(Note- the last bit should have been Part Fourteen, but I screwed up the labels. Sorry about that.)

Here we are on Chapter Fifteen (or, to put it another way, “only five more to go after this one.”)  Remember how I mentioned Anja’s psychic powers before?  Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

“Auntie Annie?” Ben asked.  We were in the kitchen, cooking dinner.  Well, I say “we”- I was cooking, he was clamouring for me to let him lick the spoon.  I didn’t want to see the look on his face when he realised I was making chilli con carne.

Oh, Ben.  You and your self-destructive ways.

(Do people really eat chilli con carne on New Years’ Eve?  It seems like more of a summer food.)

“Yes, Ben?”

“Think you and Gary should get married.”  Ben had clearly been thinking this through for quite a while.

SPOILERS- Just because a two-year-old tells you to do something doesn’t mean that you have to do it, Anja.  Honestly…

“Really, Ben?” I replied, “And why do you think that?”

His reply was probably not the best thing to say considering the way I was feeling.  “‘Cause then,” he replied, “my mummy could marry Joe.  Joe’s cool.”

“Hmm,” I replied.  I wasn’t going to tell Ben that Joe just might have had a hand in a girl’s death.   

Because he’s two.  And because you’d be talking bollocks anyway.

Cherry had tried to calm me down earlier, snapping, “Anja, James said it!  You know, James Foster?  Tried to kill Mark and Joe a few months ago?  Tried to kill you not long afterwards? 

Cherry takes her turn as the only sane character.  But despite absolutely everyone pointing out what a bonehead she’s being, and despite not being able to come up with any counter-arguments, Anja still persists in believing that Joe is pure evil.  Because we need a cheap source of tension, you see.

He’s an attempted murderer himself, got that?

“Attempted”?  Does Jean not count?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t you be taking everything he says with a pinch of salt?”

You are not wrong, Cherry.  Frankly, in your shoes, I’d be phoning up my aunt and uncle, telling them that Anja was still alive, and letting her take her chances with them.  But then, that’s really what you should have done in the first place.

I knew Cherry was right, but I still couldn’t shake off my suspicions about Joe.  Somehow, he was just a little bit too creepy.  When Joe and Gary had first met, Joe had been all protective urges, but now they barely even spoke.  Gary put it down to nerves and unrequited love, but I wasn’t that trusting.  Or, as I sometimes cruelly thought, that stupid.  The fact is, being that nice often requires you to be a bit dim. 

There you have it.  Anja thinks that being nice makes you stupid.  This explains quite a lot about her.

Ha.  There was one thing cheering me up.  It was New Year’s Eve that night, but Joe wouldn’t be celebrating with the rest of us.

“Aw, yeah!  The best part of this super-fun, worldwide celebration is the part where we’ll be purposely excluding the person who’s just lost his beloved aunt!  Break out the champagne!”

Most of the Foster family had decided to make themselves regular features of our lives, and that included “seeing in the New Year” at Wild Cherry House.  Quite apart from getting rid of Joe for the entire night (he’d be hiding in the attic somewhere, probably)…

How festive.  Will he be singing a wistful “I Want” song with his gargoyle pals?

…we might be able to find out something else about Violet.

OR YOU COULD ASK HIM.  WHICH YOU WERE TOLD TO DO THREE MONTHS AGO, AND HAVEN’T BOTHERED ABOUT.

We then get several paragraphs about some characters who will not be appearing in the story, and, in fact, has nothing to do with anything:

“You know, Ben’s got a point.”  Cherry had come into the room, smiling.  “Joe would be a big improvement on any of my previous boyfriends, for a start.  Mind you, anyone would be an improvement on some of them, wouldn’t they, Anja?”

I knew what she was talking about, because I’d heard my parents talking about it at the time.  When Cherry had found out she was pregnant, Ben’s grandparents hadn’t taken it well.  I don’t mean Cherry’s parents, who were over the moon (although her mum, my Aunt Irene, complained that she was far too young to be a granny), but her ex-boyfriend’s parents.   They couldn’t believe that their little angel had even spoken to someone as “not our sort” as Cherry, let alone have a kid with her.  She only managed to persuade her ex-boyfriend to pay child support when she threatened to take him to court. 

“You should have seen the look on his mum’s face,” Cherry laughed, commenting on the story I already knew, “You’d think she’d just sat on a porcupine!  Probably shocked that I’d dare to question my betters,” she reasoned with a mock-horrified expression, “To think!  A lowly commoner like me being so impertinent to folk so refined that they fainted if anyone called the sofa a settee…” She broke off, sniggering.

“Did she want to keep it hushed up, do you think?”

“Probably,” Cherry shrugged, “But I think my ex just wanted to get the whole thing over with without any fuss.”  She looked out of the window for a second, then turned back, smiling.  “Anyway, what are we talking about that prat for?   

My thoughts exactly.

The Fosters are going to be here in a minute.  Help me get the table ready.”

