Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(81)
She indicated a scan of a photo that she had pulled up.
There were members of the Nine—young and shiny faced, with their 90s hair and communal clothes—lined up against the bar at a pub. Behind them were the decorative handles of the beer taps, and a bartender caught unawares by the camera, his eyes glowing red as he looked up from filling a glass. On the far end was Sebastian, his eyes closed in a squint and preening for the camera. Theo was tucked under his arm, smiling at something or someone out of view. Noel, tall and slouched, in oversized glasses and a flop of dark hair. Angela was next to him, thrusting a flower in the direction of the camera like a sword. Peter wore a green-and-blue-striped rugby shirt and had his head thrown back in laughter, while Yash had his mouth open and his hand out in a wide gesture, still in the middle of telling a joke. Only Julian tried to work the camera at all, a half smile on his lips. He wore a loose T-shirt and had a flannel shirt tied around his waist.
There was one more person, far to the edge of the frame. An afterthought who almost didn’t make the cut. She looked away slightly, but her face was clear enough. She wore an oversized Oxford sweatshirt.
Sooz pointed to her.
“There she is,” Sooz said. “The Canadian.”
“What?” Yash almost dropped his mug of tea. He hurried over and leaned in to look at the screen.
“Canadian?” Stevie repeated. She went in for a look, but the members of the Nine had crowded around Sooz and her computer. Yash scraped back one of the wooden chairs and sat down.
“The Canadian,” he repeated, rubbing his forehead. “My God.”
“Why do you keep saying she’s Canadian?” Stevie asked.
“Because she told us she was Canadian,” Sooz replied.
“It used to be a thing,” Theo explained. “Some people weren’t overly fond of Americans? So some Americans would say they were Canadian instead. Can’t really tell the difference. American and Canadian accents sound the same to us, generally.”
“Okay,” Stevie said. “Who is the Canadian? I mean, Samantha. She’s Samantha. But how did you know her?”
“We didn’t,” Peter said.
“Well, we did in a way,” Theo added. “But not really, like Peter says.”
“We did,” Yash said. “I did.”
“Julian certainly did,” Sooz cut in.
It was like they were talking in riddles.
“In our last week or so at Cambridge,” Sooz said, “during exams or right after, sometime around that period, we were all at the pub one night, and we met the Canadian. The American . . . Samantha. I don’t think we knew her name, did we? We called her something else.”
“Monty,” Yash said. “Because she was Canadian, and I said something about Mounties, and she thought I said Monty or something. It was just one of those things that happen in a pub. She probably told us her name but we called her Monty. She seemed to like it. It made her laugh.”
“I took the picture,” Sooz said. “And you can see we’re all in it except for Rosie. Which means this happened on the night Julian cheated on her.”
Julian lifted his head.
“Sooz, do you have to . . .”
“I’m trying to explain. Rosie was out studying for an exam or doing a lab or something, and we were all at the pub without her. And Julian met the Canadian and he snogged her. The Canadian was the reason Rosie and Julian broke up . . .”
Julian again lifted his head in protest.
“. . . which sounds worse than it should. Everyone broke up with Julian when he cheated, which was always and with everyone. We broke up, what, four times because of that?”
“It wasn’t always me that did the cheating in that case, Sooz . . .”
“The point is that’s how Rosie and Noel ended up together,” Peter summarized.
“But you didn’t recognize her?” Izzy said.
“I remember the Canadian,” Julian said, “but I didn’t recognize her photo.”
“Julian had a lot of encounters,” Sooz said.
“Sooz, can you . . .”
“She hung out with me the next night,” Yash said. “She was fun. She was funny. She was really into music. She said she liked being in England because so many of the bands she liked were here. Unlike Julian, I didn’t shag everything that moved, so this stood out for me. I really liked her. She was going to be in England for another day or two, so I lent her some CDs in my bag. I gave her our address so she could visit and bring them back, but she never came. I just thought she took my CDs and went back to Canada.”
“But she didn’t,” Sooz said. “She died. I don’t know how Angela put that together or why, but we knew her.”
“She died punt running?” Stevie said. “That’s a thing?”
“Oh yes,” Sebastian said. “Cambridge is on a river—the Cam. The punts are the boats used on the river, mostly by tourists. At night, they’re tied up in rows, and people run across them while they’re drunk.”
“How easy is it to fall in?”
“Very,” Theo said. “It’s generally harmless, except the rumor was that you’d get Weil’s disease from the water—leptospirosis. It’s not as common as people thought, or else everyone would have had it. You’d be in more danger of snagging yourself on a shopping trolley someone had dumped in the water. But it sounds like she hit her head on the way down, which is also easily done.”