Yes, she did.
It’s easy to forget, a lot of the time, that Annabel has brains. Looking like she does, blonde and doe-eyed and dressed in the latest fashions, she comes across like a typical Barbie doll. But she was smarter than the rest of us at school, as smart as Poppy herself. When Poppy was a no-show on our A Level Results Day, it was Annabel who took centre stage, posing for all the photos. And I hated it. I was meant to be the smart one, not her. And she took all the glory, with barely any effort whatsoever.
Our little ringleader, Annabel Hannigan. Who out of everyone would have most resented Poppy’s new interference, her suggestion that we were anything but perfect? Apparently, Annabel has become a consummate actress herself. All her horror and disgust at Poppy’s and Tanya’s deaths, her weakness, her pathetic pleas for us all to do the right thing. All an act. It’s impressive really.
And the rest of us fell hook, line, and sinker. Still Annabel’s toys, even ten years on from everything.
I risk a glance at the horizon. The sky remains dark, no sign of an impending sunrise. God damn it, what time is it? Robin needs to get here before there’s only one of us left.
“Did you really think Poppy deserved to die?” Annabel asks.
I shake my head at her. “No, of course not. What we said before . . . we were just being dramatic.”
“What about Tanya? Chloe?”
Chloe remains between us. I focus my gaze at Annabel, and begin to circle around Chloe’s body, drawing us closer.
“No,” I say. “No one deserved to die.”
“So why are we here?” she says. “I don’t understand.”
I don’t understand either. But I can’t trust her to do the right thing. Annabel’s already killed three people, why would she stop at the fourth? I need to put an end to it.
Even if that means killing her myself.
The thought comes surprisingly easily.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins, making me more alert than I have ever been. The knife’s handle begins to make an imprint in my hand, I’m holding it so tight.
Perhaps she senses something in my resolve change, because her expression darkens. Out in the elements like this, both in thin white dresses, we look like a disturbing mirror image.
“If you would just put the knife down, this could all end,” she pleads, sounding almost desperate.
“Never.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“If you won’t put the knife down I’m going to have to make you.” Before I get too tired, before you can overpower me.
I’m exhausted enough as it is. I’ve barely slept. The after-effects of the gin are still in me, sending my stomach into knots. I might be stronger than Annabel on a normal day, but this isn’t normal.
How has it all gone so wrong?
“Please, Esther.” She sounds so sad.
But then I look down at Chloe’s body, and my determination returns.
I am stronger than her. I can do this.
“I’m sorry, Annabel,” I say, and before she can respond, I charge at her.
The ocean around us.
The sand gripping between our toes.
Yes, fight with everything you have. I certainly am. I’ve been fighting my whole life and it’s led to this moment, here on the beach against the moon, the rumble of the sea behind us, the storm turned from an external force to an internal one, as each of us knows this is the last time.
Kill her.
Thirty
Annabel
May 22, 2023
She charges at me with a strangled cry, racing forward and throwing herself on top of me. My own knife is dropped as I grab at hers with both hands, screaming as the blade slices into my palms. We roll around on the sand, wrestling with the knife as she tries to tear it back away from me and I grip down hard despite the excruciating pain. Sand gets in my mouth, my eyes, down my dress, but I can’t relent.
There are more screams, from both of us, I think, and we start kicking at one another. At one point she seems to pull back, so I lift my head and collide it with her own, sending her flying backwards. She scrambles to get up, but by that point I’m on top of her, knife now in my grasp.
“Get off me!” she snarls, gripping my neck with both hands.
The force of her hold makes my breath come out in choked gasps, and I have to drop the knife. She releases me to reach for it, and I manage to hurl myself up and away, heading across the sand.
Where is the other damn knife? I gaze around wildly, but there’s no glint on the beach. The tide must have washed in and taken it, or buried it in the wet sand. Stumbling away, I find a hard rock and pick it up, grateful for anything.
It’s wet with blood.
