Page 30 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Georgie

‘Oh wow!’ Lauren can hardly contain herself. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s still David, obviously,’ I say quickly. Too quickly.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ I reply, irritated.

‘Christ, you’re defensive this evening, Georgie – well, more defensive than usual.’

‘I’m not defensive, Lauren. I’m just stating the bloody obvious,’ I say, trying to stay calm, and give nothing away.

I have to keep pushing the idea that it was David, even if it wasn’t.

‘I mean, Louisa can whitewash the past as much as she likes, and she’s obviously managed to convince Teresa too – but I’m not buying it. David did it. End of!’

I can’t stop talking. I could kick myself – I should have kept my fucking mouth shut.

‘I disagree, I think it might be one of us ... and perhaps someone covered for him, Georgie ?’ Lauren replies smugly.

What the fuck?

I feel Dan flinch next to me; he grabs my knee, telling me to shut up, but I push him away.

I look around the table, panicked, desperate for some support. I know I won’t get it from my husband, but one of the others? Maddie? Alex? Surely Alex will confirm I’m not harbouring a murderer? But nothing.

‘Lauren can’t say that!’

‘She just did!’ Lauren pipes up.

‘ You have a bigger motive than anyone else here, Lauren, so I’d shut up if I were you,’ I spit back. She looks like she’s just been smacked in the face, and next time I’ll do it for real.

‘Calm. Down ,’ Dan’s saying quietly into my ear.

‘No, Dan, stop telling me what to do ! It’s rubbish, just malicious rubbish, to imply that you ... and I ...’ I’m ranting now, and even Dan’s looking at me with fear rather than concern.

‘You’re digging a deeper hole for yourself, Georgie,’ Lauren remarks coolly. ‘No one has accused you or your husband of anything . I just said I wonder if someone is hiding in—’

‘You don’t need to repeat it for the fucking recording, we all heard what you said!’

I’m clutching the table, aware I might be a little out of control, but what can I do?

My therapist says I should talk to myself, say things like ‘It’s okay, this won’t kill me’ and ‘I am good enough’ or another line from a long list of meaningless shit.

Like everything else my therapist suggests, it’s totally impractical.

Lauren’s just implied Dan is the killer and I’m covering for him, which is terrifying.

Everyone’s staring at me open-mouthed. The horror on their faces suggests they might be thinking I’m slightly unhinged.

To begin telling myself ‘I am good enough’ on a loop while at the table is probably not advisable right now.

I see Teresa out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly feel bad – we’re talking about her daughter’s murder, after all. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble in her direction. ‘I’m just upset.’

Teresa says nothing while the others make soothing noises, like I’m a wild animal that needs to be calmed.

‘You can imagine how all the saddos listening to this podcast will react,’ I say.

‘All they’ll hear is Georgie is hiding her husband, the killer.

There’ll be no rational thought, no questioning, they’ll drink it in blindly, like a baby taking a bottle.

Mark my words, there’ll be a bloody price on my head. ’

I push away my plate, untouched. I thought I’d managed everything so well. Stupid me, I guess.

Lauren’s sitting there smugly toying with her beef and making eyes at my husband while the others just stare ahead, embarrassed.

I take a large swig of Merlot and then, grabbing the bottle, fill my glass up.

‘Whoa,’ Dan warns from the side.

‘Oh, fuck off, Dan.’

Teresa sits up in her seat, as if to assert herself. ‘That letter to Louisa wasn’t written by Daisy,’ she says firmly. ‘Daisy wouldn’t have written a letter like that – it was cruel, and my daughter wasn’t cruel. Someone else wrote that letter.’

Fuck!

‘Why would anyone else write that letter?’ I ask, knowing I should shut up now, but I daren’t allow even the tiniest seed to be left out there to grow.

‘ You might?’ Teresa offers, and I see Lauren’s eyes sparkle with mirth and her hand fly to her mouth.

I almost throw up on the spot.

‘I remember Daisy calling me. She said David was annoyed, he was surprised that she’d sent such a vicious letter to his wife.

