Chapter 104 #2
‘We had to be careful so that Alice wouldn’t suspect a thing.
We started to lay breadcrumbs about a fake affair.
I got a pay-as-you-go phone and Caroline texted me using the initial T.
I knew Thomas was having an affair with somebody, so it wasn’t too long a stretch of the imagination that it could be Caroline if we needed to use the texts to explain why she’d disappeared.
To buy her time. She left her phone where Alice could see it.
Always on it, texting when Alice was around. That sort of thing.’
‘Why would she even visit her mother if she knew she was a monster?’
‘Why does any abused person struggle to leave an abusive relationship? Caroline was made to feel it was all her own doing. She had desperately tried to escape her mother’s clutches over the years, but everywhere she went, Alice would turn up.
Claiming she was Caroline’s saviour and that everything she did was for her ungrateful daughter.
Wheedling her way in under Caroline’s skin again. ’
‘Okay. Why were some of Caroline’s clothes at your house?’
‘She was amassing them for her escape. Some of them she couldn’t even afford.
You see, she was always trying to keep up with others.
Even down to her house, which landed them in debt.
Trying to be like me, not that I’d wish being me on anyone.
Caroline was so childlike, and that was all down to her mother. ’
‘Alice told me you stole Caroline’s clothes. How would she even know about that?’
‘She must have seen Caroline with boutique shopping bags, because one day she asked where her nice clothes had gone and Caroline was stumped. She said the first thing that came into her head – that she suspected I was stealing them from her.’ Sadie’s eyes were wild, dilated.
‘She was mortified telling me afterwards, but I was okay with it because it painted Caroline as the victim. It made Alice hate me all the more, but I could live with that if I could get Caroline and Freya to safety.’ She poured herself another glass of water. Her hand was still shaking.
‘Go on, tell me more about the plan.’
‘As my family had been killed after Poppy’s birthday party, it would be some sort of justice to whisk Caroline and Freya away to safety the day after Freya’s party.
Cameron would be in the office on the Monday and Alice in her rotten house and garden.
We knew Caroline’s car could be traced so the plan was for Christy to come to collect the bouncy castle and take Caroline and Freya with him.
Then I’d bring the clothes and money she had hidden at my house.
She was to take their passports with her, and then I’d get them to the airport and out of the country. ’
Lottie wanted to ask how they’d got Christy Kearney involved, but that could wait. ‘And what was she to do after that?’
‘She just wanted to escape with her daughter then figure out the rest of their lives. Once they were safe, I could start to deal with Alice. After all, my daughter was in those photos too.’
‘Why did Alice strike the night of the party?’
‘She must have found out what Caroline intended to do.’
‘How, though?’
‘I don’t know. But Liam was the weak link on both sides.
I think he figured out that Caroline had taken the money.
He probably arrived at the party to tell Cam, then Cam told Alice.
And being the callous bitch she is, she re-enacted the murders of my own family.
In one blow she had taken out those who defied her and also sent a stark warning to me.
When I heard the awful news on Monday morning, I feared she’d come after me. I had to act fast.’
‘The flaw in that theory is that Alice knew the money was missing three weeks ago.’
Sadie paled. ‘Really? Well something spooked her to act like she did.’
‘You could have pointed me in Alice’s direction, but you didn’t. Why not?’
‘I was terrified of her. She’s a clever bitch. I couldn’t implicate her because she might remain free while you investigated. If that happened, she’d kill me and Lily. She’s not afraid to kill. I learned that first-hand.’
‘So you implemented the plan for yourself. The one you’d devised with Caroline for her and Freya.’
‘Yes. Christy came on board with the changes. He hid Lily until I figured out what to do. Then I joined them. He kept us in a decrepit annexe at his house, away from his dad, in case the guards called.’
Lottie was finding holes in everything Sadie said. ‘Are you sure that wasn’t the plan all along? You killed the Healys and fled.’
‘That’s absurd. I would never hurt Caroline. I loved her. I loved Freya.’ Sadie paused. Her eyes flashed anger. ‘Alice has got to you, hasn’t she? Making false claims and you believe her. There’s no hope if that woman isn’t put behind bars once and for all.’
‘Sadie, you should have told me all this at the start.’
Her shoulders stiffened and her mouth hardened. ‘You originally thought it was Cam, and who knows, you might have had an investigative bias in that direction. I laid some groundwork for you, then I fled.’
‘Did you leave the lace collar for us? It was difficult to understand its significance at first.’
She nodded. ‘It was a subtle clue for you to follow. I kept a box of stuff from my old home. It was originally in the safe. I moved it under Lily’s bed when I put Caroline’s money and photos in the safe.’
‘Okay. Continue.’
‘Alice used to crochet those collars and sell them. An innocent front to make people believe she was quaint and harmless. Duh. I hoped her DNA would be on it. I prayed you could match it and haul her in.’
‘But Alice was never a suspect, never even interviewed for Denise and Poppy’s murders,’ Lottie countered.
‘Her DNA wasn’t on file. Then again, technology and procedures weren’t the same back then.
’ Lottie knew they’d fucked up not taking the grieving grandmother’s DNA following the recent murders.
A recrimination bridge to cross in the future.
‘I had to try something. Did it help?’
‘It did. Can I ask about the 999 call after your mother and sister were killed? Did you make it?’
‘God, no. I wasn’t even there. Alice killed them and got Caroline to make the call.’
‘Did you ask Caroline about it?’
‘No, never. I tried to put that time of my life behind me. I wanted to forget it. But you can’t outrun the past.’
‘Where were you the night your family died?’
‘With Dermot.’
More lies, Lottie thought. ‘You’re not telling me everything, Sadie.’
‘I’m telling you Alice killed my mother and my little sister, and Caroline and Freya and Cam too.’ Sadie took a child’s shoebox out of her tote bag. It was a faded green with a battered lid and frayed corners. She shoved it towards Lottie. ‘Look inside.’
Lottie pulled on gloves and lifted the lid. Inside was a crochet hook and a ball of thin white cotton yarn. She was certain they’d contain Alice’s DNA, but that didn’t prove she was a murderer. She nudged them to one side and saw a bundle of Polaroid photos.
They were stark, the colour dimmed by time. Alice Quigley was in the first one. Her arm around a little girl in a pink party dress with a lace collar.
‘That’s Poppy. My little sister.’
Seeing tears spilling from Sadie’s eyes, Lottie hesitated. The woman had a heart after all. She took out the cache of photographs and spread them across the table.
Sadie spoke haltingly. ‘My mother and that bitch Alice made her do all this.’
The photos were shocking in their depravity. And there was no escaping the fact that Denise Tormey and Alice Quigley were in some of the photos.
‘How did you get these?’
‘Denise usually kept them locked away, but I found some and nabbed them. They sometimes used a Polaroid camera that spat out the photos. They wouldn’t risk trying to get them developed and the internet wasn’t as accessible as it is today.’
Lottie was incensed at the actions of the two women. And she was baffled by Sadie. ‘I honestly can’t understand why you didn’t show me these before now.’
‘Alice got away with murder once, I feared she could again. You have to understand how devious she is. I was petrified of her.’
‘So you say. But you strike me as fearless, Sadie. You should have told me.’
‘I couldn’t just drop her name. She’d get me before you had time to lock her in handcuffs. I hope she burns in hell.’