Chapter 1
Have you ever wished someone dead?
I don’t mean in that whole “planning the perfect murder” kind of way (Just FYI, if you are planning the perfect murder, the secret is icicles, apparently. You use them as daggers. You’re welcome.), just in the usual, “God, I hate you, I wish you were dead,” kind of way?
Oh, come on, we’ve all done it, haven’t we? I know I have. Maybe a little bit too much, to be perfectly honest, but seriously, I didn’t know Ada Valentine would take me so literally when I said it. I didn’t mean it literally, so when she posted that last stupid Instagram of hers, and I commented telling her to… well, to sod off and die, basically, I didn’t think she’d actually do it, did I?
But she did. Or I’m assuming she did, anyway. There’s always the chance she’s off living in a commune in the Outer Hebrides, with dreadlocks in her pubic hair and a statue of some goddess or other to dance around by moonlight. Or that she decided to become a nun. It could happen. Okay, maybe not the nun thing. She’s not that crazy. But she could just be taking a break, couldn’t she? A social media detox, or whatever people call it when the Internet starts to make them feel bad about themselves, and they decide to go and feel bad in real life instead?
I’m sure that’s it. I’m sure she’s just performing one of the “self care rituals” she’s always banging on about, or working out an extra step to add to her complicated skincare routine. I’m sure she’s not actually dead. I know Ada’s always been a bit of a drama queen (And I say that in the nicest possible way, I swear. Takes one to know one and all that…), but sodding off to die just because some random idiot on the Internet insulted her, in a way that was clearly intended to be a joke? No. She wouldn’t.
Would she?
I’m so busy thinking about Ada Valentine and why she hasn’t updated her Instagram for eight full days now (Her previous record being just 1.5 days, and even then she was still on Twitter…) that, when my boss speaks to me, I don’t even hear him at first.
“Scarlett? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hamish’s joking. I know that. But did he really have to mention ghosts, just when I’m sitting here worrying I might have inadvertently turned one of the U.K.’s most popular influencers into one? I mean, seriously?
“I’m fine, Hamish,” I tell him, throwing my phone onto my desk like it’s offended me, and hastily pulling up the article I’m supposed to be working on, which is about the last meeting of the local Pies, Peas and Bingo club. Never let anyone tell you local journalism isn’t utterly thrilling. Even though they’d be absolutely right. “I’m totally fine.”
To prove it, I type two almost entirely fictional sentences about pies — I’ll get to the peas and bingo bit later — before giving up and staring at my phone, desperately trying to resist the urge to pick it back up.
If social media is a drug, then consider me an addict. At least it’s better than being a murderer, though, “inadvertent” or not.
“You’re not thinking about this Ada Valentine nonsense again, are you?” sighs Hamish, putting a mug of coffee on my desk before taking his seat next to me. Between us, Hamish and I make up the entire editorial department here at the Heather Bay Gazette, our battered old desks squeezed into a space beneath the sloping ceiling of the old building, which we both bump our heads on every time we stand up. Although he’s at least twice my age, Hamish’s the closest thing I have to a “friend” in this town, which is why I’ve told him all about Ada Valentine and her sudden disappearance from all forms of social media.
(I’ve not told him about my own role in this, obviously. We might be close, but he is still my boss, and I really need to work out how much trouble I might be in here before I go confiding in anyone. Well, us murderers can’t be too careful, can we?)
(That was a joke, by the way. Because — and I can’t stress this enough — I am not a murderer. Just an asshole, really. Who will spend the rest of her life trying to make amends for the utterly unforgivable thing she said to a complete stranger.)
“It’s not nonsense,” I insist, taking a sip of my coffee while still staring at the phone on the desk. “It’s really weird, Hamish. To go from posting every day — sometimes multiple times per day — to complete radio silence for over a week. It’s not like her. I think something’s wrong. I just have a funny feeling about it.”
“Oh, a funny feeling, is it?” says Hamish kindly, looking at me over the rim of his glasses. “D’ye think there could be a story in it, lass?”
Hamish used to edit one of the Glasgow tabloids before he and his wife moved to Heather Bay, for their “semi-retirement” as he puts it, and he likes to remind me of this fact every so often, by pretending the Gazette is a real newspaper, with actual news stories in it, rather than a weekly free-sheet that wouldn’t exist without the pages of adverts it runs every week.
“Will you let me investigate it if I say yes to that?” I ask eagerly, but Hamish just smiles and picks up a piece of paper from his desk.
“I think ‘Woman Fails to Update Her Instagram for a Week’ would be a new low, even for the Gazette,” he says, chuckling. “But look, if you’re bored with the Pies, Peas and Bingo story, I have a wee job you might like instead.”
I smile tightly. I know Hamish’s “wee jobs”, and I can say with some confidence that the chances of me liking this one, whatever it is, are roughly the same as my chances of being nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism. And given that my last front-page story for the Gazette was about Edna the Sheep and her attempt to baa the National Anthem… Well, those chances aren’t exactly high, let’s put it that way.
