‘Just because you found my necklace by Felix’s body doesn’t mean I killed him! Anyone could have put it there.’
‘I agree. It’s circumstantial. But when you look at the bigger picture it’s…concerning. Some might say you had a motive, after what he did to you at the taverna. And there is the small matter that you don’t have an alibi.’
‘Neither does Simone,’ I blurt.
‘Actually, she does.’
‘Who?’ I ask. Maybe Simone shared a nightcap with Victoria and Barney when she got back to the villa. Maybe Willow has vouched for her.
For the first time since the start of the interview, Demetriou looks flustered.
‘Who?’ I say again.
He clicks the top of his pen a couple of times and re-crosses his legs. Finally, his eyes slide to mine.
‘Mr Brookes.’
I gasp.
‘Dominic?’
He nods. ‘Mr Brookes has signed a statement confirming he spent the night with Mrs Pearson.’
55
WILLOW
I can’t stop crying. Every time I think there can’t be any more tears, more come. My throat aches and my eyes are slits, but that’s nothing compared to the stabbing pain in my chest.
I can’t believe Dad’s dead. Not just dead – murdered. I know he wasn’t perfect, but he was my dad, and now he’s gone. If only I could turn back the clock. I should never have left him alone that night. I should have brought my duvet downstairs and slept on the armchair beside him. If I had, he’d still be here, wouldn’t he?
So if you follow that to its logical conclusion, it’s my fault he’s dead. All. My. Fault.
I blow my nose and take a sip of the tea Amber brought me. It’s stone cold, but I drink it anyway, grimacing as I force it past the hard knot in my throat.
It was kind of her to come and check on me. I was so desperate to offload, I almost told her about the other thing. I get the feeling she wouldn’t have judged me, she’d have just tried to help. Not that there’s anything she could’ve done. The cat’s well and truly out of the bag.
My phone buzzes again. It’s been pinging with notifications all day thanks to the Google Alerts I set up a couple of weeks ago. I glance at the headline.
This is the face of disgraced charity CEO Victoria Wyndham, the landlord at the centre of the eviction scandal
This is it. The moment I’ve been planning for weeks. Victoria’s spectacular fall from grace. Only instead of feeling triumphant, I feel…grubby. But if I’m replaying how we got here, at least I’m not thinking about Dad.
I was volunteering at our local soup kitchen when I met Niall. At first, clocking his gaunt face, tatty anorak and frayed beanie, I thought he was one of the homeless guys. In fact, I was about to offer him a bowl of soup when he joined me behind the trestle tables and started handing out bread rolls.
We got chatting once the queue had died down. When he told me he used to be an outreach worker for The Anchorway Trust, I almost dropped the ladle I was holding.
‘I know your old boss,’ I said.
His head jerked up. ‘Victoria Wyndham?’
‘She’s a friend of my dad’s. Well, my stepmother, to be precise. They went to uni together.’
‘And what do you think of her?’
It felt like a test, and I considered my answer carefully.
‘I think people like her are the reason we’re all screwed. Bloody boomers have plundered the planet and we’re the ones paying the price.’
