Welcome to part five, in which we’re introduced to the biggest red herring in the story. But first, have some callous disregard for other people’s grief!

“That’s your dad, your uncle and two of your brothers,” Estelle called. She was working her way through a box of éclairs while keeping a list of the members of Joe’s family that had called her to share the grief. “Our suspect list is getting pretty long.”

You’ve heard of “fiddling while Rome burns,” right? Well, I’m pretty sure that “eating a box of éclairs while your friends sob over their dead son and your dead husband” is similar.

Joe smiled again. I didn’t know if it was possible for him to do a halfway normal smile or if he was a snake in a previous life. “You know what? I think if someone fancied you they’d call in person. So cross off anyone who just got someone to give you their love or whatever.”

“That’s why your mum isn’t on this list,” Estelle replied, “Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

The other reason is that that would make the story far too interesting.

So, we need to look at other motives. I know your dad never liked you, that was obvious, but your brothers?”

“Well, I got the impression they thought I was betraying the family when I went to live with Aunt Jean. They didn’t have enough imagination to work out what was going on.”

We will not get this impression when we actually meet Joe’s brothers.

Estelle nodded. “Well, I guess not all your family can be like you and Jean. If they didn’t have that much imagination, though, they probably wouldn’t have had the imagination to do that thing with the lights. Robbie’s out anyway, I think he’s a little too young to know how to do anything like that, but I’m guessing Vick didn’t know either.   Not to mention that thing where Anja was kept in at school, if that was part of the plan to get her on the bus and not just a funny coincidence.”

“What about Jack, though?”

“Joe, I know Jack and he’s basically a nice person.

And that’s enough of an alibi for them!

(I’m serious. The idea of Jack being the murderer will not be brought up again. Estelle says he’s a nice person, and that’s enough to completely exonerate him.)

He wouldn’t kill his own twin. Besides, he got engaged last month.

Which has nothing to do with anything. Joe’s dad is married, and that didn’t stop him trying to kill Estelle’s husband!

(Oh yeah, SPOILERS- It was Joe’s dad. There will occasionally be half-hearted attempts to convince you it wasn’t, but basically, we know it was Joe’s dad for most of the story.)

Your uncle, what about him?”

Joe thought for a second. “I don’t think he had anything against me.”

Joe’s uncle will not be appearing in the story, but I expect he’s glad to have these two sentences of characterisation.

I had no idea what was going on, and Joe and Estelle didn’t look like they were planning on telling me. “What was with your dad, Joe?”

They suddenly remembered that I was actually in the room. Being incredibly cool, self-controlled people they didn’t jump or anything, but Joe shifted in the chair. Weird, I was sitting in his chair’s identical twin and I couldn’t get into that position. He must have had bones made of rubber.

What position? What do the chairs look like? How does Anja know that Joe and Estelle are incredibly cool and self-controlled? Details, fifteen-year-old me, details!

Having recovered, Joe looked serious for once. “He couldn’t stand me. I’ve got no idea why, but the way he acted you’d think my mother had died giving birth to me or something, which she didn’t. I mean, all of the boys in our family felt like second best, because my parents made it really obvious that my sister Leah was their favourite… That’s an understatement, because the way they acted you’d think the Pope was offering to canonise her…”

We will see no evidence of this when we actually meet Joe’s family. Are you noticing a pattern here?

Estelle could tell that Joe was rambling, so she interrupted, “Anyway, Joe’s dad always treated Leah like a saint, the other brothers like normal human beings and Joe like dirt, right Joe?”

Joe nodded. “I could always tell he didn’t love me, because I had my mum to compare him to. Still, she also thought that the sun shone out of Leah’s…”

“Joe!”

Joe put on a joke-scared face at Estelle’s anger. “Please don’t kill me!” he whimpered. Estelle picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed at the air just as Mark came in.

Who does that?!?

He scurried out of her way and landed on the sofa.

“Shame on you, Estelle!” he laughed, “What did that oxygen do to you? One minute it’s just floating around, helping to breathe, you heartless cow, the next…”

Estelle put the knife down and giggled. “Mark, if you don’t shut up, you’re going the same way as the air.”

Mark sniggered again. “So, what’s going on, gorgeous?”

“We were just filling Anja in on a bit of background. There’s so much we haven’t told her and the others.”

Estelle, they’ve been in your house for the best part of a week! What have you been doing for all this time that you didn’t have time to explain this stuff?

