The Guilty Party: A new gripping thriller from the 2018 bestselling author Mel McGrath. Mel McGrath
She begins to rock in time to the beat of the indie band on stage, whose music she actually hates, to show Mr Bojangles that she’s still switched on, still sexy, still knows how to have a good time.
‘I vote to stay. Just in case that dickwad has got himself into some sort of trouble,’ Bo says, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
Dear Bo. He’s always been under the illusion that the Group is a democracy. Dex knows it’s not, so does Cassie. But Bo? No idea. Anna does her best to stifle a laugh of relief. Bo’s forgotten his little jibe, if that is what it was. He never holds grudges, never remembers much these days, though that might be the drink. She wonders if he could be taking pills or anything else on top of the booze?
‘Where do you think he can have got to?’ Cassie shouts above the music.
No one answers. The indie band plays a half-hearted encore and wraps up its set. Moments later some old nineties numbers, perennials from the Britpop era, thump from the sound system while the next band gets set up. This is stuff her parents might have listened to if they hadn’t been opera bores. Does Anna actually remember those nineties tunes or have they gradually become earworms over the years? Most likely the latter since, for reasons she’s never cared to investigate, she doesn’t choose to recall a great deal from her childhood. It’s funny how rich girls are always the saddest. Rich girls like her, anyway, the sort who aren’t the right kind of rich (father a corporate lawyer, how boring) never precisely the most acceptable form of thin (not tall enough, not classy), seldom just OK. The thought occurs to her then that her life began in Cool Britannia and spat her out in Brexit Britain. This probably means something, though she’s too juiced to think about what exactly.
Beside her Bo and Cassie are making silly hip-hop hands to some old House tune. Cassie sticks out a hand and drags her into the circle. To Cassie’s horsing around Anna allows herself a decorous bounce which is fine because it shows off her fabulous hair. One of the few advantages of being someone like Cassie is you get to look ridiculous and no one cares. Anna doesn’t have that freedom because looking absurd isn’t hot. She envies Cassie her carelessness. Her authenticity.
‘Two guesses.’ Bo is making arcing moves with his arm in time to the beat. He wants one of them to name the track, a game he likes to play, a kind of off-the-cuff version of charades. Bo only ever plays games he knows he can win. Like Anna herself, except that Bo doesn’t realise it. There’s a lot Bo doesn’t realise.
A blonde woman drops her ciggie and adds herself to Bo’s harem. Very tight abs and a crop top designed to show them off. Face not great, though, so that’s fine. This always happens when the Group goes out dancing. Anna doesn’t like it. She prefers it when Bo goes on a hook-up and comes back to report it. The blonde woman has managed to manoeuvre her way through Anna’s force field and is standing right in front of Bo, mirroring his moves. Anna looks around to see if there are any men looking her way then smiles and pretends to be into it, though she actually feels as if some tiny insect has just bored a hole in her.
My body is full of secrets, she thinks, that’s why I’m so fat. Moments later she is pulled from this mental rabbit hole by the blonde woman screaming her name (‘Lisa!’) above the music and holding out her arm to Bo’s for a fist bomb.
‘Boom!’
Bo breaks into his most dazzling smile and fist bombs back. Beside him, Anna sees Cassie very discreetly rolling her eyes so only Anna can see. This is why Anna loves Cassie. One of the reasons.
For the next ten minutes, until he gets tired of his little game, Bo spins and shadow boxes with his new friend, glancing every so often at Anna. Each time she feels her groin pulse and her heart almost shake with rage. This too is part of the game. It’s his way of teasing and punishing her at the same time. All that stuff they’ve said over the years about back-up plans. How if they were both single by thirty they’d get married. Well, it didn’t work out that way, did it? And whose fault is that? So Anna has her own secrets now. A life not even Bo knows about. Fuck Bo for giving her no alternative.
Cassie
Evening, Thursday 29 September, Isle of Portland
I follow Anna out into the little garden at the back. It’s cold now and whatever was screeching earlier has stopped. Through a gap in the hedge I can just see illuminated by moonlight the foam from the surf as it crashes along Chesil Beach. On one side of the garden is a raised area on which sits a plastic table and chairs. Anna clambers up and takes a seat and, pulling out a joint and a lighter from her pocket, lights it. Drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs, she pats the seat beside her.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
Anna inhales and closes her eyes but does not respond. The surf hisses against the pebbles as it pulls away.
‘No, I’m sorry. Really. It’s all a bit shit at the moment. Except for your promotion and Bo’s birthday, obviously,’ says Anna.
For a moment her brow furrows and I wonder if she’s going to cry. Instead, taking a deep breath to steady herself and letting a smile perch on her lips, in a weary voice, she goes on, ‘Take no notice of me, I’m just horribly hormonal. They don’t tell you when you have a baby that your hormones will never be the same again. There’s a lot of things they don’t tell you.’ She lets this hang in the air for a while.
Now is the time to say something.
We’re quiet for a moment while Anna, conscious that I have something to say, waits for me to say it. And after a quick silent rehearsal, I do.
‘Gav seems to think Dex might be in some kind of trouble, but he’s made me promise not to talk about it.’
Anna swings round and gives me a worried look. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘He didn’t say exactly. Something that happened at the Wapping Festival.’
A cloud crosses Anna’s face then her eyes widen and her expression softens. ‘Oh, it’ll be to do with the fighting Dex got caught up in. I don’t think it’s anything serious.’
‘Gav seemed to think it was.’
Anna sits with this a moment before dismissing it with a wave of her hand. ‘You know how he exaggerates everything. And anyway, he’s not really thinking straight. Poor Dex.’ Observing the look on my face, she goes on, ‘He’s been thinking of leaving Gav for years. He hasn’t done it because he likes the money and now he’s trapped, at least until Gav dies.’ She passes me the joint then, looking away, towards the moon, holds up a finger and begins moving it to and fro as if trying to wipe out the stars. ‘He never told you, did he? I suppose he couldn’t bring himself to, in the circumstances. I think he loves Gav but they lead separate lives.’ Her eyes cut to me. ‘You can’t have him back, you know, once Gav goes. It would never work.’
At the dark edges of the sky, where the moonlight does not penetrate, there are stars visible, intense pinpoints of light bringing proof of life, messages that are old and redundant before we can even read them. Every one of those stars is dead now, little more than a collection of debris or a black hole.
Anna’s hands are in her lap, the fingers of her right hand idly twirling the ring around her left ring finger. ‘You’re so much more real than any of us, Cassie. So much less complicated.’ She looks up. ‘Maybe you think I’m being condescending but I’m really not. When you say things, you mean them. You have no idea how rare that is in the world I come from. I feel safe when I’m with you.’ She signals for the joint, takes a deep inhale and blows out rings across the sky. ‘I suppose that’s what also makes you such a bad liar.’
‘Which means?’
‘I know where you got the money to buy those clothes you’re wearing and it wasn’t a promotion, was it?’ She drops the joint and extinguishes it under her foot. ‘The thing is,