Page 38 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Lauren

I barely heard what Tammy said about anyone else in that bloody suspect round-up, I’m so devastated about my own situation.

I could kill Georgie; she’s ruined my life.

I’m listless, my flesh is tender and I feel like I need to lie down.

But I’ll just start crying again. I stand in the kitchen doorway trying not to look at Dan, who’s sitting close to Georgie, and as soon as the voice note ends I grab my coat and go outside.

I need to think, because it looks like I’ve lost everything, including my unreliable lover.

I wander outside into the freezing-cold, bright day, and spot Alex having a joint around the back of the bike sheds like he used to. I don’t know him as well as I know the others, but I need someone to talk to and let off some steam with, so I go and join him.

‘Hey Alex,’ I say as I approach. I hadn’t realised, but he’s on his phone, and as soon as I’m up close he quickly pushes it into his pocket. He looks guilty, but perhaps we all do?

‘You okay, Lauren? That got a bit rough in there.’

‘Yeah, well, I deserved it. I’ve been waiting all these years for someone to point the finger. Had nightmares about it – I shouldn’t have done it. Just wish it hadn’t been Georgie, that’s all.’

I watch him sucking at his spliff, holding the smoke in his lungs, then slowly releasing it.

‘I never intended to steal her story. My plan was to submit it to publishers and if anyone wanted it I’d agree a deal, say it was Daisy and give the money to Teresa.’

‘Why didn’t you do that?’ He offers me the joint. I shake my head. I’m no angel, I took acid when I was younger, but never dope; I always thought it would make me drowsy, and right now that’s the last thing I need. With Georgie out to get me, I need to keep my wits about me.

‘I didn’t come clean because ... well, because the editor just called me up and started waxing lyrical about what a talent I was. And I was young ... I know it’s no excuse, but ...’

I turn to him, but Alex rarely looks at people; he seems to live in his own little world, always gazing into the distance, like he’s sharing a private joke.

‘I was going to tell them but then they offered me this huge advance, and I had no job, I’d just left university ... I couldn’t believe my luck, and I figured Daisy was dead, so it was no use to her.’

‘Your parents had money, though, right? I mean, you weren’t on the street?’

‘No ... But I wanted my independence, didn’t want to stay living with my parents, and the advance would give me the opportunity to start my life.’

‘How much was the advance?’ He takes another puff. Then he finally looks at me. He’s interested now.

I’m shocked that he’d ask, though. It’s so impolite.

‘Six figures?’ he asks. He’s quite pushy.

‘Something like that.’

‘ Shit .’ As he exhales, I breathe in the heavy herbal waft; it’s not unpleasant. ‘That’s a lot of money for doing nothing.’

‘I didn’t do nothing, I changed the ending ...’ I say defensively. He’s made me feel terrible; all the guilt is brimming just under the surface – it always has been. ‘My agent helped me to rewrite the end, because of course Daisy hadn’t finished her story ...’

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

‘So they wanted the protagonist to be murdered ...’ I say, ‘like ...’

‘Daisy.’

‘I guess, but the heroine wasn’t called Daisy. It was fiction.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ he says slowly, staring ahead. I think he hates me. I never have been able to read him. ‘So you killed the protagonist – did you kill Daisy?’ he suddenly asks, like we’re talking about the weather.

I’m shocked. ‘No, I didn’t. Alex, I may be a plagiarist, but I’m not a murderer. So I stole my dead friend’s manuscript and passed it off as my own, but it doesn’t mean ...’

‘When you put it like that, Lauren ... it sounds almost as bad as murder,’ he chuckles, and holding the spliff between thumb and forefinger he puts it to his lips.

‘No it isn’t, it’s nothing like murder. It wasn’t a frenzied attack on another person, it was an honest mistake!’

‘ Honest? ’ He laughs, and I remember why I never bothered with him – he made me feel stupid, used my own words against me and twisted me into knots. Alex was very clever, cleverer than anyone gave him credit for.

‘A mistake then,’ I correct myself.

‘A big mistake, and plagiarism is a criminal offence,’ he says slowly, like it doesn’t really matter but he thought he’d just mention it.

‘You don’t think I’ll go to prison, do you?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno. You might?’

‘I have a young daughter. I can’t leave her.’

‘You just have to make the best of it – write the book about how you wrote a book and got found out ... You’ll have plenty of time to write if you do end up in prison.’

‘I suppose so.’ I breathe in his sweet smoke, and relax a little. ‘Finty will have kittens when I tell her the truth.’

‘Who’s Finty? Your cat?’

