“Freshening up?”
“Freshening up.”
“Oh, yeah,” he sniggered.
“Well?”
“All right, don’t tell anybody this but ... I lost a pie-eating contest,” then he lowered his voice, “to a girl!”
“What?” Oh no ...
“I threw up! It was humiliating.”
“She’s more than just a friend though, isn’t she?”
“Friend? She’s declared herself my nemesis.”
“Nemesis?”
“Yeah, I beat her at Mortal Combat. Now it’s war.”
“You see a lot of her though, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, she’s Barry’s girlfriend.”
Smeg. Fark. Barnacles. And every other swear word that I know.
Gareth hadn’t slept with somebody else. Whilst this was, on one hand, extremely satisfying news, it didn’t change the key fact — the bond of fidelity had been broken. The elastic of loyalty had been snapped — not by Gareth but by me!
Oh no. As certainly as I had known that I could never forgive Gareth for sleeping with Penny, I knew that Gareth would never forgive me for sleeping with Ricky. I had been right, our marriage was over. However, it wasn’t Gareth’s mistake that lowered our relationship into the coffin, it was mine.
* * *
Did I have to come clean? Perhaps I could keep my night with Ricky a secret. After all, some people get away with whole affairs for months and months. Still, I wasn’t ‘some people’. My moral conscience was finely tuned. I felt guilty if I lied about eating the last chocolate biscuit. There was no way that I could conceal a one-night stand from the man I loved. Already I felt that I was looking shifty, staring at the floor and scratching my chin.
“Gareth,” I said softly. Oh no! I was going to confess. Here it comes — verbal diarrhoea — words splashing out inappropriately, soiling the pants of diplomacy, instead of coming out in tactful, controlled pellets.
“What’s the matter Dee-Dee? You’re shaking!”
I wondered if it was the last time he would ever call me ‘Dee-Dee’. Suddenly, I could think of nothing to say — vocal constipation. “Last night I ... when you ... when Penny answered your phone, I thought she was ... I thought you were ...”
“What? Dee, you’re sweating.”
I was sweating. I had shame fever. Remorse perspired from my guilty pores, covering my skin in a moist layer of mortification.
Finally, I managed to explain, “I thought you were sleeping with her.”
He studied me silently for a few moments looking thoughtful. I found it unnerving. Why wasn’t he contradicting me?
“Hang on, did you sleep with her?”
“Dee, you can’t ask me that!”
“So you did!”
“You broke up with me, remember, we’re getting a divorce.”
No, we weren’t — we were going through a separation. It’s like the difference between being a goal down at half time and being a goal down at full time. There was potential to turn things around.
“The ref was a long way off blowing the whistle ...”
“Does this mean that you’re having second thoughts?” he asked, brightly.
Oh no! This was excruciating. If it wasn’t for my stupid, pointless work-out session with Ricky, we might have been about to get back together. I was now certain that I wanted reconciliation. Why hadn’t I figured this out yesterday?
I felt tears welling again. Twice in one day? I didn’t know that the human body could cry more than once a day. Was I at risk of dehydration?
“Are you crying?”
“I’ve done something stupid.”
“What?”
“I have to tell you something, but when I do, I want you to remember that all the while that this was happening, I thought you were sleeping with Penny.”
“Dee, you’re scaring me now.”
“Last night, I ... I ... I had sex.”
“What?”
“I had sex with someone.”
“You cheated on me?”
“No! No, I didn’t cheat on you! We’ve broken up, remember?” I cried, imitating his earlier words.
He sprang up, knocking the coffee table with his big feet and sending a shower of Quality Street raining onto the floor like a shimmering euphemism for our marriage. He stormed to the other side of the room and stood, arms folded, glaring at me. “I don’t believe this!”
“I’m sorry.” I wanted to hug him and make it all right, but his usually beige skin was red with rage.
“You whore!”
“That’s a little strong.”
“We’re still married!”
“I thought you were with Penny.”
“Well I wasn’t, was I?”
“No,” I said, softly. Then I remembered something else, “You took your dressing gown!”
“Yes! Because it’s cold at Barry’s. It’s March!”
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have broken our bond of trust on the strength of an assumption. Here I was, playing detective, helping to solve fatal crimes, yet I couldn’t correctly interpret a phone call.
The colour was beginning to return to Gareth’s cheeks but then his eyebrows plummeted into his nose. “Who did you sleep with?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!”
“It doesn’t really.”
“It was Rafe Maddocks, wasn’t it?”
“Give me some credit!”
“Well then, who?”
“Biff.”
“Biff?” He looked puzzled for a few moments. Then his eyes started to relax and he stopped glaring at me. Was the identity of the mystery sausage-stuffer somehow good news?
That was when I remembered that Gareth thought Biff was dead. He clearly thought that I was still stoned. Oh no! Now I was going to have to disappoint him a second time!
It’s bad enough having to tell your husband that you’ve slept with somebody else, but it’s even harder when you then have to tell him that your bed partner is alive.
