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Opal

Opal got the kids through the house to the front door, but Archie refused to walk through it.

“Not without Mommy,” he said. “Mommy’s with that bad man in the kitchen.”

“She wants you to be safe,” Opal said. “And she will be safe, too, but she wants you to come with Aunt Opal.”

Archie shook his head and planted his feet.

“You’re very brave,” Opal told him, crouching down to his level. “And listen, I am not going to let anything happen to your mom. She is one of the only two friends I have, and I will protect her with my life. But she loves you more than anyone else in the entire world, and you need to do this for her. You just need to walk out the door.”

Archie held her gaze, his mouth set. Opal wondered how she could ever have thought of herself as strong-willed. She was no match for a five-year-old.

“I’ll buy you sweets,” she tried.

At that moment, Marina came rushing into the front hall. The children cried out and ran to her. Ewan, in Opal’s arms, held out his hands.

“My darlings,” she said, gathering them to her, taking Ewan from Opal, covering them with kisses. “Everything’s okay, we’re all okay, we’re safe now. The bad man has gone away.”

“Is he coming back?” Archie buried his face in her chest.

“No. The police came and took him.”

Opal caught Marina’s glance above the children. Marina shook her head slightly and then bent to her daughter.

“Are you okay, Lucy Rose? Are you hurt? You are so brave, you are all so brave!”

“I bited him and he tasted bad.”

Marina held her close, all three of her children in her arms, cradled tight. Tears were coursing down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice them. Opal thought she had never seen anyone look so happy.

She left the family where they were and went back to the kitchen. Lilah was standing over S’s prone body. The man’s face was splashed with blood and his head wasn’t quite the right shape. For a moment, Opal thought that his thumbs had been ripped off and scattered on the floor, but then she realized it was a pair of chicken drumsticks.

“She killed him with our lunch,” said Lilah.

Quite deliberately, she leaned forward and spat on S’s body.

“That’s for Dad.”

“Are you okay?” asked Opal, putting her hand on Lilah’s shoulder. “You didn’t even seem frightened.”

“I was very frightened. I just didn’t care.” She stepped over S and turned off the burner on the cooker. “Are the children all right?”

“Yes.” Opal realized something. “Marina trusted me with them. She didn’t even have to think about it. Even after everything I told you that I’d done.”

“Of course,” said Lilah.

“I don’t deserve trust like that.”

“You do.”

They closed the kitchen door behind them and went to find Marina, who was still on the floor with her kids around her.

“Are the police still there?” Archie asked Opal. “Can I see them?”

“They went out the back door,” said Opal. “They’re taking that guy to jail.”

“Did they have guns?”

“I think so.”

“Wow.”

“Marina, your arms,” said Lilah.

Opal took a closer look. The skin on Marina’s arms was red and angry where the hot broth had splattered over them. It was already starting to blister and swell.

“Those are second-degree burns,” she said. “I’ll get you cold compresses. But you need to get to a hospital.”

Marina shook her head. “No. I need to take the kids someplace safe. My mum’s house, or my brother’s.”

“I’m not leaving Mummy,” said Archie.

Opal made a quick decision. “Right. Lilah, you take Marina and the kids to hospital. You can watch them while she’s being treated. And then you can all go together to her mum’s.”

“But what about...”

“I’ll clean up the mess in the kitchen.”

“No,” said Marina. “I made the mess. I’ll clean it up.”

“We’ll all clean it up,” said Lilah. “But I’ll take you to the hospital first, and then we’ll take the kids to their gran’s, because their Sunday lunch got spilled all over the floor, and they’ll need something else to eat.”

“And I’ll stay here,” said Opal, “in case ‘the police’ need me to answer any extra questions.”

“You have a flight to catch.”

“I’ve got loads of time. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“The mess will be fine,” said Opal sternly.

* * *

But after they’d left, Opal locked all the doors and then went down into the cellar. She found a leftover plastic sheet, and the bucket of rags and cleaning fluids, and a brand-new package of Marigold gloves, and brought them all up to where S’s body lay, sauce and blood congealing around him.

Before she got started, she removed S’s hoodie, thinking about how, sadly, this was the last man she’d be likely to undress for some time. She cut the hoodie into pieces with kitchen scissors and burnt it, piece by piece in a Dutch oven on top of the cooker, with the fan going full speed. Lucy Rose had been close to it, and Lilah had spat on it, and though she was reasonably sure that neither of them had DNA samples registered with law enforcement, she also wouldn’t have put it past Lilah to have sent in a DNA test to a genealogy lab at some point. It seemed like something she would do for fun.

Whatever else happened, she did not want this body being connected with her friends. That meant she’d have to do something about that bite mark, too.

As she worked, she thought about Dubrovnik. Old Town, the mountains, the sea, the wedding-cake buildings, sunshine on palm trees. White boats bobbing on bright blue water. Fresh seafood, Mediterranean diet, people with more money than sense. It was the sort of place where you could reinvent yourself.

If only.