Page 36 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Maddie

Breakfast is wonderful – croissants, pecan Danishes, cherry jam, homemade sourdough, sea-salted butter and a basket of fruit.

I’ve sampled everything, and as the others seem unaware of how much I’ve eaten, I go again and fill my plate.

Dan has just arrived, but it looks like Georgie’s not very happy with him.

God knows why – I thought Lauren would be today’s hate figure.

But having only just apologised to Lauren, Georgie needs someone else to be angry with, and perhaps Dan fits the bill?

He’s desperately trying to find a safe harbour with Alex, but that feels a bit awkward too, because Alex remembers how invisible Dan made him feel when we were students.

Meanwhile, Lauren isn’t principled like Alex, and she’s now trying to build on Georgie’s apology and schmooze her.

It’s sickening to watch, and makes me quite angry; the woman threw wine over her last night, but because Lauren’s writing a book, she obviously wants to keep in with everyone.

It explains why she’s been so nice to me and Alex, who she barely spoke to when we lived together.

She no doubt saw him the same way Dan did, as ‘a messed-up little junkie’. How wrong they all were.

I may be high on sugar, but even I can see that, despite her apology, Georgie isn’t embracing Lauren’s BFF vibe.

They always pigeonholed me as ‘the Phoebe’, from the TV show Friends , just because I don’t pick up easily on social cues, but who says I even want to?

I sometimes find other people so boring that I have no interest in gossip or their opinion on others.

I try to pretend I do and always have, just to fit in.

I’m not stupid, or slow, which they have all implied at some point.

They used to call me ‘the quiet one’, but that wasn’t really who I was.

I believe they made me quiet – I was of no significance to them, and if people ignore you long enough, you become invisible.

I nibble the edges of an almond croissant, and ignore them all for a moment, waiting for the hit.

But the usual deep pleasure of the crisp buttery pastry and the sweet nutty topping is overwhelmed by the familiar tide of guilt and self-loathing.

I’m out of control, and the stress of this weekend means the overeating and regretting has come in quickly.

I have to make myself sick sooner than I’d planned this morning, so head for the shared bathroom and run taps and flush the toilet so they can’t hear the retching, which goes on for a while.

But once I’m purged, I feel like Maddie again – whoever she is.

When I eventually go back into the kitchen, everyone’s still there, and, no longer filled with pastry and guilt, I take my seat at the table.

The compulsion to binge has left me – for now, my head is clear and my senses are heightened from the purge.

Consequently, I’m more aware of my surroundings and the people I’m with, because my compulsion isn’t tugging at my sleeve like an evil toddler.

As soon as I sit down, I sense a change in the atmosphere.

There’s a new tension in the room, and I try to work out where and who it’s coming from.

Lauren isn’t sitting with Georgie anymore.

She’s making coffee by the kitchen island in her nightshirt, and Dan has just wandered over to help her.

Georgie is glaring at them with barely concealed hatred .

.. or jealousy ... So far, so Georgie.

Lauren seems oblivious but, judging by the look on his face, I think Dan is aware he’s breached one of Georgie’s strict rules.

Talking to another woman without her permission.

Alex is looking at his phone, and in the heavy silence Dan and Lauren continue making coffee with the odd little comment and chuckle, while Georgie continues to look on like some weird overlord.

So I try to build a bridge across the kitchen, and bring Dan and Lauren back into the group, by asking if I can have a coffee.

Keen to keep in with us all, Lauren looks up from the cafetière. ‘Of course, Maddie, yes ... Coming right up.’ She smiles.

Dan is now gathering the mugs from a cupboard, and Lauren takes the milk from the fridge and starts to open it, when Georgie says, ‘Do you have a copy of your book here with you, Lauren?’

Lauren almost jumps at this, her usually confident mask slips, and she starts to stutter. ‘N ... no ... no, I ... d-don’t.’ She’s unsmiling, uncertain.

Dan seems to pick up on this, presumably seeing the storm coming, and his panicked eyes are now darting from Georgie to Lauren.

‘Well, you do, because I swear I saw it in the living room yesterday, but never mind.’ Georgie smiles a cold, dead smile and turns to me.

‘ You have a copy of Lauren’s book, don’t you, Maddie?’

I’m suddenly in the spotlight. The air prickles in the silence as everyone waits for my answer.

