“I killed Esther,” I say. “I thought she was—I thought she had—”
Poppy smiles. “Oh, I know, you thought she was the murderer. I mean, who else was left? Just the two of you. It’s funny, she thought the same thing about you.”
My God. It wasn’t Esther at all. Both of us, convinced the other was the guilty party because there was no other explanation.
“It was you,” I whisper. “You killed Tanya and Chloe.”
“Yes,” Poppy says. “That was me.”
I remember the sight of her room, the amount of blood there. How is she standing here? How is she alive?
“But how . . .” I can’t finish my sentence. I’ve killed Esther. She’s dead because of me. And Poppy has killed Tanya and Chloe. I’m next. I have to be next.
“I’ll explain,” Poppy says. “Come in here.”
She gestures to her side, to the little green hut with its door open. The hut with the generator. That’s where she was staying all this time?
She senses my hesitation. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have snuck up on you while you were in the sea.”
“You don’t want to kill me?”
“Oh no, Annabel,” she says. “I have things I need to know. Things you need to tell me. And things I need you to hear. Consider it your duty as the last remaining bridesmaid—you can even call yourself my maid of honour, if you want.”
I’m going to be sick again.
She smiles at me, raising an eyebrow. “Or maybe that should be maid of dishonour.”
Is she expecting me to laugh? After everything?
“Come on.” She’s brisk, suddenly. “I want to get out of the cold. We haven’t got much time.”
It’s only as she says it that I realise it has gotten colder, bitingly so, sending goose bumps across my arms. Now that the storm has died down, there’s nothing to replace it, and the air sits fresh and exposed to the wide expanse of sea. Poppy turns her back on me and walks towards the green hut. I follow her, picking up the bloody knife from the ground as I go, debating whether or not to stab her and end it now.
As if she can read my mind, she turns, amused. “Thinking about stabbing me in the back, Annabel? It wouldn’t be the first time.” She lifts her dress and I notice she’s wearing thick Doc Martens, unsuited to the beach. She bends down and takes something out from one of the boots, and as it glints in the early morning sky I can see she too has a knife.
Of course she’s prepared. Why wouldn’t she be?
“Don’t make any silly moves,” she says, as if we’re discussing a game of chess. “Follow me and get inside.”
I lower my own knife. Now is not the time. Poppy is taller and fitter than me. I have to have the element of surprise if I’m going to get out of this.
It only starts to feel real when she closes the door behind us, shutting out the outside world. The room isn’t a generator at all, but more like a fishing hut, so perhaps Poppy was lying all along about that. There’s a camp bed in here, I suppose for nights like this where it could be dangerous to trek back across the island to the main accommodation. Almost all of the space is taken up with equipment. There’s fishing gear, as expected, but also diving gear, complete with flippers and scuba suits. In one corner of the room there’s a carrier bag with some of the food from the pantry.
Poppy sits on the camp bed. When I study her face, I’m not sure if she’s soaking from the storm or crying. She notices me looking and wipes her face urgently, which makes me believe it was tears after all. The horrible painting from the scavenger hunt is here too, sitting on the bed beside her. She catches me staring at it and smiles.
We’re both on edge. I stand leaning against the door for some semblance of safety, the idea that I can wrench it open and run away if necessary. The knife feels slippery in my hand, and whether that’s from blood or sweat I don’t know.
How can she be sitting here? Her room was a massacre. All that blood.
“Explain yourself,” I say, numb from everything. “What the fuck is going on? How are you alive?”
Poppy nods. There’s no pleasure in her expression anymore.
“I faked my death,” she says. “After I’d got my revenge on you all, destroying your lives back home, I knew you’d all be mad. Mad enough, even, to enact some revenge yourself. So I thought I’d jump ahead to the fun part, the aftermath. I covered the room in blood, even dragged my body from the bed to the floor in it so it looked realistic. Sprinkled spots of it in various places, including Tanya’s window, the front porch, the doorframe. Put the shirt I was wearing in the sea, on that rock, to make it look like I’d been washed out. I’d already set up a little place here, stocked with food and a bed. And a live feed, of course.”
She points, and there’s a small screen split into four. Various cameras dotted about the area, prime viewing material.
“Of course, the storm spoiled the feed,” she says. “That’s why I was shocked to find Chloe at my door, seeking a way to turn the power back on.”
My thoughts are flying all over the place. Part of me is still reeling from Poppy even being here at all. I had accepted her death. And now she’s here, and I don’t know what that means.
“So you killed her?” I say. “You killed Chloe?”
“Yes.” She says this with no emotion. “Actually, it was sheer bad luck on her part that she happened to come this way. The storm had ruined my initial plan of picking you off one by one, but she did me a favour.”
“How did you kill her?” The image of the rock covered in blood flashes in my mind, the same rock I used on Esther.
“It wasn’t as easy as Tanya. She started running. It was dark. I picked up a rock and hit her over the head with it. I figured it was best to leave her there for you and Esther to find.”
“How was there so much blood in your room, if you’re not dead?” I ask, still picturing the grotesque bed with its dark bloodstains, the marks on the floor. “It was horrible.”
“Pigs’ blood.” Poppy folds her arms. “From the mainland. I brought it over with me on the boat ride with Robin before you guys came, in a couple of large thermos mugs. I think the butcher thought I was some kind of cultist. He didn’t ask too many questions.”
“You did it just to mess with our heads.”
“Oh yes. Making you all think one of the others was a killer was the best part.”
In my panicked state, I try to recall the sequence of events. “So you’re the one who got rid of the flares?”
“Of course. I couldn’t have you alerting someone and ending the fun early.”
“My top?” I think of it now, that awful sequined top that vanished so quickly.
She crosses her arms. “That, and smashing Chloe’s makeup. Just small things, designed to trip you up a bit. I threw that top in the sea by the way. It’s long gone.”
“And you planted the knife in Tanya’s room?”
“I wanted her to have the blame, at least for a little bit,” Poppy says. “Before I killed her.”
It’s her nonchalant tone as she says this that finally breaks me.
“All of this is just a joke to you.” I’m surprised by the force of my words as they tear out of me. “This entire holiday, this hen party. People have died, Poppy. You’ve killed them. Do you even understand what that means?”
Her eyes flash with anger, more incensed than I’ve ever seen her.
“Don’t you dare say that to me,” she says. “You have no idea. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me!” I shout. “You keep talking in riddles and I’m tired of them. If you want to kill me, then just go ahead and do it. I’m sure I deserve it according to you.”
“I was trying to be the bigger person for so long,” she says. “I’ve spent years trying to get over it, to move on. I went to Cambridge University, I became a bloody doctor. I should be living a happy life, a fulfilled life. But I’m not. No matter how far I tried to run, I always came back to you all. You ruined my life.”
“We didn’t ruin your life,” I say. “You sound like you have a fantastic one! Like you said, look at you. It’s better than ours. You’re getting married, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, the beautiful fiancée?” Poppy sighs. “A lie, I’m afraid. As much as I might wish it were true.”
I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does. “You were lying about getting married?”
“I had to do something to get you all on this island, and a hen party seemed like the perfect excuse. This was all for you guys, and boy, did you deliver.”
“But your Instagram!” It sounds pathetic even to my ears.
“Created so that you believed the story. Funny how all it takes is a few pictures of wedding dresses and a nice diamond ring and suddenly you’re a bride-to-be no questions asked.”
“Jesus Christ . . .” I don’t even know how to respond. “But everything else—everything else in your life sounds wonderful. You still had no need to do this . . .”