The Guilty Party: A new gripping thriller from the 2018 bestselling author Mel McGrath. Mel McGrath

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СКАЧАТЬ one will be any the wiser. Sorry, mate, but you know, you did bring this on yourself. Plausible deniability. Been doing a lot of that lately. Not great but a whole lot better than the alternative. Angling his body away from Dex, he lowers his head, digs his hands in his pockets and strolls casually away, taking the roundabout route back to the girls, shaking his head and muttering to himself. For fucketty fuck’s fucking fuck-sake.

10

       Cassie

       6.50 a.m., Friday 30 September, Isle of Portland

      Dawn breaks and I am awake in bed, unable to drift back off to sleep for the unsettling feeling of being watched. Who knew the countryside could be so disturbing? The night has been a racket of howling and hooting. Mostly hooting, from some bloody owl in the trees right outside my room.

      Twit twoo.

       What did you do?

      Is that what the owl would say if it could speak? Owls are supposed to be wise. The owl might say, doing nothing doesn’t make you innocent. But what does an owl know? An owl is just a bird. Shut up. Leave me in peace

      A new, blue light pushes in from behind threadbare curtains and makes its way past my hangover to the more sentient parts of my brain. Yes, I remember now, this weekend is supposed to be fun. Sorry, Marika Lapska. Dex says I can’t mention your name again till after the fun is all over and done. Well, then.

      I rinse off the night’s rime in the shower, pull on new underwear, new clothes. Fix my hair. Head still fuzzy from last night. As I leave the room I’m thinking about some strong coffee but the moment I reach the top floor landing a strong sense of being observed overcomes me. Above the door the fossil urchin sits immobile, as if watching. How odd to feel overlooked by something so inanimate, so very long dead.

      Revenant. Bo’s word. I don’t believe in afterlives or hauntings. You have your time on earth and then you are gone. This is how nature works.

      I need that coffee.

      The house is as still as a cliff. In the kitchen the mess from last night’s bacchanal is scattered over the countertop. The living room’s worse. There’s a smell of sour wine and stale grass everywhere. Plates and cheese rind. I pick up a mug and some escaped crisps skitter across the floor. This is too much. I’ll do it once I’ve come to. For now, though, there’s nothing for it but to retreat back to the kitchen.

      A glass containing a few dregs of some nondescript brew stands on the draining board. Without bothering to empty it first, I fill it to the brim from the tap, drink and repeat. After a bit I’m feeling human enough to locate an espresso pot in the cupboard above the kettle, fill it with ground coffee and put it on the stove to brew while I get to work clearing up, stacking the dishwasher with plates and hand washing the glasses. Judging by the mess something not-human has been at the chicken carcass. I don’t like to think too hard about what. The remains can go outside. I take it to the French doors and hurl it as far from the house as I can. The foxes can have it, or the Mer-Chickens or giant dogs or whatever other freaks of nature apparently lurk on this island. A fine rain is falling though splashes of blue visible through the clouds. I pluck my phone from the pocket of my trackies to check the weather, remember there’s no phone signal, go back inside and scope about for a Wi-Fi router or a house book and finding neither, remember the coffee which is both strong and bitter.

      Marika. I happen to know that the name derives from the Hebrew for bitterness, though it can also mean star of the sea. The fossil hanging above Anna’s door could be a Marika. Brittle star. Bitter star.

      How I know this I’m not sure. I’m good at collecting obscure facts and better still at hanging on to them. Maybe someone told me. The night creatures singing and screaming and carrying on in the garden.

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