Given that I have no idea about chemicals, and even the experts are capable of fucking it up, I don’t think acid is the answer.

Could I burn her? You see it all the time in films and things—just slip the body into an incinerator. Like it’s that easy. Like everyone has access to an incinerator.

Could I bury her? In some deep dark woods somewhere where no one will find her? I’m sure I read something once about people adding lye to a shallow grave to help destroy the body.

What about water? Weigh her body down and push it off a bridge to sink into oblivion. But what bridge? And what deep body of oblivious water when we live in Guildford?

This is all too ghastly to comprehend. I am trying not to see my sister’s face as I contemplate doing something so heinous.

I am drinking gin. Neat. Not even bothering with ice. It is probably a bad idea just before bedtime.

A thousand hands claw at me. Hands with a deathly pallor and the remnants of a French manicure; the nails chipped, skin jagged around the cuticle and a line of mud clearly visible. My eyes fly open but still I’m fighting in the pitch black that blankets me, hands clawing at my body, my neck. Just as I manage to break free, I realize I’m in Leah’s bed, her sheets twisted around me. Before I went to sleep I’d decided I would bury her, somewhere far away from anywhere. But I can’t do that now. Those hands in my nightmare were hers. We have always both hated nail varnish in gaudy colors; I read a magazine article about the royal family when we were twelve—they are not allowed to wear colored polish, apparently. This always stuck with both of us.

For now, I’m planning to bring the body to Leah’s house in London. I’ll get the freezer—no need to even look inside—and put it in the garage where I can keep an eye on it. No one is going to suspect that Megan has been murdered, and so no one will come looking for a body. And as long as no one finds the body, everything is OK. It’ll do. For a while at least. I’ll need to hire a van. But first I’ll need to find a hire company who won’t ask too many questions.

* * *

“Please make sure you’re staying safe, Meggie,” Chris tells me the day before I head home to tie up some more loose ends.

“Of course.” I dismiss his concerns and continue to stare at the handwritten list in my lap. Almost there. Just a few more days.

“This is serious, Meggie.”

I wish now that I’d listened to him. Heard the panic in his voice and taken him seriously for the first time in months. I wish I’d used that weekend enacting the final parts of the plan, instead of having dinner with Hannah—a final goodbye, even though she had no idea that’s what it was—and starting to sort through the few things I would take with me when Megan walked out the door for the last time.