In the photograph, Ella is wearing a tight-fitting t-shirt with the word ‘Beauty’ in fuchsia and an arrow pointing at Belle. Belle was wearing a light pink silk robe and a black lace bra, her dark hair tied in a sleek ponytail. There is another photo with Lottie, neither are looking at the camera but laughing at something. I will never again hear the sound of her laugh, and how her face lit up when she smiled. There is a suitcase by the sofa. Ella walks into the spotless white kitchen and puts the kettle on. She turns, facing me, and fires up a cigarette. I notice her hands are trembling.
‘Did the police talk to you?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t believe we were sitting across from each other eating sushi, laughing and having a good time.’
‘I know it’s...’ I pause, trying to put it into words. ‘I can’t describe it... Did the police tell you how she...?’
Ella shakes her head ‘No, they didn’t. I think they told her parents and that’s it. There isn’t much in the papers either.’
‘Ella, the detectives asked me if Lottie was seeing another man besides Abdel. Did she tell you she was seeing someone?’
Her eyebrows rise. ‘No, she didn’t say. It came as much of a shock to me as it is to you.’
The kettle boils.
Ella switches off the gas. ‘Are you the guy she was meeting secretly?’
I stare at her, taken aback by her crude question. Did she just ask if I was having an affair with Lottie?
I shake my head. ‘No, I wasn’t. I can’t believe you would ask me something like that.’
Ella turns to me. ‘Well, I always wondered how you two remained friends; you were cute together. I always thought you’ll end up a couple.’
I smile. ‘Nah, I respected her too much.’
She opens the top cupboard. ‘That’s the point. You would have made her very happy, Anthony.’
‘So, the police think there is another man?’ I ask, changing the subject.
She takes two mugs from the cupboard. ‘I think so. Do you think Abdel is a suspect?’
‘They broke up months ago. I don’t think they kept in touch, considering how things ended between them,’ I say, running my thumb over the plastic tablecloth.
Ella hands me my mug which has ‘I’m in fashion, bitch’ engraved in gold. She reaches for her packet of cigarettes and offers me one as she sits across from me.
‘Have you spoken to her parents?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Gosh. The poor parents.’
I took a sip of tea—it’s strong but good. ‘Do you think the guy she was seeing was married?’
‘Could be,’ Ella says.
‘It’s not like her to have an affair.’
She rubs the back of her head. ‘You never know with people.’
‘Did she tell you where she was going afterwards?’
Ella looks at me as if I’m insane. ‘She said she was going to see you.’
I blink at her. ‘What?’
‘You had the exhibition, right? Lottie said she was going to drop by and say hello.’
There were lots of faces in the exhibition, but I would never miss hers. If Lottie came to see me, why didn’t she talk to me? Because she didn’t come to the exhibition. It was a lie. Lottie went somewhere else or met with someone. Someone who might have been her killer.
Ella stares at me. ‘She didn’t come to the exhibition?’
‘No, she didn’t. I would have seen her... I mean she would have spoken to me.’
Ella curls her lip. ‘Strange. Maybe she said that to me but went to meet this man...’ She pauses and sighs, exasperated. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you tell the police she was coming to see me?’
Ella leans her back on the chair. ‘No, I forgot. I was too shocked by the news to recall every single detail.’
It made sense Lottie would lie to Ella to meet this man. Maybe she met him at her place. Maybe this man went there with the intention to kill her, or maybe there was an argument which got out of hand and he killed her. One thing is certain, if Lottie lied to Ella, then she lied to me too.
Chapter Four
I slump on a secluded bench in Regent’s Park. It isn’t as crowded - there are people laying on the grass reading, others strolling by. I look to my left and right before unzipping my bag and taking out the laptop. I hook in the headphones since those videos were private; Lottie might have mentioned an affair or a man she had been seeing. I scrolled down the videos - this was going to take time. I go back to the protected file, tapping my fingers. Lottie had secrets like everyone else, a part of me doesn’t want to crack the password. What if there is something I’d rather not know?
I type ‘chocolate cake’, one of her obsessions.
No luck.
I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath, and she comes to life before me.
Lottie’s Recordings. Clip one
Adulthood is so complicated; it starts when you turn eighteen. When you come to an age where you don’t belong to your mother anymore, but to yourself and to the world. Here I am, open and exposed, but nobody warned me of anything; I had to find out for myself. I wish I could just crawl back into my childhood where I was afraid of the dark. Parents tell stories, sometimes dark ones, to frighten us. When you grow up, you realise those stories were not true. Maybe it was their way to warn us of what’s to come.
I’m scared shitless. I don’t know anything about art and out of the goodness of his heart, Anthony has arranged for me to meet his boss.
I used to work with a small importing company until it was shut down, and all I had was a letter of recommendation and a mind swimming with worries. The bills were piling up and the rent was due.
***
The day Lottie was made redundant, she showed up at my door, all upset and crying.
‘What am I going to do?’ she asked.
She was so fragile and sometimes, it made me want to shake her and tell her to grow a pair. This is life: you take a stumble and you pick yourself up. No use crying about it; it won’t fix anything. You’ll remain unemployed with bills to pay and the landlord knocking on your door demanding the rent. Update your resume, start applying for jobs, go to interviews - you have to keep on going. Of course, I didn’t tell her any of this. I would have come across as insensitive and uncaring.
‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine,’ I said, sitting across from her, handing her a cup of tea.
‘How can you say that? I’m about to lose my apartment!’ she snapped, tears smearing down her face. ‘I have about a month left for rent then I have to move out and I love that apartment.’
I handed her a box of Kleenex. ‘I’ll speak to my boss. I think she has openings.’
Lottie looked at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. ‘Your boss? But she runs an art company? I don’t know anything about art!’
‘Nothing like that, I think she’s looking for an assistant.’
I thought the job would fit her. More glamorous than an export company.
‘Everything will be all right,’ I assured her.
She started filming these videos during the time she started working for Giselle, a year ago. That job is where everything started. I regret it, to be honest, going to Giselle and asking her if she had any job openings. That’s when the trouble started.