Page 51

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Opal

The video couldn’t show how the alley stank of rotten fish and urine. Opal thought that was fitting for the final resting place of someone who pulled knives on children and murdered elderly retired postmen. Aside from that, S didn’t seem like such a bad person, and it was a shame that his grandkids wouldn’t get to go to private school, but c’est la vie. She’d gone to public school, and she’d done all right for herself.

Well. Compared to Zander and S. Sure, she was broke, and she was a fugitive from the law, but least she was still alive. And she had friends.

She scheduled the Instagram post for an hour in the future, tossed her phone into the dumpster next to the body, pulled up her hood, and put on a face mask. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to get on that plane to Croatia, or indeed anywhere that she needed to show a passport, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to make herself easy to find. She figured: Euston, Liverpool, Belfast, lay low and make some phone calls. It was an extremely long shot.

But what happened to her wasn’t important. The important thing was to loudly divert suspicion away from Lilah and Marina.

She hadn’t been glib when she said she would swap her life for Cora’s. But that wasn’t possible, so she was swapping her life for Marina and Lilah’s.

The narrative here was easy. Opal was a crook. Opal caused an innocent woman to die. Opal killed her husband. Opal killed another man because hell, why not? She was going to prison anyway.

As long as she was the chief suspect in a crime, no one was going to look at a mother of three and a mild-mannered librarian. Never, ever in her entire life had a single person given her automatic trust and acceptance like Marina and Lilah did. She owed everything to them.

She wiped off her hands with a baby wipe (Marina was right; they cleaned anything). Then she threw the wipe and the packet into the dumpster and took off running.

It was a nice, easy nine miles to Euston, but she had to avoid busy areas and anyplace likely to be covered extensively by CCTV, and also she’d given herself a lumbar strain hoisting S into the dumpster so she couldn’t take it at her usual pace. By the time she reached Kensington she was limping, and the pain had radiated down her left leg to a level that was difficult to ignore. She stopped to stretch it out against the side of a deli, but she’d barely started when she saw the reflection of blue lights in the window.

She didn’t even turn around. She took off sprinting down the road, dodged down a side street, vaulted an iron fence into a private square, pelted across it to the other side, sneakers wet in the grass, and jumped that fence too back into the street.

Did she hear running footsteps behind her, the clump of the police? She couldn’t tell above the sound of her own breath in the mask, the searing pain in her back. It seemed too soon for the reel to have posted to Instagram, but maybe they were after her already because of the newspaper story. She glanced behind her and saw two dark figures running, a distance away but not nearly far enough.

Good luck, fuckers , she thought, running harder than she’d ever done. You’re about to be beaten by a middle-aged woman with sciatica .

Down another side street, going north now instead of west, trying to put them off her tail, and then cutting across towards Marylebone. Crossing Baker Street, she ran straight into a tour group led by a man dressed as a Victorian. “Pardon me!” she yelled, dodging between anoraks and umbrellas. She stumbled on a curb, stomped her other foot into a puddle, splashing water up the guide’s pants and her own leg. Right ankle twisted now. She skipped forward as best as she could on her left leg, the sore one, until she dared put down her right foot. Sore, but okay.

As she rounded the corner, she looked behind her and saw nothing but bemused tourists. No blue lights, no one in uniform. It seemed too good to be true, that she’d lost them.

But she couldn’t run properly now. Her left leg was heavy, and her spine was on fire. Even at peak fitness she would be in trouble, and she’d been neglecting her workouts in favor of trying to sort out her life. Plus, she had already cleaned the kitchen, hoisted a large man halfway across Richmond, and blown up her entire life. Adrenaline and cortisol could only do so much for a girl.

With relief she saw Gower Street. Slowing to a walk, she pulled her hood a bit further over her face and checked her watch as she approached Euston. The reel would have posted half an hour ago. But she couldn’t see any police around the station, just the normal travelers, walking slowly with suitcases, quickly with backpacks, wheeling bicycles, checking their phones. She joined them entering Euston.

Train to Liverpool was departing in seven minutes. Luck was on her side. Ticket. Barrier. Weaving as quickly as she could between luggage and dawdlers. The last carriage on the train was the least crowded one in theory, but when she entered it, nearly every seat was full. Acutely aware of her appearance, mud-spattered and sweaty, limping and sodden, masked and hooded, no doubt smelling of bleach and fish, she found an aisle seat next to a young woman wearing a headscarf and whispered an apology. Then she slumped back in the seat, closed her eyes, massaged her hamstring, and waited for the train to move, taking her north, somewhere that she might have a chance.

She wondered what Lilah and Marina thought when they’d come home to a clean, corpse-free house. Maybe they’d seen her video by now. She’d give a lot to see the expressions on their faces when they realized what she’d done.

Opal was chuckling softly to herself when something shifted. Conversation in the carriage stopped, and then started up again in a murmur. Casually, she leaned to the side and peered down the aisle.

There were two police officers at the front of the carriage. They were looking at each of the passengers, heading in her direction. At least one of them seemed puffed, like he’d been running more than he was accustomed.

There was an exit behind her. Quick quick, she could dodge off the train, onto another, hide in a toilet. She was fast, she was lithe, she was unstoppable.

She slipped out of her seat and saw another two police officers advancing from the back of the carriage.

She wasn’t unstoppable after all. But she could stay strong, and save her friends.

Opal pulled off her mask. She stood tall and put a big, undefeated smile on her face. “Hello, lads. Are you looking for me?”