‘Did you meet Ahmose when you arrived?’ she asked, as casually as she could manage.
‘Ahmose?’
‘My next-door neighbour.’
A dissatisfied frown moved across Carolynn’s brow. ‘Oh, the old man. Yes, he popped over.’
‘And?’ She couldn’t risk riling Carolynn, not until she knew where Ahmose was, if he was safe.
‘I asked him to leave.’
‘OK.’
Carolynn banged the wine bottle back on to the work surface, her mouth twisting with irritation. ‘He wouldn’t though. He kept asking me what I was doing here. He behaved as if he owned the place, owned your cottage.’
Jessie nodded calmly, though her insides were churning. ‘Did he leave eventually?’
Though she kept her gaze fixed on Carolynn’s, something about her body language must have betrayed her thoughts, because Carolynn’s eyes broke from hers and moved past her shoulder to focus on the door to the understairs cupboard in the sitting room.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jessie. You don’t honestly think I’d shove an old man into an understairs cupboard, do you?’ She tilted her head, a hard look, half-disappointment, half-anger flitting across her face. ‘What on earth do you take me for?’
Jessie breathed out, trying to calm the swollen knocking of her heart. She needed to be the woman that Carolynn had met two months ago, the woman she respected, the woman she wanted to befriend; cool, edgy, fun, in control.
When did we swap places? When did Carolynn shed Laura’s skin and I slip into it?
The moment that Roger asked me where I lived.
She smiled. ‘So where is he?’
Carolynn waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I dealt with him.’
‘Carolynn—’
‘What?’ Her tone one of fraying patience.
‘I’d like to see him.’
‘He left, Jessie. I told him that we’re good friends and that you’d invited me to stay for a few days. He said he was going for a walk to ease his back as he’d been sitting reading all day.’ She tilted her head, the look of dissatisfaction mixed with anger, lingering for longer on her face this time. ‘Jessie, I came here because I wanted to spend time with you.’ Stepping forward she held out the Happy Birthday, Princess glass Jessie’s dad had given her one birthday, full of wine, brushing Jessie’s fingers lingeringly with her own as took the glass. ‘You not your next-door neighbour.’
Stepping back, expanding the space between them, Jessie took a sip of wine, knowing that it was tension, adrenalin, fight-or-flight that had parched her mouth. Ahmose would have spent most of a sunny day like this gardening, not sitting and reading. He never walked alone at night, because the lane was potholed and he was worried about tripping in the dark.
‘You won’t be offended if I give you a little bit of advice, will you?’ Carolynn’s voice was soft, her dark eyes locked on Jessie’s. ‘I used to give all my friends make-up and style advice, before—’
A shake of her head was all that Jessie could manage.
‘You should try a little harder, put on some make-up, wear nicer clothes. You’re very pretty, but you could look stunning if you tried. You don’t want that gorgeous military policeman’s eye to start wandering.’
Jessie roused herself. ‘Callan? You saw him?’
‘Only the photograph of the two of you upstairs.’ She smiled. ‘You’re right, I don’t think this dress does look as good on you as it does on me. You need to be a blonde to carry off a dress this colour.’ Carolynn clinked her wine glass against Jessie’s. ‘It’s so nice to drink without being judged. Roger hated me drinking.’
Jessie took another sip of wine, her mind working feverishly, spinning through the options, assessing, rejecting, knowing that a mistake in how she dealt with Carolynn now might cost Ahmose his life. God, I’ve been so unutterably, arrogantly stupid.
Callan’s words rose in her mind:
The woman could be a killer. You could be putting yourself in danger meeting with her …
Her response:
If you had met her, you wouldn’t be saying that. She’s a frightened, timid, traumatized, middle-aged woman who is so thin she could play hide-and-seek behind a broom handle. She’s not a threat to anyone.
Stupid, unprofessional arrogance that could cause the death of one of the people she loved most in the world. If he wasn’t dead already.
‘Why don’t we take our wine up to the bathroom and you can give me a makeover. I don’t wear make-up because I don’t know how to apply it properly. I’d love you to teach me.’
A plan had coalesced in her mind. She just hoped that she could pull it off quickly enough to find Ahmose and save him. If he isn’t dead already.
88
Ruby must have been waiting by the window, because she opened the front door to her flat before Marilyn was even halfway down the front path, and came out, leaving the door gaping open behind her. She was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing when he and Workman had interviewed her: that low-cut, thin silver jumper and skin-tight black jeggings. Watching her clack down the pathway towards him in her silver stilettos, he experienced a similar heaviness in his stomach to that he’d felt when she had given him that quick, soft peck on the cheek and tottered away across the car park. But now the feeling was a ton weight that threatened to take the bottom out of his gut. She looked cheap and beautiful, defiant and sad, but mainly just broken. Utterly, irretrievably broken.
As she approached, Marilyn noticed that she was clutching something to her chest.
A doll.
But not just a doll. It was the doll. Identical to the one left by Zoe and Jodie’s bodies, but this one ragged, well-loved, showing its age.
‘It’s my daughter’s,’ she murmured.
As she held it out to show him, the rays from the overhead streetlight caught the doll’s tatty pink nylon ballerina dress, sending rosy sparkles around the tiny cul-de-sac,
