‘A toast!’ they cry, as Nicole sits down. ‘Pick up your drinks everybody!’
Nicole’s face contorts, and she spits her wine out, deep red dribbling onto her dress, dark as blood.
As the men snigger into their hands, Nicole’s composure breaks and she runs from the table. Freya looks away. The pieces don’t fit together, what she just witnessed doesn’t make sense. Julian is the CEO, he would never stoop so low, and Jay is a man who is not only smart, but principled. She tells herself she was mistaken, she erases it from her mind, it is just a moment among moments during a surreal night, a detail that disappears by morning.
Chapter 41
Freya
Two weeks before the murder
Judging by the cool, blue light it is almost dawn. Freya stretches languidly across her bed. The sheets still smell of him and are freshly rumpled from his recent departure. She doesn’t mind, more room to herself. And she gets it. Better for him to shower at his own place and walk to work alone. They have decided to announce their relationship to Julian when they have been dating for nine months. That’s a solid time period. He can’t argue that it’s just a fling. Until then, they play it safe.
Jay loves her, and that is enough for now. The sex is good – she obsesses over it during the day and craves it like a drug – and so is the conversation. She loves how Jay pushes her boundaries, and then gives her a chivalrous little kiss on the forehead and tells her she looks pretty. Sometimes, though, he pushes a little hard. Their light S&M turns into him a little too dominant. She can’t help feeling exposed when he’s gone, like she’s given away something she can’t get back.
She doesn’t have the words for this yet, and hasn’t said anything to her friends. As soon as she steps out of her bedroom door in her rumpled pajamas, they start nagging her for details.
‘Don’t think I didn’t see Jay slouching out of here with his hoodie hiding his face this morning. You two still going strong?’ says Kate. She mutters something under her breath.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Just a little French insult – it means “brute” in English. Just my way of saying that I think you’re too good for him.’
Jasmin stretches her arms high in the air. While the three of them are just waking up, she has already been practicing Ashtanga yoga for the past two hours.
‘Easy, Kate. The only two people who know a relationship are those inside it,’ she says.
Hattie laughs. ‘And those who happen to be trying to sleep in the room next door, separated only by a very thin wall.’
Kate shakes her head. ‘Just remember what a fucking catch you are, OK? If he puts a foot wrong, if he affects your career in any way, he’ll be so sorry . . . The same goes for that bitch Nicole. I’m waiting for her to go one step too far. Sometimes I wonder if she hasn’t done so already.’
‘I don’t need you to swoop in and save me, Kate. I’m a big girl now.’ No matter how hard she tries, she still feels like that poor girl living under Kate’s roof. ‘In fact, I don’t need your scrutiny either.’
‘OK, if you insist.’ She mock-punches the air. ‘But I’m here if you need me.’
Truthfully, Freya is not coping. She has ulcers in her mouth and an ache in her stomach whenever she thinks of walking into the office. Before every meeting with Nicole, she has to run and be sick. Sometimes, when she’s at her lowest, she tortures herself with the reminder that they were together. And while Jay says and does all the right things, and she has never felt so comfortable with another person, a throwaway comment he made last night worries her. Her mind picks at it. They were lying draped over each other, their bodies entwined. Jay was unusually quiet, coiling and uncoiling a strand of her hair around his finger.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked, hating herself for it. No matter how many times they have had sex, his silence afterwards still unnerved her.
‘Not much . . .’
A pause. She rolled closer towards him. He ran his fingers over her collarbone.
‘That’s not much of an answer.’
He flashed his winning smile. ‘Well, what is it you want to know?’
‘Something about the real you.’
Jay nuzzled into her neck. ‘You know the real me! I have never been more real with a woman than I am with you. But OK, let’s be open and tell each other the worst thing we have ever done.’
She laughed. ‘Well, that’s a weird one, but it’s a start, I suppose.’
‘It’s just a bit of fun . . . you tell me yours, then I’ll share mine.’
‘OK, well . . . ’ She had to think hard. Freya wasn’t a ‘bad girl’. She liked rules and structure. It gave her a sense of control. ‘One time I bunked a whole day of high school to go to the beach. It was so obvious I had done it, because I got really sunburned. My foster parents nearly killed me!’ She laughed at the memory. It was a good day, hot and sticky, sweet with soft serve and the scent of coconut tanning oil.
‘We better call the police on this one! We’ve got a real fugitive here!’
‘Stop it, I dare you to come up with something better.’ What she really wanted to say was that someone like her didn’t have the privilege of being bad. Her entire existence was precarious . . . a misstep would have flung her back into the nothingness from which she came. Jay hadn’t shared much about his upbringing, but his sense of ease in the world spoke for itself.
‘I was very bad back in the day.’ He said it slowly, pointedly, as if he wanted her to know.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I even spent some time in a juvenile detention facility, you know, to iron some of the wildness out.’ He spoke without shame, as if it was just another milestone on his journey to adulthood.
She didn’t want to ask, but she heard her voice anyway. ‘What did you do?’
He whispered in her ear. No, it couldn’t be true. How could the person lying naked next to her have been so reckless? Or so cruel?