James couldn’t make it.  Something to do with work.  Melissa had apologised profusely for this, but Cherry and me could hardly have been more relieved.  We hadn’t forgotten that James had killed his aunt.   

Oh yes you had.  See above.

He probably knew that we’d worked out what he’d been up to.  But he also knew that, so far, we hadn’t spoken to anyone else about it…

…for some reason.  Seriously, there is no reason on Earth for them not to go to the police.

…so chances were he was off the hook.

Why would he come to that conclusion?  You came to Southend with the express purpose of bringing him to justice.  Yes, the reader knows you’re not a threat, because you get distracted every time you see something shiny, but James doesn’t know that!  For all he knows, you’re just making him sweat for a few weeks before you start to blackmail him!  Now would, in fact, be the optimum time for him to kill you!

Anja is quite possibly the worst detective ever.  The fact that she’s still alive at the end of this book is actually kind of painful.

He was never going to get his hands on the money or Estelle in any case, and he probably still thought Joe was dead.  He had no reason whatsoever to strike again. 

Except for the fact that you know what he’s up to.  Or desire for revenge against Cherry for taking his inheritance.  Actually, it would be more accurate to say, “He had no reason whatsoever not to strike again.”

But it was still a relief to know that he wouldn’t be turning up.

Yes.  It’s still a relief to know that the known murderer won’t be there to spoil your New Year’s party.

About 50 metres away, the doorbell rang.  A few seconds later, I heard the door open, and the various noises associated with the Foster family echoed down the hall and into the kitchen.

“Happy New Year…  Err, it’s Gareth, isn’t it?”  Melissa’s uncertain tones brought a massive smile to Ben’s face.  “Auntie Melissa’s here, Auntie Annie!  She’s here!” he whispered.  He hadn’t been this excited to see me.

NEITHER SHOULD HE HAVE BEEN.

Anyway, there’s several paragraphs of boring dialogue in which Melissa apologises for not being certain of Gary’s name and her children tease her for it, and then Leah comes in to see Ben.

Leah, with the speed of a cheetah or something, had rushed from the front door to the kitchen in five seconds.  When I saw her, she was trying in vain to pick Ben up.

“Leah’s a wuss!  Leah’s a wuss!”  I turned round to see Robbie, dressed in what must have been a very smart outfit before he went within a hundred miles of it.  He looked up at me with an evil grin on his face. Evil grins definitely ran in the family, I decided.   

Great.  Now she’ll develop an irrational grudge against Robbie, too.

“Ben’s just a baby and she can’t pick him up!” he told me, “She’s such a wuss!”

“Am not a baby!” Ben snapped, wriggling out of Leah’s grip and squashing her in the process, “Am nearly three!”

“I can pick Ben up, Cherry,” Leah argued, “He was just being wriggly just then.”

“I know you can pick him up, Leah…”

“Welcome to the Foster family experience,” someone groaned in my ear.  It turned out to be Jack.  By the look on his face, he was ready to leave at the slightest excuse.  I knew how he felt. 

I know, right?  Children trying to pick each other up.  It’s probably that that drove their father to murder, y’know.

“They’re not that bad,” I lied.  At that precise moment, Robbie had discovered the jelly and was making sure everyone got some.  Around the face area. 

So Robbie’s gone to somebody else’s house, found the food, and started painting the walls with it?  And Anja and Jack are just going to carry on whispering to each other instead of trying to get him to stop?  Righto.

“OK,” I admitted, “Robbie has a few bratty tendencies, but he’s not a patch on my little broth…  cousin.” 

“I don’t mean just Robbie.”  Jack looked around to check that his mother wasn’t watching (she wasn’t.  She was trying to get within a metre of Robbie without getting covered in jelly), then whispered back to me.  “Just be glad my dad isn’t here.  He’s always been one to make an idiot of himself in front of other people. Ask your sister.” 

“Like, at my tenth birthday party, he murdered all my friends’ parents!  It was really embarrassing!”

I saw by the angry expression on Jack’s face that he would have said a lot more than that if he hadn’t thought that Melissa might overhear him.  I guessed, though, that he didn’t know that Joe’s accident wasn’t. 

But he didn’t get to say that, because a loud voice pierced the airwaves.

“Hey, Honour!” darling little Robbie yelled, “Vick and Jack said that our dad fancied you!”

What I thought at that moment is probably unprintable, especially the bit about the elephants.  So I will settle for saying that I wasn’t happy. 

Heh heh, elephants.  Oh, and a known serial killer has developed an unhealthy fixation on an underage girl, but that’s incidental.

(From this point on, James will completely forget that he’s attempted murder to win the heart of Estelle, and transfer his affections to Anja instead.  This is actually probably quite realistic, since serial killers aren’t the most logical or stable of people, but it would have helped if there was some sort of explanation.)

