“‘Purse contained: wallet （containing ?40 and credit cards, intact）， set of keys, phone, Oyster card, new Oral-B toothbrush in package, box of Strepsils, blister pack of Nytol （can hold seven tablets, six were missing, one remaining）， five large rocks.’ Doesn’t something stand out there?”
“I’m going to go with five large rocks,” Peter said.
Stevie shook her head.
“No. You put those there. What’s weird is the toothbrush.”
She fished around in her backpack, where she had carefully placed the curry-stained receipt she had just fished from the trash.
“I went through her trash the night she vanished,” Stevie said, in the same way someone might say, “I went to the beach because it was sunny.”
“She bought decongestant, throat drops, body wash, and a toothbrush. She was getting over a cold the night we saw her, so the decongestant and throat drops make sense. The body wash is self-explanatory. But the toothbrush isn’t. She had a fancy electric toothbrush. She didn’t need a toothbrush. And why, if you were going to drown yourself in the Thames, would you bring a toothbrush? Is that what you would grab?”
“Maybe she just left it in her bag after she bought it?” Izzy said.
Stevie shook her head.
“The cold medicine was in her bathroom,” she said. “She unpacked the bag at home. The receipt was in the trash. It makes sense to carry throat drops if you have a sore throat. But she didn’t need a toothbrush, and the toothbrush was clearly for something, because it was separately wrapped in a bag. Like she was going to give it to someone. And what does everyone say about Angela? That she’s so conscientious. That even though you all borrowed each other’s stuff, she was the one who always gave it back. When did everyone last see her? At a party, at Peter’s house. Where she stayed over. And may not have had a toothbrush. So she bought one to replace it. When she went out that night, she put it in her bag to give to him. That’s not something you do if you think you are meeting a murderer. She went there not knowing. Something happened.”
“So,” Peter said, “keys and a toothbrush? Really?”
He looked around, but his five friends all regarded him strangely.
“Well,” Yash said quietly. “If it’s not true, it should be easy enough to disprove, right, Pete? Julian’s been able to get information. I’ll bet things could be worked backward. Instead of looking for Angela on the CCTV, they could look for you. At your flat. Where your phone was. You could do that, couldn’t you, Julian?”
“I could,” Julian said. “I will. Tonight. I’ll have your life turned inside out.”
“It’s all right, Pete,” Yash went on. “If you didn’t do it.”
Peter seemed to be churning inside. He was maintaining control, but there was a faint curling at his upper lip.
“You’ve always been so annoying, Julian,” he spat. “Everything’s always been about you, hasn’t it? Who Julian was sleeping with or flirting with or cheating on. It was endless. And now here you are again. The MP. The politician.”
“Oh, you think it will just be Julian?” Sooz said, standing up and stepping over to Peter. “We worked together to save Sebastian. We’ll do the same again. In fact, how about we pry open this . . .”
Sebastian grabbed Sooz from behind and moved her away from Peter. Izzy had already whipped out her phone and was making a call.
“I think we’re ready to come down,” Izzy said. “Quick as you can, please. Someone is, um . . . ill.”
32
IT WAS JUST COMING UP ON TEN O’CLOCK, AND BIG BEN BONGED out the hours. They were on the ground, which was a relief. The ground didn’t sway in the wind.
Sooz had been prevented from throwing Peter out of a glass pod door. She probably wouldn’t have succeeded—the pods were made for safety and were designed to withstand any attempts to be opened from the inside—but Sooz had been willing to give it her very best try. The minute they got back to the ground, Peter walked off, his coat flapping behind him in the wind. Sooz was once again prevented from following him and shoving him into the river. Now she was being embraced by both Theo and Sebastian. Julian was on the phone. Yash was leaning against the stone wall by the riverside and taking a moment.
Izzy and Stevie sat by themselves on another bench watching all this.
“So what happens now, to Peter?”
“I don’t know,” Stevie said. “I think I’m right about what happened, but it’s hard to prove. That’s why doing it up on the Eye, in a high-pressure situation, was important. He needed to be freaked out. Start making mistakes. And I believe them all when they say they’re going to find out.”
“But will he go to jail?”
“I think it depends on what they find,” Stevie said, looking over at her.
“And we’re already looking.”
That was Sebastian, who came up and joined them, along with Sooz. Theo went over to minister to Yash.
“What’s going to happen,” Sebastian said, sitting down, “is that we’re going to pursue this to the ends of the earth. There’ll be more evidence somewhere—CCTV, or witnesses, something. Whatever it is, we’re going to find it. He knows that his life, as he has understood it, is over.”
“Julian may be an arse, but he’s our arse.” Sooz wrapped her arms around herself and considered for a moment. “He’s not actually that much of an arse, really. Still has one, but . . . he’s turned out all right.” She turned her attention to Yash and Theo. “It will be hard for him. They’ve been writing partners for years. But we’ll make sure he’s all right. And . . .”
Theo had taken Yash’s hand in hers as they spoke.
“Look at that,” Sooz said, mostly to Sebastian. “About time. Maybe some good will come of this.”
“Yes,” Sebastian replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s finally going to happen.”
Julian strode over, slipping his phone into his pocket.
“Just talked to my contact at the Met. They’ll have someone pull all the CCTV footage and look at Peter’s cell phone records. We’ll use whatever we have to—social media, whatever—we’ll find someone who saw him with Ange that night. We’ll sort it.”
The five were united.
“You missed your flight,” Julian said to Stevie. “For this.”
Stevie nodded.
“Is that going to go badly for you?”
Stevie nodded again.
“We’ll sort that. For what you did here. There’s a prominent doctor . . .”
He nodded in Theo’s direction.
“。 . . who’s been treating you tonight for . . . what would you like? A stomach bug? And there’s a Minister of Parliament who would be happy to phone your school to explain it all.”
“You threw up on me,” Sooz offered. “It was in my hair. I’d be happy to describe it in detail.”
“We’re good at lying,” Sebastian said, leaning over and managing a smile. “We’ve been doing it for years.”
When the five had been assured that Stevie would stay with Izzy for the night, and when they had walked the pair to a taxi that would take them directly to Craven House, the group parted ways. London black cabs were massive on the inside—practically a small, moving room with a plastic wall between them and the driver, and an intercom system to communicate between the two.