Page 109 of 56 Days
Get inside under the guise of a job interview.
On the KB Studios website, the Join Our Team link had led to two listings for current vacancies, one of which was a junior office manager. Ciara set up a new Gmail account under a fake name and sent in a CV with it. A week had passed, draining her nerve away a little more each day. What the hell was she doing? How did she think this was going to end? What was her plan: walk up to this guy and say,Hey. Are you Oliver St Ledger? Great. Would you mind telling me exactly what happened on the afternoon that you murdered Paul Kelleher?But when a message arrived in her inbox calling her for an interview, she found she had just enough nerve left to say yes.
So now she’s sitting on a cushioned bench in the lobby, looking at the enormous reception desk in real life, rubbing clammy palms on her polyester trousers.
Thinking there’s absolutely no way she can go through with this.
Canshe?
She’d arrived ten minutes early and has been instructed to take a seat and wait.Someone will come and get you, the receptionist had said. For one wild, fleeting moment, Ciara had pictured that someone being Oliver St Ledger—but it was difficult to. Besides the astronomical odds, she couldn’t quite build a mental image of his face.
Up until the murder, her mother had kepteverything: every school report, every crayon drawing, every souvenir. Afterward, she’d stopped not only adding to her collection, but looking at it, too. There were dozens of dusty shoeboxes and dented biscuit tins piled up in the attic, and in the last week, Ciara had spent a day going through them. She thought the chances were good that her mother had accidentally archived a picture of a future killer, and she was right.
The Mill River Boys’ National School published a glossy newsletter at the end of every academic year and her mother had saved them all. The class photos they included weren’t captioned, so they were of no use, but the newsletters also included collages of action shots from the school’s various sports teams, and theywere.Twelve-year-old Oliver St Ledger had played rugby. There were twofull-colorphotos of him in the newsletter sent home in June 2003. One of them showed him running with the ball, his features blurred by motion, but in the other, he was standing with his hands on his hips, infull-colorand looking perfectly clear.
Ciara had stared at the photo for hours, studying every detail—and then cut it out and slipped it into a discreet pocket of her wallet, which was now in her bag by her feet.
But she has no idea if she’ll be able to match it to the adult now.
Or what she’ll do if she can.
“Ciara Murphy?” A young, slim, blond woman in atight-fittingblack dress has appeared in front of her.
Not knowing how good of a liar she could really be, Ciara had hedged her bets. She’d kept her own first name but adopted a fake second one: Murphy, the last name of every other person on this island, seemed like a safe choice. She’d taken the same approach with her CV, listing her real jobs up until her last one—Customer Experience Specialist at Blue Wave, which roughly translated into Call Center Minion for a cruise company—but pretended that she was still there, that that was her current role when, in reality, she’d been working in events for a hotel chain for nearly six months. She hadn’t bothered making up any college education.
“We’re almost ready for you,” the blond says. “If you come with me, I’ll bring you upstairs.”
Ciara stands, collects her things, and starts to follow the blond toward the bank of elevators, trying to ignore the thunderous beating of her heart in her chest. It’s so hard it’s loud, and it’s so loud she’s worried that when they get into the elevator and the doors close behind them, the other woman will be able to hear its pounding too.
“Don’t be nervous,” the woman says. “He’s very nice.”
“‘He’?”
The elevator doors open and they step inside.
“Kenneth Balfe.” The blond punches the button for the fourth floor. “He’s the managing director. He likes to do all the interviews himself, even for the admin staff.”
KennethBalfe.
KB Studios.
The strength goes out of Ciara’s knees and her body slumps against the side of the elevator.
Why the hell didn’t she put two and two together before?
Because she was too busy focusing on Oliver St Ledger. Who definitely works here, because his brother’s friend apparently owns the joint.
The blond is frowning at her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine, thanks.” Ciara smiles weakly. “I’m just not great with elevators.”
“Oh, you should’ve said.”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
“We’re almost there, anyway.”
Adingsignals that they’ve arrived.