Daisy didn’t know what he was talking about, and he kept saying “the letter you sent to Louisa”.

David was concerned that, now she knew, Louisa would go to the university, kick up a stink, get him sacked and Daisy thrown off the course.

“I never sent a letter to his wife, Mum,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that.”’

I’m trying to take deep breaths without the others seeing.

‘I asked her, if she didn’t send it – who did?

And she thought about it, then said, “I think it was Georgie ... She suggested I send a letter to his wife, to break up their marriage.” Daisy said she’d been horrified at this suggestion and rejected it completely.

’ Teresa looks over at me. ‘She said, for someone to suggest such a thing, they must be a psycho – that’s what my daughter thought. ’

She takes a sip of her wine, like she hasn’t just been recorded saying the murder victim called me a psycho just weeks before she died.

‘I reckon Lauren wrote it,’ I announce, ignoring the sound coming from Lauren’s mouth, now wide open in theatrical outrage.

‘That’s not what Daisy said,’ Teresa replies.

‘Daisy didn’t know who sent it, you just admitted that,’ I reply. ‘She thought it might be me but it could just as easily have been Lauren. You see what I’m saying, Teresa? We can’t just accuse anyone because someone “thought” it might be them.’

‘And therefore you can’t say it was me, hypocrite!’ Lauren says, glaring at me.

‘I can make an educated guess.’ I just keep going, batting off everything they’re throwing at me.

‘Lauren was always whingeing about Daisy getting preferential treatment because she was sleeping with the course leader.’ I’m addressing the whole table now.

‘We’ve already heard how Lauren came on to David – it would have been very much in her interests to split them up, and that letter did just that.

David finished with Daisy as soon as the letter arrived.

He was angry and probably disturbed that she’d do such a thing.

And that’s exactly what she planned, didn’t you, Lauren? ’ I add, fighting as hard as I can.

‘Well, if it’s an educated guess you want, Georgie, here’s one,’ Teresa starts.

I dread to hear what’s going to come out of this woman’s mouth next.

‘I asked Daisy if she thought Lauren might have sent it, but, as my daughter pointed out, Lauren’s an English student.

And according to Daisy, she wouldn’t have written it like that, she would have been softer.

It was a brutal letter – Louisa told me herself, it was nasty.

My Daisy wasn’t nasty – and she could spell.

Daisy said whoever wrote that letter didn’t even spell “Montgomery” right, and trust me, Daisy knew how to spell that.

So would Lauren – after all, he was her tutor too.

If Lauren was writing as Daisy, she wouldn’t have made that mistake. ’

Shit.

‘Okay ... Okay, so Daisy thought I wrote that letter?’ I ask.

‘Yes. Because you’d already suggested she do it, and she’d refused.’

‘But why would I even think she should do that ?’

‘Daisy said you wanted to throw a bomb into her life, that you knew a letter like that could get her thrown off the course. And that would have suited you – because you realised by then that Dan and Daisy had become close. You didn’t trust Dan, and you saw Daisy as a threat to your relationship.’

‘ What? ’ I look around at everyone, trying to show shock.

‘She said you were insecure and couldn’t bear to let him out of your sight. It drove you mad if they did anything together, even if it was going for a coffee or a walk.’

‘That’s just not true,’ I lie.

But it is true, and as hard as I try to deny this, I know the others are doubting me.

I used to be eaten up with jealousy and suspicion, always wary, assuming he was sleeping with others.

And yes, I followed him, and Daisy, and I was tormented by jealousy.

But how can I admit to that and not look guilty?

Mind you, if I continue to deny that I wrote the letter, I could incriminate myself and end up being accused of far worse than a stupid letter.

‘Daisy told David it was you. But by then he was just so angry with her he wouldn’t listen – he assumed she’d sent the letter to end his marriage, and deliberately misspelt his name so he’d think someone else did it.’

‘Perhaps that’s what she did?’ I offer half-heartedly, but judging by the look on Teresa’s face I’m wasting my time. She knows I sent that letter, and everyone’s looking from her to me, waiting to see who speaks next.

This is mortifying, but there’s only one thing I can do. I have to publicly own up to this.

‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Teresa, I admit I sent the letter. I wanted her away from Dan, out of our lives and out of the house – so yes, I’m sorry, I wrote that letter, but that’s all I did.’

The whole stupid thing backfired anyway.

She and Dan were just friends, but when David dumped her, she was so upset, and like most pretty girls Daisy needed another man to turn to.

She needed someone who’d massage her ego, be her puppy dog until she could get David back – enter Dan Levine, the rich, good-looking idiot-in-waiting.

‘In my defence, I was an insecure nineteen-year-old in love for the first time,’ I say, attempting to appeal to Teresa’s better nature. ‘I was crazy about Dan, very insecure – and Daisy was gorgeous and charismatic and a huge threat.’ I turn to Teresa, and her face seems to soften slightly.

‘But the letter was key evidence. It was used by the prosecution to prove that David had reason to kill my daughter,’ she replies angrily.

‘The prosecution said that’s why he killed her, because the letter had shaken him, and he was scared of what Daisy would do next.

If you’d come clean then, the truth may have come out, and whoever it is you’re covering for might now be in prison – where they should be. ’

‘I admit it was stupid to send that letter, I was wrong, and what I did had far-reaching consequences. But how could I know what would happen – how could anyone? But I promise you, I’m not covering for someone else,’ I say, realising this isn’t strictly true.

I’ve been protecting, forgiving and making excuses for Dan all my adult life. But I can’t say that, not now.

‘Look, Teresa.’ Dan finally steps in, if only to protect himself. ‘Regardless of who wrote the letter, if David thought it was Daisy who wrote it – then he’d still have motive to kill her. It doesn’t make him innocent because Georgie wrote the letter!’

‘Exactly. I haven’t been protecting anyone .

Teresa, believe me, I never meant to cause all this trouble.

I was young and stupid and wrote that letter to try and keep my boyfriend.

But when Daisy was killed, everything was suddenly under the microscope.

’ I turn to the others. ‘I know you guys felt it too – we were kids and we behaved like kids, doing the stuff all teenagers do away from home. We slept around and drank too much and partied all night. We were young and free and it was like being at the fairground, having the time of our lives, when suddenly the ride stopped and the world went dark.’

‘You should have told the police you wrote the letter, Georgie,’ Maddie chides in a five-year-old’s voice.

‘I realise that now,’ I reply coldly, and turn to Teresa.

‘After Daisy had gone there seemed to be no point in telling anyone I’d written the letter; it wouldn’t bring her back, and truthfully I didn’t see the significance.

Like everyone else, I just assumed David was her killer, and when the letter was produced as evidence in court, I thought good, that will convict him . ’

Everyone’s still looking at me, but one person is openly enjoying my distress.

Lauren. She’s half-smiling, her eyes sliding over to Maddie and Alex, then back to Dan, but while they all look serious and concerned, I feel like she wants them to join in with her and laugh at me.

I feel foolish – I made that confession hoping everyone would understand what it took.

And now she’s humiliating and belittling me, and this has pushed me over the edge.

My embarrassment has transformed into a boiling rage that can’t be contained.

Nothing and no one can stop what I’m about to do.

I lower my voice and lean across the table.

‘Are you laughing at me?’

She glares at me, and the smile fades.

‘I said , are you laughing at me?’

She swallows, and without taking her eyes from mine, shakes her head slowly.

‘That’s enough , Georgie.’ Dan reaches for my arm.

‘Get off me!’ I knock his hand away.

I continue to glare at Lauren. No one around the table dares move; they’re all terrified of me, just like Daisy was. But then I catch her glimpsing anxiously at Dan, her eyes pleading with him for help. How dare she ask my husband for help?

Still holding my full glass of Merlot, I slowly move my chair back, and it grates in the silence that folds around us as I stand. Dan knows what’s going to happen, and he knows he can’t stop me, and he turns away in embarrassment like the coward that he is – and always has been.

I lift my glass, and see the horror on her face as the red liquid splashes on to her head and face and soaks into her pale-cream silk designer dress like warm blood.