My Best Friend's Murder

by Polly Phillips

  For a moment, I picture myself in New York, fielding calls from her trendy brownstone. I think of Jules saying Tina still had to be convinced about the beauty-editor role, the shopping list of complaints I get every time I pick up Tilly from nursery and the For Sale sign outside my cramped London flat. How easy it would be to leave all that behind. But then I think of Rich.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Rob sneers. ‘Nothing can compare with the power of the Waverlys, can it?’ He frowns at me then – glossing over the three-week period when he refused to take my calls – he delivers his final comment like it’s a character assassination. ‘Not even your own family.’

  And that’s the last thing he says to me that evening.

  Thirty-Three

  10.05 p.m.

  Rich is curled up on the sofa with a stack of papers in his hands and Missy snuggled next to him, her head on his lap. He dumps the papers on the floor as I come down the stairs. ‘You’re back early.’

  I wiggle out of my heels and slump next to Missy. ‘It wasn’t that much fun.’

  ‘Did something happen?’

  I bury my fingers in Missy’s fur. Where to start? I never talk to Rich about the magazine. I haven’t even told him about the beauty-editor role because I want to save it until it’s official. And he doesn’t know anything about the pregnancy leak. But if I’m honest, neither of those things are what’s really bothering me.

  ‘Do you remember the night you and Izzy got together?’

  Rich does a double take. ‘Not what I was expecting.’

  ‘This might be massively random.’ I have to keep going. ‘And you won’t remember and this probably sounds totally crazy but there was a moment at that house party. We were standing by the rose bushes and you leaned in and I thought there might have been a… that we might have…’

  I break off. I was hoping he’d swoop in and finish my sentence. Instead the silence stretches. He’s obviously fumbling for a platitude to make me feel better. Even if it was just about tonight, that would mortifying. But it’s worse. Izzy was right. I’ve been holding onto a moment that doesn’t exist for the better part of two decades. I scrunch my head down into my shoulders. I don’t think I can ever look him in the face again.

  ‘Of course I remember kissing you,’ he finally says softly. ‘I’d been crazy about you all year.’

  ‘Crazy about me?’ A wash of relief, disbelief hot on its heels. ‘Why?’

  ‘You were smart, funny.’ He ticks the reasons off on his fingers. ‘And you had the biggest boobs in the class.’

  He attempts a roguish smirk. I have to laugh. We’re on a sofa so expensive it has its own insurance policy, two mortgages between us. Rich has a child; he’s a widower, for God’s sake. My best friend’s dead. And still it comes down to boobs. I should hold onto this moment of levity but I can’t help myself. ‘So why—’

  ‘Why did I end up with Izzy?’ His words unconsciously echo Rob’s and my smile fades. ‘There it is. The big question.’ He splays his hands in supplication. ‘I suppose I was flattered. I got swept up. I couldn’t believe someone as good-looking as her was going after me.’ He chuckles. ‘My brothers couldn’t either.’

  I nod, trying to act as if it doesn’t hurt. He sees my face.

  ‘I know that sounds bad but you don’t know what it was like growing up with Charlie and Henry. Everything I did, they’d already done it better. But neither of them had ever gone out with anyone who looked like Izzy.’ He pauses. ‘I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear. But I don’t want to lie to you. Izzy and I did a lot of things wrong in our marriage, first of which was not being honest with each other. I don’t want it to be that way for us.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’ I pick at a cushion cover. ‘It’s probably the last thing you want to talk about.’

  ‘You’re right. It doesn’t feel particularly good remembering the highs and lows of my marriage. But it’s time we had the conversation. If we’re going to do this, that is.’ He flicks a glance at me. ‘Do you want to do this?’

  I’m not sure if he means ‘do I want to have the conversation’ or ‘do I want to do “us”?’ So I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

  ‘Then I guess we’ll do it.’ He lets out a deep sigh and I feel bad for putting him through this. ‘As you know, us becoming a full-blown couple was a foregone conclusion. She’d decided. At first it was amazing. It wasn’t just about the way she looked. We had so much in common and she had this way of making everything seem easy. Sixth form, all the way through uni. Everywhere she went, she just fitted in and, as a result, I did too. Even my own family seemed to like me better when I was with her. It was easy to get hooked.’

