There are two sheets tangled in this mess. We unwrap the first and see the second is stained with blood.
For a second, I panic, despite myself.
“Maybe we should just pretend we didn’t see this,” I say. “I don’t know what I was thinking, looking around everyone’s rooms. It was a mistake.”
Esther stares at me, astonished. “It’s too late to say that now! You’re the one who dragged me into this. We can’t just leave it. She’ll know we were here. And there’s the blood on the window too.”
I know she’s right, but it’s all become frighteningly real now.
“Fine.” In a fit of bravery, I unravel the sheet, and then have to force myself not to throw up at the smell.
Like a prize at the end of Pass the Parcel, a bloody knife sits in the centre.
Twenty-Two
Tanya
May 21, 2023
Before I even know what’s happening, they come for me, screaming their way down the beach, yelling my name, brandishing something in their hands. Esther is carrying what looks like bedsheets, and Chloe is carrying . . . a knife?
I sit up straight from my sunbed. What the fuck is going on?
Annabel rises too, confusion in her face that turns to horror at the sight of Esther and Chloe, who have joined us now.
It is a knife. With blood, thick and dried on the blade.
What is Chloe doing with a knife?
For a mad second I think she and Esther have come to kill us both, and I stand, ready for a fight.
“No wonder you wanted to cover it all up!” she declares, as if this means something.
Annabel comes to my side, still puzzled. “Where did you get that knife?”
Chloe points her finger at me. “Tanya had hidden it under her bed, between the mattress and bedsprings. It was wrapped in these sheets.”
Esther, apparently her fabulous assistant now, opens up the bedsheet she’s holding, revealing a large bloodstain in its centre. But the wind is stronger down by the sea, and it whips the sheet from her hands before she can do anything about it. We watch it fly into the air and then land on the water, floating out with the tide.
It doesn’t matter. We all saw the blood before it was taken.
And the knife is still in Chloe’s hand.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, trying to keep calm. “Why would I hide this under my bed? That’s a bit stupid, isn’t it? And what were you doing in my room anyway? I thought we had an agreement.”
I catch Chloe’s gaze as I say this, but she stares straight through me, unrepentant.
“Chloe was searching all the rooms,” Esther says. “I found her looking around mine, so I said I’d help her out looking in yours.”
“Of course you did.” I have to resist the urge to slap her.
“Wait.” Annabel frowns. “You looked in my room? What for?”
Chloe’s cheeks redden, but she presses on, convinced of her own righteousness. “I wanted to see if I could figure out what had happened. If I could find anything.”
“How dare you look in my room after everything you did to me?” Annabel says. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve.”
“Why are you so bothered about it anyway?” I ask. “Since when were you Poppy Greer’s number one fan?”
“You don’t have to like someone to care about their murder!”
“I think you just want to make sure you’re not to blame,” I say, and watch Chloe’s face reveal I’ve hit the nail on the head. “I knew it. You’ve always been a selfish bitch.”
“You’re just trying to turn it around on me now! You’re the one with the knife in your room.”
“And what about your own room? Did you search that?”
“Well, no, obviously not.”
I smirk. “Obviously not. Bit of a biased search party if you ask me. How do I know you actually found this knife in my room?”
“I was there,” Esther says. “I found it too. Stop trying to change the subject.”
“And what subject would that be, Esther?” I’m not even hiding my anger now, my voice coming out in sharp bursts. “That I secretly killed Poppy last night, then had the marvellous idea to hide the murder weapon in my own room?”
“No one else would have had time to put it in your room last night,” she continues. “Stop trying to make excuses.”
“So I have time to dump Poppy’s body in the sea but not the murder weapon?” I can’t help but laugh at the ludicrous nature of their accusations. “Oh sure, that makes a lot of sense.”
Doubt begins to creep into Annabel’s features, to my immense satisfaction.
Esther is more sure. “Maybe you didn’t dump her body in the sea. Maybe it’s still here on the island. There was blood on your window. You could have moved her somewhere out there.”
