BooksBarbecue
Back The Lucky Eight
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Five Years Later
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Epilogue
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Canelo Crime
  63. About the Author
  64. Also by Sheila Bugler

‘You’ll write a suicide note,’ Bella said. ‘Very kind of you to share the password for your laptop yesterday. You’ll say that it was Adam who killed Nick and Tara. You didn’t tell the police, because he threatened you and you’re scared of him. But the guilt has got too much and you can’t stay silent any longer. The police already have the USB stick. It won’t take much to convince them Adam’s been coercing you into keeping quiet.’

‘No!’ Clodagh shouted but made no sound. As the knife cut into her other wrist, she thought of her baby, the little life growing inside her, and knew she had to fight harder. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t stop the blood flowing from her body. She felt the darkness before she saw it, creeping across the room, blocking out the kitchen and Bella’s face, until all that was left was a pin prick of light. As that, too, disappeared, Clodagh imagined her baby, disappearing into the light and floating up and out of her body into the wide open sky, finally free.

Fifty-four

‘Clodagh and Gary Wakefield were having an affair,’ Rachel said, as the car sped along the A27 towards Bramhurst. ‘That’s why they were in the same resort together. I think that’s why Bella went to Crete – to confront them.’

‘Doesn’t make sense.’ Ade frowned. ‘Clodagh went to Crete with her sister.’

‘To the same resort that Nick and Gary and their friends went to every year.’

‘Gary was divorced by then,’ Ade said. ‘If he was going out with Clodagh, why didn’t they share a room? It wasn’t like they’d have to hide the relationship. His divorce was finalised by then.’

‘Maybe they’d split up and Clodagh went there to try to win him back,’ Rachel said.

‘If Bella’s known about the affair all this time,’ Ade said, ‘why wait until now to do something about it? I don’t see what any of that’s got to do with Nick and Tara being killed.’

‘We know Nick was in a foul mood the night he was killed,’ Rachel said, thinking as she spoke. ‘He was doing his best to cause trouble, stir things up. He was Gary’s friend. What if he knew about Clodagh and Gary but never told anyone? Then that night, he finally told Bella the truth about her friend.’

‘Why would he do that?’