‘Nope. It’s perfect. It’s every bit as good as it smells.’
‘It’ll be ready in five minutes. How did it go with Ian and Iris?’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘No trick questions. Ian and his colleague just wanted as much background information as possible about Josh.’
The table is already set, so I have time to go and talk to Iris. I go upstairs and pause in front of Olly’s bedroom door, which is ajar and through which music is escaping into the corridor. It’s not his usual angry rap or hip-hop, but softer. Something similar to The Weeknd or Daft Punk. I try – and fail – to keep up with current trends. Give me Anna Netrebko or Plácido Domingo any day.
Olly was still in bed when Iris and I left for Ash’s this morning. I only have a few minutes. I should really go and see Iris. But I don’t. Instead, I raise my hand and knock gently on Olly’s door. I tell myself it’s because I want to avoid a clash with Iris just before lunch. But the truth is, I would like to avoid having this conversation altogether. I’ve told Ash I’ll ask her about the footprint, so I’ll have to do it at some point. Sooner rather than later. Just not right now.
‘Come in,’ Olly calls.
I open the door to find Olly, Liv and Iris – Liv and Olly lounging on his bed and Iris sitting on the office chair. Iris and Liv always got on so well, so I expect they’ve got some catching up to do. Iris pretty much avoided everyone after December of last year, so I doubt she kept in touch with Liv any more than she kept in touch with anyone else.
Olly has his arm around Liv and she’s snuggling into him. It looks like they are back together, then. I’m pleased. I’m very fond of Olivia, but, more importantly, I don’t think Olly has been truly happy since they broke up.
‘No, don’t get up,’ I say, as Liv scoots towards the edge of the bed. ‘I just wanted to say hi.’
She smiles. ‘Hi, Carla,’ she says. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’
It’s odd, Josh never called me ‘Carla’. I asked him to, more than once. Iris called Josh’s parents by their first names. But, to Joshua, Ash and I were Mr and Mrs Ashford – I kept my married name to make things simpler for the kids. He called Daniel by his first name, though. I think Josh did it deliberately, to set some sort of boundary, or make a point. Although the statement he wanted to make was lost on me. Maybe he just wanted to keep his distance, but, again, I can’t imagine why.
Olivia is absolutely beautiful. She has long dark-brown hair and grey-green eyes; a heart-shaped face and skin that has been untouched by acne.
I can tell from the expressions on Iris’s and Olly’s faces that I’m intruding, so I tell the three of them we’re eating in a couple of minutes and leave the room.
Throughout lunch, Olly grins like a Cheshire cat. But as I study Olivia, I get the feeling there’s something about her that’s different. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. She’s as attentive as she always was towards Olly, she’s polite to me, she praises Daniel for the meal and she makes Margo laugh.
Maybe she isn’t quite as chatty as she was before, but that’s probably to be expected. She hasn’t been part of Olly’s life – or of our lives – for several months, and Olly was heartbroken when they split up, not that he ever blamed her for that. In fact, I don’t know why they broke up. Olly was evasive and didn’t want to talk about it when I asked back then. And poor Olly’s problems were relegated to the background while we all dealt with Iris’s problem.
I catch Olivia’s eye and she smiles timidly. I’m reading too much into this. Liv probably just feels a little awkward around us after not seeing any of us for so long. Olly is clearly just as smitten with her as he was before. I hope she’s on the same page as him. I don’t want him to end up with his heart broken – again.
After the meal, Iris says she’ll clear up. She’s quite helpful around the house – if I ask. She’ll vacuum downstairs or upstairs – it’s best not to ask her to do both – or she’ll walk the dog or listen to Margo read. I’ve learnt not to bother soliciting Olly’s assistance. He always has something more urgent to do. But Iris doesn’t often offer to help or do something helpful spontaneously.
Daniel makes coffees for him and me and we take them into the living room. I curl my legs under me on the sofa. Neither of us speaks for a few minutes as we sip our drinks. Perhaps, like me, Daniel is lost in his thoughts. I can’t help thinking of all the things I should say. There’s so much I haven’t told Daniel, so much I probably should share with him. He doesn’t know about the necklace; he doesn’t know about the shoes. I want to confide in him. No, that’s not quite true. I want to feel I can confide in him. But since everything blew up around Iris, I don’t. Daniel is upright, principled and honest. He wouldn’t approve of me throwing out the necklace or of Ian giving us a heads-up about the shoes, if that’s what he has done.
I take the empty coffee cups into the kitchen. Iris has finished tidying up in here, but she’s standing by the bin and appears to be pushing something down into it. She doesn’t see me at first and when she does, she jumps. She stares at me, seemingly rooted to the spot, like a rabbit caught in headlights. Her face goes very red. Then, without a word, she turns on her heels and flees from the room.
I know before I look what I’m going to find. Iris has made an effort to bury them under some rubbish and a different image superimposes itself in my mind for a split second – the bloody tissue with the necklace inside that I also threw out and covered with rubbish. I roll up my sleeve and push bits of paper and some food aside with the tips of my fingers to uncover the shoes. Her burgundy Vans. I close the lid of the bin and almost on automatic pilot, I put the coffee cups into the dishwasher and put on an eco-cycle.
As I turn around, I feel my legs buckle and I grip the table for support. It feels as if the walls are closing in around me and the floor is pitching. A rush of blood fills my ears, but doesn’t quite drown out the thoughts streaking through my head, questions to which I know the answers. Could it be a coincidence? Deep down, I know it can’t be. That’s just wishful thinking. Those trainers were relatively new. She loved them. There’s no reason to throw them out. Nootherreason. How did Iris know about the footprint? When I asked her to go out to the car, she must have eavesdropped from the hallway on my discussion with Ash. That explains why she wasn’t ready to drive away when I came out.
I stare out of the window at the crab apple tree, laden with fruit. It swims in and out of focus, then seems to tip and I get the disquieting impression that my world is tilting on its axis and won’t ever be righted. Because there’s not even a scintilla of doubt left in my mind. My daughter has committed murder. I could try to deny it, put it down to coincidence or misunderstanding. I could even tell myself that Iris threw out her shoes as a precaution when she heard there might have been a footprint at the crime scene. But what I can’t explain away is that Iris has countless pairs of shoes, and yet she knew which ones to throw out. Earlier, when we went round to Ash’s, Iris was wearing her ankle boots. But she has thrown out her Vans.
It takes me a few minutes to catch my breath and see straight. Then I go up to Iris’s bedroom. I knock loudly on the door.
‘No!’ comes Iris’s tearful voice from inside.
I open the door anyway, only a crack before it slams in my face, and when I try to push it open again, it won’t budge.
‘Iris?’ No answer. ‘Iris!’
‘Go away!’
I can hear her sobbing and an invisible, icy hand squeezes my heart. I let my back slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. I imagine Iris sitting against the door on the other side, a mirror image of me. And a silent tear rolls down my face.
Chapter 19
Iris