‘Why?’ she said softly. He had everything going for him. Wealth, looks, a good education, supportive parents. There was no need to turn to crime.
He laughed then, but it sounded dark, dirty, and rusted around the edges.
‘I suppose I did it because I could, because there was something inside me, an urge, that wanted to destroy. You ever feel that way? This feeling of emotional vertigo where everything is perfect, your head starts spinning, you get bored with it all and want to tear it apart?’
No statement could have been further from Freya’s beliefs. She was grateful for everything that came into her life, and spent most of her time agonizing over losing it. At college she was constantly afraid of being kicked out, no matter how many distinctions she got. At her new job, she keeps wondering when they will dismiss her or decide not to renew her contract, no matter how hard she works. To hear these words come out of Jay’s mouth was an insult. It felt as if she had just slept with a stranger. She couldn’t say anything so she kissed him instead, hoping the electricity between them would stun her into forgetting.
Now, it’s morning. She has her cup of coffee and a bowl of warm oats. The sun shines weakly through the window and everything doesn’t feel so bad anymore. Apart from what he said last night, Jay is perfect. No guy has understood her like this before or encouraged her to shine. She’s so used to men shrinking the moment she gets technical about her work, or worse, competing and trying to explain concepts that she knows she has a better handle on. With Jay she doesn’t have to fake her laugh or say, wow, thank you for explaining that to me, I didn’t understand. She doesn’t have to hold in a scream at the end of the day as a man explains the mind-numbing minutiae of his day at work, without caring to ask about her own. She can be herself and more, stretching higher into the future with him by her side. She understands those articles about marriage now, where they say a good relationship is like a partnership.
Every partnership comes with healthy disagreement, she assures herself, it is just one fl
int that causes the spark. Every person comes with baggage. So what if he’s done something wrong . . . it makes him worldly, someone who has lived their life. And he turned it all around to become the person he is today.
She straightens out the rumpled sheets, erasing the signs of his departure. It’s a new day, bristling with promise. Soon she will be at her desk, lost in the excitement of her work, and it will all be forgotten.
Chapter 42
Freya
The day after the murder
Hours pass, achingly slow. Freya wishes she could just go home, eat pizza and forget. She goes to Virginie’s desk for a break.
‘It’s a bit strange, no?’ Virginie says. ‘Nicole never misses a day at work, not if she can help it. What could be so important that she would pass up another opportunity to torture you?’
‘You’re right, what could compete with breaking my self-esteem one chunk at a time?’ Freya smiles. ‘I guess she had a big night. Remember how she was hugging everybody?’
‘Everybody except you . . .’
‘And those dance moves she broke out to Iggy Pop? I didn’t know her hips were capable of that! It would take a day for her to recover from that at least.’
‘Or maybe she hooked up with someone from the office. I’m sure I saw Leonard from Research and Development checking her out. Wouldn’t that be a relief for all of us! I still believe her personality will change if she just had some great sex. Oh. Hi, Jay.’
Jay looks uncomfortable, and nods in Virginie’s direction. ‘Virginie. Good to see you.’ His foot taps the ground. His shoes make a scratching noise on the carpet.
‘Every call to Nicole’s cell has gone unanswered, and she hasn’t looked at WhatsApp. According to WhatsApp, she was last online before midnight yesterday and it’s now past 2 p.m. I think something is very wrong.’
The smile drops from Freya’s face. Trepidation crawls on her skin. This is not good at all.
‘I’m going to go check on her,’ Jay says, throwing on his jacket.
But there is no time. The police stand in a solemn line at reception.
It happens in slow motion. Julian greets the police and escorts them to his office. Freya holds her breath as the scene plays out within the glass walls. Julian stumbles backwards onto his seat. He holds his head in his hands. His secretary runs to the kitchen to get him a glass of water.
Something terrible has happened.
Freya picks up her phone, ignores Jay’s advice and replies to the message:
What do you want from me?
Chapter 43
Isla
Eight days after the murder
Isla is at the station again, attending a press briefing on the coroner’s report. As the lead on the case, Simon is addressing the room of journalists. He looks much more formal than when she last saw him, but the image of him in that silly vest still dances in her mind. That, and what was beneath it . . . She opens her notebook and turns her attention to his presentation.
Simon gestures to the projected slide behind him. ‘As you can see by the angle of the injury on Nicole Whittington’s skull, the impact came from the right-hand side. The person we are looking for is most probably right-handed.’
A journalist from The Times shoots up her hand. ‘Surely that doesn’t narrow it down too much? Most of the world is right-handed.’
Simon pauses. Chews his thumbnail. After an extended silence, he says, ‘You would be surprised. The people who have been linked to Nicole Whittington all share different dominant hands.’
So this might have a bearing on the case. Isla recalls a moment where Julian mentioned he was ambidextrous. ‘Of course he is,’ she whispers to herself.
Simon continues. ‘I cannot divulge who is on our list of suspects at this time, but I will say that some new information has come to light recently, which has shifted our focus to someone new. We are still in the early stages of gathering evidence, but the suspect has both a motive and a criminal record.’
