Page 81 of You Lied First

She gives me a small smile. ‘I might need to hold you to that.’

I smile back at her and hope I’m not in jail when, not if, she needs me.

‘Listen,’ I say. ‘Leaving the tent doesn’t mean he killed her. It doesn’t mean anything. Any of us could have left our tents, to be honest.’

‘Is that what you really think?’ Her eyes hold mine. ‘Do you think I should ask Guy if he did it?’ Margot’s breath hitches and I realise that she’s scared.

My head spins; this conversation is like being on a rollercoaster. If Margot asks Guy, he’ll say no. Then she’ll know that I did it. I can’t let that happen.

‘Oh, crikey,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. How do you think he’d take that? Would he …?’ I grimace to give the impression I suspect he might turn violent.

She matches my grimace. ‘We could do it together?’

No way, I think. Not until hell freezes over am I risking a confrontation with Guy about this. Everything will come out. I know it.

‘Look,’ I say. ‘Think about it this way: would you believehim if he said he didn’t do it? Or would there always be a doubt in your mind?’ I pause. ‘And if he says that yes, he killed her, what would you do with that knowledge? What would you do then?’

Margot covers her face with her hands then clutches her hands to her jaws as she speaks.

‘I don’t know! It’s impossible. If I told the police, they’d come after all of us. He didn’t do it in a bubble. The whole sorry story would come out – how we’d all buried the body and run. Our lives would be over.’ She waves at the mansion on her desk. ‘All of this, gone. And you’d be dragged into it. We’d all end up in jail.’

I sigh. She’s not wrong.

‘You know what? I think some things are best left unsaid,’ I say. ‘He went to the loo; he didn’t go to the loo. He got some water. Whatever. Move along. Next please.’

Margot stares at me, her blue eyes two burning holes in the whiteness of her face and, as I hold her gaze, I wish I could see inside her head. Does she really think Guy did it? Or was that conversation a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security while she and Guy work out how to hand me in?

64

MARGOT

Margot hears the scrunch of tyres on gravel and points her eyes to the window to alert Sara to Guy’s return. She hopes he burned off some of his negative energy in the gym. The autopsy results hadn’t left him a happy man.

‘So, how’s work?’ Margot asks Sara, but she’s not capable of listening to whatever it is Sara says in reply. The main thing is that, by the time Guy’s head pops around the door, both women are speaking of innocent things.

‘Margot? Oh, and Sara! I thought that was your car,’ he says. ‘Quite the little coven. What’s going on?’

Margot looks at Sara but Sara’s eyes slide away.

‘Oh, I see. Chatting about which of us did it, are we?’ Guy says. ‘May I join in? My money’s on, let’s see … eeny, meeny, miney …’

‘Guy, please,’ Margot says.

Guy rubs his hands together theatrically. ‘Maybe we should discuss it over a coffee. Will you join us, Sara?’

‘I was just going, actually,’ she says. ‘But thanks!’ Sara’s across the room like a rat up a palm tree. ‘Bye now!’ she flings over her shoulder, and Margot hears her feet clatter down the stairs and the front door slam.

Guy looks bemusedly after her. ‘So, who do you think’s the guilty party?’

Margot remains silent.

‘Have you considered it might have been her?’

‘She barely knew Celine. And she liked her.’

‘So that leaves us.’ He folds his arms and stares at Margot. ‘You and me.’

‘I suppose it does.’