‘Everyone else died on time, and they were found once an hour, just like we planned. That part was one of Trixie’s ideas. She was full of them, after reading so many murder mysteries. Lily killed herself by spraying her neck with perfume, which we had replaced with a deadlier poison than the one she preferred. Conor took an unfortunate topple down the stairs, then suffocated on his newspaper article. Trixie shot Rose with her own gun. I had no idea she would bring one this weekend. That changed our plans and we improvised—’
‘Rose did nothing wrong, she was a good person,’ I interrupt. ‘She helped animals and I don’t understand how or why—’
‘Did Daisy say something?’ Nana asks Trixie, who is frowning at me.
Trixie nods. ‘She thinks Aunty Rose didn’t deserve to die. Rose shot ponies on the way here. Rose only liked to help people and animals if helping them was easy. Rose only ever did good things to make herself feel less bad. Rose let Lily and Conor throw you over a cliff. She witnessed something truly terrible and did nothing to stop it. Then lied about it. That makes her just as bad as the rest of them.’
Nana nods in agreement. ‘In some ways, they were all killed by what they loved the most:
Frank was killed by his desire to be alone with his music.
Nancy was killed by her precious plants.
Rose was killed by something to do with her work, which she always put first.
Lily was killed by the stench of entitlement she wallowed in.
And Conor died eating his own words. Being a journalist is a privilege. The stories they tell should always be true.’
‘Have you got any idea how crazy you both sound?’ I say, but Trixie doesn’t reply and Nana can’t hear me. ‘There is still so much I don’t understand. At midnight, when this nightmare started, Trixie found you on the kitchen floor. Rose examined you and said you were dead. The head injury . . . I saw the blood . . . the gash on the side of your head still looks serious . . .’
Trixie repeats what I’ve said, and Nana nods.
‘The blood and brains were thanks to Amy and Ada . . .’ I have to think for a moment, before I realize that she means her chickens. The chickens that the rest of the family ate for dinner last night. ‘They died naturally this week, almost as though they wanted to help with the plan, but I confess that plucking them and preparing props from their remains was horribly messy. I bought a latex gash from a joke shop in town, it peels right off, see?’ she says, removing it with a smile. ‘And the grey skin was just make-up. I’ve always had a weak pulse, and it’s not the first time Rose thought someone in this family was dead when they weren’t. To be fair, I’ve practised breathing very slowly when meditating – I learned from the best at a monastery in Bhutan – I can breathe so slowly that your sister thought I wasn’t breathing at all. People tend to believe what they want to, so maybe that’s why the whole family were so willing to believe I was dead.’
‘But I still don’t understand why,’ I say. ‘Why do it at all, and why like this?’
‘Did she ask why again?’ Nana says, and Trixie nods.
Nana takes another sip of tea, as though thinking very carefully about the answer.
‘I did what I did, the way that I did it, because I wanted them all to feel the fear you must have felt before you died that night. And, if I’m going to be completely honest, because I wanted to be proud of what I was leaving behind after I’m gone. I’m proud of you and Trixie. I’m proud of all my books. But I wasn’t proud of any of them. Not dealing with them before I died . . . it would have been selfish and irresponsible, like leaving litter on the beach. If that silly old palm reader in Land’s End is correct, then I’ll die when I’m eighty. Today is my eightieth birthday . . . so I didn’t have very long to put things right.’ She adds some sugar to her tea, something I’ve never seen her do before, and takes another sip. ‘I don’t understand why you’re still here, Daisy. Why you haven’t . . . moved on. After you died, I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I’ve struggled to draw, or paint, or write. Grief can change a person into someone even they can’t recognize. I haven’t published a new book since. I thought my agent had completely given up on me, but he still came to visit yesterday to wish me a happy birthday. We talked about you. I think he knew that you were always my favourite grandchild.
‘I kept asking myself the same question when you were taken from my life. Where does the love go when someone dies? Their last breath disappears into the atmosphere, their body gets buried in the ground, but where does the love go? If love is real, it must go somewhere. And maybe that’s why you’re still here, because the love got trapped? I wanted to set you free . . . and I hoped that if I put things right, you would be. But you’re still here. I so badly wish I could see you, the way Trixie can. That’s why I asked Conor to take a picture of the whole family last night, hoping perhaps then I might be able to see your face again.’