“Catch me telling that Mr Daly anything,” Mark sniffed, “Miserable old get. Gary seems alright, though.”

Oh, right. Sniping pointlessly at Mr Daly.

“Yes,” Estelle murmured, giving Mark a look, “For one thing, he’s quiet.”

I couldn’t help thinking back to the previous night. Gary hadn’t been quiet then. Neither had Joe been very slimy. They’d both dropped the most prominent aspects of their personalities, and I’d been the only one who’d heard. It was as if I’d slipped into a parallel universe or something, where those two actually acted like normal people. I mean, my eyelids had been glued together. Anything could have happened.

“They’d both dropped the most prominent aspects of their personalities.” I don’t know if this is Anja being confused by people having more than one personality trait, or fifteen-year-old me quietly admitting that Gary and Joe aren’t very well-characterised.

Joe seemed to be having the same thoughts. “He was being really strange last night. Said everything that had happened was his fault. Said he’d wrecked our lives.”

I didn’t see any reason to keep quiet after that. I mean, it had been only me that Gary had talked about, not any of the others.

Eh?

“Oh yeah! I think I heard part of that.” Joe looked annoyed that he wasn’t the centre of attention anymore. Feeling weirdly pleased, I carried on.

“Nobody gets more attention than the Sue! Nobody!”

“I think he’s got an inferiority complex or something. Someone must have put ideas into his head, Joe. Remember he went on about someone called Jordan?”

By “went on about him,” she means “mentioned him exactly once.”

Joe thought for a minute. “He said, ‘Jordan was right! I shouldn’t exist!’ You’d have to really hate someone to tell them something like that.” The expression on Joe’s face showed that he knew what it was like to be really hated.

Estelle didn’t know what it was like, but by the looks of it she could guess.

How do you know Estelle doesn’t know what it’s like? You’ve known her for less than a week!

“That poor child,” she murmured in shock, pretty much echoing my thoughts.

“He’s not a child,” Mark commented, trying to change then atmosphere a bit, “He’s only a couple of years younger than you.”

Mark’s plan didn’t work. “This is no time to be pedantic, Mark,” Estelle snapped…

But that’s his only character trait!

“I can’t think of anything worse to be told. Imagine telling someone they shouldn’t exist… If someone had told me that, I’d have killed myself if I’d believed them.” She was getting angry. “What gave this Jordan person the right to say who should or shouldn’t exist? What could Gary have done that was so damn terrible that he shouldn’t…”

I didn’t know why Estelle stopped talking until I saw where she was looking. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway, as if she’d seen something tragic happen through it.

Gary stared back for a second, looking as if he’d just stepped into his worst nightmare. Then he turned and sprinted up the stairs.

We all knew someone had to follow him, and I was the one he liked.

I’d like to point out that, at this stage of the story, Gary and Anja have never actually had a conversation.

By the time I’d got upstairs, Gary had locked himself in the bathroom. I knocked on the door, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy. “Gary!”

He replied in a voice that told me he’d been crying. “Go away. Please.”

“Gary, I’m sorry I was talking about you behind your back. It’s just that you haven’t talked to us much. We guessed you wouldn’t tell us straight out about this Jordan person, so we were trying to work it out ourselves. I’m sorry.”

“We could have just asked you, I suppose, but where’s the fun in that?”

There was a long silence before Gary said, “I can’t tell you. You’ll hate me.”

“Why?”

“It was something terrible. Seriously. I don’t mean stupid stuff like shoplifting or whatever. Something really, really bad happened and it was my fault.”

That shocked me. It would have shocked me even if Joe had said it, but Gary had seemed like an inoffensive sort of person. I’d only known him for a week and that side of his personality had hit me in the face. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything terrible.

Once again- this is the first proper conversation they’ve ever had. Anja has no way of knowing whether or not Gary’s likely to have done anything terrible.

Though actually, he hadn’t said he’d done it…

“Gary? Did you mean that you didn’t mean for it to happen, or what? You can tell me.” He clearly didn’t think he could, so I leant against the door and tried something else. “Whatever it is, it sounds like you regret it. I’m not going to be angry at you for something you regret. It can just be between you and me, OK?”

SPOILERS- This is a complete lie.

There was another pause. “Look, Gary, if you don’t tell me we might not be able to work out who tried to do us in, and why. That means he could kill other people while we’re trying to work it out. Don’t you want us to get to the bottom of this?”