Blood on my window? A complication.
Annabel has separated from me now, moving closer to Esther and Chloe.
“Do you realise how insane you both sound?” I say. “You’re going to accuse me of murdering Poppy? Really?”
“Well, one of us did,” Chloe says, “as everyone keeps saying.”
“Not me. You’ve got the wrong person.”
“You had the most motive.” Esther seems to be almost enjoying this. It’s strange. I’ve never seen her like this before. “You were Poppy’s closest friend, after all. Her oldest friend. She had more reason to hate you than anyone, and you had more reason to hate her. She exposed your drug addiction to the world.”
This seems to be convincing Annabel. She nods, slowly. “And your drug addiction, the withdrawal symptoms must be bad. Maybe you lashed out without thinking, made a terrible mistake.”
I knew they’d look at me differently with this out in the open. Poor Tanya, addicted to drugs. Always the life and soul of a party and then corrupted by the party itself. No job, no partner, barely any money as it’s all spent on cocaine or booze or just a simple good time, and any savings I once had are being used up fast. And now there’s no chance of getting any of that back, because everyone knows what my life has become.
Because of Poppy.
Yes, I was angry at the time. Okay, angry is a soft adjective for it. Furious. Incandescent with rage. And of course I’m on edge without the cocaine. Who wouldn’t be when they’ve been on it practically every day for the past two years?
So if I had the chance last night would I have hurt Poppy? After everything?
Perhaps. But the others don’t need to know that.
“It’s okay, Tanya,” Chloe says. “I get it. We were all angry. Just tell us what happened, and we can move past it.”
“Let me say this once, to make sure it’s nice and clear,” I say. “I. Did. Not. Kill. Poppy. That is all.”
Esther sighs. “You’ve been caught red-handed. This is pathetic.”
“No, you’re all pathetic. One of you has done this, and you’re trying to blame me!”
Annabel takes the knife from Chloe, staring at it in amazement. It’s one of those proper kitchen blades, always a prop in scary films. There’s something farcical about all of this. Any second now I’m expecting a director to shout “Cut!” and for us to laugh about how realistic we made the scene.
I wanted to be an actress once, a long time ago now. It was my dream when I was a kid. I was one of those terrible “arty” children who waxed lyrical about playwrights and poets and thought I was something. In all the school plays as the lead role. Even went to loads of auditions for plays and television series.
Never got a single callback.
“Not convincing enough,” they told me once. “I didn’t believe your pain.”
I wonder if they’d believe me now.
“Tanya, please,” Annabel says. “Let’s put this awful day to rest. Just tell us.”
“You’re believing Chloe of all people, Annabel? Really?”
It has the reaction I’m hoping for. Annabel looks back at Chloe and frowns.
“Don’t listen to her,” Chloe says.
“She slept with Andrew!” I say. “How on earth are you even giving her the time of day?”
Chloe smirks. “Funny how you’re willing to say that now, but not before.”
Fuck.
“What do you mean?” Annabel asks.
“She knew,” Chloe says. “She knew about the affair. She’s known for practically a year, and she’s never said a word to you.”
I found out by accident. In the summer last year, Annabel had borrowed a jacket of mine for an event and never brought it back. She’d been acting aloof about it too, pretending not to remember this had even taken place. I knew she was away for the weekend for a family wedding and decided to get it myself from Andrew.
What I didn’t anticipate was Chloe’s car in the driveway, and the two of them clearly expecting a food delivery when they answered the door half dressed and finding me there instead.
All this time, and I’ve kept it a secret.
Annabel seems to freeze for a few seconds, hand still clutching the knife. Perhaps not the best decision to tell her whilst she still has a literal murder weapon in her hands, and Chloe seems to realise the same thing, backing away behind Esther, raising her hands in the air as a gesture of surrender.
But Annabel sidesteps her, coming face to face with me. She is calm. I wonder what currents are swirling underneath.
“Is what Chloe said true?” she murmurs.
“Surely not,” Esther says. “That’s crazy.”