Free one-hit wonder by Lisa Jewell Page A

Devon was like medicine for her soul.”
    Ana tried to smile through her confusion. “And how often did she, er, come and see me?”
    “Well, nearly every weekend, wouldn’t you say? That’s why nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I didn’t see her or hear her on that terrible, terrible weekend.” Her pale blue eyes filled with tears then, and she quickly fished a handkerchief out of her sleeve, burying her pretty, rouged old face into the cotton, her tiny shoulders trembling. “Oh, Ana—I feel so terrible. To think. All weekend I was there, next door. All weekend, just pottering around, getting on with things. In and out to the shops. Making phone calls.
    Watching the television. And all that time your beautiful sister, that angelic, unique woman who had everything ahead of her, was lying there”—she indicated the bedroom with her now-pink eyes—“dead. All alone. All alone. I think it’s the most tragic thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’ve lost a lot of people in my time. But I will never, ever get over losing your sister. Do you understand? Some people die—but others are taken. And that girl was taken.”
    “You don’t think it was suicide?”
    Amy shook her head vehemently. “No. Absolutely not.
    There is no way that girl would take her own life.”
    “So what d’you think happened?”
    “An accident. A terrible, tragic accident. That’s what I think. She would never have killed herself. She had too much to live for.”
    “Like what?” Ana was still reeling from Bee’s inexplicable lies about how she spent her weekends. She was half expecting the old lady to tell her that Bee had had six children or something.
    “Well,” Mrs. Tilly-Loubelle began, looking affronted by the question, “you, for a start. She adored you. I hope you realize that.”
    Ana opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. The words to express her confusion didn’t seem to exist.
    “And John,” Amy continued.
    “John. Who was John?”
    “Her cat. A beautiful cat.”
    A cat. Called John? “And where is he now, this—er—
    John?”
    Amy shrugged. “Someone must have taken him away, I suppose. The RSPCA. A friend. I have no idea. I was hoping he’d gone to you. Gone to Devon.”

    he’d gone to you. Gone to Devon.”
    Ana shook her head. “No. He’s not in Devon.” It fell silent for a while as Ana and Amy sipped champagne and stared at the carpet. “Did Bee have any special friends, any boyfriends, or anything that you knew about?”
    Amy screwed up her face and then nodded. “She had a couple of friends who used to visit occasionally. I haven’t seen them in a while, though. In fact, I’d say she had no visitors at all in the last couple of months.”
    “What did they look like?”
    “A black girl—very pretty. And a large man. A handsome man.”
    “Bee’s boyfriend?”
    “No. More’s the pity. No, he was just a friend, that’s what Bee told me. A very old friend. And she never mentioned any other men. I often wondered if she was perhaps a lesbian.” Ana choked as her champagne went down the wrong pipe.
    “I beg your pardon?” she spluttered.
    “Your sister. I often wondered if she was gay. She had that Radclyffe Hall look about her, like one of those old-fashioned lesbians. Very glamorous but with quite a hard edge, if you see what I mean.”
    “And did you—did you think she was?”
    She shrugged. “Never saw men coming up here, never saw women either. Maybe she was asexual. Anyway—what other people get up to is their business. I try not to pay too much attention. What about you?”
    Ana started, thinking surely she couldn’t be asking her if she was a lesbian.
    “Do you have a boyfriend?”
    Ana thought of Hugh—was a boyfriend still a boyfriend when you hadn’t seen him for six months?—and shook her head.
    “And you’re back to Devon tomorrow, are you?” She nodded.
    “Well—you should get yourself out tonight, see what you can find. There are some