This worked. I heard a scraping sound as Gary undid the lock. The door opened a little to let me in, the closed as he locked it again. He fixed me with his sapphire eyes, looking more fragile than ever. “The others don’t have to know, right?” Gary pleaded.

“Not if you don’t want them to,” I said, sitting down against the radiator with him, “Now, tell me about this Jordan guy.”

SPOILERS- Again, complete lie.

He inhaled in preparation. “OK. It all started about four years ago, when my mum had a heart attack and died. She’d always had this thing wrong with her heart, so it wasn’t really a shock, but I still missed her. I don’t know when my dad started getting new girlfriends, but whenever I met them they always seemed to like me. I’d inherited my mum’s heart condition, so I was always a bit delicate, and I guess women often like people they can feel protective of.” He looked up at me to see if I agreed with this. “Yeah, we do,” I replied, thinking, You in particular, Gary.

And so begin the weird, Oedipal overtones that will come to define Anja and Gary’s relationship!

“Anyway, my dad met a widow named Claire. She was similar to his other girlfriends, a bit… you know, ditzy, but really sweet natured. I knew they were getting serious when they introduced me to her two kids, Jordan and Helen. Helen was eight when I met her, and because she’d heard I was unhealthy she acted really nervous around me, like I was going to explode. She talked to me occasionally, though, because she thought ignoring me would make her a bad person. Jordan, on the other hand,” Gary’s voice began to quaver, “was older than me, went out of his way to ignore me, and I got the impression that he was a bad person. And I was right.”

We don’t find out how Gary got this impression. Maybe Jordan spent a lot of time twirling his moustache and laughing evilly.

He was looking down at the thick indigo carpet, which I thought was a bit unhygienic in a room with a toilet in.

I think the bath’s more of an issue than the toilet, myself.

I put my arm around his shoulders. “So, this is the person who told you that you shouldn’t exist?”

Gary nodded.   “He didn’t at first, though. He looked right through me, like I didn’t exist. Jordan just seemed to want to break up my dad and Claire.

Again, we never find out how Jordan tried to break up Gary’s dad and Claire. Or maybe he didn’t actually try anything, and instead just glowered at them and thought evil thoughts.

Dad was the first man Claire had gone out with since her husband had died five years before, so they thought he just wasn’t used to his mum seeing someone. I think maybe he thought she was betraying his dad’s memory or something.” Gary closed his eyes. “Things didn’t get really bad until the wedding.”

“I’m guessing your dad and Claire, right?”

No, it was Gary and Helen’s wedding. Of course it was Gary’s dad and Claire, Anja, you pillock.

“Yep. I was fifteen, and Helen had just turned nine, but there weren’t any people of her age at the service, so she hung around with me. She kept asking me all these questions about my life, and I didn’t want to tell her that everyone in the whole school hated my guts and thought I was a freak.

“Because, you see, I was the king of the woobies, and fate had decreed that no aspect of my life was allowed to be less than hellish.”

I can’t remember what I said, but I know I made something up. Probably the same thing I told my dad and Claire, so they wouldn’t worry about me. She was more interested in my drawings than my school life, anyway, so it didn’t matter. Anyway, Jordan was chatting up one of my cousins, I think, but when he saw me talking to Helen he came up and punched me in the stomach.” Gary looked right at me, for the first time since he’d started talking. “You know I was picked on at school, Anja, but everyone knew I had a heart condition, so nobody ever beat me up or anything, because they thought that would have killed me. They just made it clear that I didn’t belong. Jordan was the first person who hit me on purpose. He told me not to contaminate his sister.

“Everyone knows that being an over-the-top woobie is catching! No sister of mine is going to be someone’s unrealistically tragic love interest!”

So Helen went, ‘Sorry, Gary. Jordan’s just being stupid. I’ve got to talk to you now, even if I didn’t want to, ‘cause you’re my brother too now, and Jordan wouldn’t like it if I ignored him…’” Gary went quiet, so I decided to prompt him. “What did Jordan do then?”

“He said that he wouldn’t be seen dead with someone like me in his family. Then he hit me again and walked off. But that wasn’t as bad as…”

I didn’t find out what it wasn’t as bad as, at least not then. There was an impatient knocking on the door, and Mr Daly’s testy voice echoed across the bathroom. “Will whoever’s in there please get out! I need to use this room.”

And so the chapter ends. Next time, there’s more Mr Daly bashing, and plenty of squicky speculation about Anja’s love life. See you then!