Page 18 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Dan

Well, that was awkward. I bite into my pain aux raisins, and try not to catch the eye of any of my former housemates.

Shit, this is uncomfortable. I should say something, break the tension. I’ll try to be subtle.

‘So, it was someone who lived with her – which one of you was it?’ I joke.

‘Not funny, Dan,’ Georgie monotones.

I guess I don’t do subtle very well.

‘I don’t believe it. Teresa’s just making wild guesses. She’s wrong . I’d trust you guys with my life.’ Maddie, as ever, is blindly optimistic, and doesn’t seem to have lost her faith in human nature – or woken up and smelled the coffee. ‘We were her friends, and we loved her,’ she continues.

Georgie looks at me and rolls her eyes imperceptibly. When you’ve been married for ten years you don’t need words, you communicate in micro-movements. That’s why marital sex is boring. You know each other’s every move.

‘I mean, they keep saying it, but no one actually wanted Daisy dead – did they?’ Maddie’s now looking around at each of us like a child needing to be reassured by the adults.

Maddie’s a love, but she really doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

Don’t get me wrong, I admire her optimism, and she’s got a great body – especially when she’s naked and begging for it.

But she really believes that we’re all good people. She’s too naive for this world.

Our phones ping with another voice note intrusion and I leave mine on the table, press play, and we continue to endure this torturous trip back in time.

‘So ... hi again, guys, Tammy here. I have some notes here from the Free David Montgomery campaign that I’d like to read to you ...

‘David Montgomery never confessed to killing Daisy Harrington, and his DNA was found on Daisy’s body because they’d made love before she died.

David’s DNA was also on the murder weapon – the hammer – and this informed much of the prosecution’s case against him.

But the hammer belonged to David. He’d used it around the house and therefore his DNA would have been on the handle.

‘Also, if he did kill Daisy, then why did he leave her body in his beach hut to be discovered? David had plenty of opportunity to move the body, as back in 2005 there were fewer CCTV cameras, and in the dark he could have carried Daisy’s body to the sea unseen.

‘But he didn’t. He didn’t move the body, because he didn’t know it was there.

‘And think about this ... Would he really use his children’s Disney blanket to cover up his lover’s dead body?’

Everyone is quiet. No one knows what to think or say, so we sit in silence and consider this for a moment, until the voice continues.

‘In his suicide note, David Montgomery said he couldn’t bear the thought of being locked in a prison cell until he was seventy, for something he didn’t do.

He also said that not seeing his children was the most unbearable part – his wife had refused to visit him, or let him see their young daughters, Cordelia and Cassandra.

‘Six months ago, unable to take another day, David Montgomery twisted a pencil inside a bed sheet, and tied the sheet around his neck. He slowly twisted the pencil at his throat, with each twist tightening the pressure. It was a slow and agonisingly painful death, but in his suicide note he revealed that he’d found some sense of freedom.

“After almost twenty years with no control over my own life, I am finally taking it back and choosing when to die.”’

The voice note ends and we all look at each other. Georgie is crying, and I put my arm around her. ‘That was hard to hear, wasn’t it?’ I say gently, my own tears not far away.

‘Yeah . . .’

Even Lauren seems shaken, and Maddie reaches out a hand to her across the table.

For a few moments we just let it all sink in, then I jump slightly as our phones ping with another voice note. Tammy is speaking.

‘This isn’t about the lurid headlines, the endless interviews with fake friends, the outpouring of grief from people who hardly knew her, or the many books that were spawned, from those in the true crime genre to works of fiction that sold only because the writer happened to know Daisy Harrington.’

We all instinctively glance at Lauren, who keeps her head down. I feel sorry for her; that was pretty harsh. But she did write a book and make a lot of money by shamelessly using Daisy’s death for self-promotion.

‘This is about the grieving mum, a father in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and the tragedy of a young girl taken too soon.’

I feel sick. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Then there is the very real threat of a visit to the beach this afternoon.

I honestly thought I was going to throw up when I heard about the trip.

Too many memories – and not all good. I used to take everyone to Exmouth Beach with the top down on my convertible.

I’d drive fast and the girls would let the wind rush through their hair.

It was great fun, until Georgie banned me from taking anyone but her.

So I’d ask the others to wait outside for me, and I’d tell Georgie I was going to the library.

It was always so much better when Georgie stayed home and cleaned or did her coursework.

I just felt so free sitting on the beach talking into the night with Daisy, Alex, Maddie and Lauren.

We’d meet up with other students there too – just drinking and smoking and flirting.

Everyone was there for fun, no nagging, no demands, and sometimes, if we got carried away, I’d break open a beach hut and take a girl in there.

I had some of my best times in those beach huts, and on warmer nights I’d have sex in the sea, or behind the rocks with whoever was willing.

I was excited by the idea of just doing it there in the sea or on the beach, in plain sight, yet it was still secret.

But now we’re almost forty and it’s freezing, and December .

.. and Georgie will be there. There’s also the other aspect, that this was where she died, and I don’t know how I’ll react to seeing beach hut number thirteen.

I just hope I can hold it together. It has a red door and a little ceramic picture of a yacht attached to the outside wall.

I remember it so clearly because Ali West, the TV documentary woman, forced me to stand in front of it for an interview.

It was so triggering. I was upset, and in shock – and I was trying to impress Ali West, and sound like I cared, which I did.

But I came over as besotted with Daisy, like I had some kind of obsession with her.

That’s when the world decided I was Daisy’s murderer, and the messages on MySpace were so damning, I was scared I’d end up in prison. I still am.