‘I’m sorry?’
That voice I heard on the phone, the call I got the other day where I heard Edie saying ‘nosebleed’. Just because you recognised the voice, that sane, reasonable person in my head speaks up, doesn’t mean it was Edie.
Nosebleed.
‘On the phone. That was the word. Not nosebleed. Rosebud. It’s what’s in your tea.’ I look from Alex to Mimi and realise I am smiling. ‘It was Frances’s voice I recognised. Not Edie. God. I was so sure.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite—’
‘The phone calls to my house. This is where they’ve been coming from, isn’t it? It was Frances I heard talking, not Edie. Only the phone wasn’t hung up quite quickly enough, was it? I heard her. I heard her saying “rosebud”.’ I nod towards the phone beside the bed. ‘I barely use my landline any more. I keep it because it was the only phone number Edie had for me. Other than sales calls, hers were the only ones I got. But it wasn’t her, was it?’ I look right at Mimi. ‘Your son is a killer.’
She looks at me and to my surprise she yawns, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth. Still, her eyes settle on me, avaricious. ‘Oh, really? Which one? A moment ago you thought my Edward had killed Edie. It must be very tiring to be inside your head. So go on then. Whodunnit? Poor old Steady Eddie? Alex, my plump little black sheep? We all know he’s got it in him. Look at what he did to his own mother.’
‘You know who I mean.’
‘William? You can’t prove that.’
‘He got her pregnant and he got scared.’ I’m thinking more clearly now, the pain a distant drum. Some part of me notices the way Mimi’s head seems to loll on her neck, but I don’t grasp it, not then. ‘And you, your marriage was in trouble, wasn’t it? You were having counselling. Edward told me about it.’
She laughs, but the edges of the sound are blurry. Something’s wrong. ‘Edward and I? Counselling? You’ll believe any old rubbish, won’t you? I’m afraid that was a lie, Samantha. The car wasn’t there because we were having marriage counselling. The car was there because I’d driven William to the bloody youth club where he met your slut daughter. But my wonderful husband, my clever, honest Edward, he couldn’t live with it. With the guilt. Especially after you showed up on Halloween. Another death on your conscience. How does that feel?’ Mimi yawns again, her hand covering her mouth.
Slowly, a realisation is building in me. ‘Edward drove off the bridge because he knew his son had killed Edie and he couldn’t live with it.’
‘Oh, please. My boy isn’t capable of such violence. Believe me, I know. I raised him right.’ She gives me an arch look, as if to say You wouldn’t know about that, but I’m already gone, the impact of it hitting me with a jolt, a fiery obliteration that turns my insides liquid.
‘Edie isn’t gone. She isn’t missing. She isn’t unaccounted for. She’s dead. And William killed her.’
Mimi suddenly yawns again, this time so long it seems her mouth is coming unhinged at the jaw. When she looks back at me her eyes are heavy-looking, doleful. I lift my chin defiantly and stare right back at her.
The teacup she is holding rattles against the saucer. ‘You think a seventeen-year-old boy was able to murder your wilfully violent daughter in the dark and the cold, just feet away from a group of other people, leave no evidence and dispose of the body by himself? Is that the conclusion you’ve come to? I must say, I’m disappointed.’
She laughs uncomfortably but I notice something strange. Her face is growing slack: mouth lifted in a half-smile, eyelids drooping sadly. The hand holding the tea cup falls on to her chest and the empty cup rolls down the slope of her body into her lap.
‘You,’ I say, flooded with a cold and horrifying knowledge. ‘You helped him. Not Edward, not Peter Liverly. You. Why?’
She doesn’t answer for a minute or so. Her chest rises and falls softly and her glazed eyes stare out through the window to where the robin has returned to the garden, swinging on the birdfeeder.
When she finally speaks her voice is slurred and almost incomprehensible. ‘She would have ruined his life.’
Alex pulls something from his pocket. It is my knife. I shrink back against the chair again. Mimi’s head slumps forward.
‘What are you doing?’ I babble. ‘Alex, what’s going on?’
He approaches me silently, with a calm confidence that sets my nerves singing. Alex moves behind me and I’m convinced he is going to slit my throat. My heart gears up. I drum my feet on the floor, I gnash my teeth. It’s feral, this feeling. I want to bite him. I switch my head from side to side and then try to bolt. It’s useless; the chair lifts with me, strapped to my back, and I half-run, crabwise, towards the door, hair hanging in my face, breath pinched in my tight chest.
He tackles me as I reach the doorway, pulling me back towards him so roughly I cry out. He yanks the chair back and me with it, head whiplashing as he sets me back on the floor. From this angle I can see Mimi’s prone body, the way her chin rests on her breastbone, eyes open and vacant.
Alex sets a firm hand on my shoulder. ‘Hold still. I can’t do it if you keep struggling.’
I hear the soft chink as the knife slides open. I’ve handled that knife often enough to be able to recall the way the mother-of-pearl handle will be cool to the touch, the satisfying sheen of the blade, the whisper of it. I would never have hurt her, I tell the voice in my head, and it replies, I know.
‘Hold still, I said!’ Alex presses against the chair and I slump forward, exhausted. He is cutting into the
