Page 264 of The Silent Appeal

2:30 p.m. Carol wrote:

Only their tote bags. Did you notice? Practically the same.

Charlotte

That’s it! The tote bag that Issy mistook way back in April when she wanted to give Nicky-Rose the friendship bracelet!

Femi

How do you mean?

Charlotte

Calling you now!

Lockwood Murder Case WhatsApp group, September 13, 2025:

Charlotte Holroyd

We think we’ve worked out what happened, Mr. Tanner.

Femi Hassan

It’s so simple and yet completely devastating for so many lives.

Charlotte Holroyd

Amelia discovers Lucas’s affairs with Georgia and Nicky-Rose.

Femi Hassan

Georgia is pregnant. Amelia can’t do anything to her. But she happens to have a dose of LSD with her on the night of the first performance, in the form of a tiny square of paper. She took it from Lucas’s stash, thinking it would provide pain relief to help her get through the evening. Lucas makes her promise not to take it, says it isn’t an analgesic but a hallucinogen from a bad batch and therefore unpredictable. So, on the spur of the moment, Amelia decides to punish her other love rival and drops it into the bottle of Bliss Bubbles in Nicky-Rose’s tote bag.

Charlotte Holroyd

Only she mistakes Fran’s tote for Nicky-Rose’s, just like Issy did with the friendship bracelet. She slips the dose into FRAN’S bottle of Bliss Bubbles instead, where the LSD would dissolve out of the blotting paper into the water. The paper may have been visible under regular light, but not in the darkness backstage. Fran then drinks the water when she takes pain medication for her headache.

Femi Hassan

When Fran is onstage that first night, she is not only distraught from the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, she’s also increasingly under the influence of a hallucinogen that even Lucas considers too unpredictable to take.

Charlotte Holroyd

Fran has worked with ex-prisoners and addicts, but that’s no reason to assume she would recognize the effects of a “bad trip” when that recognition itself depends on the knowledge that a drug has been taken. All Fran “knows” is that she is in a heightened state thanks to being in a play and distraught about Josh.

Femi Hassan

It’s dangerous when someone takes LSD unknowingly, because they have no context for why they suddenly feel different and may not know they are hallucinating. That must be far worse when it’s a bad batch.

Charlotte Holroyd

By the interval, Fran is not acting under her conscious free will at all. She calmly selects her weapons, meets Josh in the lane, and murders him.

Femi Hassan

She returns to the stage for an “eccentric” performance in the second act. The effects wear off later that night. She is devastated and, unaware that she was under the influence of the drug, assumes her actions were due to a mental breakdown. Yet she makes the decision to wait until after the play before confessing to the murder.

Charlotte Holroyd