Make sure you message me once you have news.
Howard scowled at his phone, wishing Fern St Clair would get swallowed up by a giant hole. The woman was getting on his nerves and had already sent three other messages since he had left her house last night, seeming unconvinced that he would do as instructed and make contact with Gary’s girlfriend.
She was right to doubt him. Howard had left Fern’s with no intention of seeing her or Janice again, and certainly had no plan to contact Rita Works. But then he had arrived home to find the door of his flat ajar, the lock clearly tampered with. From what he could see, nothing had been stolen, none of the furniture even disturbed, but then he had gone into the bathroom and found the word ‘murderer’ written on the mirror in red paint, and he had nearly shit himself.
His first instinct had been to call the police, but then he had stopped and thought about what Fern and Janice had said. Although he had disagreed with them at the time, had been certain the police would shrug off what they had done, the word ‘murderer’ worried him. What if Janice was right? What if they did go to jail? The thought filled Howard with dread and he decided he couldn’t take the risk of involving the police.
He toyed with messaging Fern, but the woman was already crazy and controlling. This would only encourage her with her deluded plans to find out who was harassing them.
Instead he had spent half an hour scrubbing at the offending word until the paint was finally gone. He couldn’t risk Daisy showing up and seeing the graffiti. It would invite too many questions. Besides, it was too early on in their relationship. Finding out her new boyfriend was being accused of murder would only scare her off and he didn’t want that, especially since they had their first romantic getaway booked for later this week.
Daisy wanted to spend some quality time together and it hadn’t taken much to persuade Howard to book a log cabin with its own hot tub. He figured it could be her Christmas present. That would save him the worry of what the hell to buy her.
The timing of this whole situation was bloody inconvenient. And more than a little stressful, he concluded, glancing at his reflection in the mirror and frowning when he spotted a white hair in his eyebrow. He used tweezers to pluck the offending hair, brushed his teeth and moisturised, aware self-care was important, especially now he was in his thirties.
He had gone to sleep hoping to dream of Daisy in her bikini in the hot tub, but instead his dreams were filled with Fern and Janice and Gary, and he had woken in a foul mood to a message from Fern reminding him of what he was supposed to do.
Now as he sat at his work desk, reading her latest message, he resigned himself to the fact he was backed into a corner. He was going to have to go along with her plan.
He logged on to Facebook, clicked on to Gary’s profile and found Rita in his friends list. Opening up a message, he debated what to write, toyed again with not bothering to send anything, figuring he could lie to Fern and pretend he had if she asked. But then what if she wanted to see it?
No, he would have to do this.
Hi Rita. Sorry to hear about Gary. We went back a long way. I don’t suppose we could meet up for a chat? Howard.
There. Keep it casual. Hope she didn’t read too much into it.
He hit send, part of him hoping she wouldn’t see it or respond. I mean what the hell was he supposed to say to her if she did agree to meet him? Did Gary mention anything about this bad thing we did when we were fourteen years old?
This was stupid. Rita Works was not going to be able to give them any answers and Howard was wasting his time contacting her.
Still, he fired a message back to Fern, knowing she would just keep pestering him if not.
I messaged her and asked if we could meet. Will let you know if I hear anything.
He read through the message, amending if to when, then hit send.
Hopefully the bloody woman would leave him alone now.
Janice wasn’t getting anywhere with her attempts to track down Rachel Williams.
She had volunteered for the task, hoping to score brownie points with Fern, convinced finding their old friend would be easy, but instead she kept hitting brick walls.
Her first attempt had been to hunt through all of the profiles belonging to people called Rachel Williams on Facebook, but there were so many, it was a daunting task. It had taken ages to send messages to each one who looked like a plausible option. A handful of the Rachels pinged back straight away and she crossed them off the list, but most of the messages were still unread.
While she waited for more replies, she scoured her friends list for anyone who might have known Rachel, figuring she would find out if they were still in touch. The problem was Rachel had gone to a different school, lived in a different county. Janice, Fern and Howard had only met her during that one trip, and, although they had been bound by the secret they shared, none of them actually knew her well at all.
Still, Janice gamely continued with her quest, pinging off messages to the handful of friends she had gone to school with and who had been on the trip, asking them if they remembered Rachel.
Again it was a dead end. Not a single person could help.
Google offered nothing and neither did any of the other social media sites. Janice even went back as far as her Myspace account in her attempts to find her. It was as if Rachel Williams hadn’t existed.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, frustrated. Fern was going to kill her if she didn’t come up with the goods, especially after she had bragged about being good at finding people. There had to be a way to track the woman down.
Then she had an idea. She had tried her own school friends, but what about Rachel’s? There had been other kids from her school on the trip and they would have known Rachel better. Perhaps some of them were still in touch.
The next hour was spent wracking her brain, vainly trying to remember the names of the kids on the trip. Rachel and Kelly had been the only two who had hung out with Fern’s group, the other kids sticking to their own friends. She remembered a couple of their first names, but that wasn’t going to help her find them on Facebook.
On a whim she typed the name of the school into the search bar. Most schools had a page and maybe she would recognise the names of some of the followers.
That was how she found Julie Voorhees, remembering instantly as she saw the name that Fern had taken the piss out of the girl because she shared a surname with the killer from the Friday the 13th movies. She sent Julie a message, explaining that she was trying to get in touch with Rachel Williams and asking if they were still in contact.
Julie’s reply came within ten minutes, abruptly ending Janice’s search.
They hadn’t really stayed in touch, but she did know through local gossip that Rachel Williams had become Rachel Colton, though the marriage had been short-lived. She also knew that Rachel had passed away after she was involved in a fatal accident.
A car accident, Julie told Janice, though she was unable to offer any further details.