‘Oh ... Yes, er, Lauren gave it to me.’ I look at Lauren, who smiles uncomfortably, her eyes wide with alarm. What the hell is going on here?

‘Where is it? The book?’ Georgie asks, unsmiling.

‘It’s ... er, in my room,’ I say into the taut silence.

‘Would you do me a big favour, Maddie? Would you fetch it in here for me, I need to check something.’

This doesn’t augur well. Georgie’s sitting with her arms folded, and Lauren’s trying to open the milk, and Alex is looking at me with a ‘what the fuck?’ expression on his face.

What can I say? I can’t refuse to let her see the book. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll get it,’ I say, and like a good child I go to my room and take it from my bed where I left it.

As I’m walking back in, Georgie is taking her laptop from her bag. ‘Thanks,’ she says. I’ve done what she needed, and she doesn’t have to waste even a smile on me now. She grabs the book from my hands and plonks her laptop on the table.

‘I was flicking through this book yesterday, and something ... I don’t know what it was ... bugged me,’ she says, scrolling through her laptop.

The only noise in the room is the clicking of the keys, and in the silence we’re all looking at each other, dreading what’s going to happen next. The atmosphere is electric, and not in a good way.

‘As I leafed through the book and read the odd paragraph, I thought to myself, this doesn’t sound like Lauren .’ She looks up, turns to me and says, ‘Know what I mean?’

I don’t. But my attention is on Lauren, whose hands are shaking and she still can’t open the milk.

She turns quickly to Dan to open it for her, but I inwardly groan at this.

Dan is not that guy. He’s never there to take the strain; he’s fickle, he goes where life is easy, and right now behind that kitchen counter with Lauren is not easy.

So instead of being supportive and taking the milk bottle from Lauren, Dan steps back.

Poor Lauren still thinks he’s got her and releases the bottle into his hands, but as she does he lifts his hands away, like it’s hot.

The bottle falls to the ground, smashing into a million pieces.

‘Shit!’ Lauren says loudly, while Dan makes some stupid, lame joke about crying over spilled milk as the three of us at the table watch open-mouthed.

‘I kept thinking about the book, and I had a theory, but I couldn’t prove it, so I checked it out. I looked on Lauren’s laptop, and I saw these files with Daisy’s name on them, and I opened them,’ Georgie’s saying, pretending to ignore milk-gate going on in front of us.

Everyone’s looking at her now, and Lauren is open-mouthed too. ‘You looked on my laptop? How dare you.’

‘No, Lauren.’ Georgie lifts her eyes from her own laptop screen. ‘How dare you.’

‘What do you mean?’ I say eventually into the silence.

‘Before Daisy died, she asked me if I would read something she’d written,’ Georgie starts, keen to tell this story. ‘She told me that Lauren usually read her work and checked it over and vice versa, but they’d fallen out and she didn’t trust Lauren anymore.’

Lauren can no doubt hear this, but she’s choosing to stay behind the counter, on the floor, picking up pieces of glass.

At one point she says ‘Ouch!’ but no one goes to help.

Dan has now sneakily and silently moved back to the table to show his allegiance to his queen, leaving Lauren alone.

She eventually appears from behind the counter, standing up to deal with the blood trickling from a cut on her hand.

But also seemingly looking for Dan? When she sees where he is, tears begin to fall down her face.

‘So, all those years ago, I read Daisy’s manuscript,’ Georgie continues, ‘and it stayed with me. So evocative, and engaging, so real. I loved it. So, you can imagine my surprise, as I flicked through Lauren’s book yesterday, when I had this sense of déjà vu.

Yeah’ – she’s nodding– ‘and when I checked Lauren’s laptop, Daisy’s original manuscript was there, the exact same one that she asked me to read all those years ago!

But Daisy told me she hadn’t given the manuscript to Lauren this time, because she didn’t trust her.

So how did it get onto Lauren’s laptop, you may ask?

Well’ – she pauses for drama – ‘I’ll tell you.

Lauren stole it, the day Daisy went missing – turns out Daisy was right not to trust her best friend. ’

No one speaks. Lauren emerges slowly from behind the kitchen counter, her face a vision of horror at what Georgie’s just said. But Georgie hasn’t quite finished, and, resting her chin on elegant hands, she addresses us all, like a teacher concluding her lesson.

‘Now, I’m not pointing fingers, but if Lauren did pass off Daisy’s novel as her own, that’s a very strong motive for wanting Daisy dead.’