‘I didn’t touch the drink. I remember so clearly. I didn’t touch anything. I was really frightened. He kept saying he was going to kill us all before he let that happen.’
I look up, jolted as if by an electric shock. ‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’
It makes so much more sense, somehow. This bottomless need to blame Holly for her mother’s death wasn’t because she happened to reach for a drink. It was to deflect the blame from himself.
I squeeze her knee. ‘I think that’s what he tried to do by driving into the tree. Instead, he just killed her. And so he blamed you.’
We sit in silence for a moment.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I’m really sorry I killed him.’
I hesitate for a moment, then I ask, ‘Why did you do it?’
She shudders. ‘I don’t know. It just happened. He was pulling my hair, and I was so scared… I hate him so much…’
‘I know. Me too.’
‘I didn’t even realise I’d done it until he fell back.’ She closes her eyes. ‘What are we going to do now?’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘How?’
‘You don’t need to know.’ The truth is, I have no idea myself. I try to think. His Porsche Cayenne is right here, in the garage. I could put his body in it and dump it somewhere, let the car slide down a cliff with the handbrake off. I’ll say we had an argument, and he went for a long drive. I’ll imply that he did it on purpose. But where? I have to think. And I have to do it by tomorrow because he’s supposed to be going to Zurich on Monday, and somebody is going to notice that he’s never made it.
Oh, God. I should have called the police. I could have convinced them it was self-defence. I would have been a witness. What was I thinking? But then Teri showed up, and it threw me.
And now it’s too late.
Holly shifts and looks at me, straight on. ‘I saw this movie once,’ she says, almost breathless. ‘Mum was still with us. It wasa really old movie, and this lady had killed her husband – I think it was her husband – and put him in the freezer, and when she opened the freezer days later…’ She drops her voice to a whisper. ‘He wasn’t there anymore.’
God. If only. ‘I don’t think we’re going to get that lucky,’ I say.
‘Yeah.’ She sits back against the freezer. ‘I know. It just reminded me, that’s all.’
‘Listen. It would be better if you weren’t here tomorrow night.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if anything goes wrong—’ as in, if I get caught with a dead body in the back of Max’s car ‘—it’s better if you’re not here. Then if anything does go wrong, you can say you knew nothing about it.’
She nods, slowly. ‘Okay.’
‘Could you go to Amelia’s?’
She makes a face. ‘I’d rather go to Scarlett’s.’
‘That’s a good idea. You wanted to go there today. Will her parents be okay with that?’
‘Her parents are never there.’
‘All right, well, we’ll give Scarlett a call and see if it’s all right with her. Do you think you could stay over there for dinner?’
‘I can figure it out,’ she says.
‘Good. Then that’s what we’ll do.’ I put my hand on her knee. ‘It will be all right, Holly. I promise. Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll clean up the kitchen?—’
