It’s another warm spring day. I only need a jacket on top of my T-shirt and trousers. I can already see a hint of summer on the horizon, tantalizingly close. Where will I be then? I’ve been thinking more and more about going back to studying, maybe reflexology. I’m not really a make-a-plan kind of person, but maybe that’s where I’ve always gone wrong in the past. If I stay in this job for a couple of years I’ll have enough money to return to college, get a place of my own.
Courtney has set up a WhatsApp group to include me and Peter. I told them both last night about finding the keys for the gallery. We agreed I’d go over there today to suss out if there are any CCTV cameras. If we’re going after dark we’ll need to make sure nobody knows we were there. Peter has today off and is driving down so we can break in tonight.
I stop for a takeaway coffee on the way to the gallery, pausing to chat to the cute barista with the dreadlocks and sparkly eyes who now knows me by name. I enjoy taking my time on the walk, savouring the fact it’s my day off and I don’t have to rush anywhere. I think of the texts I’ve been exchanging with Courtney and Peter. It’s strange, really, considering I’ve known them just a few weeks, but they’re already starting to feel like friends. Yet it’s a warped friendship that the three of us have formed. They’re acting out of grief, but why am I doing it? They’re looking for answers on behalf of those they loved and lost.
At first I agreed to help because it was almost like a game, something to relieve the boredom of the job.
But then I found the T-shirt. When I described it to Courtney she’d been adamant it was Una’s. ‘I was with her when she bought it,’ she said, over the phone. ‘Why would Elspeth have Una’s T-shirt? When Una died I went to the house to collect her clothes.’
‘Maybe Elspeth had wanted to keep a memento,’ I’d suggested, which horrified Courtney, especially when I admitted I’d found it in Elspeth’s bedroom, and that I believed she’d been sleeping with it.
Whether Elspeth is involved in the deaths of the other girls or not, it’s obvious she has a slight obsession with all of us, is capricious and faking her frailty for attention. I sometimes wonder if maybe she’s losing her marbles, confusing us so that in her mind we merge to become Viola. I don’t understand it but, even so, does that make her a killer?
When I arrive, the shop is predictably empty. Daisy is sitting at Kathryn’s desk, her mobile cradled between ear and shoulder, picking at her pink acrylic nails. ‘Yes, that’s what I’m worried about,’ she’s saying into the phone. When she hears the ping of the door she looks up and irritation flashes across her features when she sees it’s me. ‘Gotta go. Speak later.’ She ends the call. ‘Back again so soon?’
‘Sorry to bother you. I know you’re really busy.’
She rolls her eyes at my sarcasm.
‘The last time I came here I think I left something behind,’ I lie.
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘Oh, really? What was that, then?’
‘My …’ I cast my eyes around the shop, hoping for inspiration ‘… brother’s door key,’ I say desperately.
‘Your brother’s door key?’
‘For his flat. It’s a spare and he’ll kill me if I don’t find it.’
She continues to stare at me without speaking, one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows raised.
‘You know what big brothers are like,’ I say, conscious that I’m rambling now. ‘Do you mind if I scoot about?’
She breaks eye contact and shrugs. ‘I was just about to make myself a coffee anyway,’ she says, getting up. Her skirt is so short I can see the tops of her tights. ‘So scoot away.’ She wanders off to the back of the shop and I get down on my hands and knees on the cold white tiles, pretending to look for my brother’s key and feeling foolish. What am I doing? This is harder than I’d thought.
She comes back, coffee cup in hand, and surveys me with an amused expression. ‘Found it?’
I stand up and dust down my trousers. ‘No. Sadly not. Never mind. If you do, though, would you let me know?’
She shrugs in answer.
‘So,’ I say, in my best breezy voice. ‘Doing anything fun tonight?’
‘Seeing my boyfriend.’
‘Do you have to work late on a Saturday?’
She shakes her head. ‘Only till five.’
‘That’s good.’ I make a mental note to tell the others.