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“Your future contains dry bones.”
Me when I’m about to play a Mario game
We turn off onto the lush country lanes, and I want to lean out the window to breathe in the green of the leafy tunnels above our heads. I resist, however, because I’m not a golden retriever.
I can’t tell if this is a lie, but I know it’s Oliver’s way of continuing our sparring match from the drive.
Can I ask what you’re even arguing about? Neither of you talk like real people
The whole effect is of green undulating waves, and as someone who’s seen a lot of art, I feel well qualified to say that this is some of the best. This gardener is a sculptor of plants.
And I hated her for making me think of this in a new way—it became a finish line, not the slow pleasure I’d imagined. I just wanted to pass the milestone and have this done with.
We were nearing the house, heading for a back door with brightly lit stained-glass windows on either side of it.
I’m so jealous of people with stained glass windows in their house
If I were rich I’d have lots of stained glass windows
I understood how scared Frances was, and how few friends she had. The least I could do was continue to believe her, while the rest of the village whispered behind her back.”
“Here,” Ford said, and handed me a chess piece with friendly laughter in his eyes. “You hold the queen.” He grinned at me as though he’d put a crown on my head.
Girl
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I sometimes wonder whether Emily toys with us just to feel she has some control over her life, outside of Fiona’s reach. Or perhaps it’s a way of punishing us for knowing too much.”
Just so long as you can analyze her for me
“Do I not?” She threw us her best innocent face. “Ford likes me. He says he can talk to me.”
I don’t like Emily but I especially don’t like the way this man is talking to young girls
Delicate wire-rimmed glasses and neatly combed white hair give the impression of the type of person who has a favorite armchair.
Because the more I think about it, the more I’m sorry to hear about Frances, I liked her doesn’t match up with him threatening her with legal action.
I don’t know if she’s constantly bothering them I think it makes a little sense to force her to stop even if you don’t hate her
“What, like an affair?”
I don’t remember who any of these people are to one another
The summer Emily went missing, they were all seventeen, so in this photo she’d be around twenty.
Okay so he was grooming them
But the stupid UK is gonna be like oh no this is actually so normal a 17yo in high school and a 23yo whole adult
and it’s open and disarming.
Everything he does is disarming lol
If Jenny were here, she’d tell me you can’t solve a murder based on “vibes.”
Tbh I little bit feel like you can
The detective has given me a new lens through which to view Great Aunt Frances’s files. One I should have examined them under from the start—with knowledge that sometimes even the best evidence can lead you to the wrong conclusions.
I don’t think that’s the only lesson here. It’s that she wasn’t accounting for new eyes on her stuff, otherwise she would’ve put a note in the folder. They’re just collections.
I feel so extremely clever that I almost can’t contain it. The cleverness pulsing through me is so strong that I don’t even cringe at my sudden over-the-top attempts to speak like a lawyer.
Jesus
He can see that I’m sad to have lost a relative I never got to know.
I wish books would trust me more
I’ve come to see the women in my family as lonely pillars.
“I’ll tell you honestly that after my wife left me, I became a society rake. I flitted through glamorous London parties at high speed, going through the women there even faster. Your friend Emily was no different.”
She was seventeen you weirdo
“What a lovely opinion of women you have,”
Amen
Do you know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who won’t be led into my games.
Woman is a strong word
I started to wonder all over again why he didn’t come to see me.
He is a FREAK and a MISOGYNIST and GENERALLY GROSS
Rose blushed a little as I asked her questions about Bill the chauffeur, but when we chatted there was a sort of grown-up feel to it all. We’d moved on from spotty and fickle teenage boys, and it felt like our futures were falling into place.
Meanwhile you’re still 17
“The one thing I can’t figure out is what was up with those flowers? The hemlock bouquet,” I say. “For the life of me, I can’t see how it matters.” “Maybe it doesn’t,” Jenny says plainly. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
I’m sorry it so obviously can’t be
Anyway, the most common motives for murder are greed, revenge, passion, and self-preservation, according to this website that has…crap. Very likely given me a virus.”
Girl what
“Oh, you joke, but this would make a good one! Like Clue, but you have to solve a fortune-teller’s puzzle to beat your friends to an inheritance. But you’re all also guilty of a secret crime, and—”
Yeah it is something Like that
And I guess I should have, because a love affair gone wrong is a classic reason for murder. It’s actually the motive in my most recent novel,” I say a bit sheepishly. My plot was probably way too predictable.
I mean a little
I have my hair in two long French plaits, and I’m wearing a battered black leather jacket over a light blue floral dress that sweeps down to my ankles, again care of the Oxfam shop on the high street.
Maybe it’s just me but I do not care about her outfits this much
You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose. I decide to form a plan of my own, and beat Saxon at his own game.
Deciding to have a plan is not the same thing as actually having a plan
I overhear one of the girls as the group walks by: “Claire, you’ve got to give me my dress back, you’ve had it for weeks! I need it for Andy’s wedding!” I shake myself out of this momentary daydream and make a decision.
If that’s not relevant I’m going to be Very upset with you
When I overheard the teenage girls at the pub arguing about clothes, it jogged my memory.
God bless
A sad fact of Emily’s disappearance is that it shocked the town, until it didn’t.
But now I saw them for what they were—they were all about him. He wasn’t thinking of me, he was thinking of himself, and he wanted to see his image reflected in my eyes.
AMEN
FREAK
But she said that no matter how much money a man has, if he’s a gentleman he waits until a lady is eighteen and then he takes her out properly.
FINALLY!!!!!! THANK GOD SOMEONE ELSE FINALLY FUCKING SAID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He’s a powerful man, and men like that, they just do what they want. And no one bats an eye.”
YUP YUP YUP
My overdraft screamed when I bought a brand new iPhone,
Okay so I feel like that’s NOT a burner phone
I suppose this technically means it’s not a burner, but I like using the terminology anyway.
Okay??????????
As my eyes snap toward him, it occurs to me that I did actually get my timing all wrong. Because Joe is not wasting a second. He’s already got a syringe in his hand when he says, “Unfortunately you’re in for a drug overdose tonight.”
Girl your plan was to lock yourself in the medical truck with the murderer?
I had no idea he would resort to this, but I should have known. If you’re trying to corner a killer, the odds of getting yourself killed in the process skyrocket.