It was with the name change that Janice was eventually able to find a handful of local news reports on Rachel’s death.
A car accident was correct, though it wasn’t as Janice was expecting. There hadn’t been any other vehicles involved and the car had actually been stationary, sitting in the driveway at the time when it caught fire. In what reports claimed was a freak accident, Rachel Colton had been unable to free her seat belt, burning to death inside the vehicle.
Janice started hyperventilating. This was bad. Kelly, Gary and Rachel were all dead and they had all died in fires.
She needed to tell Fern.
Tracking down Olivia Blake was easier than Fern had anticipated. They had once been the best of friends, but things had abruptly changed after the accident and the two of them hadn’t seen each other in years.
Olivia had a Facebook page and they shared a handful of mutual friends. Sending a message wouldn’t work though. They had parted on bad terms and chances were, Olivia wouldn’t read, certainly wouldn’t respond, to any messages Fern sent. Her profile gave nothing away. There were just a few public posts, and there was nothing to suggest where she worked.
Fern knew that Olivia’s mother, Elena, owned The Riverside Inn in Thorpe St Andrew, so figured that was as good a place to start as any.
She wasn’t sure if Elena Blake would recognise her when she entered the restaurant on Tuesday lunchtime, but knew from the instant scowl on the woman’s face that she did.
The place was reasonably busy with half a dozen tables occupied, the delicious aromas hitting Fern’s nose and reminding her she had only had an apple and a muesli bar to eat that day. She toyed with getting a table and treating herself to lunch, but business was business, and she needed to find out where Olivia was. Besides, she didn’t trust Elena to not spit in her food. Instead she made her way to the bar, blinked in surprise when the bartender looked up and she recognised him as Olivia’s brother, Jamie.
He had certainly improved with age, no longer spotty and gangly, instead filled out in all the right places, his Italian heritage clear in his dark eyes and olive skin.
‘Fern St Clair, what a surprise.’ He didn’t sound or look any more pleased to see her than Elena, but they both recognised her, so that was a start.
‘Hello, Jamie. You’re looking well. Long time, no see.’
‘What can I get you?’
No pleasantries, but no insults either. Jamie was sticking to being professional.
Fern made him wait while she perused the drinks menu. ‘I’ll have a glass of dry white wine please.’ She could have just the one, and it was nearly Christmas.
‘Small or large?’
‘Tempting as large is, you’d better make it a small or I will have to leave my car here.’
She attempted a flirtatious wink, but he blanked her, turning to the fridge.
With Jamie working in the inn, she wondered if Olivia was there too, but unless she was out back in the kitchen, it appeared to be just Elena and Jamie manning the place.
‘Well this is a nice little family affair,’ she commented, as he poured the wine. ‘Does your sister work here too?’
‘She helps out occasionally.’ He didn’t make eye contact with her, his tone neutral, though she could tell from his body language that he didn’t particularly like her. Shame, as Olivia’s little brother had suddenly become a lot more appealing.
‘That’s £3.75.’
Fern waved her card over the reader. ‘That’s a shame, as I was hoping to catch up with her.’
‘I doubt she’ll want to see you.’ That was from Elena, who had joined them at the bar. ‘So what brings you here, Fern? Not just a glass of wine, I’m guessing.’
That was Olivia’s mother, straight to the point. She was viewing Fern with the same kind of indifferent dislike that Jamie had, though Elena also seemed curious.
‘I thought maybe we should bury the hatchet.’
‘After all this time?’
Fern decided to lay it on thick. ‘We used to be so close and yes, I get that we haven’t spoken in years, but I’ve done a lot of growing up in that time. Things happen and make you realise life is short. I don’t want–’
‘You know about Livvy’s accident?’
Accident?
Fern managed to keep her expression neutral. Instead of blurting out what accident? she twisted her mouth in what she hoped was a sympathetic smile and asked gently, ‘How is she, Elena?’
‘Cuts and bruises, but she’s okay. I think the shock of finding Gary was the worst bit for her.’
‘I can imagine.’
Thank God she was a good actress, because Fern’s heart was thumping so hard she was surprised Elena and Jamie couldn’t hear it.
Olivia had found Gary Lamb?
She remembered reading that a woman had discovered him, but there had been no name given. There was no way this was a coincidence. Olivia was up to her neck in this.
Was she the one who had been sending the notes?
‘I would really like to see her. I’ve been thinking about her a lot these last few days.’
Elena’s lips twisted as she considered. ‘Why don’t you leave your phone number and I can pass it on to Olivia when we next speak?’
Seriously?
‘I was hoping to surprise her with flowers. Maybe if you could just let me have her address?’
‘Send the flowers here. I can pass them on.’
Realising that she was getting nowhere, Fern left her number, gulped down her wine, and thanked Elena through gritted teeth. Swearing under her breath about the woman, she stepped out of the warm restaurant into the cool December air, pulling her coat a little tighter, as she walked over to her car.
With the engine running, the heater on full, she googled Gary Lamb, looking for any news articles that mentioned the woman who had found him. Olivia’s name wasn’t anywhere, but one of the articles did refer to an estate agent on a viewing being the one to discover him. Further googling eventually revealed the name of the estate agent the property had been listed with.
Dandridge & Son. So that was where Olivia worked. Fern knew where their office was. Finally, she was getting somewhere.
She glanced at her watch, saw that she needed to head back to work, but that was okay: she would head down there after she had finished.
Despite Elena’s reluctance to give up her daughter’s location, the lunchbreak had been more productive than she could have hoped. Not only did she now know where Olivia worked, she had also learnt her former friend had found Gary’s body.
It was time to figure out what the hell Olivia was up to.