‘ No! My agent. I don’t mean she’ll literally have kittens.’ I glance at him, wondering if the dope has addled his mind, but he’s smiling, looking at me sideways. He’s teasing me. ‘I thought I was talking to Maddie for a moment,’ I joke.

‘Ah, Maddie. She plays you all. Always has. Everyone used to roll their eyes and say she was slow, but did you know her IQ is something like 140 ...?’ He blows smoke high into the air.

I’m shocked. ‘I didn’t know – she’s never said. If I had a really high IQ I’d want everyone to know.’

‘That’s because you haven’t got a high IQ. You have to be a genius to appreciate the value of keeping your IQ to yourself.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Is what he just said really profound or really stupid? I’m sure he’s high, and I’m not convinced that Maddie’s a genius.

He continues to gaze out on to the misty playing fields, exhaling another thick cloud of cannabis into the cold air.

‘I just hope to Christ that Teresa doesn’t sue me for the money, the big advance, the royalties even. I don’t have anything left.’

‘What, nothing left after six figures?’

‘Well, it sounds more than it is. I mean, once you’ve bought a house and paid for your child’s education there isn’t any change, even out of six figures,’ I point out truthfully.

‘But for a while we had even more. The film and investments – it just kept pouring in. That’s when we bought our place in LA.

But then Richard and I took risks, made some bad investments.

The sharks saw us coming, and convinced us wet-behind-the-ears millionaires to buy hundreds of thousands of pounds of stock that was apparently “a dead cert”.

’ I look at him and he knows the punchline.

‘It wasn’t. And, between us, now we literally have nothing. ’

‘Shit,’ he says, without much feeling.

‘Yeah, it’s been a roller coaster. In August I was forced to sell the last of my designer handbags.’ He doesn’t react, so I explain. ‘It was a Balenciaga Bel Air medium leather tote in ebony.’

‘Right.’

‘My heart literally broke , Alex.’

‘I bet.’

I think he’s being sarcastic. I was never sure if he was laughing with me or at me, and now I know it was at me. Still, I’d rather be here breathing in weird Alex’s expelled smoke and feeling mellow than anywhere near violent, vindictive Georgie and her cowardly husband.

‘Richard had to sell both his cars. We’ve moved to a poky little house. Oh God – I never told Richard the truth about the book, and it’s all going to come out now, she’ll make sure of that. He’s going to be so upset.’

‘You even told your hubby you wrote it?’ Alex chuckles at this.

‘I met him around the time it was first published. He was impressed, and I thought he might not like me if he knew the truth. I was suddenly very popular with a lot of people – strangers, really – who suddenly started inviting me for drinks, wanting me at their parties. Richard became my plus-one, then he became the only person I could really trust.’

‘That’s sad, Lauren.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s all gone down the toilet now. I guess that’s my retribution. Everything has a price,’ I add, reaching for the joint. ‘I never took his name, I always kept mine, Pemberton,’ I say slowly, feeling the plum of the ‘P’ in my mouth.

‘You don’t have to take your husband’s name,’ he murmurs vaguely.

‘No ... But for me it was more than that,’ I say, aware that just breathing the smoky air is making my tongue loose. ‘I wanted my teenage name on the book, that’s who I was in the newspapers and TV at the time ... It’s associated with Daisy and her ... death.’

‘It was our fifteen minutes of fame, I guess?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t call it that.’

‘I would.’

I look at him; he isn’t joking, he’s just staring ahead. I didn’t have him down as judgy – what’s he trying to say?

‘I just feel more me as Pemberton,’ I reply, holding the spliff between my finger and thumb. I tentatively take a great big puff, and after a bit of a cough I do it again.

‘Whoa, Lauren, mate – you need to take it easy, man, that stuff is strong, and you’re not used to it.’

‘I’m fine, it isn’t even making me feel anything. I’m still angry and uptight and ashamed.’ I hand back the spliff. ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ I say.

‘What?’

‘We lost Daisy twenty years ago, yet it turns out that in all those years she never left. She’s been with each one of us, keeping our secrets, reminding us all who we are – I didn’t always like her, but I always loved her.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

I glance over, and see something unfathomable in his eyes. I wonder if Alex is deeper than any of us give him credit for?

‘Did it bother you that Daisy never paid you back? Was Tammy right when she said it was your motive for murder, Alex?’

He pauses a while, then, shaking his head, says: ‘I was happy to help her out, I never wanted her to pay me back. I cared about her, she was my friend, but she made some stupid choices over stupid men, and she wouldn’t listen.’

I hear a flicker of irritation in his voice, and feel a chill as I remember that the supposedly calm, affable Alex was the last one of us to see Daisy alive.