Audrey pulls off a mitten, a strange expression on her face. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘we’re out of options. So you guys get out of here, while I go in that room and smash his head in with a baseball bat.’
Teddy tuts. ‘You’ve seen too many Tarantino films.’
‘What’s a Tarantino?’ Audrey asks innocently. ‘Some kind of spider?’ She makes a face. ‘I don’t like spiders, but I don’t mind a bit of blood and brain splatter.’
Teddy frowns. ‘Audrey, do you think you might be a tiny bit of a sociopath?’
‘More than likely!’ Audrey nods happily.
‘We don’t even have a baseball bat with us!’ Paula hisses desperately, as the older woman makes her way back through the kitchen.
‘I saw a poker in the living room,’ Ivy offers helpfully. ‘Would that work?’
‘That’ll do,’ Audrey says cheerfully.
‘Two sociopaths,’ Teddy murmurs from the back.
‘Hold on.’ Paula clings to Ivy’s arm. ‘You were the one who said we wouldn’t be able to do something like this. You said it would be too violent! That we couldn’t physically or mentally go through with it!’
Ivy nods. ‘I know. But we’ve come this far! And we may not be naturally violent people, but heis. And if we let him continue, he’ll just keep hurting Gemma and her kids, and whoever else he might meet. He has to be stopped. We have to try. If Audrey thinks she can do it, we have to let her try.’
Audrey turns to the group, looking directly at Paula. ‘Please leave,’ she says sincerely. ‘I’m already under suspicion. If this goes wrong, it’ll just be me who goes down. I’ll be out in twenty years and still have a decent couple of decades of my life to live.’
‘We can’t let you go to jail!’ Paula says too loudly. Teddy puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but Paula shakes it off. ‘No!’ she says. ‘It’s not happening.’
Audrey shrugs happily. ‘I don’t think they’d put me in prison anyway. I’m in my eighties! I’ll plead dementia or osteoporosis. One of the old lady things.’
‘No, Audrey,’ Paula says again, standing in her way, shocking herself with her strength. ‘There has to be another way. We’re not letting you sacrifice yourself.’
Audrey stares her down in the dark, but Paula holds her ground, her heart hammering in her chest. She’s accepted that her friend is going to kill this man. She knows it’s really happening. They’re all going to kill him. They’re not justaccessories to the crime here; they’re fully complicit. This is really happening. But she’s not going to let Audrey casually volunteer to get caught. Not if she can help it.
After a minute, Audrey sighs, her shoulders sagging a little. The adrenaline has drained away. ‘OK, my darling.’ Then she brightens. ‘Oooh, how about this then – I’ll suffocate him! I’ll get a plastic bag and stick it over his head until he dies. Then I’ll call the police and tell them my lover has died during a sex game gone wrong.’
Beside her, Paula hears Ivy swallow hard. ‘Your . . . lover?’
Audrey nods, leading the group through to the kitchen. ‘Yes indeed. I’ll say we’ve been casually dating for a while. We met in that godawful pub he frequents every night – what was it called?’
‘The Three Stags,’ Teddy confirms.
Audrey nods. ‘Right, and I’ll say we got experimental and he asked me to suffocate him. Then whoops, we got carried away and he died.’
‘This kind of defencedoesregularly work for men in rape trials,’ Teddy points out, looking thoughtful.
‘Well, perfect!’ Audrey replies with delight, opening a drawer. It’s full of cutlery. She tuts.
‘What are you looking for?’ Ivy asks as Audrey opens another.
‘A bag.’
Paula peers about the kitchen. ‘Surely the carrier bags inside another carrier bag will be in a cupboard, not a drawer?’
Audrey shakes her head. ‘No, a Tesco bag’s no good! Too big and holey. We need one of those freezer bags. Sturdy but suffocating. That’s the kind of thing they use on TV.’ She roots around in another drawer, yanking out a ziplock bag triumphantly. ‘Here!’
Paula frowns. ‘Do we know what sort of head Dominic has?’
‘Big,’ Ivy says confidently, then scrunches her nose. ‘He has a big forehead at least. Or maybe his hairline is just receding?’
‘This is why everyone should have a fringe,’ Audrey replies, sounding confident. ‘Smallifies the head.’
