“You’re right — but sshh,” he holds his index finger to his lips. “That’s our little secret.”
“Pete, what are you saying?” I ask, my mind whirling.
“Chris loved me too,” Pete continues, mild as milk. “He kept me well. For a long time. He was generous.” He glances around the room. “He bought us this house.”
Emma’s eyes go wide. “This is Chris’s house?”
“Was,” Pete corrects, almost apologetic. “He signed it over to me when things got… complicated.”
“Complicated?” My voice scrapes like hoarse glass. “You told me you and James have been together for years — married—”
“An embellishment,” Pete says lightly. “James and I were together. Yes. But Chris came first.” His gaze drifts to the doorway, the smear of blood darkening by the threshold.
“After the fraud investigation at his work, he was made the scapegoat and lost his job, couldn’t get another one anywhere. There was talk of the Serious Fraud Office seizing his assets, so he signed the house over to me.” Pete continues “He had some investments that he cashed in, but with no more income coming in and legal bills to be paid, that disappeared fairly quickly and soon enough, everything was gone. And I mean literallyeverything.”
Pete takes another sip of wine. “When it started falling apart, he wanted to sell, leave, reinvent. Go into hiding. New name. New country. On the run like some common criminal, the whole cliché. But this—” he gestures lazily around the high ceilings, the good furniture, the curated life— “this fits me. I don’t run.”
Emma sways, catching herself on the arm of the sofa. “So, you convinced James to kill him?” she whispers, each word a splinter.
Pete’s eyes sharpen. “I needed James to choose me. And I needed him to stick around.”
The room tips. I catch the back of a chair. “Pete…”
“James was a sweet guy, we started dating. Chris knew, he was into polyamory too, so that wasn’t a big deal. But when I knew Chris was really leaving, that there was no more money, I had to make plans. I knew I couldn’t fund living in this big house on my own. James made the perfect replacement. He had very big pockets, just wanted to look after me.”
I blink. “So just break up with Chris. Why kill him?”
The smile on Pete’s face drops. “Because they all leave eventually! Chris said he would be here for me forever, look after me forever. They all say that. Parents, fosterers, men with promises.Then they leave.” He steeples his fingers. “I just needed assurance. Commitment. Security. A guarantee.”
My mouth is dry. “So, you made James believe Chris was going to hurt you.”
“I showed him things.” He glances at Emma. “Your brother loved late-night catastrophising. Very literary. It didn’t take much to frame that… anxiety.” He lifts one shoulder. “A staged break-in. A shadow at the window. A cut on my arm I told him I got when Chris grabbed me. Bruises around my neck. Paranoia, fear, love — they do the heavy lifting. Men like James don’t need much push to become saviours. Or executioners.”
Emma’s face crumples. “You coerced him into killing my brother.”
Pete considers this and then tilts his head. “Coercedis a prosecutorial word. I would say… I simply accelerated an inevitable choice. Chris was going to leave me. James was going to leave me eventually too. I just… adjusted the timing.”
“You blackmailed him,” I say. My voice sounds like it belongs to somebody older. “Afterwards. With the video of him killing Chris.”
“Yes,” he says simply. “Though I prefer ‘insurance policy.’ A sign of commitment. He agreed that night to look after me. To keep me. And he did, for a while. We made it work as best we could. He did have a temper, yes. He fought back sometimes, he’d get angry, frustrated with the situation, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“But you still wanted rid of him?”
“He turned out just like the rest,” Pete sighs. “Men with money like to imagine they’re free.” His mouth tightens. “Recently he’d been siphoning funds. Little streams to other accounts. Researching identities. Another one getting ready to run away to a simpler life. As I said, they all want to leave in the end.”
“You found out,” I breathe.
“I know everything in this house,” Pete says. “That’s the point of houses. They tell you if you listen.”
“So, you tricked us. Made us believe he was violent to you?” Emma says, in disbelief.
“But he was, I saw the videos,” I add.
“Like I said, he had a bit of a temper, yes. A simmering rage that would come out every now and then. Kind of understandable under the circumstances. But when you came along, I’d slip him a little something to ramp it up a tad.”
“You drugged him,” I say, memory stitching to memory—those wild swings of mood, the sudden storms.
“A little something in his evening glass,” Pete concedes, as if confessing to oregano. “To increase the paranoia, the aggression. Worked much better than anticipated. Some temper tantrums, smashing plates. I can take a few punches to the face, had plenty in my time.”