  His voice sounds lighter now he’s started talking about her. My stomach twists. I don’t want to see his face while he tells this story. But I’m like one of those drivers who slow down when they pass an accident. I can’t help it. I look at him. ‘I remember.’

  ‘I wasn’t really thinking about the future. Life was one long party. Then I started to realize it was never us on our own; there were always other people around. Like we needed an audience. I’d worked out finance wasn’t for me by then and I’d started to think of jacking it all in. Ditching the job and going travelling; seeing the world. Then she got pregnant.’

  ‘What?’ My mouth must be goldfish wide. Izzy went on the pill a month after she started dating Rich. She had zero tolerance for the accidental pregnancies that occasionally lit up the school switchboard. She was adamant she didn’t want kids until after she was married. This doesn’t fit.

  ‘You didn’t know? But she said she… Of course she did.’ He rubs his forehead. ‘Yup, she got pregnant. She told me her parents would kill her if she had a baby before she got married. There went my plan to see the world.’

  ‘I don’t understand. She never—’

  ‘She lost the baby two days before our engagement party.’ He’s matter-of-fact, like it doesn’t hurt. But he’s squeezing his hands together so tightly all the colour’s leeched out of them.

  I try to temper my expression. I don’t know what to say to this. Izzy wore a pair of blue and white Dolce and Gabbana hot pants to her engagement party and danced on the bar of the trendy club it was held at. And she never mentioned the miscarriage to me in any of the years that followed. Not once.

  ‘I was in by then. I couldn’t leave her. So we got married. She wanted the house, so we got the house. And the crippling mortgage.’ Rich hasn’t noticed the sceptical look on my face. I pull my features back into line. ‘And there was Tilly.’ He breaks into a grin. ‘And she was amazing. I wanted another one straight away! Izzy said she did too – but that we should wait a little while. It got longer and longer. Then she went back to work.’ He pauses. ‘I feel like a total bastard saying this to you…’

  ‘Don’t. I asked the question.’

  ‘I don’t think she ever wanted another kid. After Tilly was born, she made it clear I was a massive disappointment. I couldn’t do anything right. Obviously I wanted what was best for Tills from the get go, but I couldn’t see why she had to have three prams and an interior designer to do her bedroom. None of that crap matters.’ He shakes his head. ‘The nursery’s a case in point. We only signed Tilly up to it because there was a rumour one of the minor royals was going. Now she’s not even happy there.’

  I wonder whether this is the time to raise my concerns about Oak Tree. ‘Maybe you could—’

  It’s like he hasn’t even heard me. ‘Probably a moot point. I doubt I’ll be able to send her there much longer.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He jabs his foot at the papers he was reading. ‘Do you know what these are? Details about voluntary redundancies that HR so kindly sent over. On a Friday night.’

  He looks at me like I’m supposed to get it. I don’t.

  ‘They’re pushing me out, Bec. The department’s tanking and they’re going to pin it on me. If I don’t take
this deal, I’ll probably find myself out on my ear in six months.’

  ‘Is it a bad deal?’

  ‘It’s not a bad deal. It’s just what do I do after the money runs out?’

  ‘Write your book and sell it for millions?’ I try to jolly him up.

  ‘If only.’ He doesn’t even crack a smile.

  ‘Don’t you guys – I mean you – have some family money to tide you over until then?’

  ‘All of Izzy’s money is held in trust until Tilly’s twenty-one. I thought there was a way of getting round it but there’s not. And I’m sure as hell not going to go cap in hand to Mum and Dad if I can help it. I suppose I should start looking elsewhere. I just don’t know if I can bear to.’

  I refuse to let him wallow in self-pity. He’s worth more than that. ‘So what would you do if you could do anything?’

  ‘Win the lottery.’

  ‘Ha ha. I’m serious.’

  ‘So am I.’ At last, the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I mean it. Close your eyes. Do it.’ I take his hands and shake his arms, trying to loosen him up. We did this kind of visualization technique on a team-building day at Flare once. I thought it was new-age bullshit then. I’m hoping paraphrasing it might help now. I’ve got nothing else to offer. ‘Imagine you’re in a vacuum. Let your worries go. You can do absolutely anything; you have no financial pressure, no responsibilities and whatever you choose, you’re not committed to. You just have to try it. What would you do?’

