"I can't believe she's gone," Carla whispered, the horror and shock was still written all over her face.

"I know. It seems like just yesterday she was walking in here with her pram full of laundry," Daisy muttered.

"We should go over then and tell John. He should be the one to tell the children," Carla said to the women.

"Yes, we should go."

They walked in silence towards Marie's house. They arrived to find reporters and police everywhere. Fortunately, they knew where her back door was and let themselves in. They heard voices coming from inside the living room. The four women stood inside the kitchen and listened.

"Do you know what your wife was doing this morning?" asked a male voice, who the women presumed was a policeman.

"I don't know. Laundry? Shopping?" a slurred voice replied.

"She was found with this in a bag next to her. Do you recognise it?"

"This is my beer. That b**** must have stolen in," the voice replied angrily.

The women flinched at the venomous tone John spoke in.

"What were you doing this morning?" the policeman asked the widower.

"I don't know. Probably sleeping or reading the newspaper, I'm trying to find a job."

"Can anyone verify that?"

"My children."

"Sir, your children are at school. Your wife dropped them off at 8am this morning. She was killed at 11am. Where were you at 11?"

"Where was I at 11? That's a very good question. I don't know. No wait, I remember now. I was at the pub down the street. You can ask the bartender"

The women heard the policeman mumbling to someone, who then said to John: "Mr. Wallace, we will check with him, but do not leave town."

The policeman and his partner stood up and started heading towards the front door, leaving an inebriated John on the couch. The women waited there for a couple of minutes until the sound of snoring filled the house. Betty, holding a finger to her lips, waved them towards Marie and John's bedroom.

"What are we doing here?" asked Anne.

"The policemen were here," Betty replied.

"Yeah, so?" enquired Carla.

"That means that they don't think that Marie's death was an accident. They think that someone murdered her," Betty responded.

"And you want to figure out who and why, don't you?" Daisy asked.

"Yes, there must be something in her room that might tell us something."

"We can't just look through her stuff. She would hate us if she found out we were looking through her things," Anne pointed out.

"I don't think she would mind if we were doing it to find her killer," Betty replied, "I'll take her nightstand."

They started to go through Marie's belongs. They did this for a few minutes until Anne's voice broke the silence: "There's nothing here, maybe it was really an accident. Even it wasn't, we should leave this to the police. It isn't our place to investigate her death."

"Maybe you're right," Betty agreed, to the surprise of Carla and Daisy, "Let's go."

The women left the room, but not before Betty slipped a book into the front pocket of her dress.

That night, Betty was examining the book she found in Marie's room. It was an ordinary journal, it had a plain black cover. However, the inside of the book was full of writing. Betty realised she was holding Marie's diary. She flipped to the last couple of pages that Marie had written in. The last entry was dated for seventh August 1955, the day before Marie's death. It said:
Dear Diary,

I don't know what to do. I know I should tell the police, but that would get her in trouble. She's also paying me well to keep it a secret. I know it's wrong, but we need the money. John's been unemployed for almost six months. Matilda needs a new coat. John is also drinking more and more these days. I don't know what I am going to do. I know I should leave him, but I can't. What about the children? I don't want them to be raised in a broken family. I don't believe in divorce, it's not in the Bible, but if he hits me again... I'm afraid that if I don't do something he will start hitting the children. Right now, I am the only thing stopping him. I don't know what to do about anything.

Betty was confused. What was she talking about? What should she have told the police? Who's the she that Marie was referring to? Betty was also confused for another reason. Why didn't Marie tell her how bad things were getting with John and the money? Betty would have helped. She didn't have much money herself, but she and her husband would have given what they could. She pushed that thought out of her mind. She couldn't do anything to protect Marie from John, but she could find out who killed her. She flipped through the entries leading up to that one, until she found one that dated to the first of August:

Dear Diary,
I can't believe it. I'm shocked. I thought I knew them. They're thieves. They go into people's homes and steal their belongings. They rob them blind. They take their money and jewels. She's one of my best friends. I've known her for years. Ever since we met at the Steamie, we’ve been close. How could she do this? I know things have been tough, but stealing. That's awful. I wish I had never been walking around. If I had stayed home, I would never have seen them go into the Stewart's home and steal their things. If I had stayed home I wouldn't be in this position. I still can't believe they would do and the way they do it is deplorable. What do I do? Do I tell the police? Do I tell the others? God help me.

Betty was beginning to understand and the knowledge stunned her. One of her best friends was a thief. One her best friends murdered Marie because she was blackmailing the thief. Wait a minute. It couldn't have been one of the women who hit Marie with her car because all four women were washing their clothes when she Marie was killed. It must have been the husband who did the actual killing. Betty realised that if she found the thieves, she would find the murderer. The question still remained, who was the thief amongst her friends?

Betty tossed and turned. She couldn't sleep. The thought that one of her best friends was a criminal terrified her. She needed to talk to somebody, get this off her chest. She didn't know who to talk to. She couldn't talk to any of her friends because the person she was talking to might be the one she's talking about. She didn't want to talk to her husband because he would say to go to the police with the diary. She couldn't do that. She still felt loyal to her friends and she didn't want to betray any of them. Betty knew it was stupid to feel any loyalty to the woman who caused so much pain, but she just couldn't do it. A part of her didn't want to believe that it was true. She knew these women. They looked after her children and she did the same with theirs. They kept each other sane. She needed some air so she decided to go for a walk. She put on her shoes and slipped out of her house. She was welcomed outside by a blast of hot air. She wondered when the heat wave they were experiencing would end. Her head was full that night.

