Marcus pressed ‘pause’ on the laptop and turned to Karla.
‘What is he about to say?’
The only sound in the room was of Felicity’s gentle sobbing, Miranda’s arm around her shoulders.
Karla’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I couldn’t have saved her, there was nothing I could have done. She was dead.’
‘What did you do, Karla? What are we about to hear?’
‘You already know I found Erica’s body, I was the first one to find her. She was dead, I swear.’
‘So why is he talking about you again?’
Karla took a deep breath.
‘I ran over to her body, I looked up but I didn’t see anyone there. I panicked – it was my house, my tree house. I thought about what health and safety would say – I saw that Erica had brought non-alcoholic wine with her and I didn’t know that it had been swapped.’ She said the last bit without looking at Miranda, not wanting to seem accusatory. She needed them on her side, needed them to believe her.
‘What. Did. You. Do?’
Karla’s face paled. She looked at Felicity imploringly. ‘I had to make it look like it was her fault, not ours. I thought it was an accident, I just quickly swapped her shoes with mine, flung one up onto the top rung. I had Marcus’s hoodie on, his cigarettes were in the pocket, so I shoved them into her bag – it was at the foot of the tree house, like she’d left it there before she climbed up, so I put the strap round her ankle. I just wanted it to look like she’d been smoking and got her heel caught. I didn’t kill her.’
‘Put the podcast back on.’
‘I can’t listen to this any more.’ Felicity stood up sharply and swayed.
Marcus grabbed her arm. ‘We have to hear this. Put it on, Karla.’
Karla shook her head so Marcus turned and clicked ‘play’.
Karla rushes out to find the body of her friend, her neighbour – and the only person who knew the truth about the lies she and her husband had been telling – lying crumpled on the floor. Was she dead at that moment? Only Karla Kaplan knows that, and she will have to live with that knowledge. And upon finding, presumably, the first dead body she’d ever seen, Karla Kaplan does what Karla Kaplan does best. She calmly and coldly takes off her friend’s heels and tosses one onto the top step of the tree house. Then she places the other by Erica’s foot, to look as though it has fallen off. She plants cigarettes in Erica’s bag and removes her phone. Scrolling through a phone that Erica should have known better than to leave unlocked, Karla deletes the messages between Erica and Samantha Burgess, replaces the phone and composes herself. Then, she lets out a blood-curdling scream and runs back into the house.
So, how did Erica end up at the foot of the tree house?
69
It was eleven thirty on the evening of the 28th of October, 2017.
Felicity gasped. ‘That’s him! That’s Tristan.’
‘How is that even possible?’ Miranda whispered. ‘He’s dead.’
‘He scheduled the podcast,’ Felicity replied. ‘That’s why there was never anything about Mary-Beth’s disappearance – he’d already recorded them all.’
‘Ssshh!’ Karla hissed. ‘We’re missing it. Rewind it.’
It was eleven thirty on the evening of the 28th of October, 2017.
I was at home in my bedroom, trying to find anything I could do to stop myself crossing the road and joining the Kaplans’ Halloween party. The invitation had been open, after all, to everyone in Severn Oaks – why should that exclude me? I’ll tell you why – Erica.
I know how most of you feel about Erica. Did you know that she knew too? She would tell me about how you would laugh when you thought she wasn’t listening, make sarcastic comments about her involvement in the school and the community. None of you minded her taking the responsibility off your shoulders, though, did you? If any of you had bothered to get to know her properly, you would know that the real Erica was wickedly funny, caring and deeply insecure – not that any of you bothered to find that out. That was how our relationship started, three years ago, when I found her clearing up rubbish from the street party after the rest of you had all sloped off to bed. And from there our relationship deepened.
They say that you always hurt the ones you love, and my relationship with Erica was no different. There were times when she denied how much she loved me, but she would always come back – you can’t separate true lovers. We were ‘until death do us part’.
By the time of the Kaplans’ Halloween party our relationship was at an impasse. Erica told me to stay away and I was respecting her wishes – even if I was sitting on my hands to stop myself calling her.
Across the street I could just make out the platform that led to the Kaplans’ infamous tree house. Infamous before the party because of the cost – afterwards, for other reasons.
I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t seen Erica on the platform of the tree house that night? If I’d just popped to the toilet or gone to get myself a drink? If I’d gone out with my mates instead of staying in sulking because I knew she was there with her husband? Doesn’t matter, I can’t turn back time. And I can’t forget seeing Felicity Goldman follow her up there.
‘You went up there?’ Karla moved towards Felicity. ‘Are you going to need a lawyer after we listen to this? Should I call him now?’
Felicity buried her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know. I’m so sorry.’
‘What happened?’
‘Mary-Beth was so upset by that game of Truth or Dare. I just wanted to make her feel sorry.’ Felicity looked up at the group imploringly. ‘I just wanted her to stop being such a bitch.’
‘So you dropped her fifteen feet over the edge? That stopped her,’ Alex remarked.
Miranda shot him a warning look.
‘I didn’t push her.’
‘Screw this!’ Alex reached over and pressed ‘play’. ‘I want to know what he’s got to say about what happened.’