“Wait,” I say, looking at him suspiciously. “It’s not another story about Edna, is it? Because that would be the fifth one this month, if so, and there’s only so much I can write about a sheep, Hamish, you know that. Her singing isn’t even that good, anyway. I wouldn’t have known it was supposed to be the National Anthem, to be honest. It sounded more like Jolene to me.”
I glance guiltily around the office as I say this, almost as if Jimmy, Edna’s owner, might be hiding behind a plant pot, listening to me. Thankfully, though, there’s just the usual suspects: Katie, the receptionist, plus the three women who form the advertising team, and who seem to leave and be replaced with such dizzying regularity that Hamish and I have given up trying to remember their names, and refer to them as The Three Musketeers. Or The Three Witches, if we’re feeling particularly snarky. Which, let’s face it, is all the time.
“Now, now, Scarlett,” says Hamish. “I know the Gazette’s not as exciting as that glossy magazine you used to work for back in London, but people love these little human interest — well, sheep interest — stories. They’re what keeps the paper alive.”
“Adverts for double glazing firms are what keep the paper alive,” I point out, but I’m arguing for the sake of it, really. After the whole ‘Lexie Steele’ fiasco, when I got a bit carried away and basically just, well, made shit up, about a local girl who ended up dating a movie star, I’m lucky to still have a job at all. Even one with such a heavy reliance on stories about sheep.
“Anyway,” Hamish’s saying now, “This is an event in the town square. I don’t have a lot of details about it, but it’s starting soon. If you leave now, you’ll be right on time.”
I sigh wearily as I stand up, bumping my head hard on the ceiling as I pluck my jacket from the back of my chair and pull it on. I really just want to stay here and refresh Ada’s Instagram until she posts something that tells me she’s okay. She could be doing it now, for all I know. Maybe the next time I pick up my phone, there’ll be one of her patented “here’s the back of my head in front of another beautiful view” photos. Then I can forget all about that stupid message I sent her and get on with my life.
Or… maybe not.
As I walk down the stairs that lead to the street (The offices of the Gazette are charmingly situated right above The Wildcat Cafe, Heather Bay’s most popular fish and chip shop, and let me tell you, the smell of chip fat does not come out of your clothes without a fight…), I allow myself a sneaky look at my phone, my fingers working almost on autopilot as they find the Instagram icon, tap it, then navigate to Ada’s account.
Nothing.
No posts, no Stories… not even one of those “inspirational” Reels where there’s some stupid, misappropriated quote superimposed on a picture of a sunset, and accompanied by tinkly piano music.
God, Ada’s annoying.
I stop guiltily in my tracks. I shouldn’t be allowing myself to think things like that about a woman I might just have hounded off the Internet. It’s true, though. Ada Valentine is annoying. I know everyone raves about how amazing she is, with her tasteful beige home and her helpful household hints, but there’s something about her I don’t trust. Another funny feeling, I guess. It’s almost like she’s too good to be true. “Too sweet to be wholesome,” as my dad would say. And her famous mint chicken recipe tastes like feet, if you want to know the truth. Or it does when I try to make it, anyway.
But I’m just being mean now. I’m just trying to make myself feel better about what I did, because, here’s the thing: that thing I said about icicles, and how they’re the perfect murder weapon?
That’s not true.
I know that, not only because it was part of a Mythbusters episode one time (They didn’t actually try to kill anyone, don’t worry…), but because I’m a journalist. I know perfectly well that words can be the deadliest weapon of all. And now I’m terrified that I might have at least wounded someone with mine.
Pocketing the phone again, as if I can pocket my worries right along with it, I make my way along Heather Bay High Street, which is quieter than usual, on account of it being November: that dull, gray month when all the tourists have gone home, and the sea is the same color as the sky. The town is still prettier than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, with its picturesque little harbor, and the pastel painted cottages which line the beachfront, but today the restaurants and cafes are mostly closed, the town giving a slightly stale, off-season vibe that makes it hard to imagine the way it will come alive in the Spring — tourists thronging the little cobbled streets, and taking photos of the ice cream-colored buildings to post on Instagram.
Right now, though, I’m so preoccupied by Ada and her disappearance that I barely even notice any of this. I barely notice anything at all, in fact, until the ‘quiet’ street I’m walking down is suddenly filled with people, all heading in the same direction I am — towards the town square, which stands at the far end of the High Street, on the side of the street next to the beach.
Wait. What did Hamish say this ‘event’ he wants me to cover was about again?
Oh, yeah. He didn’t, did he? Hamish didn’t say anything about the story he’s sent me here to write, and for a second, my heart leaps, thinking it might be something interesting for once.
Then the crowds part, and my hopes come crashing right back down to earth again.
It’s Edna.
Of course it’s Edna.