Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(27)

“Who the hell is she?” Nate asked Stevie quietly. “Why does she like us?”

Stevie shrugged. “We’re likable?”

“Not really,” he said. “We’re okay at best. Are all English people this friendly?”

“I don’t know,” Stevie said as Izzy encouraged Vi and Janelle into one more set of pictures.

The wheel was dipping them back toward the water of the Thames and the ride was coming to an end, when Izzy came up alongside Stevie privately.

“I’m so pleased you’re here,” she said. “I’ve wanted to tell someone about this for so long, but I had no one to tell, then David told me all about you, and I knew I had to tell you when you got here. I thought I’d wait until the ride was over. You see . . .”

She gripped the rail that ran along the inside of the pod. “. . . I have to tell you about a murder.”

“There it is,” Nate said, mostly under his breath.





7


BACK ON THE GROUND, THE RAIN DROVE THEM TO SEEK SHELTER IN the nearby South Bank complex—a gargantuan bunker of smooth gray concrete that Janelle assured them was in the brutalist style. Signage directed them to what seemed like dozens of spaces: theaters, conference rooms, exhibitions, cafés. They took up residence at a table in one of the latter and huddled over some cups of tea and the last muffins of the day.

“I know people must tell you that all the time, that they know about a murder. But it’s true. My aunt saw a murder. She was there. It was her friends who were killed. . . .”

Izzy was talking fast, the words spilling from her mouth.

“When my aunt, Angela, was at Cambridge, she was in a theater group. This was a very close group. They all lived together in student housing. After exams their final year, they went off for a week’s celebration. One of them—his name is Sebastian, he’s lovely—his family owns a massive house in the country called Merryweather. They all went out there for a long party. On the first night, they were playing a game of hide-and-seek on the grounds. It started to rain, so they all came inside, except for two of them. A few of the group went looking for them the next morning. They found them in the woodshed. Dead, I mean. With an axe. They had disturbed some burglars during the night. That’s what I always heard about it, but . . .”

Izzy almost knocked over the remnants of her cup of tea as she leaned into the table.

“Growing up, I heard the story. Never in depth. Just that Angela had been at a house party where some burglars came in during the night and killed two of her friends. She’s very sensitive about it, obviously. I know there are places she avoids because of it. She prefers to be in the city. The countryside makes her quite nervous. I never thought any more of it until earlier this year—over the summer, I was staying with Angela after she had an operation on her knee. She tore something at the gym and had to have it fixed and she was immobilized for a week or two. She needed someone with her because she was taking painkillers and she couldn’t get up for a few days, so I was there to make tea and bring her soup and things like that. . . .”

An adorable flap of the hand, indicating the many invalid-friendly foodstuffs Izzy had brought to her aunt’s bedside.

“She had the telly on, and there was a show on about a murder, and out of nowhere she said, ‘I think one of my friends murdered someone. I was there.’ So I said to her, ‘What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘My friends. The ones who were killed. The lock was off the door. I saw the lock off the door.’ Then she kept saying something about things being planted. I could tell she wasn’t hallucinating. She was saying something she really believed but wouldn’t have said out loud unless she was off her tits on pain medication.”

“Your aunt said, ‘I think one of my friends murdered someone,’” Stevie repeated.

“And also that she was there. And the lock and planted evidence, or planting, or something. Then I think she realized what she was saying and stopped. I had no idea what to do. I asked her about it later, and she tried to fob me off.”

“Some pain medications are very strong,” Janelle said. “Isn’t it possible that she was just high? That she was saying things that had no bearing on reality?”

“If you had been there,” Izzy said, “you would know. It was real. Her guard was down, but she was speaking with absolute clarity. She had a look in her eye like she was remembering something, like she just forgot who she was talking to about it. I’ve been thinking about this since it happened and I can’t let it go. I’ve read all I can about the murders, but there’s not a lot. The point is—they never found out who did it. No one was ever accused or charged. It was written off as a robbery. But she knows something, and that something is eating her up inside. I didn’t know what to do about any of this, and then I met David a few weeks ago and he told me about you, and it seems like fate. I’m a great believer in fate. I’ve been waiting to meet you and tell you about it.”

Now that Izzy had, in fact, told her about it, Stevie had no idea what to say next. Usually, these things came in the form of messages, not people leaning over a café table with wide eyes, smelling faintly of orange blossom, tapping chipped green nails on the table surface and picking at the remnants of a muffin.

“So, I had a thought.” Izzy’s thought floated on the air for a moment, swept up and around the table. “David mentioned you’re doing a lot of tours? And that you’re going to the Tower of London this week? Angela makes history shows for the BBC. She’s an expert in all sorts of things about London history. She’s making a new program now. I thought . . . if you wanted, we could get some takeaway and have dinner with her! She doesn’t live far, just a few stops on the Tube. I know she’d love to meet you and she can tell you loads about Henry the Eighth and his wives. She knows everything about the Tower. She’s done something about it—an article, or maybe part of a book? Because that’s where they were beheaded. The wives. And maybe we could get her to talk about it? What do you say? There’s an amazing restaurant down the road from her flat that does the best takeaway curry. Only if you want to, because I know you have plans, but I thought I’d offer since you’re here and you’re doing this sort of thing and I suppose you have to eat dinner anyway and . . .”