I carefully cleaned the bottle with a baby wipe, and threw the peach extract cream in the bin. The products then went into a plain white cardboard box lined with tissue paper. A card attached simply read ‘Bryony, we hope you enjoy these goodies – the pearl facemask is a dream! XX.’ I desperately wanted to say it was to DIE for but I couldn’t allow myself to be quite so on the nose. All wrapped up, I stashed the box in a bag under my desk and tried to forget about it as the working day dragged on.
I wasn’t normally someone to leave on the dot of 5.30 p.m., people who do that are usually the dullest and most aggravating colleagues – the kind that go on and on in inconsequential meetings and insist on a proper system for the communal fridge but refuse to engage in meaningful work. They are also the least fireable employees, since they have normally read their contract requirements thoroughly and know exactly what they can get away with. And not that it matters, but this particular kind of colleague is never the attractive charismatic one. They’re not leaving in order to go and get changed for an exciting party.
But bang on 5.30 p.m., I packed up my stuff and headed out, vaguely mentioning a doctor’s appointment in case anyone raised an eyebrow. Nobody did. People swanned in and out for appointments all the time, and it wasn’t uncommon for some members of staff to take ‘pamper hours’ where they’d duck out of the office for a teeth-whitening session or an eyebrow tint. ‘It’s great for customer interface,’ my boss would say, which meant nothing but let her go and get Botox on company time.
I managed to get to the parcel shop five minutes before closing. I sent it recorded delivery, assuming the Artemis housekeeper would sign for it, and gave no sender details. She wouldn’t look for them – people like Bryony receive a hundred gift boxes a week. As I stepped out into the fading autumn light, the shop bell tinkled as the door slammed shut. I took it as a sign. I would not check Bryony’s social media accounts in the hope that she’d succumbed. I’d given it a shot, and it was out of my hands now.
*
I spent the next month busy at work. Sale season was approaching, and I was organising the social media campaigns and making sure that discount emails were sent out to customers who’d signed up to receive them. I knew from research that 95 per cent of these went unread, dropped in spam boxes the moment they landed. It was a pointless exercise, but data was invaluable, we were told. The tone of the messages we sent out was enough to make even the most ardent shopper a card-carrying anti-consumerist. The word ‘Fri-yay’ was used in one email before I shut it down. When I wasn’t trying to preserve the English language and my own dignity in the office, I was looking at new ways to kill Bryony.
As with all the previous deaths, it felt important that this one should take place while Bryony was doing something normal for her. It lent more credibility to the accident scenario and required less elaborate planning. I want these killings done – done well, yes, but I’m not an enthusiastic fan of homicide, researching the most fascinating and gruesome ways to kill. There’s a certain art to a good murder. I will admit to being impressed by the lengths that some people will go to, but I don’t want to get caught up in more and more extreme plans which eventually result in me hanging off a zip line through central London, decapitating someone with a samurai sword just for theatrics.
After a lot of false starts, I came across a potential opportunity. There is a man, some of you might know of him, who has become a mainstay in the wellbeing industry. His name is Russell Chan, and he has made millions off a nutrition programme called ‘Manifest and Maintain’。 If you’ve not heard of this nonsense, then you could spend a thousand years trying to guess what his company does from the name alone, so I’ll break it down. His brand, or ‘innovation’ as he called it in his TED talk which I watched three minutes of before deciding that death was preferable, consists of two main elements. The first is making you copy down positive affirmations that you stick around the house on special pastel-coloured Post-it notes that he sends you once you’ve signed up. The second is telling you to exercise for eighty-five minutes a day and giving you juicing recipes every morning. The creativity that goes into coming up with different blends of fruit and vegetables 365 days a year （you absolutely do not get Christmas Day off） is stunning. And by stunning I mean a waste of some poor nutritionist’s degree. The Post-it notes conceal the fact that this is a diet plan. The MM app is ￡8.99 to download and costs a further ￡4 a month for the rest of your life. People have tried to cancel their subscriptions but I’ve never met anyone who’s managed it. But most people don’t, because idiots LOVE Russell Chan. They seem incredulous when they lose weight, as though it were a secret science they’ve discovered and not a meal replacement offering which cuts out all calorific options. They bang on about the confidence they’ve got from （I assume） computer-generated inspirational quotes that they stick around their bookless homes, where they presumably fight for space between the reclaimed wooden sign that says ‘Love’ and the rose gold plant baskets.