Some of Chloe’s hair is sticking to it.
“Oh, fuck!”
Part of me wants to drop it, keel over and throw up. But Esther is charging behind me now, so I have to let go of my inhibitions and turn quickly, smashing the rock against the side of her head.
She falls back, screaming.
I lift the rock and hit her with it again, kneeling astride her, gasping. She tries to squirm away but it’s impossible. As a last-ditch effort, she tries to stab me, but her grip is weak. Her strength is fading.
It’s the final look she gives me: shock, fear, pain, all rolled into one, that makes me pause for a second, makes me doubt.
But it has to be Esther. There is no one left.
She senses my hesitation, and reaches out for the knife. I’m able to pull it away before she can, and her hand reaches my face instead, scratching me down my cheek.
I have no choice.
I stab her, again and again, enough times that she stops struggling underneath me.
“Annabel . . .” she gasps, and that is all she can say. Blood spits from her mouth and lands on my face. Her eyelids flutter, and she goes still.
She’s dead.
I ease myself up, knees shaking, and then run into the ocean and throw up.
Part of me wants to fall into it myself, just drown in the waves.
I still don’t understand why. That is what is driving me forward, what keeps me standing on my feet. Why did Esther do it? Poppy, I understand. Poppy ruined her life. Got her fired from her job, embarrassed her with those naked pictures that now might be anywhere. But Tanya? It doesn’t make any sense. Out of anyone, Esther had the most grudge with me. So why was I left until last? Why did we explore the island together looking for Chloe?
More thoughts spring to mind. Chloe’s horrible injury to the back of her head. The blood around her.
Esther’s white dress. Until we fought, there wasn’t even a drop of blood on it. How could that be? She hasn’t changed outfits. How could she kill Chloe and not end up with a mark on her?
Doubt begins to creep into my mind. Everyone else is dead. She had to have done it.
The little motorboat remains on the beach, taunting me in the corner of my eye.
Pull yourself together.
I look down at my own dress now, the devastation across it. There are two deep cuts in my palms as well, from where I had to grab the blade. They’re still bleeding. I wash my hands in the sea but it makes little difference, the water turning red around me. Even the sharp sting it causes doesn’t offer me anything but further reminder that the pain is almost overwhelming. My nose is bleeding too, and when I feel around my face it’s sore to touch.
None of it makes sense.
I stare out at the horizon, the smallest smudges of pink and orange. Dawn is coming, at last.
Why was Chloe left on the beach?
I don’t know why the thought comes to me now, but it does.
Tanya, that made sense. It was the daytime and whoever killed her would have been discovered moving the body.
But Chloe is right here. She’s on the beach. All it would have taken was for Esther to drag her in, and Chloe would have been swept away with the tide, never to be seen again. Why leave her body here, when she went to the effort of moving Poppy from the main lodge?
Why is Poppy’s body the only one that vanished?
Oh my God. I clutch my forehead as a headache bursts into me, violent and throbbing.
Behind me, I hear clapping.
“Bravo.”
Shaking, I turn, my whole body in slow motion. I’m covered in blood. My mouth tastes of vomit.
Poppy stands by Esther’s body, hands on her hips.
She grins when she sees me.
“Quite the show,” she says. “Well done.”
Thirty-One
Annabel
May 22, 2023
Poppy is alive. She’s alive. There’s just no way. She can’t be standing in front of me.
I can’t take my eyes off her. Even as I walk forward, out of the sea, I keep my gaze on her, as if she might vanish at any moment. Maybe I’ve fallen down somewhere and hit my head, and this is all one big hallucination.
“You can’t be here,” I say. “You’re dead.” I’m trembling. Did Esther kill me after all, and this is some kind of afterlife?
“Am I?” she asks. She feels for her pulse in her neck, giving it a couple of seconds. “I feel alive to me. Perhaps you’d like to come and check?”
How can she be so calm? So mocking?
Esther and Chloe are on the sand near us, lifeless.