70
I admit I was curious. What were Felicity and Erica doing in there? Was it some kind of game? We already know Erica had sustained a head injury thanks to her hostess – although I didn’t know that at the time. So I watched. I waited ten minutes to see Felicity emerge from the tree house alone. She started down the steps and hesitated. Bending down, she ripped the loose plank of wood from the top of the stairs and rammed it under the door of the tree house, effectively locking Erica in.
‘Why did you lock her in there?’
No one had taken their eyes off Felicity as the man they now knew to be Tristan had spoken.
Felicity tried to look defiant.
‘She was drunk. She was being unreasonable, she wouldn’t listen! I was just going to get Mary-Beth, or Jack maybe, to take her home. I didn’t think she’d . . .’
‘Bullshit,’ Alex countered. ‘You were teaching her a lesson.’
‘Fine! Maybe, yes,’ Felicity looked around at them all, ‘but you have to realise I didn’t know she was going to run at the door, I didn’t know she was going to fall. But she did, and it was my fault.’
Karla wrapped her arms around her best friend as Felicity said the words she’d been trying to say for nearly a year.
She had killed Erica Spencer.
71
At this point I was worried, of course I was. Erica was locked inside the tree house and, for all I knew, Felicity was going to set fire to it. I know Erica had told me to stay away – but surely she didn’t mean it now, when her life was in danger?
The Kaplans’ back gate was unlocked – this is Severn Oaks, after all – and when I opened the door of the tree house I expected her to at least be grateful.
‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed. ‘I thought I told you to stay away tonight. What if Jack sees you?’
‘The door was jammed,’ I stuttered. ‘I came to see if you were okay.’
Erica let out a laugh. ‘Fucking Felicity,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t want me getting t
o Mary-Beth before the party’s over. Doesn’t want Peter’s little secret coming out.’
‘What secret?’
‘Never mind.’ She was still smiling, but it wasn’t her usual smile. It was sly and secretive and I didn’t like it.
‘You’re drunk,’ I said.
‘Am not!’ Erica tried to get to her feet and stumbled. ‘Whoops! I’m not even drinking.’ She put a hand to her head, where I saw blood.
‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’
She snorted unattractively. ‘Karla Kaplan, that’s what happened. Wants the whole world to know her business, as long as it’s the bits she chooses. I just invited an extra guest and she went mad. Clobbered me with a picture frame! I bet the papers would have a field day with that information. Maybe that’s why my head is spinning.’
She touched a hand to the drying blood on her temple, smearing it across her forehead, then grabbed onto the wall to steady herself. ‘You have to get out of here. I can’t risk Jack seeing you and asking questions.’
Bloody Jack again. Always so concerned about Jack finding out.
‘Why don’t you just tell him about us, Erica? What are you so afraid of?’
She looked at me then like she was seeing me clearly for the first time. Then she said the words that sealed her fate.
‘There is no us, Tristan.’ She pushed past me to the door. ‘You’re being ridiculous. Did you really think I was going to leave my husband and family for you? What, am I going to come and live down the road in the bedroom of your parents’ house? Me, you and the baby – a proper family in your mum and dad’s spare room.’
She laughed to herself but I could only hear her words ‘me, you and the baby’.
‘You’re pregnant? Is it mine?’
I won’t ever forget the horrified look on her face. She’d said too much.
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course it isn’t yours. It’s Jack’s, my husband’s. Do you honestly think I’d be so stupid as to have your baby, Tristan? You’re just a baby yourself.’
‘But you said—’
‘Forget what I said,’ she snapped. ‘Forget it all. I told you, it’s over. Leave me alone.’
She turned to walk out of the door, not realising that the top step Felicity had used to jam the door was missing. I’d like to say I reached out to grab her to stop her falling – I’m sure that’s what it was. But she tried to push me away, she didn’t even want me to touch her.
‘Look at you,’ she said, disgust dripping from her lips. ‘So desperate. Just like that day at the river, begging me not to leave you, threatening to kill yourself if I walked away. I should have left you in the river, I should have let you drown. You’re pathetic.’
And that’s when I pushed her.
72
Everyone sat in absolute silence until those words.
And that’s when I pushed her.
Karla let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand as though she was going to be sick. Small, silent tears fell down Felicity’s cheeks. Miranda stared at the laptop as though it might blow up.
‘Did any of you know?’ Marcus asked, looking between the three women. ‘About Erica and Tristan? That she was using that, that kid ?’
‘He wasn’t a kid,’ Alex interjected before Miranda could reply. ‘He was old enough to know what he was doing, what he’d done.’
‘He was vulnerable,’ Marcus snapped. ‘You heard him, he tried to kill himself because of her! Did you know?’
‘I did,’ Karla admitted quietly. ‘At the time, when she pulled him out of the river. I heard her and Jack arguing about it at the time – he was asking her what she was doing down there with him in the first place – he basically accused her of having an affair.’
‘And you didn’t tell me? I thought we told each other everything.’
Karla shrugged. ‘I thought I did.’
‘Well, you didn’t! Don’t you think someone should have put a stop to it – someone should have done something? He’s dead, for God’s sake!’
