Pauline weighs in. ‘And I don’t like Audrey being told what to do.’
Through the door, there are more annoyed-sounding tuts from Teddy, as Ivy giggles. It’s nice that Ivy’s come down to see them, given how busy she’s been since they boarded the ship.
With Seb.
Kissing Seb.
Pauline’s son had been rather a last-minute addition to the holiday. Ivy asked if he could join them only hours before they were due to leave, and there was a scramble to make arrangements. Luckily, he and Ivy were more than willing to share a room, which was very generous of them.
Seb knows everything.
Ivy told him about her ex-husband. And from there, the truth came out about all of it. He knows the whole lot, from the drunken beatings to the fatal trip down the stairs to all those failed attempts the group made at being murderers.Even the truth of his dad not really murdering Handsy Harry. Everything. And – if all the kissing they’re doing on this cruise is anything to go by – he is apparently fine with it all. So fine, in fact, that the pair of them are making plans to move in together in the New Year.
With Pauline’s help, Seb’s about to exchange on a lovely three-bed on the outskirts of Surrey. The property is surrounded by several acres of green space, as well as some nearby woods. It’s ideal for him and Ivy, who have recently adopted two Great Dane puppies, Paula the Dog the Second and Paula the Dog the third.
It’s all terribly confusing, and Paula the Dog – who Seb refers to as Paula the OG Dog – is apparently very jealous.
In contrast, Tilly and her wife, Misha, are already unpacked and settled in their brand-new, shiny one-bed apartment in central London – courtesy of their lottery winner mum, Pauline, who’s been spending money like her life depended on it in recent months.
Pauline took a lot longer in choosing her own property, but just this week she’s had an offer accepted on a beautiful country cottage about twenty minutes away from Seb and Ivy. It’s a three-bedroom seventeenth-century chocolate box of a house. Tilly was horrified by the thatched roof and its EPC rating, but Pauline didn’t mind any of that. Plus, it has the exact kind of stunning, huge open fireplace Pauline had so often dreamed about. She’s planning on lighting it, even on the hottest of summer days. There are no suspicious stains on the kitchen ceiling and Pauline’s hired a gardener to mow the grass.
The only really modern aspect of the property is the huge, renovated outbuilding round the back of the large driveway,where Pauline keeps her car. Cars plural now, actually. Last month she bought herself a Ferrari 812 GTS and she’s been driving it at speed all over the UK. It’s pure joy. Sometimes she and Audrey have drag races down the long private road outside Audrey’s Scottish castle. It’s not terribly responsible behaviour, but – as her friend regularly says – it would be a fun way to go, wouldn’t it?
Of course, Seb is horrified by her ‘ragging’ the ‘seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission’ – whatever any of that means – but as she explained very nicely to him, it’s not like it was a brand-new car. She got it second hand for a very reasonable four hundred thousand pounds.
‘I’m back!’ Seb calls out, sounding out of breath. ‘I found the captain. He’s going to let them out.’ There is a pause. ‘Mum, you OK in there?’
‘I’m fine, sweetheart. Sorry about this.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he calls. ‘Kind of proud of you, to be honest.’
The gruff voice of the captain tuts. ‘You shouldn’t be. I’ve been briefed by the security team. The ladies behaved very badly. Very unbecoming.’ There is a loud clunking sound as the door is unlocked and finally swings open.
‘Sorry,’ Pauline says with feeling to the stern-faced captain. ‘We won’t do it again.’
‘Probablynot,’ Audrey mutters.
He huffs a little. ‘You know we’d be within our rights to let the police know about all this?’ he warns and Pauline gasps loudly.
‘No!’
She thinks of the nice Detective Sergeant Thomas Daveys with his nice moustache. What would he think about herevading capture over a pizza-hot-tub incident on a cruise ship? He’d be appalled! And what if it affects her standing as a witness when John’s case comes to trial in January?
Although, at least the prosecution would still have John’s secretary, Bridget, as a witness.
Pauline thinks of her conversation with poor Bridget last week, and how surreal it had been. It turned out the secretary had been trying to reach out to Pauline ever since John’s funeral. She was one of those random numbers that kept calling her. Of course, she’d never answered, assuming it was more family members wanting money. Or maybe strangers wanting money. Or even loan sharks wanting money.
A lot of people wanted money.
She and Bridget ended up talking on the phone for two long hours, dissecting everything about John and their relationships with him. They found they had a depressing amount in common. It seemed all those tears Bridget was loudly shedding at the funeral were . . . relief. She’d been miserable and racked with guilt, trapped in this awful affair with her boss. She’d hated herself and the way he’d treated her, but felt like she couldn’t escape. That is, until he’d escaped everyone by thoughtfullyunaliving.
While Pauline had spent those happy months making friends with The Lottery Winner Widows Club and planning murders, Bridget had – probably much more sensibly – been going through intense therapy. By the time she saw the press conference announcing her lover’s return from the dead, she’d had several breakthroughs and was in the midst of improving her life-long low self-esteem that always seemed to lead to terrible romantic decisions.
It was a difficult conversation for Pauline. But nice. Cathartic. She felt better afterwards and certainly bore no ill will towards the poor woman. Hearing that she was doing well and wasn’t about to let John back into her life was a huge weight off Pauline’s shoulders.
Not that he could’ve re-enteredanyone’slife after his arrest. He’s been held without bail all this time, given he’s already proved to be a flight risk.
As well as the murder of Harold Woodbead, John is also facing multiple other charges, including Identity Fraud and Forgery over those fake documents he created during the whole pretending-to-die thingy, as well as Immigration and Travel Fraud for using a forged passport when travelling back to the UK. Magnum PI also promised to try to make the coercive control charge stick, for good measure, but admitted only around three or four per cent of cases result in a charge. The stats made Pauline sadder than the possibility of John getting away with it. But it felt good to have them trying to prosecute – even if it might be difficult. If no one ever tries with these cases, the men who do this will always get away with it. And Pauline wants to make things better for women if she can.
