I check the time on my phone. She’s been in the sauna for fifteen minutes. What’s the temp in there? I ask Pete.
Lemme check. He comes back two minutes later. Sorry I had to convert it into your weird degrees. It’s 110 degrees. Want it higher? She might pass out.
I consider. We don’t have hours to let her sit and slowly cook to death. But I’m reluctant to let it get to a point where she gets badly burnt – a sign that might suggest she wasn’t able to get out. Crank it up a little, I don’t care if she faints. Would do the cow some good.
I sip my wine and savour the breeze anew, knowing that Janine’s entire body will be crying out for it. I distract Pete from watching the CCTV too closely by talking about a potential trip to Iowa, and he rises to the bait immediately, telling me how cool it would be to hang out in real life. We go back and forth on what we’d do together, him getting increasingly flirtatious and me suggesting wholesome activities that his church leader would have approved of.
All the while, I keep an eye on Janine, stuck in that little hot cupboard. There’s no movement that I can see, and I realise that if I want to talk to her, I’d have to do it now. I tell Pete to patch me in, aware that what I was about to say would throw up some questions later.
There’s a short pause and then Pete tells me I can speak. I take a sip of wine and look around to make sure that nobody is within earshot. I lift the phone to my chin and speak quietly but clearly.
‘You’re probably not in the mood for a big heart-to-heart right now.’ Her head shoots up above the frosted glass and she wipes the steam away with one hand. ‘But I just wanted you to know why this is happening to you. It’s not an accident. You’ve probably realised that by now. But I’m not a criminal mastermind who wants to steal your diamonds. There’s nothing you can give me that will stop this.’
She starts to yell something, frantically banging on the glass door.
‘Be quiet. You don’t have the energy for a fuss. Your husband left my mother with a baby. He abandoned her. He rejected me. And your family have lived a life of complete pleasure and comfort ever since. Is that fair? It didn’t seem so to me, watching my mother take a series of shit jobs and get weaker and weaker with every day she worked. Is it fair that your daughter had everything she could ever have wanted and that I was raised by people who only did it so that they could feel good about themselves?’
She looks wild now, one hand clawing at her neck.
‘It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, huh? Well it won’t be a problem much longer so do try to keep calm, it’s worse if you panic, I imagine. I’ll be honest, I considered not explaining any of this, but I wanted you to know the backstory as a courtesy more than anything. My father. Your husband. That’s why you’re in there. It’s good to know who to blame, isn’t it?’
Pete messages me. Mega funny but it’s been ages now. I think she’s really struggling bb, shall we let her out? I don’t care if she stacks it but it’s your call.
One minute. She’s fine. Turn it up a notch and give it a bit longer. I reply, staring at Janine, who’s tracing something with her finger on the glass. I strain my eyes, trying to make it out. She makes a noise, but it’s muffled.
‘Did you want to say something?’ I say. She whispers again. I feel irritation rise. ‘Louder please, you’ve probably not got long so if you want to say something, speak UP.’
But she’s not listening now, intently moving her finger up the glass again. She’s barely able to move more than a millimetre before stopping. We watch in silence, until the first shape becomes clearer. A letter G, wobbly and small but clear enough. I feel a tiny pang of nausea. Pete is engrossed. What is she doing, an SOS message? The next letter starts to take shape, a long line, and then, as she tries to prop herself up against the door, a circle stuck to it. She’s drawn an R. The waves crash onto the beach as my vision goes a little blurry. She is going to write Grace. She knows. She knows everything. She’d probably always known – about me, about my mother, happy to let us live in poverty while her daughter had it all. And now she’s going to expose me. When Simon finds the message, he’ll know. Maybe not immediately, but he’ll put two and two together, think back over the other deaths and realise what was happening. He and Bryony would be safe and I would be in jail for the rest of my life.
TURN IT UP, I message Pete. All the way. The bitch deserves it.
God you really hate her huh? That story was mad, makes my stepmom sound like a fucking angel. Cranking now.