Page 84 of The Friend Request

‘And your daughter was here when you arrived?’

‘She was tied to a chair in the library. Tape around her wrists, her ankles, her mouth.’ My throat closes on the last word. I swallow hard and keep going. ‘Ross Mercer was in the room. He was waiting for me.’

‘Ross Mercer – is that the deceased?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what is your relationship to Mr Mercer?’

‘He was—’ I stop. What is the right word? Boyfriend, first love, stalker, ghost, the boy who broke me, the man who came back, the body on the library floor? ‘We were together as teenagers. Here, at this school. He disappeared when I was seventeen. He came back a few weeks ago and started contacting me.’

She writes. She asks me when the contact started, how it happened, what he said, what I said. I answer as well as I can, but the story sounds mad even to me – the messages, the meetings, the shopping centre, and everything that came after. Every detail I add makes the next one harder to believe. I can see her writing, and I can see the lines getting longer, and I know that what she’s building on that pad isn’t a story that makes sense. It’s a mess. A tangle of secrets and lies and things I should have said weeks ago and didn’t.

Then she asks the question I’ve been dreading.

‘Mrs Stiller, were you visited by police yesterday evening? At your home address?’

My stomach drops.

‘Yes.’

‘And during that visit, were you asked about anyone who might pose a threat to your family?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you tell the officers?’

The silence in the classroom is enormous. And in it, I can hear myself from the previous evening, sitting at my kitchen table with my husband beside me and two officers waiting for an answer: The truth is, I kissed a guy in a bar and made it sound like I had some sort of stalker to make it easier for my husband to forgive me.

‘I lied,’ I say.

The detective doesn’t react. She writes, and waits.

‘They asked me about Ross. My husband told them there was someone – a man from my past – and they asked me who he was, and I said there was nobody. I said I’d kissed a stranger in a bar and exaggerated it to my husband. I said he was confused.’

‘Why did you lie?’

‘The note.’ I point at the plastic bag on the desk. ‘It says no police. It says my child’s life depends on it. I was terrified that if I gave them his name, Ross would find out, and he’d—’ I can’t finish. I press my hand against my mouth.

‘And your husband,’ the detective says. ‘Was he present in the school tonight?’

‘Yes. He came in after me. We planned it together – I’d arrive first, he’d follow shortly after. If Ross tried anything, Alex would be there.’

‘So your husband entered the school with the intention of confronting Mr Mercer?’

The way she says it makes my blood run cold. Because I can hear what she’s really asking, and the answer is the thing that’s going to pull us under.

‘He was protecting us,’ I say. ‘He was protecting me and Olivia.’

‘I understand that’s how it felt. But I need to establish the sequence of events. Your husband entered the building separately, arrived in the library without Mr Mercer’s knowledge, and then physically attacked him.’

‘He tackled him. Ross was – they were struggling, and Ross went backwards into the bookshelves, and⁠—’

‘Mrs Stiller.’ She’s gentle but firm. ‘A man is dead. Your husband entered the room and initiated the physical contact. We’ll need to take formal statements from both of you, and from your daughter when she’s ready, and I have to be honest with you – the circumstances here are serious.’

I know. I know they’re serious. I know that from the outside this looks like something it isn’t – a jealous husband, a secret ex-boyfriend, a plan, a confrontation, a death. I know that every lie has made it worse, and every truth I’m telling now comes too late to sound like anything other than damage control.

‘Can I see my husband?’ I say.