‘Oh yeah . . .’ Karla raised her voice – something the others had never heard her do to her husband. ‘Because I knew he was going to push her out of our tree house and then kill himself! It was none of my business.’
‘I suspected,’ Miranda whispered. ‘Alex too. They weren’t always exactly discreet. But I didn’t know he’d tried to kill himself in the river – I thought it was an accident. Honestly, I don’t see what we could have done.’
‘Don’t any of you get it?’ Marcus looked between them. ‘We are supposed to be friends. All these bloody picnics and street parties – what do they even mean if none of us are willing to actually look out for one another? To get to know each other properly?’
‘That’s what he’s been saying all along,’ Felicity agreed quietly. ‘We all put on a show of being a safe community but when put to the test we all just looked after number one.’
‘Didn’t you hear what he actually said?’ Alex looked confused. ‘He killed Erica. Not Miranda with the alcohol or Karla with the picture frame or Felicity jamming that door. None of us killed Erica.’
‘He wasn’t saying that at all,’ Felicity whispered. ‘He’s been saying it all along. We were all responsible in some way. We all killed her.’
73
‘Sir, we’ve had a strange call to the hotline. About five minutes ago. They said Mary-Beth King can be found where she was left.’
‘Mary-Beth can be found where she was left. What does that mean?’ DS Harvey looked around at his team, his eyes falling on DC Allan who was staring at him, a hardness in his face. Damn the bloody trainee who had been right all along, who had pushed and pushed at him to reopen the Erica Spencer case, who had had the audacity to question his judgement, knowing that in his position he would have done the same. In fact, he had done the same, hadn’t he? But under pressure from a senior officer he had shoved his suspicions to one side, done as he was told. It was all any of them could do.
But DC Allan hadn’t changed his mind completely. In fact, he’d increased the pressure, if anything – okay, so he hadn’t gone over Harvey’s head, but in his own quiet way he’d stuck to his guns. Which was more than could be said for Harvey.
‘The campsite,’ Allan said, as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. Heads around him began to nod. ‘That was the last place she was seen – the taxi driver said he dropped her there.’
‘We don’t know that was her. We searched the campsite – there was no sign of her.’
‘We were looking for a runaway woman, not an abductee,’ Allan argued. ‘We could have spoken to Patterson using a different name, for all we know – Mary-Beth could have been tied up in the bedroom.’
‘If I send all my resources down there and we’re looking in completely the wrong place . . .’ Harvey let his words trail off. He knew that the campsite was the only lead they had, he just didn’t want to admit it. Because he knew the truth: if he hadn’t been so bloody-minded, so desperate not to connect Erica Spencer’s death and the podcast to Mary-Beth’s disappearance, they might not have been treating the missing woman like a runaway when they searched the campsite. They might have found her back then – Tristan Patterson might still be alive.
‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘Get every available unit down there and search the whole place. Every caravan and building. And pray to God that you’re right, and we find her in time.’
74
The thick, guilty silence was broken by a hammering on the front door.
‘Where have you been? Did you hear it?’
Peter nodded. ‘I had it on my phone in the car. The police called me as soon as it finished.’ He walked straight through to the Kaplans’ kitchen and spoke directly to Felicity. ‘They’ve had a tip-off, they’re going back to the campsite, I’m going to meet them there.’
‘I’ll come,’ Felicity offered, standing up. Her knees buckled. What if she . . .?
‘You stay here,’ Peter instructed sharply.
Karla wondered why she hadn’t seen the parental relationship between them sooner. The way he had been with her, always so worried, always upset when the twins were ill, the protective father – just Felicity’s father, not Mollie and Amalie’s.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as she’s safe. It’s a good job that bastard is dead, otherwise I’d kill him myself.’
He stalked from the room, followed by the remaining voices of the Severn Oaks Six and Alex telling him to drive safely, they hoped Mary-Beth was okay. Karla crossed the room to Marcus, who took her in his arms. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
‘He was just a kid,’ she whispered.
‘Mum!’ Brandon practically ran into the kitchen and into his mother’s arms. ‘Are you okay?’
Karla nodded. ‘Is your brother okay up there with the twins? Did he hear any of it?’
‘I had my headphones in. What’s going on with Peter? He almost knocked me over.’
‘The police have had a tip-off. They’re going back to the campsite. I hope to God they’re right.’
‘Do you think she’s going to be okay?’ Felicity looked at each of them in turn, but no one was able to meet her eye. ‘I mean . . .’ She took a huge sniff and Miranda grabbed a box of tissues from the kitchen counter and pushed them towards her. ‘Thanks. God knows how long Tristan’s been dead for. He can’t have been keeping her safe or fed in that time. She might have starved to death.’
‘We have to try not to think about that. It might not have anything to do with Tristan, we don’t know. She still might have run away.’
‘But he killed Erica .’
A flash lit up the street behind the back fence.
‘Wait – did anyone else just see that?’
Alex nodded. ‘Like lightning.’
Karla and Marcus both sprang into action. Karla rattled the patio door handles. ‘Locked,’ she confirmed. Marcus pressed a switch and all the blinds inside the windows closed. He stalked through the utility room while Karla checked the front door.
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