As it happens, the plan I settled on did have an element of humour to it. There’s one other thing I knew about Bryony, and initially, I almost wrote it off as something she’d exaggerated for effect. All social media influencers try to show some minor vulnerability. It helps the brand. Some pretend they have a palatable mental illness as I mentioned – anxiety often works, never psychosis. Some bang on about ailments like Lyme disease or a chronic pain so vague that nobody can disprove it. Bryony cast her net for something new. A while back, she did a very personal （you knew it was serious because she was wearing a plain black jumper and minimal makeup） video about a recent diagnosis that had shaken her world. Trembling, she spoke directly to camera, explaining that after an evening at Vardo （a restaurant that had recently opened to much fanfare in Chelsea）， she’d collapsed and stopped breathing. After extensive tests, the culprit had been revealed and she could never eat a peach again. There were tears, for peaches were her very favourite. When I watched this tale of tragedy, I rolled my eyes and moved on. But she didn’t stop with her PSAs about the dangers of stone fruits. The national food allergy trust got in touch with her, and Bryony found a little cause that would make her look civic-minded and serious. She held a gala evening to raise money for research, roping in fashion designers to donate looks to a catwalk event where she and her friends sashayed through a room in the British Museum, draping themselves around marble statues and posing next to ancient sarcophagi （if there wasn’t a Pharaoh’s curse before there damn well is now）。 Every so often she’d tell her followers to be mindful of friends with allergies, a service only slightly undermined by the fact that she’d teamed up with a private allergy testing company and recommended their ￡79 testing kit so that you too could see if a seemingly innocent fruit trifle might kill you. #AD.
Her feed soon filled up with photos of couture and sunsets, and I’d half-forgotten her stone fruit crusade until one night when she livestreamed an A&E visit. To be fair, even with a filter she did look dreadful, eyes swollen up, blotchy skin, rasping as she whispered to camera about how she’d had to have three shots of adrenaline after she’d stopped breathing in a nightclub. Someone had given her a cocktail, blithely assuring her that it was peach-free, and she’d gulped it down, before immediately recognising that tangy taste and running for the exit in a wild panic. Because her friends were idiots, or more tragically, perhaps because they didn’t really know her, nobody put two and two together and realised that she was having a serious allergic reaction. Instead, one bouncer assumed she was having a panic attack and the other suspected she was just drunk. It was only when she turned purple and hit the floor that an ambulance was called. I wonder if the experience of an NHS A&E was almost more traumatic for Bryony than the episode itself. She was on a public ward, with only a curtain for privacy, as she whispered into the camera about how scared she felt. Not because she nearly died, but because a drunk man covered in blood in the bed next to her wouldn’t stop singing a Bowie song. She didn’t know it was a Bowie song, I imagine she’d have written Bowie off as a weirdo. Always with the priorities that one.
You know where I’m going now, don’t you? You should, it’s incredibly obvious. I don’t want to have to be holding your hand as you read this. Fucking inspired, if I do say so. Not that the idea wasn’t handed to me on a plate. God sent me a boat and all that. About ten people a year die from food-induced anaphylaxis each year. Even with all the money and privilege, why wouldn’t she be one of them? And it’s hard to pin a deadly peach intolerance on an unseen enemy.
But why shouldn’t this one be easy? Some of these kills took proper planning – let’s not forget the weeks of frog drudgery, and the deep dive into London’s sex party scene. I spent months figuring out just how much I could manipulate a kid on the internet so I could get to Janine. Hard when you have a full-time job, an increasingly obsessive long-distance running habit （Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, trying to scrub imaginary blood from her hands, I run for miles in any direction away from my crimes, yeah it doesn’t take a therapist thank you） and a dispensation towards anxiety that isn’t so much a character flaw, but doesn’t help when you’re juggling responsibilities.
I never knew quite how close Bryony was to her parents. For all that I studied the family and befriended their staff, they were set apart, living in a world I would never gain access to – no matter how high I climbed or how much I stalked. What I knew for sure – that she was an only child, that she still lived at the family home, that she never mentioned her parents on social media – was mixed in with other titbits. Her mother had spent most of her time in Monaco （nobody does this unless they’re very keen on avoiding tax）， living there for at least eight months of the year for five full years. Simon would fly in and out, but seemed to be based here full-time. Bryony, like all the other girls in her world, frequented St Tropez but didn’t seem to show up chez Maman very often. The last official visit （official as in she posted it on Instagram） was two years before Janine had her unfortunate accident. Even after Janine died, there was no direct mention of her on Bryony’s social media. She took a three-week break from posting, and then came back with an image of her silhouette against a disappearing sun, complete with a heart emoji, and was posting sponsored content two days later. Janine was buried in England, and the house she owned in Monaco had sat empty ever since. I don’t imagine that was for any sentimental reasons, but because the house was where the business was registered.