‘Was that Trevor?’ she asks, as she pulls away, detaching herself from the brolly.
Ottilie looks at the phone in her hand and frowns as though she’s shocked to see it. ‘What?’
‘Was that Elliot’s dad?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, it was.’
‘Since when do you have phone conversations with Elliot’s dad?’ Emilia laughs to hide her shock. She pulls back her hood and holds open the door to the café, waiting while Ottilie shakes out her umbrella.
‘Oh, me and Trev chat now and again.’ She breezes past in a waft of her familiar Tom Ford perfume. ‘Where has the heat wave gone? Honestly, this country!’ Then she turns back to Emilia, her face falling. ‘God, I’m sorry, here’s me wittering on … I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.’
‘No, please. It’s good to have a normal conversation.’
They are shown to their table, in the corner by the rain-streaked window. It’s busy, and Ottilie pulls a disapproving face. ‘Would much rather be sitting outside. We should have met up last week instead when it was hot. But I was in Germany, visiting Dad.’
Emilia’s not going to let her friend change the subject. ‘So, Trevor,’ she begins, as they’re handed a menu by a gruff-looking waiter, who disappears into the throng by the bar.
‘Hmm …’ Ottilie is scanning the menu.
‘I’m surprised you call each other. He’s, well, he’s Elliot’s dad.’
Ottilie looks up in surprise. ‘So? We’ve always hit it off. He was just ringing me because, it turns out, weird fact, Trevor and my dad used to work together.’
‘Really? When?’
‘Oh, back in the 1990s.’
‘Right.’ She remembers Charles from when she used to stay with Ottilie during the holidays. A tall, handsome man with a thatch of thick blond hair, although she hasn’t seen him in years. ‘What do you and Trevor talk about?’ She can’t imagine her father-in-law and her best friend having cosy chats, although she’s always been able to tell that Trevor is fond of Ottilie.
‘This and that.’ She fastens her green eyes on Emilia. ‘Why are you being weird about it?’ She laughs. ‘It’s not like I’m shagging the guy.’
‘No, I know. It’s just …’ She shrugs. Why does it niggle her? It’s not up to her who either of them is friends with. ‘I suppose because it’s Trevor. I mean, he’s Elliot’s father, my father-in-law. It sounds like you were talking about me on the phone.’
Ottilie raises her eyes. ‘He was just asking me about Louise, that’s all, and whether you were okay.’ She reaches across and takes Emilia’s hand. ‘He’s worried about you. We all are. God, Mils …’ She swallows, and Emilia knows that her friend is thinking about Louise. Her eyes smart. She doesn’t want to cry, not here in public.
She clears her throat and tries to keep her emotions in check. ‘Come on, let’s order.’
They choose salmon on sourdough toast and, once the surly waiter has taken their menus, Emilia says, ‘It’s a shame you never got to meet Louise. I think you’d have liked her. I still can’t believe it. I keep forgetting and go to call her …’ Oh, how she wishes she could call her. She has so many questions that only Louise can answer.
Ottilie places a hand on Emilia’s arm. ‘Mils, this is some fucked-up shit.’
Anxiety swirls inside her. ‘I know. Listen …’ She pauses while the waiter places their drinks on the table and leaves without speaking. ‘There’s something I haven’t told anyone, and I can’t keep it in any more. It’s about my unpublished book …’
‘Which is great, by the way,’ Ottilie interjects, sipping her gin fizz through a straw, then putting the glass down. ‘I finished it last week and have been meaning to tell you.’
‘Thanks. Well, it turns out that my plot follows very closely a serial-killer case in Devon that has been ongoing for years. He also marks his victims with a praying-mantis head although he carves it into the skin, apparently. A real sicko by the sound of it.’
Ottilie’s mouth falls open in horror.
‘I know, it’s really grim. But when I wrote it I didn’t know it was so similar to an actual ongoing case.’
‘Well, sure,’ murmurs Ottilie. ‘How could you have known?’
Emilia fidgets in her seat, running a finger along her glass of elderflower cordial. ‘Well, the thing is, the story …’ She doesn’t know if she can bring herself to say it. She feels like a terrible person, a terrible writer. ‘Oh, God, Ottilie, I was going through a nightmare time. There was Covid and the lockdowns, and Jasmine was having some mental-health issues, and Elliot and I couldn’t agree on the best way to handle it all so we weren’t getting on, and I knew I wanted to finish this series once and for all but I just had a blank. I couldn’t think of anything to write, and I was moaning about it one day to Louise in Marble Hill Park on one of our lockdown power walks last March and … and …’ Ottilie nods encouragingly. ‘And I asked her if she had any stories, joking really, but then she told me she had this idea for a book that she’d always wanted to write but knew she never would and, if I wanted, I could use her plot.’
Ottilie’s eyes widen but she remains silent.
She continues miserably, ‘So she passed on what I thought was a brilliant story, about this girl looking for the man she believes killed her mother, marking her mother’s ankle with an insect’s head. And I never thought in a million years it was similar to a real ongoing case. She made it sound like it was her idea. That it was fiction. And I was so grateful to her …’ She blinks back tears.
Ottilie is frowning. ‘So what? She gave you an idea and you took it. I’m sure other writers have done similar. It’s not like you stole the idea from her. She gave it to you willingly.’
Emilia can’t bring herself to admit the rest. This is bad enough. She hates that she has become this person when her natural instinct is to be open and honest, but since last March she’s become someone who keeps secrets and tells half-truths. She’s so tempted to tell Ottilie everything, to let it spill from her mouth like word vomit until there’s nothing left. She gulps and takes another sip of her drink, wishing she’d also ordered a gin fizz. ‘What I don’t understand is, why? Why did Louise give me the story of a real-life case? And …’ she puts down her glass ‘… is that why she’s been killed, and why I’ve been targeted in this way? Because someone knows she’s told me about the serial killer. Possibly the praying-mantis murderer themselves, and they’ve killed her to shut her up? I’ve been going over and over it in my head, replaying her last message to me and wondering what it could have meant. She wanted to tell me something important. She kept saying she was sorry. And that she’d explain everything to me. And it has to be something to do with the book and the story she told me. Did she know who was behind it all? Was she trying to warn me about the real killer?’