Kill Joy (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #0.5)
Kill Joy (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #0.5) — Chapter no 9
Unseen hands on her shoulders. Fingers digging in, pulling her away.
Pip overbalanced and fell, landing on her back. And finally, she could see who had grabbed her.
“Cara, what the hell are you doing?” she said, scrambling up.
But it was too late.
Cara had swooped in, head inside the closet, her fingers closing around the paper. She turned back, holding up the clue, a wide grin on her face.
“I knew you were sneaking off to do something naughty,” she said, poking Pip in the ribs with her other hand.
“How on earth did you know?”
“Well, my booklet told me you were,” Cara said. “Told me you were going to sneak off and that I had to catch you and find some evidence before you destroyed it.”
“Urgh.” Pip pushed up to her feet, disentangling her arms from the feather boa. Stupid game, setting her up to fail like that. “Well, at least now we know you don’t just want to watch me pee.”
“Not my thing, sorry,” Cara said. “Here you go.” She outstretched her hand, offering the clue back to Pip.
Pip reached for it. Just within her grasp. And then Cara whipped it away again, hiding it behind her back.
“LOL, joke,” she giggled, backing away toward the dining room.
Pip took her revenge, prodding Cara in the armpit.
“Ouch, that was my boob!” Cara butt-shoved Pip into the wall.
“What’s going on out there?!” Ant’s voice called. “Is it a girl fight?”
Cara broke free from Pip and ran back to the dining room, holding the clue in the air. “Pi—sorry, Celia was trying to hide this!” she announced to them all, Pip traipsing in behind her.
“Only because the game told me to,” Pip said defensively, retaking her seat and crossing her arms.
“Ah, not such a good girl, are we?” Ant teased her.
“What is it, Dora?” Jamie asked. “Open it and pass it around the
table.”
“What is it?” Zach asked.
“It’s a checkbook, belonging to Reginald Remy,” Cara said. “And the most recent stub shows a payment to someone called Harris Pick. Old Reggie paid him one hundred and fifty K at the end of July.”
Ant whistled, impressed by the figure.
“Wait a minute,” Zach said, his voice unnaturally level as he read directly from his booklet. “I recognize that name. He and my father served in the First Boer War together. Father always said that Harris saved his life.”
It was also the name of the communist agitator that the government suspected Reginald Remy of funding. And here was Celia’s proof: one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. That was a lot of money; must have been millions in today’s terms.
“Yes, well”—Cara shot a scathing look at Pip, a smile hiding underneath—“I saw Celia coming out of Reginald’s study at about five this evening, holding the checkbook. She was the one who broke into the safe and stole this!”
“Celia?” There was a troubled look in Zach’s eyes.
“Yes, OK,” Pip sighed. “I did. It was me who broke into the safe.
But it’s not how it looks. I was just looking for a photograph Reginald had of my mother. I didn’t see it anywhere in the house, so I thought he must keep in it his safe. I just wanted to see if I look like her now.”
“Oh, boo-hoo, spare us the sob story,” Ant said. “If that’s the case, why did you steal the checkbook?”
“Well, when I opened the safe, there was nothing in there except that.” Pip pointed to the paper in Cara’s hands. “And I guess I wanted to know how much money my uncle sends to his children, and their plus-ones.” She glared at Lauren. “I’ve always been bitter about that. I was an orphan and he could have helped me, but he always chose not to.”
“Interesting,” Jamie said, the inspector stepping in. “So, Celia, we can now place you at the scene of the murder only fifteen minutes before it potentially happened.”
It wasn’t looking good for her.
“Yes, but,” Pip protested, “Dora just said she saw me coming out of the study at five, which means I left the scene well before the time of the murder. And why was she up there? You made this whole deal about going to the vegetable patch at that time. So you must be lying too.”
“Yes, thank you.” Zach excitedly slapped the table. “Dora, you weren’t even there to not see me on my walk and throw doubt on my alibi.”
“And why were you heading toward Reginald’s study?” Pip turned on her.
“You know what, I said it to Ralph and I’ll say it again,” Lauren said. “I don’t like that cook; she’s always in places she shouldn’t be.
It’s like she’s spying on us.”
Pip didn’t realize at first, flinching at the word a half-second too late. She looked up and again caught Connor’s eye; he’d been watching her.
“Looking a little twitchy there, Celia,” he remarked.
“Right.” Jamie clapped his hands. “We are getting very close to the truth; soon we will uncover who among you is the murderer. But first I think the killer needs to admit it to themselves. So if you look under your plates—wait, Connor, let me explain first—you will find an envelope with your name on it. Inside will be a piece of paper that will tell you if you are the killer or not. But”—he raised a finger to
underline the point—“you must keep a poker face. Don’t give anything away, whether you’re the murderer or not.” He eyeballed them all to make sure they understood, his gaze lingering longest on Ant. “OK, go.”
Pip slid her plate forward, an uneaten pizza slice discarded on it that she knew Connor had his eye on. And there, hidden underneath this entire time, was a small envelope with her name on it: Celia Bourne.
She glanced at the others, already tearing into their envelopes, and reached for her own.
She stalled. Withdrew her fingers, balling them up into a fist.
