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Daisy Darker’s niece was a precocious little child.
Like all abandoned ducklings, she would not fare well in the wild.
Daisy Darker’s secret story was one someone sadly had to tell.
But her broken heart was just the start of what will be her last farewell.
Daisy Darker’s family wasted far too many years lying.
They spent their final hours together learning lessons before dying.
“Did you like Trixie’s poem?” Nana asks, but I don’t answer. “She wrote more—one about each of you—but was too shy to share them all. When I told Trixie my plan, she agreed to help me. The two of you have a lot in common, and she loves you just as much as I do. I wanted, no,neededto make things right for you and for herbefore it was too late. While I still could. I killed Frank. He was a terrible son and a dreadful father. Being the only one in the family who ever touched whiskey made him surprisingly easy to poison. As soon as your dad locked himself away in the music room, I revealed that I wasn’t dead after all. I told him the whole thing with me on the kitchen floor was nothing more than a Halloween prank. We had a bit of a laugh about it, I encouraged him to drink even more of the whiskey, then I had the piano play a pretty tune while he died choking on his own blood.” Nana looks down at the floor as though avoiding eye contact, even though I know she can’t see the way I am staring at her. She wipes away a tear, and I’m relieved that telling this story is making her feel as sad as I do hearing it. “Frank was too heavy for me to move by myself, so Trixie helped me drag his body into the cupboard. Nancy was busy ransacking my studio at the time—I think she was worried I might have written about her in a new book—while you were all upstairs looking for Trixie.
“I was worried about people suspecting Trixie—she’s always been a little too clever for her own good—so the additional red herrings seemed necessary. She stole Lily’s diabetic kit, took what she needed, then left it in Nancy’s bedroom for someone else to find. She snuck out of the lounge while you were all watching old home movies and joined me in the cupboard under the stairs, locking herself inside with a spare key. Injecting herself with insulin was her own idea after Rose mentioned it at dinner, but I would never have let anything bad happen to her. We had a spare shot of glucagon if none of you found her in time.”
Trixie puts a cup of tea down on the table in front of Nana.
“The rest was easy,” Nana says, taking a sip. “Nancy was busy looking for her missing granddaughter when I called her out into the garden. When I told her the whole thing was an elaborate Halloween joke she got very upset. So I suggested a cup of tea—that was almostalways her answer to everything. It was poisoned using plants that she grew herself here at Seaglass. She died a little later than she should have, but punctuality was never Nancy’s strong point.
“Everyone else died on time, and they were found once an hour, just like we planned. That part was one of Trixie’s ideas. She was full of them after reading so many murder mysteries. Lily killed herself by spraying her neck with perfume, which we had replaced with a deadlier poison than the one she preferred. Conor took an unfortunate topple down the stairs, then suffocated on his newspaper article. Trixie shot Rose with her own gun. I had no idea she would bring one this weekend, that changed our plans and we improvised—”
“Rose did nothing wrong, she was a good person,” I interrupt. “She helped animals and I don’t understand how—”
“Did Daisy say something?” Nana asks Trixie, who is frowning at me.
Trixie nods. “She thinks Aunty Rose didn’t deserve to die.Roseshot ponies on the way here.Roseonly liked to help people and animals if helping them was easy.Roseonly ever did good things to make herself feel less bad.Roselet Lily and Conor throwyouover a cliff. She witnessed something truly terrible and did nothing to stop it. Then lied about it. That makes her just as bad as the rest of them.”
Nana nods in agreement. “In some ways, they were all killed by what they loved the most.
“Frank was killed by his desire to be alone with his music.
“Nancy was killed by her precious plants.
“Rose was killed by something to do with her work, which she always put first.
“Lily was killed by the stench of entitlement she wallowed in.
“And Conor died eating his own words. Being a journalist is a privilege. The stories they tell should always be true.”
“Have you got any idea how crazy you both sound?” I say, but Trixie doesn’t reply and Nana can’t hear me. “There is still so much I don’t understand. At midnight, when this nightmare started, Trixie found you on the kitchen floor. Rose examined you and said you weredead.The head injury… I saw the blood… the gash on the side of your head still looks serious…”
Trixie repeats what I’ve said, and Nana nods.
“The blood and brains were thanks to Amy and Ada…” I have to think for a moment, before I realize that she means her chickens. The chickens that the rest of the family ate for dinner last night. “They died naturally this week, almost as though they wanted to help with the plan, but I confess that plucking them and preparing props from their remains was horribly messy. I bought a latex gash from a joke shop in town—it peels right off, see?” she says, removing it with a smile. “And the gray skin was just makeup. I’ve always had a weak pulse, and it’s not the first time Rose thought someone in this family was dead when they weren’t. To be fair, I’ve practiced breathing very slowly when meditating—I learned from the best at a monastery in Bhutan—I can breathesoslowly that your sister thought I wasn’t breathing at all. People tend to believe what they want to, so maybe that’s why the whole family were so willing to believe I was dead.”
“But I still don’t understandwhy,” I say. “Why do it at all, and why like this?”
“Did she ask why again?” Nana says, and Trixie nods.
Nana takes another sip of tea, as though thinking very carefully about the answer.
“I did what I did, the way that I did it, because I wanted them all to feel the fear you must have felt before you died that night. And, if I’m going to be completely honest, because I wanted to be proud of what I was leaving behind after I’m gone. I’m proud of you andTrixie. I’m proud of all my books. But I wasn’t proud of any of them. Not dealing with them before I died… it would have been selfish and irresponsible, like leaving litter on the beach. If that silly old palm reader in Land’s End is correct, then I’ll die when I’m eighty. Today is my eightieth birthday… so I didn’t have very long to put things right.” She adds some sugar to her tea, something I’ve never seen her do before, and takes another sip. “I don’t understand why you’re still here, Daisy. Why you haven’t… moved on. After you died, I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I’ve struggled to draw, or paint, or write. Grief can change a person into someone even they can’t recognize. I haven’t published a new book since. I thought my agent had completely given up on me, but he still came to visit yesterday to wish me a happy birthday. We talked about you. I think he knew that you were always my favorite grandchild.
“I kept asking myself the same question when you were taken from my life. Where does the love go when someone dies? Their last breath disappears into the atmosphere, their body gets buried in the ground, but where does the love go? If love is real, it must gosomewhere.And maybethat’swhy you’re still here, because the love got trapped? I wanted to set you free… and I hoped that if I put things right, you would be. But you’re still here. I so badly wish I could see you, the way Trixie can. That’s why I asked Conor to take a picture of the whole family last night, hoping perhaps then I might be able to see your face again…”
I take a step closer to the fridge, where she stuck the Polaroid photo of us all. Everyone is there: Dad, Nancy, Rose, Lily, and Nana. But where I was sitting, all I can see is an empty chair. Nana continues, and I try my best to keep up.
“Yesterday, my agent said that the night you died, you told him that you wanted to tell your own story. Do you remember that? He said that you wanted to write a novel about therealDaisy Darkerand asked if he would read it. That’s what I think you need to do.” She stares around the room for a moment, as though waiting for an answer. “Did she say anything?”
