‘Where is he then?’ Ivy asks, frustration in her voice. ‘We followed him back here from the pub, didn’t we? Where is he? Is he hiding in the basement or something?’
‘I’m pretty sure bungalows don’t have basements,’ Teddy observes dryly. ‘Would sort of defeat its purpose, wouldn’t it?’
‘It had a step,’ Ivy points out with a hint of defensiveness.
Paula gasps. ‘Oh my goodness, I know what’s happened! We parked down the road and came around to the back garden. We must be in the wrong house!’
Teddy wanders towards the front door, looking out of its small window pane.
‘Nope,’ she says again, tiredness in her voice. ‘It’s not the wrong house. Right house. But he’s not here.’ She takes a deep breath, gesturing at the door. ‘He’s still in the car,’ she continues, rolling her eyes. ‘I can see him out there. He parked up in the drive, like we saw. Then – it would seem – the drunken idiot passed out on his own bloody steering wheel.’
24
‘Maybe we should’ve just opened the car door and bashed him in the face with the poker there and then,’ Audrey offers, shifting in the plastic seat.
‘In front of the neighbours?’ Teddy enquires, archly. ‘And I’m not sure the angle of the poker would’ve been particularly effective inside a car. It’s probably quite hard to beat someone to death inside a confined space.’
‘I know the freezer bags were too small,’ Audrey offers thoughtfully, ‘but maybe I could’ve tied two together and pretended we were doing our sex stuff in the car?’
Teddy’s sigh comes by way of answer.
‘Is it just me,’ Ivy begins anxiously, ‘or are we, like,reallybad at this? Like, super, aggressively awfully catastrophically bad at the whole thing?’
‘It’s not just you,’ Teddy inhales heavily. ‘I thought we’d be a lot better at murder. All that planning and talking things through, and we couldn’t evenfindhim.’
Audrey places a comforting arm around Ivy. ‘We’ll regroup, my darling, and have a rethink. We just need a better plan.’
Paula leans a tired head on Teddy’s shoulder. ‘At least I let his cat out as we left,’ she offers and they all smile at one another. That is something.
They’re at a private clinic in London, positioned somewhere between Teddy’s apartment and the scene of their nightmare visit to kill Dominic Shipman. As they drove away in what should’ve been the getaway car, Teddy put in a call to her concierge doctor service about Ivy’s foot. Paula listened in amazement as Teddy’son-callprivate doctor offered on loudspeaker to meet them at the apartmentin the middle of the nightto assess the injury and arrange treatment. There was talk of a private X-ray service arriving in a mobile unit with a radiologist and a physio on board.
Paula thinks of her next-door neighbour, Samira, who had to wait six months to find out a bone in her knee was broken, and that she needed an operation, having made things worse by walking on it the entire time. It is astonishing stuff, money.
Ivy refused the doctor’s offer though, insisting they head straight to a clinic instead. A private one, but an A&E nonetheless.
They’re using the waiting time – minimal though it is – to dissect what just happened.
‘Can we try again?’ Audrey asks.
‘How?’ Paula blinks.
Audrey takes a minute to consider this. ‘We could go to the pub he drinks in and start a fight with him,’ she suggests hopefully. ‘Then one of you could kill him in an act of self-defence.’ There is silence at this, so Audrey continues, ‘Or could we trick someone else into murdering him? Or pay for it?’ She looks around the group, her eyes landing on Paula.‘My darling, you must know a contract killer? Or is he based solely in Austria? We could fly him in. Does he have a website?’ She waves her hands as Paula’s mouth opens and closes. ‘Or are there apps for things now? You can find a handyman in the blink of an eye. Isn’t there one for snipers?’
Paula tries to think of what to say. It’s been a while since she last tried to convince them she didn’t kill John. Maybe now is the time? Maybe she should be looking them in the eye as they sit around waiting in this A&E, and convince them once and for all that she didn’t murder her husband.
Perhaps this is the time for all of it: the truth about John, about the loan sharks, about the notebook she’s been carrying around for weeks now. Paula takes a deep breath and . . . nothing comes out.
What if they reject her? What if they turf her out of the group when they realise she’s not really one of them?
Ivy looks down at her swollen foot but says nothing.
Teddy is staring off into the distance, a strange look on her face.
‘Or . . .’ Audrey is still murder-spitballing. ‘Or . . . maybe I could trick him into getting in my car and then drive the whole thing into a river! I’ll make sure the child locks are on, so he can’t get out, and meanwhile, one of you could be on hand to rescue me!’ She looks around again. ‘Who’s the strongest swimmer here?’
‘We can’t,’ Teddy says abruptly. ‘That whole thing was a total disaster. And’ – she gestures at Audrey’s bare hands – ‘Audrey’s prints are all over that house now. If something suspicious or violent happens to him, they might investigate. It’s too risky.’
‘But there must be something we can do!’ Ivy cries, and Paula lays a reassuring hand over hers.