“I don’t know whether James fancies you or not,” Gary whispered at dinner, “but there’s definitely something between Vick and Cherry.  Check out the way he keeps looking at her.”

“A bit like the way she keeps looking at you, you mean?” I teased.  It was true, though, that Cherry definitely looked a lot happier when staring in Gary’s direction than in Vick’s.  Despite the freezing December weather, someone had thought it was a good idea to eat al fresco.  

“Someone” being the author.

We were currently sitting at a table in the light of a few lamps, cocooned in coats and jumpers.  Leah and Ben had shot off halfway through to go and see Sammy, completely ignoring Cherry and Melissa’s assertions of, “There’s starving children in Africa who would be delighted to have a meal like this.”

Hey, look at their role models.  Anja doesn’t even care about her own grieving parents, so why should Leah and Ben care about starving children?

“I don’t wish to alarm you,” Melissa was saying, having realized that getting her daughter to finish eating was a lost cause, “but the press seem to have got it into their heads that Joe and Mark and those other poor souls were murdered!  I was reading the paper earlier this week, and someone had sent in a letter saying that the police should start a manhunt for whoever…  Oh, how did they put it?  They said that someone ‘stole their lives’ or something.  The police always told us they thought it was an accident!”

I was seriously impressed.  For once, the papers had actually worked out something obvious for themselves! 

Oh, like you can talk, Miss “Why does James want his daughter to turn out like his mistress”?

“How ridiculous is that?” Jack snorted, “I mean, who’d want to murder Mark and Joe?”

At that point, something very, very strange happened to Melissa’s face.  It was as if I could actually see the thought process in her brain.

Or as if the author had suddenly realised the hole she’d dug herself into by writing this story in first person.

Since she’s recently told me a lot about how she felt, in order to help me with this book, I can give you a small insight into what she was thinking.

Oh, don’t be so modest, Anja.  We know all about those psychic powers of yours!

The last time she’d heard Mark and Joe’s names mentioned in association with death (or at least horrible injury) was while she was helping Estelle plan for her wedding.  She couldn’t help her eyes creep over to the statue involved, on which her daughter was playing with Ben.  Someone had looked both angry and guilty when Cherry Hughes had moved the snail back onto the ledge.  Someone whose name was James…

 If she noticed he looked angry and guilty at the time, wouldn’t she have worried about it then?  Or is she used to people getting annoyed at their friends for saving other people’s lives?

“Uh, Cherry?” Vick asked, sounding as if he was about to throw up (or worse) with terror, “Sorry to change the subject, but can I talk to you for a moment?”

I could see Melissa come to the inevitable conclusion.  Her eyes were huge with shock.

“Sure, Vick.  What’s on your mind?”

And if it’s true, Melissa thought, So many things would make sense.  The freak accident, the fact that he still can’t forgive Joe, the fact that…  Oh my God!  Jean!

“Well,” Vick stuttered, “I know I don’t have much of a chance, but would you have a drink with me on Friday?  Only I know this place, it sells really brilliant…”

“Sounds great.  I could use a night out.  Honour?  Could you and Gary baby-sit?”

I love how the woman realising that her husband murdered two members of their family is juxtaposed with two really boring teenagers arranging a date.  It’s basically this story in a nutshell.

As the conversation went on around her, Melissa realized that her suspicions, if confirmed, would spell the end of her marriage, and possibly even the end of more lives.  Despite not being completely sure of what was going on, she decided to “forget” to mention something to Cherry, Gary and me.

It had seemed like such a friendly idea, including us in her family holiday.  After all, Cherry was practically one of the family herself, especially since she and Joe had been so close.  And her little boy, such a lovely child.  And Melissa was sure that Cherry’s sister and that shy boyfriend of hers would open up like a dream given a nice beach.  But suddenly, the holiday didn’t seem like such a good plan.

The part of Spain the Fosters were going to was a nice place, but it had a lot of scope for “freak accidents.”  Hazardous roads in the mountains, steep cliffs jutting out into the tropical sea, forests where people might get lost for weeks on end…

Again, that sounds like a much more interesting story than the one we’re reading.

I love how Anja and pals avoid being taken to Spain and murdered because Melissa doesn’t ask them.  Not because of their own quick wits or bravery or anything.  They’re pretty dependent on the kindness of strangers, this lot.

Melissa didn’t want to believe that her husband had looked at us with those thoughts in mind.  But she remembered another holiday that had gone disastrously wrong, she remembered how angry James had looked when Cherry had inherited Jean’s house and money, and she remembered what had happened to the other person who had stood by Joe.  By keeping quiet, chances are she saved our lives.

 “Because if James and Melissa had asked us to come to Spain with them, we’d probably have been stupid enough to say yes!”

By the way, this is James’ last sinister plot until the climax.  He basically spends six months sitting around and twiddling his thumbs.  Our scary, scary villain, ladies and gentlemen.

Join us again for chapter sixteen, in which Gary suffers.  Again.