She knew it! Simon suspected Jay as much as Isla did. She wonders if he has found a way to prove it?
The presentation ends, and the group of journalists herd out of the room. Isla stays put, making a few notes while the ideas are still fresh in her mind. Isla is not sure how she is going to pull it off, but she has an idea of how to confirm whether Jay and Nicole interacted more than Jay has let on in his police statement. Because if Jay has hidden the fact that he and Nicole dated, he could be hiding a lot more.
She gets up to leave. But then she hears Simon’s footsteps behind her, and smells the fresh wave of his cologne.
‘Isla – wait!’
‘Great conference, Simon.’
‘Thanks, I was hoping I was going to see you this morning. I brought something for you.’ He rustles through his bag. Several notebooks fall to the ground, as well as a protein bar, and a pair of handcuffs.
‘Your bag is almost as interesting as mine,’ she laughs.
His hand finally emerges, clutching a bright green bottle. ‘Yes! This is what I was looking for! These are really great vitamins. They have everything, see? Vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, all your omegas. You gotta have those omegas.’
Isla stares at him in disbelief, and he blushes. ‘I’m sorry if this is out of turn or anything. I was just in the pharmacy and remembered our discussion about you not feeling so great. You work really hard and I . . . oh, I don’t know . . . I thought I could help.’
She looks around to see if any of the other cops are watching, then leans forward and gives him a hug. His arms squeeze around her tight. A fierce, independent part of her wants to push him away, to reject his help. But then, there is another part that appreciates his open-hearted gestures. Today, she will try a bit harder to be nice.
‘It is not out of turn at all, Simon. It was a lovely thing to do. Thank you.’
Still, her heart feels heavy. This isn’t anything, and it could never work. He is a cop, she is a crime journalist. They are colleagues who work together or are pitted against one another, depending on the story. And besides, he knows far too much about her past. This is not the way romances start, if she was interested in romance in the first place. But his arms feel warm, and the gift was more than lovely – it was the kindest thing anyone has done for her in a very long time.
Chapter 44
Freya
Eight days after the murder
The police came again to extract DNA from every staff member who was at the party that night. One by one, they are led into a meeting room where an officer uses a swab to gather reference DNA from the inside of their cheeks. It’s an unnerving reminder to Freya that there is a criminal investigation underway, and of the uncomfortable pact she and Jay made.
It was such a small thing, as Jay assured her. It probably didn’t matter. But regret itches at the edges of her thoughts. Would it look strange if she ran in and asked the police if she could add to the statement, even though she had sworn that the previous statement was the whole truth?
Her phone vibrates in her pocket. She also failed to mention the barrage of messages she has received over the past few days. How could she possibly explain them without seeming paranoid, and delusional?
Freya can’t afford to make mistakes. She has no safety net. There is no money, no extra padding. Her parents are not in the picture, there is no childhood bedroom for her to camp out in while she gathers her thoughts. If she gets a black mark against her name in the industry, she has squandered her one chance to ever make something of herself. The money she could do without, she has before, but to not be able to use her talent would kill her. If she can’t work anymore, she stands to lose everything.
She glances nervously at Julian, who has just walked out of the meeting room with wild hair and dark circles under his eyes. His police statement took the longest. He can’t find out what she and Jay did. If he does, it’s all over. Her heart thuds as he makes his way towards her. This is it – he’s coming for her.
> ‘Freya, can I talk to you for a minute?’ There is no sentence more dreaded than this one, nothing worse to Freya than the gentle breaking of terrible news.
Can I talk to you for a minute, said the social worker when yet another foster family hadn’t worked out.
Can I talk to you for a minute, said her computer science teacher when her first-year scholarship application hadn’t gone through, leaving her with the sinking realization that she would have to pay every cent of her tuition herself.
In these cases, all that was required was to follow meekly and accept the harsh fate gracefully without putting up a fight. Make the best of the worst situation. Freya can do that today. After all, she’s been through worse.
‘How are you doing?’
She wants to cry. She wants to scream with frustration at herself and the stupid thing she did, all for a guy. That’s what it boiled down to in the end. The animosity between her and Nicole began with Jay, and Freya’s rash actions the other night ended with him. Her temper wouldn’t have flared the way it did if she didn’t care about him so much, if she wasn’t protecting what they have. She remembers Kate’s words of warning, now a prophecy. Men can get away with such indiscretions. The women always end up taking the fall.
Multiple calculations run through her head: If Julian fires her right now, how long does she have to pack up her things and exit the building before security forcefully marches her out? How long will this discussion have to go on in Julian’s office for until people start to notice?
She takes a moment to compose herself and looks at the CEO’s disheveled appearance. He is wearing the same shirt as the day before, and keeps picking up objects from his desk and putting them down again, as if searching for something that he has lost. Why has he not taken a few days’ compassionate leave to recover, like everyone else close to Nicole? She was one of the first to work at Atypical, and didn’t draw a salary for the first year after they set up the business. She was an integral part of designing the company’s social mission. Freya can only imagine how terrible Julian must feel.
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