“So, I enlisted my old friend Riz to get in touch. He had plans to be an MP. And apparently, Guy Frobisher was desperate to run for Parliament. Tarquin had the photos sitting in the inbox of an old email account he’d never got rid of. I logged in and got them.”
“And as for Jed,” she scoffed. “That idiot. Well, I never meant to kill him. Make him a vegetable, maybe, not that you can really tell the difference.”
“You leaked the photos for revenge on Guy?” I said. “And put Jed in hospital, not caring if he lived or died. But why did you kill Riz?”
“Easy,” she said. I heard her pulling out a chair from the table and taking a seat. “He wanted to confess everything. He chickened out.”
Marina’s words came into my head. Riz was in over his head. The photos of Guy were supposed to embarrass him. Not shake the entire establishment.
“But I’d gone too far for him to ruin it. I didn’t kill Macauley Sheridan to speed up the election, I didn’t destroy every scrap of my old life to make the trail go cold, so he could freeze on me. No, no. Simon, you had to suffer, I’m afraid. And for that to happen Arden had to die. But Riz chickened out. We’d planned it that afternoon after his radio appearance. We’d kill Arden that night. Then when we followed him, he said we couldn’tdo it while he was with Errol. We argued. And I shot him.” She sounded as if this was the only logical solution.
“You’re fucking mad!” Verity screamed. Her nails dug into my hand.
“Yes, well, quite. But you lose a child, my dear, and see how you feel when the men who killed him are wandering about free. You’ll discover it’s quite easy to stop caring about things like that.”
“We didn’t kill your son, Katrina!” Guy yelled. “We never laid a finger on him. He died of an overdose! It was his own stupid fault!”
I almost groaned at that. Yup, call the mad woman’s son a drug addict who got what he deserved.
“Katrina,” I yelled over everything else. “Look, I know you loved Rabbie. I’m so, so, sorry for what happened to him. No one deserves to die like that. I’m sorry you couldn’t be with him. I’m sorry your husband created that rift between you, but that’s not anyone in this room’s fault. They don’t know what’s going on. Why don’t you and I stay in here? Just us. You want me, don’t you?”
Far away, I could hear police sirens. Hurry up, hurry up.
Katrina was silent. “Fine. The women can go. They shouldn’t suffer for the sins of men.”
“Okay,” I said. “They’re going to go out the door and leave through the front of the house. You’ll not harm them, will you?”
“I said I wouldn’t,” she said in an aggrieved tone. Like, she was offended I’d think she was a liar.
I beckoned for the girls to go. “We can’t leave you,” Verity said. “She’s a nutter. She’s going to kill you.”
I smiled at her and gripped her hand back. “I’ll be fine,” I said. She was less than convinced.
“C’mon.” Nigella pulled her along as they fled. Verity gripped my hand for as long as she could.
“It’ll be alright,” I whispered.
The three of them ran from the room. I could hear Kennedy barking and the sirens coming closer.
“Why don’t we all sit at the table like civilised folk?” Katrina asked. Sweetness and light.
I dared to look. She was sitting at the table like this was a macabre coffee morning. Across the room, the others were all waiting for me. I nodded.
Standing gingerly, I held my hands in front, where she could see them. “Don’t shoot me yet, please, Katrina,” I said.
“Course not, love, wouldn’t dream of it.”
Fucking deranged. I cocked my head for the others to join me. Ollie looked stunned, and when he stood, his legs nearly gave way underneath him. Simon pulled him along and deposited him in a chair.
Guy was shaky but managed on his own. Simon was … well, Simon was scowling.
We sat. There was a silence.
“If it makes any difference, Katrina, I truly am sorry that Stuart died,” Simon said. “I enjoyed his company. I never wanted him to get hurt.”
She smiled. “Thank you. It changes nothing. But thank you, nonetheless.”
“Katrina, if it’s me you want, why don’t you let them go?” I asked. “It’ll be as horrible for them to know I’m dead from outside as it is in here.”
