Page 101 of The Psychopath Next Door

Rose went off to buy a bubble tea and Emma let out a deep sigh. ‘She’s hard work at the moment. Flipping heck.’

‘I’d have been grounded for a month if I’d spoken to my parents like that.’

‘Yeah. Me too. I’m trying to cut her some slack. The house move was difficult for her and we haven’t spent that much time together recently. I have to remind myself how awful it was being twelve with all those hormones wreaking havoc.’

‘Hmm.’

If only Emma knew. It was a lot more than hormones. It was brain chemistry. It was nature.

It was the way things were meant to be.

‘You know,’ Emma went on, ‘I found one of my lipsticks in her pocket. I don’t mind her borrowing my stuff, but it was the fact she did it without asking and then lied about it. I guess I have to put that down to hormones too.’

Fiona pulled her sympathetic face. She’d slipped that lipstick into Rose’s pocket for no reason other than to cause mischief, hoping it would create tension between mother and daughter – presuming Emma did the laundry and checked her kids’ pockets before putting stuff into the washing machine. It seemed like her plan had worked perfectly.

After the shopping trip, Rose was starving, so they went to her favourite chain restaurant, Wagamama, but there was an enormous queue to get in and then service was excruciatingly slow. Rose complained throughout, especially when Emma and Fiona’s food appeared first, by which point Rose had already finished the expensive glass of juice she’d ordered.

‘I’m thirsty. I want another one of these.’

Fiona watched Emma’s grip on her chopsticks tighten. ‘Rose, just have some water.’

‘But I want the juice. Oh God, I’m so hungry, I’m actually going to die.’

Fiona glared at her, trying to communicate silently, to tell her to cool it. She needed to be chilled out today. Calm. But Rose glared back and said, ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve got yours.’

Emma said, ‘Rose, don’t talk to Fiona like that. You’re so rude.’

‘She doesn’t care. Do you, Fiona?’

Fiona pictured herself emptying her bowl of ramen over the girl’s head. She really was going to get a shock in the near future. She had a lot to learn about blending in.

‘I want you to apologise,’ Emma said.

‘No.’

‘Say sorry, now!’

‘It’s okay,’ Fiona said. ‘She’s tired and I’m fine.’

‘I want her to apologise. She’s been acting like a brat all day and needs to stop talking to people like that.’

‘But I’m starving!’ Rose cried out, throwing out her hands as she said it and knocking over Emma’s drink, a non-alcoholic beer. The liquid sploshed across the bench and Emma leapt up, swearing, then went in search of napkins.

Fiona leaned across the table and hissed, ‘Calm down. Stop acting like a little bitch.’

At that, Rose shot her daggers. But she did seem to cool down.

Now, in the car, Fiona wondered what was happening back on the estate – if Iris’s body had been found yet. Overnight, she had disposed of the clothes she’d been wearing when she and Rose visited the old lady, along with all the stuff she’d taken to make it look like a burglary. It almost made her sad, watching the jewellery and records as they sunk into the dark water, thinking about howmuch money she could have got for them. The engagement ring she’d pulled from Iris’s cold, bony finger must have been worth at least a couple of grand on its own. A shame.

She couldn’t help but smile, though, thinking how horrified Ethan would be if he knew the vinyl he loved so much was lying at the bottom of a lake, the sleeves turning to mush, all that money dissolving in the cold depths.

She hadn’t yet decided what she would do with his record collection.

‘How much further?’ Rose asked.

‘Just half an hour, according to the satnav,’ Emma said. She turned her head for a second to glance at Fiona. ‘We really are out in the sticks here. Would you really enjoy living this far out in the countryside? I don’t think I could bear it. In fact, when the kids are grown-up I’m planning to persuade Ethan to move back into London, if we can afford it. I want to be able to walk to a decent coffee shop or a theatre or some nice shops. A place where I don’t have to drive.’

Fiona tuned out, even though she knew on an intellectual level it was kind to allow Emma to fantasise about a future with Ethan.

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