Page 76 of Good Bad Girl

“If you weren’t holding her I wouldn’t have been able to. If she’s dead you’re as much to blame as I am.”

Clio shakes her head. “We should call the police.”

“They’ll send me to jail,” I tell Edith frantically. “We’d just argued, and... I was coming back to get Dickens and say goodbye after Joy fired me.”

“She fired you, Ladybug?”

“Why are you calling her that?” Clio asks Edith, staring at me.

“Because this is Ladybug.”

“No, Mum. It isn’t.”

“I sort of deserved to get fired,” I say.

Edith shakes her head. “I doubt that, but you’re right, it makes a bad situation look even worse. Well, then. No police.”

“Abadsituation?” Clio says. “Mum, this strange girl whacked her on the head. And I argued with Joy earlier too. We have to call the police and let them sort it out.”

“Oh, like they sorted out your problems last time? This isn’t astrange girl, she’s very important to me. Both of you saved me and now I have to protect you both.”

“I won’t go along with it,” Clio says, but her voice is distant. She is gazing at my face with a strange intensity.

“Do you want your picture in the papers all over again? And this time you’ll lose everything you had left: your reputation, your clients, your precious pink house. How many people heard you arguing with the care home manager earlier? It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do, what people believe you did is all that counts. The police will call this murder and you’ll both be suspects,” Edith says. “So will I if they find her in my room.”

Clio starts pacing and she reminds me of my mother. “This can’t be happening to me. I’m agoodperson.”

“Are you? Really? Are any of us? I’m living proof that only the good die young,” Edith says. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things. There will be a way to fix this, I just need to think—”

“We could put her in the elevator,” I say. “Nobody will look in there again until the repair guy turns up.”

Clio shakes her head. “The elevator? Really?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Edith asks. “We each need an alibi. Patience, can you go straight home and make sure someone sees you there?”

If I go back to the flat Jude will no doubt come up to find me. “Yes.”

“I’ve got an appointment with a new client in less than an hour,” says Clio.

Edith starts clambering out of the bed. “Good, they will be your alibi. If we all keep quiet we should all be okay.”

“What about you?” Clio says.

“I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m not staying here.”

Clio and I carry Joy’s body to the broken elevator while Edithpacks some things. I can tell Clio doesn’t trust me. To be fair, I don’t trust her either.

“I knew my mother wasn’t safe in this place,” Clio says beneath her breath.

“If youknewthen why did you put her in here, and why did you make her stay?”

“I’ll pay you,” she says, ignoring the question. “If you could look after my mum for a couple of days, then bring her to my home, I’ll have figured out what to do by then—”

“Why can’t you take her home with you now?”

“Because that’s the first place they’ll look when they discover she’s missing.”

She’s not wrong. “Okay, but I don’t want your money.”

---