Page 112 of High Season
“Hannah, no.” Josie’s face tightens. “You know I didn’t try and kiss Tamara. She tried to kissme. In the pool, at the pink house. And I said I wasn’t interested and she got angry with me. She pushed me. And now she’s telling everyone before I can.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
Hannah started to walk away. Away from the bonfire, and the beach, and her best friend.
Josie called after her again, except this time, she didn’t follow.
This time, she let Hannah leave.
THIRTY-SIX
2024
The beach is busy, but around the table the air feels thick and quiet. Imogen hasn’t moved the whole time Hannah has been speaking. Hannah could swear that she is holding her breath.
“Nina wasn’t making it up,” Hannah says. “Shedidsee Tamara and Josie together in the pool. She saw them in the pool three days before Evelyn’s birthday party, when Tamara tried to kiss Josie.”
Imogen shakes her head, as if in wonder or disbelief. Hannah isn’t sure which.
“I always thoughtyoutried to kiss Tamara,” she says to Josie. “That was always the story. The motive that the investigators used for why you would want to hurt her.”
“That was what Tamara told everyone,” Josie says. “That was the rumor she started. The story Hannah was told at the bonfire. I was pissed off at the time. But now—” Her voice tremors slightly. “She was young,” she says, once she’s swallowed, steadied herself. “We were all so young. And she was probably scared. She probably wanted to protect herself.”
Imogen frowns. Her eyes flicker between Hannah and Josie.
“But why did this never come up?” Imogen says. “I mean, no offense, but if I’m approaching this with the cold, hard gaze of an investigator, it still doesn’t add up. It’s convenient that this event that onlyyouwitnessed, Josie, that took place a couple of days before Tamara’s death, just so happens to explain everything away. And you’re only bringing it up now?”
“Ididbring it up at the time,” Josie says. “But not to explain what Nina said. That didn’t click for me at the time either, with everything else that was going on. It was only when I talked to Hannah yesterday—”
“It took me a long time to put two and two together,” Hannah intercedes. “I knew about the kiss, but nobody had ever mentioned that Nina had witnessed it. In fact, I only really understood it when I had my own kids, when I saw how their minds work. They remember so many things, but they piece them together in the wrong order sometimes. And it probably became bigger than it was in Nina’s mind—Tamara pushing Josie became a full-blown fight. Nina was only five; she’d just witnessed the most traumatic thing any child could have seen. She was probably confused. So she told people the last memorable thing that she’d seen at the pool. The last time she saw Tamara alive in the water.”
“They tried to say that I killed Tamara because she’d rejected me, so of course I tried to tell them it was the other way round,” Josie says. “But nobody believed me. So many people already knew the story, the way Tamara had told it. So many people already believed that I was in love with Tamara. The motive seemed to fit. Why would anyone listen to my version of events? Especially when, as you say, my version seemed a bit too convenient. It didn’t even get included in the evidence at trial.”
“That makes sense,” Imogen says, nodding.
Hannah feels, in spite of her skepticism at Imogen’s presence, a flurry of hope. Perhaps Josie is right. Perhaps, if Imogen believes them, she can spread the word. She allows herself to imagine Josie’s name cleared, after all this time.
And yet, something lingers, a heaviness in the air. Imogen and Josie’s eyes meet for a half second before they both look away. Hannah catches something between them, some secret she isn’t privy to.
“What?” she says. “What is it?”
“Well,” says Imogen. “The problem is, this might explain why Nina pointed the finger at Josie, sure. But it doesn’t explain what actually happened to Tamara.”
“But does it matter?” Hannah says. “Isn’t the important thing that we can now argue Josie’s innocence? That we can show that Nina didn’t see Tamara and Josie in the pool together the night that Tamara died?”
She glances between Josie and Imogen.
“Right?” she says. Her voice is small. Hopeful. “We can clear your name, Josie. That should be enough, right?”
Josie takes a deep breath.
“Actually…” she says.
She exchanges another glance with Imogen, longer this time. Long enough for Hannah to understand that there is something they are not telling her.
“Actually,” says Josie. “Imogen has a theory about what happened to Tamara, too.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
