Page 54 of Good Bad Girl

Edith’s mind starts to wander and she forgets where she is for a moment.

“Is there someone I can call?” the officer asks gently and Edith snaps out of her trance.

“Yes. Detective Chapman. Or frankly anyone less cloth-eared than you.”

“Now, listen here—”

“No, you listen, you silly little man. There’s been a murder—at the Windsor Care Home—and you incompetent fools have arrested an innocent person.”

He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “And how do you know that they’re innocent?” he asks.

“I know who did what because I was there.”

Frankie

Frankie recognized the elderly woman walking into the police station—she’ll never forget that face—but she doesn’t understand whatsheis doing here or how the pieces of the puzzle slot together. She tried to speak to Edith Elliot in the care home yesterday, to tell her exactly what she thought of her—thinking it would be her final chance—but the ghastly care home manager ruined her plans.

“Who are you?” Joy asked, blocking her path in the hallway.

“I’m here for Mother’s Day. To visit someone,” Frankie replied.

“Then you’ll know that all visitors are required to sign the visitor book,” Joy said, handing it to her along with a pen. Frankie hesitated, then scribbled some details before giving it back. She could feel her cheeks burning red while Joy’s beady eyes scanned the page. The woman smirked and it made her grim face even less attractive.

“Clio Kennedy?” she asked.

“Yes,” Frankie replied.

“You are not Clio Kennedy. I’m the manager of this care home and I’ve just been talking in my office with Clio Kennedy, room thirteen’s daughter. Heronlydaughter. I’ve also been informed by one of the residents that a strange woman is going around asking strange questions. I’m guessing that’s you. So who are you really?” Frankie didn’t answer. “We take security very seriously at the Windsor Care Home.” Joy’s eyes narrowed into slits. “If this is an inspection, you know you have to give us at least forty-eight hours’ notice. If itisn’tthen get out or I will be forced to call the police.”

Frankie had had her fill of people speaking to her as though she were a piece of shit on their shoe. Something inside her snapped.

“Why don’t you drop dead,” she said before leaving.

A short while later, when Frankie returned, the woman was.

Frankie had pressed the call button for the elevator several times before it finally started to descend from the fourth floor. When it eventually arrived, Joy’s lifeless body was slumped in the elevator with an out-of-order sign around her neck. No wonder the Chinese don’t have fourth floors, the number four reallydoesmean death. Frankie closed the elevator doors and fled before anyone saw, and before getting her chance to confront Edith.

They say revenge is sweet and a dish best served cold, but she would rather take hers when hot and savor the moment. Frankie has waited too long for Edith and Clio and Jude to get what they deserve. And now it seems thewhole familyare somehow involved in her daughter’s disappearance. Frankie was wrong to discount the woman in the pink house, and she is furious with herself for having lost more time. The benefit of the doubt is rarely of real benefit to anyone. She made a bad choice, that’s the truth of the matter. But choosing between right and wrong isn’t always as black and white as some people think.

Frankie counts the cars she passes on the road to Notting Hill and it helps keep her nerves under control. There are a surprisingnumber given the late hour. She sees a young couple kissing near the closed tube station, and too many homeless people sleeping beneath cardboard boxes in shop doorways. The way some lives continue to happily unfold while others implode has always fascinated her. Is it luck? Fate? Destiny? Is it really just about being the right person in the right place at the right time? She often feels like the wrong person in the wrong place, maybe that’s why things rarely seem to go right for her. Some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. One thing she has learned is that moments of happiness should always be celebrated. Joy is only ever on loan and can be taken away just as fast as life gives it; best to appreciate the good times before they turn bad.

She parks at the end of the street, as far away from the pink house as possible where she can still see the building. Then Frankie sits and stares at the house, collating all the hateful thoughts she has gathered over the years about the woman who lives there. She looks around the van to see what she might have that she can use as a weapon. Just as she is about to get out, Frankie spots something crossing the street. At first she thinks it is a dog, but it isn’t. It’s a fox. A black one with a white-tipped tail. Frankie has never seen a black fox before, but she has read about them and knows that seeing one is considered to be a warning. It’s the variety of bad luck she takes very seriously.

Then she sees something else.

The door to the pink house is slightly ajar.

Frankie stares up at the building and sees that the whole house is in darkness, except for what looks like the beam of a flashlight in one room upstairs. She notices the shadowy form of someone moving behind the curtains. The woman in the pink house lives alone. Frankie knows this, along with all sorts of other things about the woman. Frankie knows far more about the woman in the pink house than Clio knows about her. She gets out of the van, crossesthe street as quietly as possible, then stands outside the open front door and listens.

Frankie was right to be upset about seeing the black fox. Itwasa warning.

She hears the sound of something smashing inside the house.

Followed by a high-pitched scream.

Clio

Clio is woken by the sound of a vehicle outside in the middle of night. It is normally quiet in the secluded little mews where she lives, but she has worn earplugs when sleeping for years. Since her daughter disappeared. She kept imagining the sound of a baby crying in the night without them. Maybe it’s the stress of the previous day putting her on edge, or perhaps she just can’t sleep under the same roof as her mother, but the earplugs aren’t doing their job tonight. Life is too loud.

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