Page 76 of You Lied First
The trail camera.
That’s all Margot can think about as the Forrests take a cab home in stony silence after the explosive revelations at Sara’s. Where is the sodding camera? She’s replaying in her head the moments when she and Sara dismantled the camp. How they balled up the tents and shoved them back in the car. How they rammed everything in as quickly as they could. How hot it was. How her heart was hammering in her chest with the labour of digging the hole plus the stress of the approaching column of Jeeps. Was the camera there? It must have been, but she’s sure she hasn’t seen it in England. So where is it? Did they somehow leave it in the villa? Is it lurking on a wardrobe shelf or in a drawer in Muscat? Is that better than Guy having found it and hidden it?
The tent zip.
Surely he wouldn’t.
Would he? Did he have a fight with Celine?
Margot’s thoughts spiral. Even if she finds the camera, what will it show? Of course the tent zip going down could have been nothing – Guy could have got up in the night for any number of innocent reasons – but she’d asked him andhe’d denied it. Why deny it if he has nothing to hide? And then there’s the way he was so calm that morning they found Celine; the way he hadn’t seemed shocked. Sara had vomited, and Margot will never forget the heart-stopping moment she realised that Celine was not unconscious, but dead.
Yet Guy came up with a plan almost instantaneously and since they’ve been back, he’s insisted on managing all of them. He’s been dashing over to Sara’s to make sure she’s not blabbing to anyone and making them all turn their phones off every time they talk about what happened. Completely paranoid, now she thinks about it.
When they get home, Flynn stalks wordlessly towards the stairs as Margot flicks off her heels in the hallway.
‘And you can cut out that attitude, young man!’ Guy snaps.
Flynn spins around, his eyes burning with fury. ‘You’ve no right to tell me what to do!’
‘I’m your father and I’ve every right! While you live under this roof—’
‘I’m not planning on staying under this roof!’ Flynn spits.
‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d be sleeping on the floor in jail!’ Guy yells. ‘For life! You’ve got me to thank for the fact that you’re free to enjoy the rest of your life! But go on: throw it back at me! Throw it back at me that I saved you and Olivia from life in jail!’
‘Shut up!’
Guy strides towards Flynn, his hand raised as if to grab him. Flynn dodges up a few more stairs.
‘Don’t youevertell me to shut up!’ Guy yells. ‘You do know it’s probably your fault, don’t you? Young healthy people don’t die for no reason, Flynn Forrest! You were the one who threwher off the quad bike! Did it ever cross your mind that you killed her? That we were all protecting you?’
Margot sees Flynn recoil as the words hit him. She can see that it hasn’t occurred to him till now that Celine may have died because of the fall. His face goes white, and he drops onto the step, aghast. Margot hates Guy in that moment. Hates him.
‘She was okay,’ Flynn says, and his voice is uncertain now. ‘Sara checked her. She was fine. She was talking. She ate dinner … we were all dancing. It wasn’t a bad fall. Mum?’ His eyes beseech Margot.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she says, because what parent would tell their seventeen-year-old son that he’s caused someone’s death without any proof? ‘Guy, you need to apologise to Flynn for that. You said yourself she could have died of anything. A snake bite, a heart attack, alcohol poisoning, heatstroke, dehydration …’
‘Okay, Flynn. I’m sorry. It probably wasn’t that. Okay?’ Guy says and then he turns to Margot and his eyes narrow.
Bring it on, whatever it is, Margot thinks.Let me have it. Just leave my boy out of it.
‘Maybe it was your mother,’ Guy says. ‘Yes, Margot, let’s talk about you. You had more motive to bump off Celine than any of us …’ He glances at Flynn and decides to continue. ‘Oh, don’t deny it, you knew about Celine and me. I saw how you deliberately tried to wind her up. So, come on: what did you do? A little jibe that went too far? Or was it deliberate? Did you slip something into her drink, or crawl into her tent and intentionally put your hands around her throat while she slept?’ He leers. ‘Did youenjoyit?’
‘Fuck off,’ Margot says.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Guy continues. ‘You were jealous, and you killed her!’ He pauses. ‘By the way, you know that’s what Sara thinks,’ Guy sneers. ‘She asked me if you did it. She thinks she’s covering this up to protectyou.’
That hits Margot like a punch in the gut.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘while we’re accusing each other, let’s talk about the tent zip both Flynn and I heard in the night, Guy. It wasn’t Flynn, it wasn’t Liv, and it wasn’t me, so that leaves … oh: only you.’
Guy falters for a fraction of a second.
‘I went for a wee. Okay? I forgot but now I remember. Don’t know what time it was. But I didn’t see anyone. Campsite was quiet.’ He glares at her, his hands now on his hips. ‘In the general scheme of things, the fact that I forgot is hardly a crime, is it? Happy?’
Margot looks at Flynn. Their eyes catch. She’ll talk to him later. Just as she’ll search for the camera later. For now, she needs to defuse the situation.
‘For the record, Guy, Flynn. I didn’t kill her. Deliberately or accidentally. To be honest …’ She looks from one to the other and back. ‘It’s a moot point at this stage. We don’t know why she died. It could have been any of us or, far more likely, none of us. And on that note, it’s been a long night, and I need to get some rest. Good night.’
