Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(62)

“Get up,” she said to David, who was still watching something on his phone. She nudged him out of his seat and went to the luggage area at the head of the car. She hauled her bag out. She knelt in the aisle, taking it up completely, as she attempted to find the space to get it open. Someone was trying to get back from the bathroom and found Stevie on the floor in the way.

“Sorry,” she said, tugging at the fire safe. “One second.”

It was more than a second. It was an awkward struggle that took several minutes. She lugged the fire safe back to the table, forcing everyone to clear cups and wrappers. She took the aisle seat, which David had vacated for the window one.

“When you need to remember something . . . ,” she said to the group. “You’re a historian and you need to remember. What do you remember? Remember, remember . . . What’s the date again? The date to remember? The one with the fireworks?”

“The fifth of November,” Izzy said.

She tried 1105. Nothing.

But that was the wrong way around, of course. Here, it would be 0511.

The case clicked open.





17


“WELL,” DAVID SAID. “WILL YOU HOLY SHIT THAT.”

The six of them were pressed around the little train table. Janelle and Vi leaned over David’s and Stevie’s seats. Before them, spread out in a neat array, was a selection of documents.

Official documents. Police documents, mostly. Full-sized prints of thirty-five photographs. Seven witness statements. A copy of notes from the detective in charge of the case. Autopsy reports. A photocopy of a newspaper article. And on top, a note on lined notebook paper in what Izzy identified as Angela’s handwriting. It read:

Order of events, times approximate:

Right before game Rosie said

“I saw something I didn’t understand, but I do now”

“It was in the paper”

“You won’t believe me, I don’t believe me” does not believe self

Sooz came

Talk later because game starting

11 p.m. game begins, last sighting of Rosie going out front door with me, no one else sees her

11.15 Theo found (inside house, found by Sebastian)

11.30 Yash found (inside house, found by Sebastian and Theo together)

Time unclear, but probably before midnight: Julian and Sooz see Noel in back garden

12.30 I am found (stables, found by Theo)

1.00 Peter found (back garden, found by Yash)

1.30 Sooz (walled formal garden, found by Peter)

2.30 lights go out, Julian found, return to house

3–3.30 Sooz sees torchlight at the side of house, coming from the general direction of the woodshed and drive

“She was investigating the case,” Stevie said. This was obvious, of course, but this treasury of documents was so monumental, she couldn’t help but state it out loud. “How did she get all of this?”

“She’s a researcher,” Izzy said. “That’s her job. She knows people and knows how to get things. But this means the thing about the lock was real. What she said about thinking one of her friends was a murderer was real.”

“Well,” Stevie said, “it means that she was looking into the case, which she could still do even if she was looking for burglars who murdered her friends.”

Izzy tapped on the timeline notes.

“She’s making notes about where everyone was,” she said. “Because she thought one of them did it.”

Stevie ran her eye over the pile. One of these things didn’t belong. The newspaper article. It had nothing to do with the events at Merryweather.



* * *



BODY OF MISSING AMERICAN STUDENT FOUND

The body of missing American student Samantha Gravis has been found in the River Cam near Grantchester Meadows. Local resident Donald Worth was walking his dog along the riverside early yesterday morning when his dog became attracted to something in an area of natural debris and overgrowth. As he tried to move his dog from the spot, he noticed what appeared to be a human form trapped in the collected sticks and plants. Police positively identified the victim as Samantha Gravis.

Gravis, 18, was from Portland, in the state of Maine. She had recently graduated from secondary school and was visiting England for the first time. She had been staying with a friend studying at Magdalene College. Gravis spent the week sightseeing and socializing. She was last seen by her friends at 2.00 a.m. on the morning of 15 June. The friends had been having a small party for Samantha’s last night in Cambridge. She was planning to move on to London to continue her trip. Her friends said that Samantha was moderately inebriated and in very good spirits that night. She told them she had something she needed to do and refused the offer of company on her errand. When she failed to return by the next morning, her friends went looking for her and then alerted the police.

Gravis had expressed to her friends the desire to go punt running—the local Cambridge tradition of running along punts as they are tied up at dock. They had dissuaded her from doing so on previous occasions.

“From our conversations with her companions, we believe the deceased may have been inebriated and punt running,” said Detective Chief Constable Nigel Rose. “She had a small wound on the side of her face, consistent with a fall. We believe she was temporarily knocked unconscious, and she drowned. Her body drifted and her foot became stuck on a shopping trolley that was on the bottom of the river. We must emphasize that punt running is extremely dangerous and results in many injuries. This tragic event is evidence of that.”