Page 71 of The Bridesmaid

There’s a waft of something. Perfumed and moist water. Like someone just took a shower.

‘Hello?’ I listen carefully. Nothing. The bed is empty, and carefully made.

I scan the room. ‘Looks like Silky took a shower here this morning and left,’ I decide. My eyes alight on one of the drapes that hasn’t been fully opened. Something about it strikes me as off.

‘You’d open all the drapes, wouldn’t you?’ I approach the window. Peek behind.

‘What the …?’ I stop dead, trying to work out what I’m seeing. Fitzwilliam comes to a halt right behind me. I pull back the drape to show the bamboo wall behind.

‘Oh my God,’ whispers Fitzwilliam. ‘Looks like your criminal profiling wasn’t so far from the truth, Holly.’

For a moment my eyes can’t compute what I’m seeing. Picturesare pasted all over the wall. Different sizes but the subject matter is all the same.

I swallow. Looks like Silky is obsessed with Adrianna Kensington.

Chapter Fifty-Five

HOLLY

I take in the bamboo wall of the beach hut with its pinboard of images. It’s … like a crazy person’s lair. Adrianna Kensington. Everywhere. Small notes have been stuck beneath several pictures. A fan whirrs silently above us, making her images flutter in a smiling dance.

‘This is … insane,’ I murmour. ‘Silky must have been working on this while we all slept.’

It’s an unsettling thought. The images all seem to be showing a lot of skin – beachwear, nightclub attire.

My eyes focus on a picture of Adrianna in a bikini, her head thrown back, laughing.

The words‘Bitch. Mega bitch.’have been scrawled over her face. A string connects to another shot. Adrianna at a bar. A man pours her a drink. More words are scrawled.‘Whore. Unfaithful.’

My eyes drift around. Everywhere we look are more images.

‘Kind of a theme going on,’ murmurs Fitzwilliam. ‘Sexualized images, wouldn’t you say?’

I nod. ‘Social and sexual obsession.’ My eyes skirt over the images. ‘Those aren’t of Adrianna.’ I point out. ‘What’sthatone?’

To one corner is a cluster of shots that look like they weretaken on the island. Old tumble-down buildings. A swimming pool. A stone tower. Dilapidated and covered in creepers and jungle plants.

‘Where is that?’ asks Fitzwilliam. ‘Somewhere on Elysium?’

‘Looks that way,’ I say. ‘I can make out the Kensington Crest on one of the buildings, but we didn’t see anything that looked like that on the way in. Could be the Old Bell Tower, right?’ I point to the taller building, and think some more. ‘When Georgia and I took Silky to her cabana, she was looking back at something in the jungle to the north of the island. Looked like the top of a stone tower. Georgia guided her away.’

I walk a little closer. There’s a clutch of pictures showing what looks to be a vast open pit of soft earth surrounded on all sides by jungle. It’s hard to see but …

‘Is that … bones?’ I ask.

I turn my head, trying to understand what I’m seeing. White blurry lines on a dark pit of open soil. They’re out of focus. Unclear, but … Is it skulls and ribcages I’m seeing?

Fitzwilliam moves nearer. ‘I … I think it could be,’ he says, his voice soft. ‘If it is, there are a lot of them. Like a … mass grave.’

There’s silence while we digest the horror of this.

Skeletal remains? On Elysium?What could it mean?

‘The soil sample Simone left in her ring,’ I say slowly, ‘contained human bone. And the message on the birthday invitation:Six feet under. What’s the betting this is what she wanted us to find?’

Fitzwilliam nods slowly. ‘Question is, where is this bone pit?’

‘There’s some kind of building to the side,’ I say, ‘Just out of shot.’ I tilt my head to look. ‘Is that … the same gray stone Fortune House is built from?’ I ask. ‘Next to the pit.’