  His forehead is concertinaed with the effort. I watch his eyelids flickering as he thinks it over and I feel a rush of pure affection. I want to look after him.

  ‘Some time this century.’ I give him a gentle nudge in the ribs.

  ‘Maybe I’d teach.’ He opens his eyes. ‘I mean write, obviously, but if my book didn’t work out, maybe.’ He blinks the thought away. ‘Wow, I never thought I’d say that.’

  ‘Then I think you should take the redundancy.’ I surprise us both by saying it.

  ‘Unfortunately I don’t exist in a vacuum.’ He chuckles. ‘Unfortunately life gets in the way.’

  ‘I mean it. You hate what you do. Changing company isn’t going to help. Take the redundancy; buy yourself some time. Finish your book. Look into teaching. Just give it a shot.’

  ‘There is the small matter of paying for things like school fees.’ But I can tell by the pull of his mouth that he’s thinking about it.

  ‘You said yourself Tilly’s not happy at Oak Tree.’

  ‘But all the schools around here are shit. I’d have to pay fees somewhere.’

  ‘So move.’ I shrug.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Sell up. Rent if you have to. Do what it takes.’

  His eyes skate over the sprawling basement room. ‘You wouldn’t miss it?’

  ‘Rich, I don’t even live here.’ My pulse speeds up. This is the perfect opportunity.

  His eyes linger on the double fridge, the gleaming appliances. ‘And you wouldn’t care?’

  ‘Care about what?’

  ‘That I wasn’t pulling in six figures?’

  ‘Rich, I’d lo—like you if you were emptying the bins.’ I backpedal frantically. ‘So what do you think? Are you going to do it? Take the redundancy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d probably have to leave London.’ My declaration has totally passed him by. I don’t know whether to feel pleased or disappointed. ‘Which might not be a bad thing. I feel like people stare at me wherever I go. I’d like to go somewhere where nobody knows me or Izzy.’

  ‘Right.’ Izzy again.

  ‘Could you handle it?’

  ‘Handle leaving London?’ I say it slowly. I want to make sure I understand what he’s asking so I don’t fluff my response.

  ‘I know it’s a big ask, what with work and everything.’

  ‘Not that big.’ Mentally I gloss over the beauty-editor role. There was no guarantee I was going to get it. And we could always move somewhere commutable. Aren’t Surrey and Kent supposed to be packed with decent schools? ‘I could use a change.’

  Rich’s dimples widen as he grins at me. ‘You’d really pack up and leave it all behind?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you do when you believe in someone?’ I take a punt. He’s basically just asked me to move in with him, after all.

  ‘I guess I’m not used to it.’

  ‘You better get used to it.’ This time I push past Izzy. Enough moments have been about her. Not this one too.

  ‘I guess that settles it.’ Rich says it as casually as if we’ve decided on nothing more than a dinner menu. ‘We’re moving. Oh and Bec? I’d lo—like you if you were emptying the bins too.’

  Thirty-Four

  Monday 3 June

  4.00 p.m.

  I unwrap a blue and white porcelain mug and pop it on the counter next to its twin. Izzy and I bought them together in an Emma Bridgewater sample sale years ago. I wasn’t sure whether to pack them but I had to bring something. So few of my other things have made the trip; the balding removals guy even made a joke about how little work he’d done when he took my money (he still took it though). I look for a cupboard to put them in. Most are covered with a film of dust and leftover sugar particles and the door’s hanging off the one next to the fridge. That’s the problem with rentals; people don’t look after them. The kitchen’s stuffy too, like it’s been shut up a while. I tell myself it won’t be long before we’re putting down real roots. Especially now we’ve said we love each other.

  But I feel more tense than I thought. It must be the pace this move has happened at. Someone called to arrange a viewing within an hour of the estate agent hammering the For Sale sign to Rich’s gatepost and because he wasn’t in a chain, things moved fast. Mine and Ed’s flat took longer but we knocked the price down and a childless couple who’d viewed it three times made a lowball offer in the end. A ‘distressed’ sale, isn’t that what they call it? They’ll think they’ve got the bargain of the century. Until they have to deal with the persistent damp in the bathroom and the terrible water pressure.

