Tom, then. He had the means – he was there in the house when my phone was, he was there at the shooting. And – it suddenly strikes me – he was the one who sent Clare driving off into the forest alone. What did make her suddenly leave like that? We only have his word about what he said to her, and now, in the light of what’s happened, the fact that she misheard him so radically seems a little convenient. Would she really just go haring off into the night like that, without double-checking? Nina was the doctor, after all. She was James’s best chance of survival.
What if he told her to go? He could have said anything – that Nina wasn’t coming, that she’d said to get going and wait for her at the hospital. As for motive … I think back to the drunken conversation we had about his husband and James. If only I’d paid attention. If only I’d listened! But I was bored – bored by the litany of names I didn’t recognise, and the bitchy theatre politics. Is it possible that there’s something there, some grudge between Bruce and James? Or maybe – maybe quite the opposite.
It seems unlikely though. And even if he did send Clare off into the night, what would it achieve? He couldn’t have predicted what would happen.
Most importantly, though, he could not have known about my past with James. Unless … unless someone told him.
Clare could have told him. I can’t get away from that. But the thing is this: this murder has been set up in such a way that it didn’t just destroy James, it is destroying me and Clare too. It doesn’t just feel like collateral damage; there is something incredibly malicious and personal about the way I have been deliberately dragged in, reminding us both of long-forgotten sores. Who would do that? Why would anyone do that?
I try to look at this like one of my books. If I were writing this, I could imagine a reason for Tom to hurt James. And I could probably manufacture a motive for him to hurt Clare in the process. But me? Why go to all these lengths to bring in someone he doesn’t even know? The only person who could possibly want to do that would be someone who knows all three of us. Someone who was there at the time it all blew up. Someone like …
Nina.
But my mind shies away from that, flinching from the idea. Nina can be odd; sharp and sarcastic and often thoughtless. But there’s no way she’d do something like that. Surely? I think of her face, set in stern lines like grief, as she remembered the gunshot wounds she’d treated in Colombia. She lives to help people. Surely she’d never do this?
But something is whispering in my ear, a little voice, reminding me of how callous Nina can be. I remember her saying once, very drunk, ‘Surgeons don’t care about people, not in a touchy-feely way. They’re like mechanics: they just want to cut them up, see how they work, dismantle them. Your average surgeon’s like a little boy who takes apart his dad’s watch to see how it works and then can’t get it back together. The more skilled you get, the better you get at reassembling the parts. But we always leave a scar.’
And I think, too, about her occasional shocking flashes of contempt for Clare. I think about her savagery that night when she talked about how Clare wanted to push and prod and get off on other people’s reactions, her bitterness about the way Clare outed her all those years ago. Is there something there, some reason she’s never forgiven Clare?
And finally, I think about her actions on the first night we arrived. The I Have Never game. I remember the deliberate malice of her drawling, I have never fucked James Cooper.
Suddenly, in the over-heated little sauna of a room, I feel cold. Because that is the kind of cruel, personal spite that lies behind this whole crazy situation. It wasn’t just curiosity about me and James. It wasn’t thoughtlessness. It was deliberate cruelty – to me and to Clare. Who is pushing and prodding and getting off on people’s reactions now?
But I push that thought away. I will not think about Nina like this. I will not. This will send me mad if I let it.
Flo. Flo is the name I keep coming back to. Flo was there from the beginning. Flo invited the guests. Flo held the gun. Flo was the one who claimed it was loaded with blanks.
Flo – with her strange obsession with Clare. With her strange, unstable intensity. She could have found out about me and James at any point – she’s Clare’s best friend, after all, has been since university. What more likely than Clare confiding in her about James and me?
Is that why she’s taken an overdose? Has she realised what she’s done?
I am looking up, looking into space as I think all this out, and then suddenly my eyes focus on something, on a movement outside the door.
And I realise what it is.
The guard is back – the police guard at my door. Only this time I have absolutely zero doubt: they are not there to protect me. They are there to keep me in. I’m not going home when they discharge me, I’m going to a police station. I will be arrested, and questioned, and most likely charged if they think they can make this stick.
Coldly, dispassionately, I try to examine the last person at the hen night: the case against myself.