In A Dark Dark Wood

Nora tries to run to the door, but the effects of the pills slow her. Clare tries to catch her, but hampered by her injuries, trips and falls. Nora reaches the door, fumbles with the lock, and makes her way outside.

Painfully slowly, Nora runs into the forest. The tree limbs slash at her. Her feet and legs go numb with cold, but she keeps moving. Nora hears a car door slam and an engine start. She knows she must get to the road before Clare.

Moving more quickly downhill towards the road, Nora runs into a tree. Bleeding and dazed, she forces herself up and starts running again: “As I run, pictures shoot through my head, sudden flashes, like a landscape illuminated by lightning” (322). Nora pictures Clare sending the texts from her phone to lure James to the house; Clare’s shocked face as Nora jumped in front of her car, with James bleeding in the back seat; and Clare gunning her engine and heading towards a tree, with Nora fighting her for the wheel. Clare intended to hit the tree head on since she was wearing a seatbelt, unlike Nora and James.

Nora hurts all over, though she realizes that the painkillers Clare tried to poison her with are actually reducing her pain in the short-term, allowing her to keep running. Nora reaches the road and hears Clare’s car approaching. Nora tries to push her body to run again, but she has passed her limit. Nora sees the headlights of Clare’s car coming just around the bend in the road. Suddenly, there is a squeal of tires and a horrible crashing sound. Nora hobbles around the bend, sees the trees illuminated by blue light, and hears a woman’s voice. Nora comes upon Lamarr standing by her police car, blood running down her face. Lamarr is radioing for backup assistance and an ambulance. Nora calls faintly to Lamarr, then collapses onto the tarmac. As Lamarr runs to her, Nora thinks: “It’s over. It’s all over” (325).

Nora wakes in the hospital to Lamarr calling her name. Lamarr has on a neck brace, but she says she is fine when Nora asks. Lamarr explains that the are no longer looking for anyone other than Clare in connection with James’s death. Nora asks how Flo is, but Lamarr’s face tells her the news is not good, even though Lamarr says that Flo is holding on. Nora thinks about what Nina said about paracetamol overdoses and fears that Clare’s destructive actions are not yet over.

Nora realizes that Clare asked Flo to send that first text to James, before Clare arrived at the hen do. Clare likely revealed that Nora and James had been involved. Flo must have pieced things together when Lamarr asked about the texts and phones. Since Flo wasn’t allowed to see Clare in the hospital, she lied about the texts, cementing her culpability: “She wondered what she’d done, what she’d set in motion” (328).

Nora asks Lamarr if Clare confessed, but Lamarr says that Clare is still too ill to answer questions, at least according to her lawyer. Lamarr says that between Nora’s testimony, the report on the drugs Clare gave Nora, and Flo’s statement, the police have enough to confidently charge Clare. Lamarr comments that Clare never called an ambulance for James, as she claimed. Nora tells Lamarr that she suspected Flo, thinking that Clare would never throw away her perfect life. Nora explains it was only after she had her epiphany about James’s text that she put it all together.

Lamarr comments that the police now know Clare committed a similar crime back in university, when a professor accused her of plagiarizing a paper. The school fired the professor for sending inappropriate emails to students, which he denied. Nora thinks of all the suffering Clare’s betrayals have caused, wishing she could have prevented them. Lamarr leaves Nora, saying she will return for a formal statement later.

There is a knock at the door, and Tom comes into the room. Tom appears shocked at Nora’s appearance and unsure of what to say. He then abruptly blurts out that he thought Nora murdered James and apologizes. Nora tells him that it’s all right and asks him to sit down. Tom says that his husband Bruce never liked Clare, and when he heard from Tom that Clare is the murderer, Bruce said, “I’m shocked, but I’m not surprised. She never stopped acting, that girl” (332).

Nora thinks how right Bruce is: Even as a small child, Clare performed so many roles. Nora wonders what Clare would have done if Nora refused to come to the hen do. Tom replies that he and Nina discussed that and concluded Clare would have set up another attendee. Nora sadly says that she is sure it would have been Flo. Tom agrees, saying that Clare could have easily convinced the police that Flo killed James in a jealous rage. Tom gets up to leave and exchanges contact information with Nora. He asks how she will get back to London, and Nora says she does not know. Nina enters the room, saying that she will get Nora back to London.

Nina and her girlfriend Jess drove Nora home, and Nora is relieved to be back in London. In her secure space, she reflects on the previous events. Although Flo died on the evening of Tom’s visit, Nina was able to see Flo. Flo talked about her plans for what she would do after the hospital, but the effects of her overdose were too much for her body. Nora gratefully makes coffee for herself and listens to the sound of the traffic outside her window. She thinks of the Glass House and the dark shapes of the trees reflecting on the windows. Nora heard that Flo’s aunt planned to sell the house and wanted to burn the Ouija board planchette. Lamarr proposed that Clare had deliberately written “Mmmmmmuurderrrrrrrrrrrrrer” to put everyone on edge. This way, the guests would be more prone to panic when they thought a burglar was in the house. Nora thinks again about how Tom talked about subconscious messages: Clare’s mind unwittingly spelled out her thoughts. Although Nora tries to shut these memories out, she knows that everyone at the house will have to live with what Clare did for the rest of their lives.

Nora pulls out her laptop and checks her email. Along with an email from her editor and one from her mother in Australia, Nora sees an email from Matt Ridout, with the subject line “Coffee.” Nora still has his number on the piece of torn paper cup in her pocket. Nora thinks about Matt, how he talked about James and how he looked when he said goodbye to her. Unsure of what to do, she questions whether she is ready to meet a man for coffee: “I’m not sure I can let go of everything that happened, start again. For a minute my finger hovers irrationally over the Delete button. And then I click” (337).