Page 75 of You Lied First

M argot’s eyes continue to hold mine as we stare at each other.

‘I mean, you could just divorce him like a normal person,’ I say.

I have to give her the chance, but every ounce of my body is urging her to say yes, she wants him to go to jail.

I cannot believe she’s found this video.

This is my chance; my salvation. I could actually be off the hook.

Thank God I’m sitting down, because my legs really are shaking and I can feel sweat beading at my hairline.

I try to keep my breathing as normal as I can.

‘I know he’s my husband,’ Margot says, ‘but Guy has a terrifying and dangerous temper, and I think he should pay for what he did. It’s only a matter of time until the police come asking questions.

I don’t want Flynn and Liv questioned any more than you do, and I also think that Celine’s parents deserve answers …

which I have. As a parent on both counts, handing over the footage is the right thing to do. ’

‘I agree,’ I say, frowning as if I’m weighing up the issue, but actually now that Margot’s dangled the carrot of escape in front of me, I will do anything to pin it on Guy instead of me.

‘But how can we hand this in without incriminating all of us?’ I ask.

‘The police will want to know why we never admitted that we were camping with Celine.’

‘We could send it anonymously …’ Margot says. She’s obviously thought a lot about it.

‘To the parents? Or the police?’

‘To the parents.’ She bites her lip. ‘That might be better, actually.’

I roll the idea through the mental processing unit.

An anonymous memory card lands on the parents’ doormat.

They pop it into the computer, watch it, realise that they can see someone arguing with their daughter then shoving her into a tent in the middle of the night, in the desert where her body was found. They take it to the police.

‘It’s got the date on it, hasn’t it?’

Margot nods.

‘And you can see Guy’s face clearly enough?’

‘We could send his name along with the memory card, just in case.’ Margot pulls a face then laughs. ‘It really sounds like I want to shop him in, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ I say, because I don’t want to look too keen, but she’s right: it really does.

‘I keep reminding myself that he did this! Not only did he do it, but he dragged us all into it. Which is downright selfish and cowardly.’ Ouch.

‘And, if I don’t shop him in, we’re all going to be pulled into it, which is wrong and unfair.

He did it! He was sleeping with that … that woman and then he killed her!

’ Margot sits back, shaking her head, her voice having reached a crescendo of outrage.

‘So, you send the card in anonymously, the police will come to talk to Guy, and we’ll deny any knowledge.

We were all together at the villa that night, but Guy went out to meet an old friend or an ex-colleague.

That’s all we know. We haven’t told the police because we never saw Celine.

We’re just like every other person who was in Muscat at that time who didn’t see Celine.

After that, just block, block, block.’ I speak slowly as the thoughts come to me.

‘I suppose it’s easy to find out that Guy was planning to go camping – those friends he borrowed the gear from will confirm that.

Tom and Di? But … he was alone when he asked them for the gear, so they don’t know for sure who he was going with.

And we didn’t know at that point that he’d borrowed any equipment. Are you with me?’

‘Yes. And the video only shows Celine’s tent,’ Margot adds. ‘No one knew Celine was with us. Not a soul.’

I replay the tape in my head. She’s right. With the positioning of the camera, you can only see Celine’s tent and the one four-wheel drive that Guy had rented himself.

‘He rented two cars, though? Wasn’t one in your name?’

‘It was. I can say I used it to get around Muscat? Gave you guys a little tour? I mean … why not? I’m not confident enough to drive in the desert …’

I nod slowly as I start to see how the pieces could potentially fall into place.

‘Okay,’ I say slowly, as my mind works furiously overtime. It seems to make sense, but is the plan fool proof? I rub my chin.

‘It’ll be our word against his, and all we say to the police is that we stayed in that compound where Celine lived, but that we didn’t see her,’ Margot says.

‘I mean, the fact that he booked the compound where she lives really makes him look guilty. And then, on the night Celine dies, he said he had to meet someone and went off on his own.’

‘With borrowed camping gear from Tom and Diane.’

‘Which we didn’t know about.’

‘They might contradict that. I bet he told them we were going together.’

Margot speaks firmly like a schoolteacher. ‘He may well have done. But Sara, he’s an adulterous murderer. It’ll be obvious to the police that he was lying to cover his tracks.’

I nod as I bite my lip. It really isn’t looking good for Guy.