Chloe bites her lip. “But that would mean going out in this weather.”
“It’s around the corner.” My jacket is hung on the back of one of the chairs and I put it on. “I’ll go and check. It’s only flipping a switch.”
Esther tries the light switch in here just in case, turning it off and on again, but nothing happens. “I figured it was worth a try,” she says with a shrug. “I’m not going out there.”
“I’ll go.”
Chloe puts on her coat too. “I’ll come with you.”
“No thanks,” I snap. “I can do it without your help.”
She looks disappointed, but doesn’t argue. I open the door and am swept up in the wind, my hair flying everywhere, dress blowing up. Rain pelts down, soaking me without care, and the temperature is an awful mix of humid and freezing, all at once.
It takes my breath away.
“Jesus Christ,” I gasp.
“Sure you still want to go out there?” Esther says.
“I have to. We can’t spend hours like this.”
“Rather you than me. Close the door behind you.”
I step out and the wind slams the door shut anyway. Exposed now, I need a second to gain some balance, the force of the gale pushing me backwards. Even shining my torch isn’t much help, the rain so thick and heavy my vision is impaired. But I press on, forcing myself through, striding round the corner towards the telephone box and moving the torch all around, trying to find sight of a fuse box.
Aha. There!
For one awful second I think I’m going to need some sort of key, as it’s enclosed in some kind of storage box fixed on the wall. A ledge built above keeps it dry from most of the rain, but the wind travelling in all directions has still managed to soak it some. Thankfully, there’s no key needed. I grab through a tiny hole with my finger and pull it out, and then the wind smashes the flap round to the wall on the other side, keeping it open and doing me a favour.
There’s the mains switch, flipped to the off position. Thank God. I flip it on, expecting the outdoor lighting around me to come to life, but nothing happens, and after a few seconds it flips down again.
Shit.
“Is it working?”
I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Sorry!” Chloe is behind me, no jacket to speak of, drenched by the rain. “I needed to talk to you!”
“Can it wait?” I yell over the wind. “This isn’t the best time.”
“No!” She ducks under the ledge, which is hardly enough cover for one person, let alone two, and brings her face close to mine so I can hear her properly. “I need to tell you how sorry I am.”
Oh, Jesus. “It’s not important right now.”
“It is! I’m sorry. I was a complete idiot, like Esther says. I’m selfish. I only think about me. And I guess I’ve always been jealous of you.”
This stops me in my tracks. “Seriously?”
“It’s true, I promise. I hated that you had the perfect husband, the perfect life.”
“My life is nowhere near perfect, as you saw.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
It’s not enough for her to say sorry. She knows it. I know it. But we also know that we have bigger problems right now. We can deal with this when we’re back home and safe again.
If we ever make it home.
“The mains aren’t coming back on,” I say. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t know either.” Chloe leans close again. I think she’s trying to be covert, but she has to raise her voice because of the storm. “Don’t you think Esther is acting suspicious?”
Not more alliances. As if she’d ever think after what she’s done I’d join sides with her. I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“She’s been so nonchalant about everything.” A word I’d never expect from Chloe. “And she has all those bruises around her neck and on her body. Like she’s been in a fight. Don’t you think that’s odd? The one on her neck looks like someone has strangled her.”
I have thought it myself. The various injuries on Esther that no one seems to be bringing up, her strange attitude to all of this. But I’m almost positive some of the bruises were there when we arrived, as long ago as that seems.
“She had the knife last,” Chloe says. “She pretends she doesn’t know what she did with it. But how can she forget? It’s the murder weapon! You don’t just forget where you put the murder weapon.”
“I did forget.”
“Christ!” Chloe screams.
Esther is standing behind us. She switches on her torch to reveal herself. She’s been standing in the shadows, listening for who knows how long.
“How long have you been standing there?” Chloe demands.
“Long enough,” she says. “Come inside, and I’ll explain.”
“Explain what?”
“About the bruises. It’s time.”
We head back inside, teeth chattering from the rain. I sling my jacket back over the chair and jog on the spot to try and warm myself up a bit. Chloe and Esther sit down, dripping puddles onto the floor.
Esther sighs. “It’s Brad.”
“Brad?” I repeat.
“He did this to me. My wrist, my neck, my face. All of it.”
I understand. “Brad hurts you?”
Esther nods, mute.
“Oh my God.” I can’t take all of this in. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She smiles at that, a wry smile. “I think if there’s one thing we’ve proven over the past few days is that we are not a good group of friends. We can’t rely on one another.”
Chloe is astonished. “I had no idea. I saw the two of you together, and he seemed so attentive . . .”
“Brad on the outside world is a wonderful man,” Esther says. “Brad on the outside world is my soul mate. Brad when he is alone with me is a different man altogether.”
I think back over the past year or so. Esther’s coldness, her moods, her reluctance to do anything with us. Her panic about the hen party. I thought it was because of her work, but maybe there was more to it than that. I think of Brad constantly texting and calling her, his persistent messages that I was so jealous of in comparison to Andrew’s apathy. The way Esther flinched if you moved too quickly. The way she took herself off on her runs to unwind and escape her stresses, but I never thought to ask what she was unwinding and escaping from.
“The bruise on the neck is particularly bad,” she says. “When he found out about the hen party he choked me, told me it would leave a mark that would remind me of him while I was away. There was no use trying to explain I was going to a private island, that there wouldn’t be any other men. It didn’t matter.”
“Oh, Esther.” I don’t know what to say. “You have to leave him.”
“I deserve him,” she says. “Look at what we did to Poppy. I deserve everything he’s ever done to me.”
Chloe is stuck for what to say. “I thought . . . when the bruises came up . . .”
“You thought I’d gotten into a fight?” Esther says. “With Poppy? Well, you were half right. Just the wrong person.”
“How long has it been going on?” I ask.
Esther ponders this. “Since the beginning, I suppose. Our first argument.”
There’s an awkward silence as we process this information.
“The fuse box didn’t fix the problem then, I take it?” Esther asks, eager to talk about something else.
I shake my head. “I guess we’re stuck like this until the morning.”
“There was the generator,” Esther says. “I remember Poppy mentioning one. When we climbed up Deadman’s Peak, or whatever she called it. That little green hut?”
The climb up the mountain feels like a lifetime ago, a different time. Our stop at the top, taking in all the scenery, and then that small green hut in the distance. We had been so different then. All five of us together, taking that picture. I wonder where the digital camera is now. That’s vanished too. That picture is the last image of Tanya and Poppy alive.
“It was all the way across the other side of the island,” I say. “There’s no chance of us making it there in this storm.”
“I bet it would have some kind of backup system.” Esther stands up and reaches for my jacket.
“What are you doing?” I say.
Esther senses the panic in my tone. “What’s up with you? You went and tried the fuse box. I can try the generator.”
“We have the torches.” I reach for my jacket. “It’s fine.”
But she hangs on to it, tugging back. “I said I’ll try.”
“No.” I’m firm.
Chloe sits between us at the table, puzzled. “We’ll just stay here.”
“See,” I say. “Chloe agrees with me.”
“Annabel, let me feel like I’m doing something useful. Please.” She gives a final tug of the jacket, and it slips from my grasp.
Falling loose, something escapes the pocket, hitting the ground hard.
I don’t want to look, even though I know precisely what it is. There’s no time to grab it either. Both of them are about to see.
“What was that?” Chloe shines her torch in the direction of the sound, and we all stare at what has been spotlighted.
Esther’s necklace.