‘I don’t need to spell out how serious things have become,’ he says, his voice sombre. She sits on the edge of the bed, half dressed. ‘Can you come down to the station? Or I could visit you if you prefer?’
She says she’ll come to him. She needs to get out of the house.
When she arrives they sit in a hot room, sweat pouring off Haddock, and he says again how sorry he is about Louise. He looks through the book Jasmine had given her, with the butterflies down the front, where Emilia has written down everything that has happened to her over the last few months. She knows she’s already told him some of this, last night, but she needs to make him understand. Louise has been killed and it’s because of her book. That etching on her ankle … It makes her feel sick to know that someone close to her could have done it. ‘My book and Louise’s death. It’s all linked. It has to be. I just … I just don’t understand how.’
‘And the doll found in Kristin Perry’s things?’ DC Haddock asks, looking at the list she’d made of all the people who had read her unpublished manuscript. ‘Do you think she could be behind this?’
‘If you’d asked me a few months ago if any of the people on this list might be capable of all the things that have happened to me lately, I’d have found it hard to believe,’ she replies. She sips her water, which tastes of iron. ‘But now I just don’t know. I can’t explain how Kristin came to have that troll doll in her possession but I can’t imagine she’s a killer. Why would she want to kill Louise?’
He looks up from the list. ‘Whoever has been stalking you might not be the same person who killed Louise. We have to keep an open mind. Leave this with me.’ His face becomes even more solemn. ‘And I don’t want to scare you, Emilia, but please be extra vigilant.’
He doesn’t need to say it. She’s fully aware of just how much danger she and her family are in.
As she leaves the interview room she thinks again about Louise’s death and the plot of Her Last Chapter, the two things swirling around in her mind. How can there actually be a real serial killer called the praying-mantis murderer? Louise must have known. She feels like she’s being pulled deeper into a spider’s web, unable to claw her way out. She thinks of Elliot’s reaction, her editor’s. Her agent’s. What would they think? She’s lied. To all of them.
And now the truth is coming back to bite her. Kill her.
36
As Emilia rushes back to her car she spots herself in a shop window and recoils at how awful she looks, her unkempt hair scraped into a messy bun. She needs to go home, have a shower and get a grip. But all she can think about is Louise’s dead body, her bloodied head, the inking on her ankle, the praying-mantis murderer being real, and her part in it all. Louise’s last voicemail and what it could mean. The visit from DI Murray. The similarity to a real-life case. She can’t breathe. She … can’t … She stops and holds on to the wall of a nearby shop for support.
‘Emilia?’
She looks up at the sound of the familiar voice. It’s Kristin, looking all summery in a long, floaty dress and gladiator sandals. Has she been following her? ‘Are you okay?’
Emilia takes another deep breath, trying to fight off her nausea. ‘I’m fine. I …’ She stands up straighter, still holding the wall for support. She wonders if the police have called Kristin yet to ask about the troll doll. She suspects not. ‘Have you heard about Louise?’
Kristin frowns. ‘Louise? Louise who?’
She looks genuinely puzzled but Emilia knows Kristin has always been an accomplished liar. ‘My friend Louise. The detective. She came over last weekend to help out after Jasmine disappeared.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Kristin is still frowning.
She has a straw bag over her shoulder with a baguette sticking out. So much for no carbs, thinks Emilia, upset that she can have spiteful thoughts about Kristin even in these circumstances.
‘What about her?’
‘She’s dead. Murdered.’
Emilia watches carefully for Kristin’s reaction. She steps back from Emilia and her hands fly to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God. That’s awful. How? I mean, why? God, I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t know why. I found her with a head injury …’
‘Oh, my God,’ she says again. ‘That must have been traumatic for you.’ She looks genuinely shocked, but she’d acted in that way after Emilia told her she and Jonas were splitting up all those years ago. Before she’d found out it was Kristin he was leaving her for. She swallows, and an expression Emilia can’t read passes over Kristin’s face. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Is it in connection to a case she was working on?’
Emilia opens her mouth to tell her about the inking on Louise’s ankle but then thinks better of it. If DC Haddock plans on interviewing Kristin she doesn’t want to give her any advantages.
‘I don’t know. Look … I have to go …’ She stumbles away from Kristin and walks as fast as she can back to her car. She glances over her shoulder once to see Kristin staring after her.
She’s relieved when she pulls up on the driveway, until she remembers what might be waiting for her and her heart sinks. She’s so tired she can barely think straight, and she needs to be alert, watchful, now more than ever. She approaches the front door with trepidation, terrified of what she might find. But there is no sinister gift waiting for her on the front step and she takes a deep breath before unlocking the door and stepping into the porch. She can hear voices coming from the front room. She reels back in surprise to see her parents sitting on the sofa under the bay window, their Golden Retriever, Lloyd, at their feet, resting his head on the throw she’d slept with earlier. Elliot is sitting opposite in a high-backed navy blue armchair that was a mistake buy: it’s pretty but uncomfortable.
‘Here she is,’ he says, trying to sound cheerful although his smile is strained. Her husband would not welcome her parents turning up unannounced. The knot of anxiety in her stomach intensifies.
‘Hello, darling,’ says her mother, crisply, her hands in the lap of her floral dress.
Her father stands up and embraces her. She’s so shocked that she can only stand, like a mannequin, for a few seconds, her arms hanging limply at her sides, before hugging her father back. He leads her to the sofa so that she’s sitting between her parents, like a child. She bends down to pat Lloyd, marvelling that he’s still going. He must be nearly thirteen.
‘Hugh and Annabel have come to stay for a few days. Keep you company,’ says Elliot, with the same rictus smile. ‘Isn’t that lovely of them?’
She’d have to make up the spare bedroom. Nobody has slept in it since Ottilie stayed a few weeks ago. ‘Sure,’ she says, feeling as if she’s stumbled into a play, and she’s unsure which part she has to perform. She can feel the tension emanating from Elliot. He gets up and claps his hands together, like a bad actor. ‘Right, well, I’d better get on. I’ll see you all later.’ And then he does this weird salute thing that she’s never seen him do in the whole time she’s known him and leaves the room.