“Biff isn’t dead anymore!”
“Well, I should hope not!” laughed Gareth. He came back over to the sofa and sat down next to me. He picked up an orange creme from the floor and passed it to me. I declined. Even though I really fancied some sugary goodness, it seems like a social faux pas to accept chocolate from a man whose heart you are about to break for a second time.
“No, I mean really. This is real. I’m not delusional.” I wondered how I could prove to Gareth that I was sober. For some reason I decided that patting my head and rubbing my stomach was a good demonstration.
“What are you doing?”
“Could I do this if I was stoned?”
“Probably,” he said, as he watched me mess up the trick.
“Look, I’m not stoned. Biff really is alive. Well, he’s not called Biff in real life, he’s an actor called Ricky. I couldn’t believe it at first either, but I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”
Gareth’s jaw slowly dropped as the news sank in. He shook his head slowly from side to side, as though denial would protect him.
“He’s in a film by the production team that are making Montgomery’s film, that’s how I found him.”
“This is big, Dee.”
“I know! It sheds a whole new light on the entire mystery. For a start, we can’t trust any of the writers.”
“I meant for our marriage!”
“Oh,” I muttered, “right.”
We were silent for some time. I looked at the floor, my nose began to drip. Those tears are troublesome things. I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose, wishing that the overwhelming sense of shame could also be deposited on a tissue and thrown away.
Was love really such a fragile thing that one stupid night could extinguish it? I still loved Gareth. In fact, a few minutes of bumping uglies with somebody else had shown me just how much I cared about him.
“I still love you.”
“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?�
��
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“You’ve slept with someone else.”
“Well, you’ve slept with someone else.”
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes, Anne.”
“That was before we got together!”
“Even so, we moved past it.”
“Dee, that’s not the same thing at all.”
“If you knew how soulless the sex was, how lacking in passion ...”
“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled. It was so unusual for Gareth to lose his temper that I shrank away from him in shock. “Sorry,” he said quickly, gently raising his hand to offer a comforting arm pat, but thinking better of it. He said, “I didn’t mean to ... I just don’t want to hear about ... how it went down.”
“Oh, I didn’t go down.”
“Dee!” he cried, blocking his ears with his fists. “Hang on, you didn’t?”
“No!” I said, finally saying something I could be proud of. “And I didn’t feel anything either. It was just revenge — pointless revenge.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything!”
“I know that now.”
“Is this what will happen every time I go to a pie-eating contest or let somebody else use my phone?”
“No, of course not!”
There was more silence. Gareth got up again and paced angrily around the room. Then he delivered five words that shattered my insides: “We should get a divorce.”
My body felt like an empty case, with the fragmented mosaics of my internal organs heaped where my stomach used to be. “Don’t say that!”
“How could you do this to me, Dee?” His eyes were red and sore.
“We can work this out.”
“I don’t think we can.”
He was quiet again, but he kept pacing — big, angry steps. The carpet became the unwitting third victim.
I’d messed everything up. Gareth was the love of my life and now, thanks to a stupid, foolish mistake, he couldn’t even look at me.
Finally, he spoke. “What kind of guy pretends to be dead?”
“He was in serious debt!” I said, defending him more than I meant to. “I mean, yeah, what a prick. Dawn and Montgomery paid him. They paid him ten thousand pounds.”
“What?”
“And get this — after I’d gone, they told the others the truth. Annabel, Rafe and Danger knew that Biff wasn’t really dead. They’ve known for weeks!”
“Seriously?”
“Yes!”
“Biff could be lying. I don’t trust the guy.”
“Nope, he’s definitely alive. He’s got a pulse!”
“Dee! I don’t want to know!”
“Can you just stop sniping at me for one moment? We may be able to save two lives if we can figure this out.”
“Like I care!” he yelled.
“Gareth,” I said softly, “you do care.”
He thought about it for a moment and I could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain. Some minds are so inquisitive that nothing can stop them whirring. “So, if we are to believe what Biff said, Dawn and Montgomery hired him to pretend to die, and the others knew about it?”
“Not at first, they found out after I left.”
“After you left?” he repeated, sounding as though something was falling into place.
“Why’s that significant?”
“They told only the people who stayed!” he said, getting more excited. “They told only the people who agreed to cover up his ‘death’!”
“But Annabel and Rafe didn’t agree with ... Oh, hang on, I only have their word for that.”
“Well it’s obvious what’s going on, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” he said. Then he folded his arms and closed his mouth. He sat there, saying nothing, deriving a smug satisfaction from keeping the solution from me.
“What’s obvious?”
“Duh!”
“Gareth!”
He smirked to himself.
“Gareth, two more people could die. What’s obvious?”
“All right, keep your harlot hair on.”
“Gareth!”
“All right, I’ll explain very slowly ...”
“Why? I’m not stupid. He didn’t literally shag my brains out!”
I knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as I’d said it. I didn’t even know why I had. Gareth’s lips pressed together in anger. He glared at me.
“Sorry.”
