Friend Request(60)

‘No, nothing.’

‘Just one more thing,’ she says, pulling a brown envelope out of her inside pocket. ‘We found something near the body.’ She reaches into the envelope and pulls out a clear plastic bag. I can see what it is before she says any more, and it takes all my strength to keep my hands relaxed in my lap and my breathing steady.

‘Have you ever seen this before?’ she asks.

It sits there innocently on the table between us.

‘No.’ I try to answer naturally, evenly, speaking neither too quickly nor too slowly.

‘Sophie wasn’t wearing it?’

‘No, definitely not. She was wearing a big, silver statement necklace.’

Reynolds doesn’t say anything, just slips the clear plastic bag back into the envelope. A plastic bag containing a slender chain with a small golden heart hanging from it. Even though it’s been more than twenty-five years since I last saw it, I would know that necklace anywhere. It haunts my dreams. Without a shadow of a doubt, that is Maria Weston’s necklace. The one she was wearing the night she disappeared.

Chapter 24

2016
Polly takes a while to get to the door. She looks awful, like she’s been crying. Her hair is unbrushed and there are dark circles under her eyes.

‘Oh! What’s the matter? Is everything OK?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ she says dully. ‘Come in.’

I follow her down the hall, nonplussed. I texted her briefly before I left Norfolk to let her know what had happened, so I was expecting more of a reaction from her to the cataclysmic events of the last twenty-four hours. Of course, Polly has no idea of the implications for me, but it’s shocking news nonetheless.

I pop my head into the sitting room. Henry and Maya are curled up together on the sofa, Henry sucking the soft edge of Manky.

‘Hello, H. I’m back. Hi, Maya.’

They barely look up from the cartoon.

‘Hi Mummy. Can I watch the rest of this?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Polly and I carry on into the kitchen and I swing myself up onto one of the high stools at the breakfast bar. I love the idea of a breakfast bar, but as usual the stool is uncomfortably small and I don’t know what to do with my feet.

‘Was he all right?’ I say.

‘Yes, good as gold. No trouble.’

‘Where’s everyone else?’ The house is very quiet.

‘Aaron and Phoebe are still in bed. Tea?’ she asks perfunctorily, already filling the kettle.

‘Yes, please.’

As the water boils, Polly comes to herself a little, as if she’s making a deliberate effort to snap out of whatever state she is in.

‘So, come on then, tell me. It was definitely this girl that you knew, the one you went to see the other week?’

‘Yes, it was Sophie.’

‘So had you talked to her much – at the reunion, I mean?’

‘A bit. Not that much. There were so many people there.’ I find myself playing it down again. It’s easier since I’m lying to the police to tell everyone else the same lie. It frightens me how smoothly the untruths slip from my tongue, even to Polly. She’s supposed to be my best friend yet she knows so little about me.

‘It’s so awful. The poor woman. Who do you think did it? Is she married?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well, they say in ninety-nine per cent of cases it’s the husband, don’t they?’

‘I’m not sure it’s that high, but… she was there with a man though, a boyfriend.’

‘Ooh, what was he like?’

I don’t reply straight away, which Polly misinterprets.

‘Do you think he did it?’ She takes a biscuit and dunks it in her tea.

‘No!’ We are both a bit surprised by my vehemence.

Suddenly the effort of lying to Polly feels too much. I am so desperately tired of carrying this terrible weight around with me, and surely Polly would be the best person to help me to bear it. She loves me. She would understand.

‘This is going to sound weird, but… Pete – that’s Sophie’s boyfriend – spent the night in my hotel room.’

Polly’s hand halts halfway to her mouth and half her dunked biscuit plops into her tea.

‘What?’

‘It wasn’t like that. They had a row, and it was too late for him to get back to London on the train, so he came back to the Travelodge with me but they didn’t have any rooms. So… I said he could share with me. Nothing happened. We just went to sleep, and when I woke up this morning, he was gone.’

‘Bloody hell, Louise.’

‘I know.’

Polly stands up and crosses the kitchen, rummaging in the cutlery drawer for a spoon to fish the soggy biscuit out of her tea.

‘How did it even come about?’

‘Like I said, he and Sophie had a row, so he waited for me in the car park.’

‘He waited for you? That’s a bit creepy.’

‘Not really… I was the only other person he knew there – I told you I met him at Sophie’s flat. He thought I’d be coming back to London.’ Didn’t he? A thought niggles at me – surely he knew how much I’d been drinking, can he honestly have believed I’d be driving?

‘Still. You do realise you might have spent the night snuggled up to a murderer?’