She flashes me a look of real anger. I see her hands ball into fists. I wonder if she will hit me.
‘We spoke on the phone.’
‘I told you already I don’t want to see you.’
‘Please. Just five minutes, that’s all. I need to know – is this her, is this Ellie?’
I pull the photo from my pocket, hold it out to her. She looks at it stiffly, a muscle twitching in her eye.
‘Don’t you see it?’ Claudia asks me, and her fierceness has softened a little. Just a little. ‘Don’t you see the resemblance?’
I nod. I had, of course. It was difficult to tell under all the bruising in the photo but it was there all right. Even her posture was familiar to me, that coquettish way of looking up from beneath her lashes even though it was clear her nose was broken. My stomach rolled sickly.
‘This isn’t how I remember her,’ Claudia tells me. ‘She used to be so beautiful before.’
‘Listen, Claudia. I’m sorry to have misled you, and I know this is painful. But I’ve paid for an hour of your time, and I don’t need a haircut.’
‘You do.’ She nods at my hair, unsmiling. I don’t think she means to be so blunt but who knows?
‘Okay, yes. But today I just want to speak to you about Ellie.’ I lick my lips. ‘Marco too.’
‘That prick.’
The anger again. Corrosive.
‘Come on,’ Claudia says finally. ‘I’ll give you ten minutes.’
We walk across the road to a café in silence. Claudia orders us both drinks without checking what I want.
‘You’re paying, right?’ is all she says as we find seats. Her handbag, her nails, her lips, everything about her is glossy and dark. She looks at me expectantly over the table.
‘So you want to hear about Marco, do you?’
I nod.
‘I can’t look at you. You’re so like her. At the end, I mean. When he’d finished with her.’
‘How was she before?’
‘Happy,’ Claudia says immediately. ‘You ever seen the way a room can change just by someone being in it? Like, how happiness is catching? That’s her. Everywhere she went. At school everyone loved her, even the teachers. She was just one of those people, you know?’
I nod.
‘And then she met Marco. Probably when he was down here in that house of his. She’d just set up her own business, and he offered some investment.’
Our drinks arrive. She pulls the sugar bowl towards her and starts to lift the sachets, shaking them with pinched fingers.
‘She came to me because she wanted hair extensions. Right the way down to her waist, like yours. That was the first time I thought that maybe something was going on. She’d always looked so beautiful with short hair – Ellie always said it was easy to look after, one less thing for her to worry about. Marco paid for them – the extensions, I mean. And she never outright said it was his idea. It was just a feeling I got. Then she started to lose weight. I think they had moved in together at this point. Last time I saw her she was frantic. Called me up out of the blue and told me she’d lost her keys. Couldn’t remember when she’d last had them or where. I drove over there and . . .’
Claudia swallows. She looks desperately uncomfortable. ‘I wish we could still smoke in these places. Anyway, when I got there I couldn’t believe what she looked like. She didn’t look like Ellie at all. She looked like a little doll. Like she should have been under glass. And all those bruises. Her face was so swollen she could hardly speak. She’d been locked out of the house for three hours. Five minutes after I get there, guess who arrives?’
I guess. Claudia nods.
‘Course. Marco. Prince Charming. He had her keys. Said they must have fallen out of her bag into his car. She cried when he handed them back to her. Told him he’d saved her life. They were only keys, but she thought he was God Almighty.’
‘Did you talk to him? To Marco?’
Claudia shrugs. ‘I tried. Asked him about the injuries she had. He said she’d fallen in the night. Sleepwalking.’
I shiver then. Just a little. Claudia doesn’t notice.
‘I wasn’t being dramatic on the phone, you know. I really do think he killed her, whatever the papers say.’
‘Do you know Penelope Dalton? Penny, maybe. She lives in Tyrlaze.’
She nods. ‘That’s Ellie’s mother. Surprised to hear she’s still alive, to be honest. She had a problem, you know?’
She makes a motion with her hand, tipping a drink into her mouth.
‘She gave me your number. Any idea why?’
I hold out the piece of paper.
Claudia scans it. ‘This is Ellie’s writing. I don’t know why Penelope had it. Ellie changed her number about a week before she jumped. I couldn’t get hold of her anymore, just a recorded message saying that number no longer existed. She called me once, about three days before she died, but I was too busy to talk to her.’
Claudia pulls a napkin out of the dispenser and blows her nose. I think of my new phone at the cottage, the one with only three numbers in it, the ones Marco had put in there. He said it was because I’d lost my phone, but I don’t remember losing it. So I’d taken his phone and copied Mr Kennecker’s number down, hadn’t I? Hidden the piece of paper in my bra where he wouldn’t find it. Had Ellie done the same with her friends and family? Tucked this little note somewhere to keep it safe, in case of an emergency? But then why did Penelope Dalton give it to me?
‘I have to go.’ She’s standing, pushing her hair from her face with her fingers. ‘I can’t say it’s been a pleasure to meet you, but I hope you got the answers you were looking for.’
‘You know we’re engaged, don’t you? Me and Marco.’
She gives me a look of such abject pity I want to shrivel up. ‘I bet you are. You’re just his type.’
I ask Frankie for one more favour. We are sitting in the garden on the sun-warmed stone bench.
‘Upstairs there are two bottles of pills in the drawer beside my bed. I want you to take them away, and not give them back to me no matter how much I ask you, no matter how upset I get. You think you can do that?’
‘Sure, I’ve done much worse.’
‘Will you destroy them?’
‘Yup.’
I lean closer to him. Over our heads the gulls circle like vultures.
Marco fires Alice. The first I hear about it is when I receive a call from her while I am sitting on the sofa, watching TV. I almost don’t answer. I’ve had three calls in the last twenty-four hours, each one almost silent except for the wet rattle of breathing and, just audible in the background, the playing of old Marigold! tapes.
‘Stella, it’s Alice.’
I’m puzzled. ‘Is everything okay? Is Marco okay? Are you at the office?’
She surprises me by laughing. ‘Didn’t Marco tell you? I got fired yesterday.’
‘No. No, he didn’t mention it.’
‘It’s no drama, Stella. Just time for me to move on.’
‘But – but why?’
‘He found out that I sent you those photos for your “collage”.’