‘Guys, please,’ Holly said. ‘This is horrible. You’re both drunk.’
‘Shut up, Holly,’ Miranda said, sitting up and opening her eyes. ‘Your new boyfriend’s not much better than Lewis. Another artistic type, although at least he’s actually prepared to go out and do a shit, embarrassing job and isn’t a parasite like you.’
I was too stunned to speak. But I was also fascinated. I wanted to know what she would do next, while also dreading it. Jasmine stared at her, too.
‘Are you calling me a parasite?’ Lewis asked. ‘You’ve never even had a job.’
‘That’s not true. I’m a mother. A homemaker.’
Lewis blew air through his lips. ‘What kind of home? Your husband spends more time with our dad than he does with you. You’re the parasite.’
Without warning, Miranda screamed the next sentence. ‘I’d rather be a parasite than agold-digger.’
As she said these last two words, she pointed directly at Jasmine.
Boom. There it was. Forget the doppelgänger thing. This was the true time bomb in the room. It had always been there, ticking away, but had been fully primed when Jasmine toldus she didn’t care that she looked like Elizabeth. It had even crossedmymind, hadn’t it?
‘That’s it,’ Holly said. ‘Game over. I’m so sorry, Jasmine.’
Without another word she hauled Miranda to her feet and escorted her, swaying, from the room. Lewis followed them, stumbling as he went, leaving me alone with Jasmine.
‘Wow,’ she said after a moment. ‘I guess we both took a hit then, but I think mine was worse.’
‘That was mortifying. Are you okay?’
She looked a lot less upset than I expected. I could hear her inhaling and exhaling through her nose, trying to stay calm.
‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘I deal with a lot of assholes working at the hotel. Rich folk who think people like me are beneath them.’ She stopped herself and took a deep breath. ‘Charles warned me Miranda might be hostile. He said she was always the most protective of him and the family, being the oldest daughter and all. He just didn’t tell me she was such a bitch.’
She closed her eyes and, I think, counted to three beneath her breath. ‘I don’t mean that. I’m going to bed before I say anything else I regret. Goodnight, Patrick.’ She paused. ‘You sure you want to stay here for Hogmanay? I’m kinda stuck here, but you could go home.’
‘I just want to be with Holly.’
She nodded. ‘At least you picked the nice sister.’
She had a Louis Vuitton bag that I assumed had been a gift from Charles. It was on the floor in the corner of the living room, and she went over to pick it up, grabbing the handles.
She made a horrified, gasping noise and recoiled.
I hurried over. ‘What is it?’
‘In my bag. There’s a… there’s a snake.’
I froze. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure!’
And as she said it, I saw it. The adder, curled up inside her expensive bag, red and brown, twitching in that horrible way snakes move. I still couldn’t move.
But Jasmine was less scared than me. She went over to the patio doors, slid them open, then grabbed the bag and threw it outside. In the light from the room, I saw the bag tip over and the snake emerge, slithering away into the shrubbery. Jasmine retrieved the bag and shut the doors.
‘I bet it was Miranda,’ she said. Her voice was surprisingly steady.
‘No, it was here, the snake, when we first got here. We thought it had gone outside, but…’
I trailed off. I could hear Holly and Lewis returning.
‘Don’t tell them,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘I don’t want Miranda to know she scared me.’
