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‘I know you do.’
‘Fucking hell,’ the boy moans. ‘It feels like only yesterday since she died. It never gets easier.’
Joseph closes his eyes, a brief respite. ‘Let’s walk back to the high street, grab an early lunch. Then we can pick out some flowers and go and see her.’
TWENTY-TWO
From the passenger seat of Brittany Moore’s Audi TT, Teri Platini stares at her best friend’s hands and wonders if she should have taken an Uber instead of asking for a lift.
Brittany’s nails are so outlandishly long that she can’t curl her fingers around the steering wheel. Instead, she exerts pressure with her palms, fingers splayed. Sharp turns require a move like a mime artist impersonating a window cleaner. Teri wonders how her friend buttoned her blouse this morning, or applied her false lashes.
‘I know, hon, believe,’ Brittany says, as if reading Teri’s thoughts. ‘Try flossing with these claws – or wiping your butt. Still, since I grew ’em out, there’s a whole bunch of bedroom stuff Leon just doesn’t ask for any more.’
‘I guess that’s a win,’ Teri replies. Her own nails, perfectly manicured, are the Angus Roth regulation length. Angus, of course, never asks for anything in the bedroom. He knows what he likes – and takes it when he pleases.
Overhead, the tree canopy blocks out the early afternoon sun. Brittany hunches forward and wrinkles her spray-tanned nose. ‘Did we not come this way already, babe?’
Teri glances at her Google Maps app, shakes her head. ‘We’ve checked everywhere west of the lake. But this bit’s new.’
The car hits a rut. The steering wheel spins like a roulette wheel beneath Brittany’s hands. ‘Freakin’nature!’ she shrieks. ‘Why can’t they properlypavethis shit?’
Ahead, a narrow dirt track peels off to the left. Teri checks it as they pass. Just where it kinks out of sight into the trees, she sees a glint of blue paintwork. ‘Stop!’
Brittany hisses, hits the brakes. The car shudders to a halt. ‘Tell me I didn’t kill one of them grey stripey things.’
‘Sorry, it’s OK. You didn’t. Can you back up?’
Brittany curls her fingers around the gearstick, trying to select reverse – and Teri suddenly understands why Leon’s stopped asking for certain favours in the bedroom. Finally, the car lurches backwards. A couple of metres later, the turn-off reappears. Brittany shifts into first and palm-spins the wheel. The Audi noses around and bumps along the track. When they reach the bend, Angus’s Lexus RC F reveals itself. Even though it’s parked with two wheels in a clearing, Teri can see why the Forestry Commission have had a hard time passing.
‘OK, you can drop me here,’ she says.
Brittany squints through the window at the trees. ‘Are you sure? I’ve got to say – this place has kind of a horror movie vibe. I mean, Jack-O’-Lantern Woods? Tell me which lunatic dreamed upthatcreepy shit.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You meet any freaks, you scratch their eyes out. Hear me, babe?’
Teri nods. A minute later, she’s alone.
Inside her hoodie are the spare keys from Angus’s desk. The Lexus’s doors will open automatically if the keys are nearby – and then she won’t know if they’d been locked. Knowledge is power and power is security – and security is something Teri has started to value very highly indeed. Pulling out the keys, she drops them beside a bracken patch.
She knows what Brittany means about these woods. They’re giving her the heebie-jeebies, too. On either side of the track, the trees grow so close that it’s hard to see more than twenty feet. Fifty killers in Ghostface masks could be hiding within spitting distance. Worse – and this thought turns Teri’s insides to water – they might even hide the Roth twins.
Steadily, she closes on the Lexus. Four days, now, since she’s seen or heard from Angus. Four days since she presented him with that excruciating boudoir image. And four days since she sneaked a look at his phone and saw his exchange with Barbie Girl.
Teri reaches the car and peers through the glass. The front seats are empty, as are the two rear ones. Glancing around, she sees no one watching from the undergrowth.
The driver’s door is unlocked. Teri swings it open and ducks in her head. The interior is clean and uncluttered – no scrunched-up petrol receipts and festering gym gear like her Tesla. She checks the door pocket, the centre console. All she discovers is a locking nut in a grip-seal bag. There’s nothing of interest under the front seats or behind them. Stuck to the passenger seat headrest is a long blonde hair. Teri finds another in the floor well.
Barbie Girl, she thinks. She’d told Gabriel Roth that the thumbnail WhatsApp photo was too small to reveal detail, but in truth she’d expanded it and stared at her rival for a full minute. And contrary to her claim that she hadn’t seen the girl’s mobile number, she’d committed it to memory. What Teri doesn’t yet understand – and still hasn’t worked through – is whether Barbie Girl represents an opportunity. Despite her treatment by Angus, she’s grown used to her lifestyle at Thornecroft. She doesn’t intend to give it up.
Retrieving the keys from where she left them, Teri climbsinside the Lexus and starts the engine. Then, putting on her sunglasses, she reverses on to the main track.
No way Angus drove into these woods and abandoned his car willingly. Something bad has happened. Or perhaps something good. Just like Gabriel, she needs to establish the truth. Fortunately, she has the Lexus, and he does not. And she knows what Barbie Girl looks like, and how to make contact.
On the way back to Thornecroft, Teri places her palms flat on the wheel and examines her nails, comparing them to Brittany’s four-inch claws:Since I grew ’em out, there’s a whole bunch of bedroom stuff Leon just doesn’t ask for.
If an image from a boudoir shoot hangs above Brittany’s bed, undoubtedly it’ll be of Leon, chained and gagged. For the first time in what feels like months, Teri permits herself a smile.