“Once I’ve explained the blindingly obvious, I’m done with you. Agreed?”
Ouch! He didn’t mean that, surely? I said nothing. How could I? I wasn’t going to agree to let him walk away, but I needed to know what he’d worked out.
“All right?” he demanded.
“Just tell me! Don’t you want to stop the killer?”
“Okay, fine. Biff’s death was a test. They wanted to see who had the mentality to cover up a murder.”
“Oh my God!”
“Copying the stories was Dawn and Montgomery’s plan all along. But they couldn’t do it alone. Clearly they couldn’t just ask people to take part — far too risky. And so, they devised a plan to determine which people would be prepared to do anything, even pervert the course of justice, for their own ends.”
“My God!”
“The more people they could get on board, the easier it would be to get away with it. I mean, neither of us considered the possibility that there were five copycats. This way, they all have alibis coming out of their ears, for most of the acts.”
“So even Annabel was in on it?”
“Yes!”
“But Dawn wrote about a pig falling off a cliff, and Montgomery wrote a murder. Surely they wouldn’t have written about such heinous things if they knew they were going to act them out?”
“The more heinous the crimes, the more media exposure ...”
“And the more book sales!”
“Exactly!”
“Oh my God! You’re right!”
Gareth’s explanation made perfect sense. Dawn and Montgomery were seasoned indies. They knew how hard it is to get ahead in self-publishing. They knew that without drastic action, the anthology would never sell more than a few dozen copies, if even that. So they must have identified the most suitable accomplices for their plot, and then started grooming them. At first they got their minions to commit relatively small acts of criminality and then slowly built up to murder.
While Dawn and Montgomery had been sunning themselves in Spain, their cronies had been lugging gnomes, stealing pigs and placing a foot. I had to wonder where they got the foot from now that I could be categorically sure that it wasn’t Biff’s.
Then, the leaders came back to Britain in time for the kill. Actually — that didn’t fit. Gareth’s theory could not be right. Dawn and Montgomery had been engaged in Rafe’s Skype chat at the time of Amanda Kenwood’s murder. Many Kindle fans would be able to confirm it.
“It can’t be the writers. They all have alibis for Amanda’s murder.”
“They can’t have.”
“They do! Danger was with me. You saw Annabel at that bar. The rest were in a Skype chat.”
“Did you take part in the Skype chat?”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Then how can you be sure?”
“I’m not, but we can check! It was recorded! We can watch it on the forum.”
“Well, let’s do that!” he cried.
We hurried over to my computer desk and both tried to perch our butts on the stool at the same time. For a second, I balanced on his lap. Perhaps we would share a brief moment of intimacy — reunited by our shared need for furniture. Instead he shifted, sending me crashing to the floor.
“Was that absolutely necessary?”
“I thought you liked to be on your back.”
“It was one night. Not even a night — I left before sunrise.”
“Oh classy, Dee, really classy.”
“S
o, what? Would you have preferred it if I had stayed the night? Worked a double shift? Would you have liked that, huh?”
“Let’s just watch the video.”
We located a thread called ‘The Rafe Corner’, which was both alarming and hideous in equal measure. It was full of photos of Rafe Maddocks draped over expensive cars, leaning against bookcases and, in one case, reading Disgracebook in the bath.
“You should have slept with Rafe; look what you’re missing!” said Gareth. He made a joke! Were we at the stage where we could laugh about this already?
“Perhaps I’ll do him next,” I quipped back.
Daggers shot from Gareth’s blue eyes.
“That would be a ‘no’ then?”
The video opened in a little window on the screen. Rafe appeared, dressed in a dark green velvet suit and taupe scarf. He grinned into a webcam. I wondered if he’d had his teeth whitened for the occasion. The camera contorted his face, giving him a cumbersome nose and a receding chin. The comical distortion outweighed any slight benefits the dental work might otherwise have achieved.
“Good evening!” said a self-important, middle-class voice, evoking the smell of overpowering cologne.
“Yes! Yes!” said the same voice. “I’m glad I’m here too!”
Then he laughed.
“I was waiting for somebody to ask that!” he said.
Then he groomed his hair.
“Well, it all began when ...”
Gareth hit pause.
“Where are the people asking the questions?” I asked.
“It looks as though it’s just a capture from Rafe’s webcam and mic.”
“Why didn’t they record everybody’s feed?”
“Perhaps they did. Perhaps Rafe was the only one on camera.”
“Oh! Of course! The others type. That’s how it works. One person comes on camera, and everybody else types questions for them!”
“So Dawn and Montgomery might not have been using Skype at all? It could have been anybody logged in using their accounts!”
“We’ve cracked it, Gareth! We’ve cracked it!”
I saw him contemplate a high five. His hand jiggled mid-air, then he quickly retracted it.
“I’ve got to call the police!” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
“I still can’t believe that I’m the only one who left the island.”
“I can.”
“Really?”
“Those people are arrogant, single-minded idiots who will do anything to sell their books, and you, well you’re ...” he trailed off.
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