a lot of people these days – not noteworthy at all.
And then, all the others …
I wonder how much danger I’m in, and what kind of danger, now that Marianne knows what I did. Tried to do.
She smiles. This is the bit she’s been looking forward to most: forcing me to watch her savouring the full extent of my failure.
‘That’s why everything had to go.’ She nods in the direction of the empty room, then moves towards me and pulls me into a hug that stinks of the only perfume she ever wears, a peppery, leathery vanilla smell that I’ve come to loathe. My body is rigid, fossilised in her arms. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘I’m not angry. In your shoes, I’d have done the same.’
Except you’d have found a way to succeed.
‘Like mother, like daughter, eh?’ she whispers next to my ear, and it occurs to me that what I need is for her to die. I want to make that happen.
I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
2
Monday 30 October 2023, 5.20 p.m.
JEMMA
Like mother, like daughter, eh?
I didn’t include the words that fought to get out of my mouth in response, because I was too scared to say them: ‘You’re not my mother. You never have been and you never will be. You’re my enemy.’ I remember thinking to myself as I typed, my tears hitting the keyboard harder than my fingers:Sorry, but no. If you were too much of a coward to say it, then it doesn’t get to be part of the story.
I slam my laptop shut, my heart hammering as if it’s still happening now: the shock of that moment, that conversation, being alone with Marianne on the top floor of the house. I knew she wouldn’t do anything to me then and there, but the look in her eyes and her ‘You’ve done it now’ smile were unambiguous: she wanted me scared.
I guess I’ve just proved to myself that my writing has the power to deliver an emotional gut-punch, so if I ever decide I want to go public with this diary, or book, or whatever it is, maybe it will be of interest to somebody: the story of how I, a murderer in my heart, stopped myself from committing a murder – that’s how I’d describe it.
I feel a strong urge to open the file I’ve only just closed and look again. Was there something wrong in there? Did my eye skate over a line or phrase that needed fixing? I could swear my mind snagged on something, but it was subliminal and didn’t fully register. And maybe I’m being paranoid. If I am, I blame my present location a little bit – an eerily impersonal police station reception area – and Marianne a lot. If she hadn’t stolen and read all the other diaries I’ve ever kept, I’d probably still be handwriting in notebooks with turquoise and purple ink pens like I always used to until 2006, when my diary of the moment went missing and never reappeared. Before then, Marianne had always returned them to wherever she’d found them in my bedroom, once she’d had a good nosey. Not the 2006 diary, though. Clearly, she wanted to read and reread my thoughts from that crucial year: the one that contained the end of my relationship with Ollie and the beginning of me and Paddy trying to make a proper go of it together.
Nice way of putting it, Jemma. It would have been quicker and easier to say ‘the year I chose Paddy and dumped Ollie’, but let’s not make things any more painful by assigning responsibility, shall we?
My words on the subject of Ollie getting dumped and Paddy being declared the winner of the ‘Who-Gets-To-Be-Jemma’s-Boyfriend’ competition were evidently so important to my stepmother (‘Wicked enough to convince anyone that Cinderella really didn’t know how lucky she was’, as my best friend Suzanne once said) that she decided to deprive me of them forever. I’m sure my 2006 diary was one of the things she kept locked inside her study, before she gutted it.
Where is it now?
‘Oh, she’s got it stashed away somewhere, for sure,’ Suzanne said, after I told her about Marianne showing me the empty,stripped room. ‘She was way too invested in your love life and which boyfriend you chose.’
I thought but didn’t say,I don’t care where it is, as long as I don’t have to read it again. Too painful.
‘Jemma? Is it okay if I call you Jemma? Are you all right?’ The dyed-blonde sergeant is hovering over me again. What’s her name again? That’s right: Zailer. Charlotte Zailer. I didn’t notice her coming over. ‘Will you come with me to an interview room so that we can talk about this properly?’ she says. ‘And I’ll need an address immediately, assuming there’s a body to be found.’
‘A body?’
She leans in closer. ‘You said you wanted to tell us about a murder, remember? When you first came in? Then just a minute ago, I asked you for the name of the victim. You said “Marianne Upton”.’
‘There’s no body,’ I manage to say, praying she’ll decide to leave me alone. ‘I’ll explain the situation to DC Waterhouse when he gets here.’ I’ll make his arrival my fresh start. As soon as I see him – a detective who deals with murders – I’ll pull myself together. Somehow.
‘Would you like a glass of water? Jemma, I do need Marianne Upton’s address.’
Not yet. I need to explain first.
‘Oh, no,’ Sergeant Zailer mutters. I look up. She’s staring over my shoulder, looking angry. ‘Here he comes, breaking new records for whatever’s the opposite of “in mint condition”. I thought he’d gone home, but no such luck. Too late: you wanted him? You’re about to get him.’
I’m not sure she’s thinking straight. I never said I wanted DC Waterhouse specifically. I’ve got no idea who he is and didn’t know his name until I walked in here today. All I said– with no idea if I was using the correct terminology – was ‘a major crimes detective who’s experienced at dealing with murders.’
I turn and see a tall, broad-shouldered man walking towards me. He stops when he reaches my side, and blinks at me. There are patches of stubble on his face. He looks stunned – as if he’s just come round from a general anaesthetic and found himself standing, fully dressed, in a police station’s reception area. His probably-once-white shirt is creased and sweat-stained, his greying dark hair just long enough to look untidy.