Betty wandered about for about an hour and during that time she decided to investigate her friends, she just didn't know how to do it without them figuring it out. She knew that if she didn't play it right, the woman would get suspicious and back off. Even if she did figure out who did it, she didn't know ho to prove it. She also didn't know what to do with the information. Should she go to the police? Should she do nothing? She knew she couldn't. She wouldn't be able to live with the fact that she helped a murderer get away, but could she live with the fact that she put one of her best friends in jail? That she helped to incarcerate someone's parents. She then thought of Marie and her children. They would never see their mother again because of what one of her so-called-best-friends did. Betty decided then and there that she would turn the couple into the police. It wasn't any of her business what would happen to them. It was their fault anyway. They robbed the houses. They murdered Marie. She walked back to her house and crawled into bed, feeling calmer than she did a few hours ago.

The next morning, Betty read through the newspaper from the second of August. She realised that she didn't know what time the robbery that Marie witnessed took place. She was hoping that she would be able to find the exact timing in the newspaper from the next day. She flicked through the pages till she found a mention of robbery that happened at 10pm the night before, while the owners were out. She skimmed through the article. Everything matched up. The place, what Marie said was stolen. The article also said that there were no signs of forced entry, which meant that the perpetrator had a key. There was something that felt familiar about this whole thing. She found the newspapers for the past week and flicked through the articles. She found three more articles that matched the robbery at the Stewart's. All of the incidents happened while the owners were out and all the houses seemed to have been entered with a key. She read through the articles again and for the first time in, what felt like years, she smiled. She now knew that Carla and her husband were not the ones she was looking for because they were with her when one of then robberies happened. That meant that either Anne or Daisy was the thieves.

She couldn't just wait here and do nothing she needed to move. She needed to end this for Marie. It was the least she could do for her. She walked out her front door, being extra careful to lock the door behind her. Her old key decided that it wanted to break then.

"Great, just great," Betty said sarcastically. This is not what she needed today. She would have to call Anne's husband, David, to make her a new key. David was a locksmith so he knew how to duplicate a key. Just like that, the pieces in her mind clicked together. David was a locksmith. He could have made copies of keys for himself to the houses where he installed the locks. She tried to remember if there was anything strange going on with Anne. Now that Betty thought about it, Anne had been more confident recently. She used to be worried and tense about her finances, but that hadn't been there in recent weeks. She decided to pay her friend Anne a visit.

Betty felt betrayed. She felt sick at the knowledge that Anne played a part in Marie's murder. It was horrifying. She thought she knew Anne, but it turns out that Betty did not know the first thing about Anne. Betty was so lost in thought that she almost didn't notice the car with the dented front driving past her. Fortunately, she caught a glimpse of the car and its driver before it turned the corner and was out of sight. She wasn't surprised by the driver, but she was surprised at how she felt. The man driving the car was David. His appearance only confirmed Betty's suspicions. She sighed before knocking on Anne's front door. She opened the door with her sleeping baby daughter cradled in her arms.

"Oh hello, Betty," Anne said, surprised.

"Hello, Anne," Betty replied, quietly

"What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to stop by. See how you're doing."

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Was that David I saw driving past? What happened to your car?"

"Oh, nothing really. David just accidentally hit a lamp post." Anne said confidently, but without meeting Betty's eyes.

"Anne, look at me," Betty commanded, "That's not what happened is it?"

"No," Annie whispered, her eyes began to tear up and her lip trembled, "David hit Marie. I had no idea he was going to do that. He was supposed to pay her. He wasn't supposed to kill her."

"You have to tell the police. You have to tell them everything," Marie told her gently.

"I can't. We'll go to jail," Anne began to sob, uncontrollably.

"Not if you co-operate with the police. If you help them and turn David in, I'm sure that they will let you go. You can go back home to your children. If you don't turn him in I will. It'll be better if you do it, though."

"I can't turn David in. He's my husband. He's the father of my children," Anne cried.

"You can and you will. Otherwise I will. If you do it, you might be able to come home to your children, but if I do it, you'll go to jail. You probably won't be able to see Joseph or Julia again. Please do this. For Marie. You owe her this."

"Alright. I will. Let's go," Anne said, holding her head up high.

Anne did just that. She told the policemen everything, from the robberies to the murder. As Betty predicted, Anne was able to get away without any jail time, on the condition that she testified. However, she wasn't as lucky when it came to her friends. Carla and Daisy were so horrified at what Anne had done they refused to speak to her or see her ever again.

"What do we do now?" Daisy asked Carla and Betty.

"We mourn Marie. We respect her memory. We protect her children, then we move on," Betty told her friends.

The three of them stood outside the Partick Steamie. The place where everything began on that hot day in August. They stood there, while a cold breeze enveloped them, indicating that the heat wave was over.