One by One(98)

Topher pulls open his MacBook, clicks a link, and taps in a password. Then he angles the screen towards the rest of the table, and, with a glance at the door to the kitchen to check the waitress isn’t hovering, he presses play.

For a minute it’s hard to make out what I’m seeing. It seems to be footage from a mobile phone, but it’s nighttime, and the resolution is grainy and poor. It looks like a garden—or no, a balcony, because I can see rooftops beyond. A man and a woman are standing there, talking, but although I can hear the breathing of the person filming, I can’t hear anything from the couple talking on the balcony, which makes me think they are being filmed from inside, through glass.

The woman is leaning against the opposite wall, and her face is in shadow, making it impossible to tell who she is, but there is some thing about her stance that looks both familiar, and more than a little tipsy. She is steadying herself with a hand on the wall, and when the man leans in, offering her more champagne, the glass she holds out is definitely swaying.

The man, I don’t recognize. I’m sure of that. He is standing with his back to the balcony parapet, so that I can only see his profile, but it’s no one I know. He’s handsome, in an obvious kind of way, and there is something a little patronizing about his expression, like he’s enjoying talking down to this young woman in front of him, enjoying her homage. He lifts his glass to his lips and drains his drink, and then says something to the woman.

The woman shakes her head. She makes as if to move away, but the man puts his arm up on the wall over her head, blocking her in. She is hemmed in by his body on one side, and the wall of the house on the other. My heart begins beating faster for her. I know what is happening. I have been this woman. I know her panic. I know how much she will want to escape.

And then, very deliberately, he puts his hand on her breast.

I am screaming at her internally to kick his shins, knee him in the balls, get away.

But I have realized with a sinking feeling that I know this woman. And I know what she is about to do.

She squirms to one side trying to get out from under his grasp, but he blocks her, putting his other hand there to prevent her escape, and now he leans in, too close for me to see what he’s doing, though I can imagine, I can imagine all too well. My heart is racing now, sickeningly fast. Why isn’t the person holding the phone going to help?

The shove, when it comes, is no surprise to me, even though there is an audible gasp from the person filming, and from a few of the viewers in the dining room.

On screen, the man staggers back, against the low barrier of the balcony, winded. And then the next few seconds unfold so fast I can hardly make out what happens.

The woman steps towards him, and for a second I think she is about to help him up. But she doesn’t. She pushes him again. And this time his legs go up, his glass slips from his hand, his arms windmill—and he is gone.

It’s only when the woman turns to walk away that we see her face.

It’s completely calm.

It is, of course, Liz.





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopscribers: 160

There is complete silence around the table as Topher closes his laptop and puts it away. Carl is the first to speak.

“What the fuck did we just watch?”

“I think…” It’s Miranda, speaking very slowly, her face drained of color. “I think… we just watched Liz murder someone.”

“It’s why Eva was killed,” Topher says, and his voice is gravelly. “It must be, surely? Liz must have known she knew.”

“But—that makes no sense,” Miranda says, bewildered. “Why kill Eva when she knew she had footage?”

“I’m guessing she didn’t know about the footage,” Topher says. He looks indescribably weary, his face graven with the lines of a man ten years older than his actual age.

“She didn’t,” I say. My words drop into their silence like stones into a well, and they all turn to look at me, astonished.

“You knew about this?” Miranda says, and, very reluctantly, I nod.

“Yes, I knew. Liz confessed to me before—” I stop, I can’t bring myself to say what happened, even though I’ve already been through it with the police: the endless night, the pills in the kettle, that nightmarish chase in the darkness, the horror of her lonely death. “Before I ran,” I end, lamely.

“She fucking killed a man in cold blood,” Carl says, and his voice is blank with shock.

“He assaulted her,” Miranda says stiffly, but I don’t listen to the argument that ensues. I am too busy trying to figure out something else.

Who was filming? And why?

There is only one explanation—it must have been Eva. She was the only other person there that night, by Liz’s account. And she had the footage. She must have been the person hiding inside the flat, filming through the closed window. It’s the only explanation that makes sense, and it ties in with Liz’s account of the timings, Eva making an excuse to leave and go to the bathroom, right before it happened.

But… I am putting two and two together as the argument rages around me, Miranda’s shrill voice rising over Carl’s booming tones. Why would Eva be filming? Unless she knew, or at least had a very good idea, that Liz was going to be assaulted.