What if she was the murderer? She had a cold, sinking feeling in her gut. Celia was at the murder scene only fifteen minutes before the time-of-death window. What if she’d seen the check stub to Harris Pick—evidence of Reginald’s treason—and, under orders from her handler, had returned to the study to terminate her uncle? A knife through the heart. She’d never felt welcomed into the Remy family, not really. Maybe her rage took over, or maybe it was her training. Either way, a man was dead, and she might have killed him.
The answer was right here.
Pip picked up the envelope, lifted the flap, and pulled out the folded piece of paper. She held it close as she opened it, heart in her throat as she read the words printed there.
Celia Bourne, you are NOT the murderer.
She read it again, just to be sure, the voice in her head overenunciating every syllable. She wasn’t the killer, thank god.
Celia didn’t do it. She was innocent.
Pip watched as the others rearranged their faces to hide their secrets. Connor was waggling his eyebrows in an unnatural formation of one-up, two-up, one-down, two-down. Lauren was giggling, glancing side to side. Ant studied the ceiling. Cara’s eyes were so comically wide as she stared everyone down that— alongside the face paint wrinkles—it looked a little like her eye sockets had cracked open. Zach was silent, straining to keep his face neutral.
If it wasn’t her, then someone at this table was the murderer.
One of her five friends. And who could it be? Every single one of them had opportunity and means. And now Pip had seven pages of notes about all of them, why they might have killed Reginald Remy.
They all looked guilty in her eyes, but it could only be one.
“Fantastic acting,” Jamie commented, surveying all of them. “OK, so now that the murderer knows who they are, it’s time for the final clue-ooo,” he sang to the tune of “The Final Countdown.” Connor howled the instrumental parts in scratchy do-do-do-doooos.
“During the course of the evening it seems as though one of you has tried to get one over on old Inspector Howard Whey,” Jamie said, jabbing his thumb into his chest. “Someone has tried to throw out an incriminating piece of evidence in a place none of us would think to look. Trying to disguise it among the waste from this very dinner.”
“Huh?” Connor said, one eyebrow climbing his forehead again as he stared at his brother, confused.
Pip followed Jamie’s eyes to the center of the table. The three red candles flickered away, and there was their growing pile of clues, a few empty bottles of red wine and the beers Connor had been drinking. Their plates were empty, apart from Pip’s because there’d
been too much thinking to do to concentrate on eating. What did Jamie mean? What had changed here?
And then it clicked. What had been in the middle of the table
before and was now missing.
“The pizza boxes!” Pip stood up.
Jamie shrugged, but there was a playful smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.
“Where are they? By the recycling bins?” Connor asked, but Jamie was giving nothing more away.
“Come on,” Connor said to them all, rushing out of the dining room toward the kitchen, Pip right on his heels, notebook in hand.
The Domino’s boxes had been piled up in the corner, tucked beside the recycling bin. Connor got to his knees—miming discomfort because of Humphrey Todd’s advanced age—and started pulling them out, opening their cardboard lids as the rest of the group sidled in behind.
“Aha,” he said, holding up a piece of paper, which now had a little bit of garlic dip and pizza grease smeared across it. On the back Pip saw the words Final Clue.
“See, nothing passes under the nose of Inspector Howard Whey,” Jamie said triumphantly. “Please share the note with the group, Humphrey.”
Tig. Bfr nr. Y re . W b ts, n ’s
t lt t g bac r vrytng ’ ready dn. I
n. Rmr: d dv r pthy.
I ltr.
-RR
“Ooh, juicy,” Connor said. “Literally,” as he wiped the pizza juice off his fingers.
“RR,” Lauren said. “Well, it must be from one of you two.” She turned to the Remy brothers.
“And Bobby already left a note today signed off as RR, Robert Remy,” Pip said, but there was something in her head, some under- formed thought she couldn’t yet grasp. What was it? What was bugging her about this note?
“Sounds like the kind of note someone might send to their brother’s wife that they’re screwing behind his back,” Cara said. “Did you two plan to have more relations this evening?” she asked Lauren and Ant.
Pip considered that for a moment. She supposed it worked; but something didn’t feel right in her gut.
“Or does it sound like two people were planning the murder together? Two killers!” Connor said excitedly.
Pip considered that too. That could also fit, in the context of the note. Her mind whirred.
“As the genius inspector I am,” Jamie said, “I can confirm that only one of the six of you is our murderer. And now”—he clapped his hands loudly—“it is finally time to unmask the killer. To reveal the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If you would all like to retake your seats in the dining room.” He gestured them back across the corridor.
They stumbled out of the kitchen, the others discussing the murder in quick, excitable sound bites, exchanging theories. But Pip was silent, alone in her thoughts. Running the case through her head from the start to the very end, like Celia Bourne might have done.
Dissecting every clue, looking at it from a different angle.
The six of them took their seats at the table once more. Pip turned straight to her notebook, frantically flipping through the pages and her increasingly erratic handwriting. So many suspects, so many reasons to have wanted Reginald Remy dead. But who did it? Who among them was the killer? All the signs seemed to be pointing one way, to Robert “Bobby” Remy. Since the very beginning so many of the clues had cast deep shadows over him. Almost too many, and something about it didn’t feel right. She was missing something.
Pip had just started writing out a list of their character names to cross them out one by one. And then the world went black, stolen from her eyes.
Everything swallowed by darkness as all the lights blinked out.
The music died, leaving an unnerving, buzzing silence in its wake.
It shattered a second later as someone screamed.
