‘Penny for them,’ says Trevor, jolting her out of her thoughts. She looks up from her muesli. All her family are seated at the dining table, staring at her: they must have been talking and she’s been in a world of her own. She notices Elliot flashing her a warning look from across the table.
‘Just plot points for the new book,’ she lies.
Trevor raises an eyebrow. ‘Interesting. Can you reveal what it’s about yet? I was sad to read about Miranda Moody’s demise in Her Last Chapter.’
She glances at him: his expression is unreadable. Why did he mention Miranda’s death? Is it some kind of veiled threat? Does he suspect she knows about him?
The muesli turns to sawdust in her mouth. ‘Um, not quite yet.’ She gets up and takes her bowl to the sink.
Jasmine looks up from her phone. She’s still in her pyjamas, her hair unbrushed. ‘I’ve just had a message from Dad,’ she announces. ‘He says he’s coming over this morning.’
Elliot’s face darkens but he doesn’t say anything. Damn, she’d forgotten she’d told Jonas he could come. ‘You shouldn’t have your phone at the table,’ he mutters instead.
Jasmine ignores him. ‘Why is he coming here?’ she asks Emilia. ‘He never does. Why aren’t I going there this weekend?’
‘I’ll ring Jonas,’ she says, relieved to have an excuse to leave the kitchen. She feels like she can’t breathe when she’s in close proximity to Trevor, like he’s sucked all the oxygen from the room.
She goes into the den, a cosy space at the back of the house, behind the posh front room. It consists of a PlayStation and shelves of kids’ books and Lego. Elliot doesn’t like to have drawings and magnets on their kitchen fridge so she hangs up Wilfie’s pictures here, on little pegs attached to string that snakes around the coving of the room. It reminds her of a primary-school classroom, and she loves it. The kids, like her, need a space where they can be messy.
She dials Jonas’s number. He sounds like he’s speaking on his car’s hands-free when he answers. ‘I’m on my way,’ he says, without ‘hello’， and she knows he’s still cross with her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she blurts out. ‘About Kristin. I was wrong. It wasn’t her.’
‘I know it wasn’t,’ he replies, but he sounds relieved.
‘I’ll apologize to her when I come and pick up Jas tomorrow night.’
‘You mean she can stay this weekend?’
‘If it’s okay with you guys.’
‘Of course it’s okay. She’s always welcome to stay. You know that. Tell her to get her stuff ready. I’ll be ten minutes.’ He ends the call.
She goes back into the kitchen to let Jasmine know, and her daughter runs upstairs to get ready. Wilfie is debating with Elliot about the pros of having a dog. ‘You just don’t want one because you think they’re messy,’ he wails.
‘No, bud, that’s not it. They’re hard work.’
Wilfie pushes back his chair, his lip quivering. ‘It’s not fair. All my friends have pets. We don’t even have a hamster.’
‘You should let Wilf have a pet, son,’ says Trevor.
‘Right, yeah, thanks, Dad. Like we were surrounded by pets when I was a kid.’
‘Only because your mother was allergic. It’s nice for kids to grow up with pets.’
Emilia’s stomach twists. ‘Wilf, go and get dressed,’ she instructs from the doorway, and her son hurries from the room, brushing past her, his face like thunder.
‘Right, then,’ says Trevor, downing his coffee and getting up. ‘I think I’ll go home today. I don’t want to be getting under your feet.’ He looks tired.
Elliot gets up too and takes his father’s bowl and mug to the dishwasher. ‘You’re not getting under anyone’s feet, is he, Em?’
‘No. No, of course not.’ The lie sticks in her throat. Was his the last face Louise had seen before she was murdered? The thought sickens her.
Elliot fusses around his father, propping him up with cushions, opening the doors to let the sunshine stream in and switching on the football for him to watch. Then he takes her arm and guides her out of the room into the hallway. ‘You have to stop this. My father is an old man.’
‘He’s sixty-two and fitter than me.’
‘He’s not a killer,’ he hisses. ‘How can you think that about him?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
They are interrupted by the ring of the doorbell, and it pops up on her app that it’s Jonas. Elliot shakes his head in annoyance and goes back into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Jasmine rushes down the stairs, dressed casually in her usual baggy jeans, with her hair in a jaunty ponytail. Emilia is relieved to get her out of the house for the weekend, away from Trevor.
‘Have you got everything?’
‘Yep,’ she says, wrapping her headphones around her neck, her rucksack on her back.
‘Great.’ Emilia opens the doors into the porch. It takes her a while to unlock the heavy front door and it enters her mind, not for the first time, how na?ve she had been to leave these unlocked, yet she feels nostalgic for the person she was before all this started. Now she’s suspicious of everyone she knows.
Jonas is standing at the top of the steps with his hands in the pockets of his shorts. She glances behind her to make sure Jasmine is out of earshot, but she’s heading down the hallway towards the kitchen, she presumes to say goodbye to Elliot and Trevor. She turns back to Jonas. ‘I’m sorry, again, for what happened with Kristin.’
He studies her through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, Em. I can see you’ve been through the wringer so I do understand. And I know Kristin didn’t turn out to be a good friend, but she’d never do something like this.’
‘I know,’ she says, in a small voice.
His brow furrows in concern. ‘Is everything okay? Did you find out who it was?’
‘It was Louise, if you must know. I found out after she died. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you one day.’
‘Your detective friend? Shit.’
‘I know. I –’
Jasmine appears at the door. ‘Hi, Dad. See you tomorrow, Mum.’ She bends down to kiss Emilia’s cheek.
Her teenage daughter, who’s already way taller than she is. Emilia hugs her fiercely. ‘Love you,’ she says, into her hair.
‘Love you too.’
Jonas flashes her a concerned smile and she watches her daughter and her ex-husband head to his BMW parked behind her car on the drive. In that moment she wishes she could gather up Wilfie and go with them.
Wilfie has a sleepover with his friend, Ben, in nearby St Margaret’s, and Emilia is thankful to be leaving Elliot and Trevor behind as she drives him over. Wilfie has perked up since his argument with Elliot about pets, and is excited about spending the night with his friend and his two fluffy Cockapoos. Once she’s dropped him off and had a chat with Ben’s mum, promising to pick him up at 2 p.m. the next day, she gets back into her car and drives to Marble Hill Park.
She’s thankful both of her children are safely away from home. She still doesn’t know whether to believe Elliot when he says he isn’t Ash. She wants to believe him. Just like she wants to believe that Trevor is innocent. But she can’t think clearly. Suspicion and paranoia are clogging her brain. She gets out and wanders through the gardens of Marble Hill House, her mind racing. What should she do?