Read Online The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes - Free Book Online

shamelessly used them, so that everyone thought he was part of the gang when he very much wasn’t.
    And whose fault was it that I didn’t have any friends?
    Grimly I pressed on with my search. The top drawer of the freezer had a massive bag of frozen peas. Why always peas? In everyone’s freezer? When they’re horrible? Perhaps they’re just kept for injuries, like when you fall down the stairs and break your thigh bone in three places. ‘Sit down there and we’ll put a bag of frozen peas on you and you’ll be back doing Extreme Zumba by Tuesday.’ The next drawer had four pizzas. Working my way downwards I found bread, cod fillets, spicey wedges. Nothing suspicious.
    Next, the cupboards. Tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice. They couldn’t have been more normal if they’d tried.
    ‘Do you still have your Shovel List?’ Jay asked.
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘Am I still at the top of it?’
    ‘At the top?
You?
You’re nowhere.’
    My beloved Shovel List contained things that mattered to me. I hated them, yes. Enough to want to hit them in the face with a shovel, hence the name. But they
mattered
. Jay Parker didn’t matter to me.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
    ‘For what?’
    ‘For everything.’
    ‘What everything?’
    ‘Everything.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    ‘Look, can’t we –’
    I held up a palm to silence him. I needed to go back to the spare bedroom. I’d missed something. I didn’t know what, but my instinct was telling me to get back in there, and sure enough, behind the curtain (don’t even get me started on how magnificent Wayne’s curtains were), I found it. A photograph. Turned face downwards. Of Wayne and a girl. Their cheeks were pressed against each other and they were sun-kissed and smiley. There was a background impression of sea-light and sand dunes and marram grass. The whole thing was mildly Abercrombie and Fitch-y – they might even have been wearing pastel cashmere hoodies – but it didn’t feel staged. I’d say they’d taken the shot themselves, using the timer on the camera. His smile seemed like a genuinely happy one. The girl had windburned freckles, sparkly blue eyes and tangled sun-bleached hair. This was Gloria. I’d stake my life on it.
    I brought the photo downstairs and showed it to Jay. ‘Who’s she?’ I asked.
    He shook his head. ‘Haven’t a clue. The mysterious Gloria?’
    ‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ I threw the photo into my handbag. ‘Come here, what kind of car does Wayne drive?’
    ‘Alfa Romeo.’
    ‘Okay. Let’s take a little stroll around the neighbourhood, see if we can find it.’
    We’d barely passed three houses when Jay said, ‘There it is.’
    ‘You’re sure? There might be more than one black Alfa Romeo in Dublin.’
    He cupped his hands around his face and gazed into the darkened car. ‘Definitely. Look, it’s got one of his stupid books on the seat.’
    I took a look at the book. It was a perfectly ordinary thriller. Nothing stupid about it at all.
    I approved of Wayne’s car. It was Italian, therefore stylish,but eight years old, so not flash. It was black, which is the only real colour there is for cars. I don’t see the point in any other so-called ‘colours’. It’s just a plot to slow us down. Think of all the time wasted dithering between red cars or silver ones. If I ruled the world, my first act as despot would be to make it illegal to have a non-black car.
    ‘So if his car is still here, and if he’s left voluntarily, there’s a good chance he might have gone wherever he’s gone, by taxi.’ My heart was in my boots thinking of the utter tedium of having to butter up the controllers of the dozens of taxi companies in Dublin, trying to get them to divulge their records.
    ‘Unless …’ (On the one hand this was an even less pleasant thought …) ‘unless he went on the bus or Dart. Because Wayne’s cool with public transport, right?’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘I don’t know. I just