Anyway, when I saw what happened, I knew exactly what was going on. I waited for you to leave the room, of course, loitering in the dimly lit corridor. Do you remember me looking you up and down, our hands brushing? I was both impressed by the boldness of killing a man in a busy nightclub and slightly horrified that you’d left him to be found by someone else. Me, as it happened. I left him too, of course. But I suspect that bulging face won’t leave my brain for a long time yet.
You were killing our family. I had no proof you’d got to Kathleen and Jeremy, but it didn’t take much to imagine you flying out to Spain, hiring a car and ramming them off the road. You took a much more rough and ready approach as a beginner, didn’t you? But I guess you were intent on making each death look like an accident, and two old people driving off a cliff in the dark is an easy initial win.
Now I had to decide what to do with this information. The Artemis family wasn’t big – and the only ones （that you hadn’t bumped off） connected with the money were Simon’s wife and daughter, and his sister-in-law. That’s if it was the money that was driving you. If I had to guess, I’d say there was more to it though. From the little I saw of your life, you lived a pretty boring existence. Not many friends, no big career （I hope that’s not offensive to you） and a small flat in a dingy street. Almost like you were treading water until … until what? Until you rid the world of your toxic family and could then go forth and prosper? I harbour very little resentment towards Simon because I had a wonderful life with Lottie and Christopher and my sisters. Had it not been for Jean, I would have gone on happily because I had that foundation. I still will. But you didn’t. And maybe that made you obsessed with the unfairness of it all. It is unfair, Grace. Out of all of us entangled in this mess, you got the short straw, didn’t you?
After a few days turning it over in my mind, and a bracing conversation with Simon which involved him shouting at me for not being able to come to his office at 11 a.m. one Wednesday, I decided that I would let whatever you were doing play out. Partly, I felt that you should be allowed to right the wrongs done to you. And partly, since I’m being honest, because I weighed up what was best for me and realised that you might be doing me a favour. Two things made my decision. One is that I wanted Simon out of my life. I could now see the future, and it involved spending time with him whenever he demanded it. The money he’d given me had made him feel like he’d earned it, and I could not bear the idea of being absorbed into his family, driving around in his Bentley and spending summers in Marbella. The other thing was, if you did succeed in cutting down the lot of them, I’d be in line for some of the fortune. You see, Grace, I’m a happy hypocrite. I didn’t want much to do with dear old Dad, but I would be completely at ease with taking some of the spoils. Money is money, no matter how you come by it. And I would use it in a different way to Simon. No brash displays of excess, no gold taps. I was meant to have money, or so I’ve always thought. I’d be rather good at it I think. And your plan could get me there faster than toiling away trying to work my way up the ladder.
I’d never have even considered doing what you did if I’d not watched it play out. Even if I’d been wronged in the way you felt you’d been wronged. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t make something good out of it. I guess on a sliding scale of morality I’d be somewhere in the middle. I reckon most people would look at my situation and come to the same decision as me if they were being honest. Hard thing to be honest about though – that’s why telling you all this has been so freeing. I know you can never show anyone this. It’s enforced trust, which is probably better than the normal kind.
I’m getting tired of writing all this down though, so I’m going to try and wrap it up. You know the majority of my story now. Or as much as you need to know. I watched you continue on with your course of action. Janine went a bit far, if you don’t mind me saying – the description of her death really made me feel queasy. Again, I wasn’t there （you took off abruptly and I couldn’t get the time off work at such short notice）， but I found out pretty sharpish from Simon’s PA. I still don’t fully understand why you let Lara off – did she just seem like small fry? I wasn’t there for Bryony of course, but I very much enjoyed how you executed that （well, her）。 Funny and effective. But that’s when Simon really started to unravel. He loved Bryony. I think he was bored of Janine – had been for years. We’re the result of that, I suppose. But Bryony was his only child. His only true child. He’s oddly old fashioned, for a product of the modern world. Marriage, kids, a reputation, that all mattered immensely to Simon. And no matter how ghastly she might have seemed to you or me, he loved his daughter. Beyond the pain of losing her, he also began to get paranoid. Though I guess it’s not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you. He would summon me to his house, and sit on the sofa with the curtains closed, occasionally getting up to pace the room manically. He’d tell me repeatedly that someone was killing off his family. He’d been to the police, hired security, the works. Nobody really believed him, which I guess you can take as a compliment. Everyone thought it was just a series of unlucky coincidences – the Daily Mail ran a double-page spread on ‘the mogul’s misfortune’ listing all the bad luck that had fallen on the Artemis family. But the fact that nobody seemed to take him seriously made Simon even more insistent. He thought it was someone he’d crossed paths with in business. He didn’t say who, but he clearly had someone in mind because he was frightened.