The Girl Before

“I spoke to Saul,” I say slowly. “He told me it was Emma who initiated it.”

Simon snorts derisively. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? I used to like Saul, but even before Emma told me what he’d done I knew there was a different side to him. We used to go out drinking sometimes after Em and I split up. He told Amanda I needed company but the truth was he just wanted a free pass to go out and pick up women. He always used the same technique. ‘Get them so drunk they can’t stand,’ he used to say. ‘What you want them for, you don’t need them upright.’?”

I must look shocked because he nods. “Nice line, right? But even then, I thought it was odd how drunk some of the girls got on just a couple of glasses. He makes a big thing of buying them champagne. It makes him look generous but I read that the bubbles can also mask the taste of roofies.”

I stare at him. I’m remembering Saul Aksoy trying to press a glass of champagne on me. I’d thought he was a creep, but even so, I’d taken everything he’d told me at face value.

Just when I thought I had everything clear, it’s spinning away from me again. Because if Saul did force himself on Emma, she wasn’t a fantasist at all. She told a lie, certainly, perhaps several lies, but the essence of her story was true. She’d just shifted around the names of the actors, for reasons I can probably guess at.

As if reading my thoughts, Simon says, “She was trying to protect me. She thought I wouldn’t be able to handle knowing it was my best mate who’d done that to her. But even before the burglary I could tell something was wrong—she started getting angry with me for no reason, going off whenever I tried to be nice to her. And her eating disorder came back. It never really went away after that, although she didn’t like to talk about it.”

“You spoke to her here?”

He nods. “I told you. She’d realized what a stupid mistake she’d made and she wanted to put things right. She was in a really bad way by then. There was a kitten—some stray she’d taken in. Someone had killed it.”

“She kept a kitten?” I repeat. “Here? In One Folgate Street?” Maggie Evans had mentioned a stray, but not that Emma had planned on keeping it.

“That’s right. Why?”

Because it’s against the rules, I think. No pets. And no children, for that matter.

Simon opens the folder and takes out a document. “A lawyer gave her this. According to these plans, Monkford buried his wife and son here, right under this house. Look.” He shows me. There’s an X and a handwritten notation. Final resting place of Mrs. Elizabeth Domenica Monkford and Maximilian Monkford. “What sort of weirdo does that?”

“You’ve had a lucky escape, J.” That’s Mia, who has gradually been drawn back, ears flapping. I see Simon shoot me a curious look, but I choose not to explain.

“Emma’s theory was that burying them here was all part of some superstitious ritual,” he goes on. “Almost like a sacrifice. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but after she died I started looking at his other buildings. It turns out she was right. Someone has died in suspicious circumstances every time a Monkford Partnership building nears completion.”

He lays some newspaper cuttings on the table for me to look at. Each is accompanied by a map marking the location of the building and the location of the death. In Scotland, a young woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver a mile from the house Edward Monkford built near Inverness. In Menorca, a child was abducted from his parents two miles from the beach house Edward designed. In Bruges, a woman threw herself off a railway bridge a few hundred meters from his chapel. During the fitting-out of The Hive, an electrician’s apprentice was found dead in a stairwell.

“But none of this even begins to prove he was responsible for those deaths,” I say gently. “There are thousands of fatal accidents and disappearances every year. That some of them happened within a few miles of these particular buildings means nothing. You’re seeing patterns and connections that aren’t there.”

“Or there is a connection, and you’re refusing to see it.” Simon’s face is dark.

“Simon, the only thing this proves is how much you loved Emma. And that’s admirable. But it’s coloring your judgment—”

“Emma was taken from me twice,” he interrupts. “Once when Edward Monkford muscled in on our relationship just when she was at her most vulnerable. And then a second time when she was murdered. I’m certain that was to deny her to me. I want justice for Emma. And I won’t stop till I get it.”

—

He goes soon after, leaving Mia still drinking his wine. “He seems nice,” she comments.

“And somewhat obsessive?”

“He loved her. He can’t let her go until he’s found out what happened to her. That’s almost heroic, isn’t it?”