  One of the removals team must have had a cheeky fag in here while they were unpacking for us – I can taste cigarettes in the air. I haven’t had one since my engagement party. Standing outside with Rich. I could use one now. It’s more rural here than I thought it would be. When Rich suggested Cambridge, I was picturing a smart terraced house among the spires within walking distance of the station. I didn’t realize he meant out past Lode and the pockets of isolated villages towards the fenland. When I look out of the window, all I can see is the green and brown patchwork of fields. Lots of space for Missy and Tilly to run around. But our nearest neighbours are a herd of cows. The next house is the size of a postage stamp on the horizon.

  ‘It’s a bit rough around the edges, isn’t it?’ Rich comes up behind me. He starts testing the hinge of a cupboard, trying to work out why it’s keening to one side. ‘I’m sure once we’re unpacked, it’ll be fine.’ I try to inject confidence into my voice.

  ‘You’re a terrible liar.’ Rich gives up on the door and laughs. ‘I promise you it won’t be for long. And the good news is the movers have finished putting together all the furniture upstairs. So we’ll have beds to sleep in tonight. Tilly’s bagsied the room with the dormered window.’

  Of course she has. She’s got Rich wrapped around her little finger. He tries to be firm occasionally but the second he sees her face crumple, he gives in. Bedtime’s anything from seven to eleven, her diet would make a trucker reach for a salad and now she’ll be sleeping in the nicest room in the house. I’m lucky if she even acknowledges me at all.

  He starts for the door. ‘Why don’t you come upstairs and work out where you want to put things?’

  ‘Give me two secs to finish unpacking the kitchen.’ I delve into another of the cardboard boxes. ‘That way I can make us all a cup of tea.’

  ‘Hold that thought.’ Rich disappears and I can hear the crunch of gravel on the driveway as he go
es out towards the car. A minute later he returns, holding a wrapped, oblong box. ‘A moving-in present.’

  I look at the wrapped package he’s holding out. It’s too long to be anything symbolic like a ring and even I know it’s too soon for that kind of commitment. My mind flits back to Izzy’s overflowing jewellery box. It could be a necklace or a bracelet, I suppose.

  ‘It’s a milk-frother.’ Rich sees the confusion on my face when I tear off the paper. ‘All this talk of tea – I know you’re a hot chocolate fiend. This way you can have a frothy one whenever you like. Even if it is twenty-five degrees outside.’

  I can feel tears threatening to fall. He could give a necklace or a bracelet to anyone. This shows he knows who I am. ‘Thanks,’ I croak. I’m scared to show how much this means to me.

  ‘I promise it won’t be for long.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘Just until we get back on our feet.’

  ‘Have you heard anything from any agents yet?’ I ask casually. I offered to proofread Rich’s book before he sent it off but he batted the suggestion away. Artistic pride, he said. Now I wish I’d pushed it because it’s been six weeks and not one of them has replied.

  ‘Not yet.’

  I hold up crossed fingers. ‘I’m sure you’ll hear something soon. Then you’ll have to let me read it.’

  ‘If it doesn’t come to anything, I’ll just do something else.’ For someone who spent the best part of two years tinkering with his novel, Rich has been surprisingly unenthused about it lately.

  ‘Like what?’ I make sure to sound casual. I don’t want to labour the point. He gets defensive when he thinks I’m pushing him.

  ‘Maybe I will do the teaching thing?’

  ‘You’d be a great teacher. You’re so patient.’

  ‘I just wish I could talk to Charlie about it. He’d be the perfect sounding board.’

  I watch his face fall. I can’t believe how unsupportive his family is being. Their contact is limited to the breezy WhatsApp messages Jenny sends Rich too late at night for a reply, asking after Tilly as if everything is normal. She never calls or suggests coming to visit or catching up in person. As far as I’m aware the rest of them don’t even bother. The last time someone posted a message on their family group was before Izzy’s funeral. ‘Screw them,’ I say fiercely. ‘You’d be a much better teacher than Charlie anyway. He can’t even sit through the trailers of a film without getting bored. You’ve got me. I’ll be your sounding board.’