She laughs gently, a tiny sparkle of a laugh. “And why would I do such a thing? Why would I want Felix dead? My darling boy.”
“Oh, you never loved Felix. You wanted his money. . . . Your career was foundering—Felicity Shore told me that—you’d been behaving badly in London, like a prima donna, losing jobs, and you were desperate to make a fresh start here, in LA. So you married Felix, made sure you would inherit—”
“I’m proud of you, you know. I always have been, actually. You see things that others don’t. It’s your sensitivity.” She kisses the top of my head, pulls my hair back away from my face, almost roughly.
“But you didn’t mind using me, did you?” I say. “You’re ruthless, Tilda. . . . When I told you about controllingmen.com you saw how to haul me in—you told Charlotte to join up, and to befriend me, to take me further and further into my obsession with dangerous men and vulnerable women. That way, I’d keep quiet about Felix’s death—and you thought I’d be persuaded to kill Luke for Charlotte. You were outsourcing your side of the bargain to stupid me.”
“Oh, you haven’t got that bit quite right.” Now she was whispering. “Charlotte was practically psychopathic—she was keen to kill, she saw it as exciting . . . so I knew that if you didn’t go through with Luke’s murder, she’d do it anyway. There was no real reason for Luke to die, you see, other than Charlotte’s belief that if she and I were both bereaved, sharing a lethal secret, that we’d be bonded together for good. That we’d both have brilliant careers, sharing success; that’s what she wanted. She was a fool, Callie.”
I pull away, so that I can look at her face, and she gives me the sweetest smile.
“Charlotte told you about Belle, and how she was a nurse,” I say, “and you came up with the injections idea.”
“I’m so clever, don’t you think?”
“Then you introduced Felix to Charlotte—you told him she was a medic who could administer your vitamin injections. And, what? She came round to Curzon Street a couple of times—in my imagination she’s wearing a white cotton coat and has her hair pulled back in a ponytail, looking so professional—and you both had harmless injections, it didn’t matter what was in them. . . . You were simply getting Felix accustomed to the idea that Charlotte was authorized to inject him. And when he said he was going to attend a conference at that hotel, you seized your chance. You told him that Charlotte was nearby, that she could come round for his injection, that it would be good for him, keep him at the top of his game.”
“You’re right. I even used that cliché—you’ll stay at the top of your game, darling.”
I pull my head up from her breast, and rest it on the pillow so that we are face-to-face, so close that our lips are nearly touching, our eyelashes almost brushing each other.
“It was all so perfect,” she says. “When Felix died, the police suspected nothing. That stupid Melody Sykes woman called me up and asked me about the marks from the injection, and I told her—vitamins, both of us had vitamin injections. And she accepted it—I could scarcely believe it. Then it turned out that Felix did have some sort of heart condition. Sykes told me that they do cause of death on a balance of probabilities—nothing more. I thought that was utterly hilarious.”
I think of her playing the grieving widow, gray with suffering, scarcely able to stand, struggling to formulate words. I remember her bearing at the funeral, the melancholy bride, the excruciating sorrow. Tilda is a brilliant actress, I have to give her that.
We are so close now that I feel her breaths on my face, and I realize that this moment is rare, special, because for once she isn’t acting, she’s being honest.
“It’s such a relief,” she says, “to be with you . . . I could fall asleep in your arms I feel so relaxed and happy.”
But I’m not going to let her get away with that, and I ask, “What happened with Charlotte? Did you hold her down under the water . . . was it difficult?”
She kisses my lips, whispers, “It was so, so easy, Callie. She was out of her head, drugged and drunk, and I think she wanted me to do it. Deep down, she knew we couldn’t be together, that she’d always be inferior . . . that’d she’d feel forever bitter, betrayed even. And I didn’t want her around, reminding me of our dirty little secret.”
I move in closer still, holding her so tightly that she gasps, then I release her and turn onto my back, staring at the wooden ceiling as I think about what to do.
“What about me?” I don’t look at her as I speak. “Don’t I remind you of your secret? Won’t you resent me for that?”
“No, little one. Of course not. You’re an extension of me . . . you know that.”
“I’m wondering whether I should go to the police. If I call Melody Sykes and tell her everything, all the detail of it . . . she’d have to believe me.”
“Really? You think so?” She’s getting out of the bed now and is walking towards the open doors, saying, “Watch this—this will tell you what you need to know.”
She doesn’t pick up anything to cover herself up, walking outside, onto the balcony—it’s dark out there now, just a faint silvery light, unnatural, like it’s from a lamp in the garden; I get out of bed too, following her. In the corner a thin pole connects the side of the balcony to an overhanging roof—and Tilda climbs up onto a chair, holds the pole, and then steps up onto the metal rail that runs the breadth of the balcony. Holding on with one hand, she swings herself outwards, towards the black trees and the foliage, and she’s balanced precariously there. I automatically step forward to look down, and see that the drop is a long one, that there’s concrete below, and nothing to break a fall.
“I’d rather you pushed me,” she says, “than go to the police. You see, I’m not afraid—I’m exhilarated when I think of death—I do like to flirt with it, just as I told you on the memory stick. . . . That bit is true.” She’s swinging back and forth now, recklessly, seeming not to mind that the slightest slip would kill her.
I don’t feel alarmed as I watch her wild movements, her rocking white body; instead I feel comforted. This is the Tilda I recognize, so deeply, like I recognize night or grass or sky, something that would make you die if it was taken away. This is the impulsive, crazy girl, who can mesmerize you whenever she wishes, who will switch from ethereal to intense in a second, who believes that she has a God-given right to be a star.
She laughs as she pulls herself back to safety, clambers back down onto the chair, and the floor, saying, “Well, that’s enough of that! I think you get the point. Now, scoot, Callie, the makeup person will be here soon. Go and chat to Lucas.” She picks up her cotton robe and covers herself, saying again, “Go on!” So I do. I leave her alone so that she can preen and beautify, create the person she so admires.
50