Chapter 6 #2
I sat down, my heart speeding like it had at the end of the parkrun, my head pounding.
Very few people knew who I actually was, even fewer knew that McAllister was the name of my foster mother’s first husband, or that my foster dad was the head teacher at my primary school.
I didn’t talk about my past, mainly because there was a very big, human shaped problem in the middle of it, that wouldn’t quite stay where it was supposed to.
This email, whoever had sent it, knew who I was and they wanted my attention.
I opened it, slightly wary. Very wary.
Mia,
No malware. No breach.
Attached:
Victim’s social media photo.
CCTV still — near the pub you’re watching.
The camera’s gone. No source to trace.
Image metadata is clean — no EXIF, no GPS, no device ID.
But check the timestamp pattern. You’ll know why.
Do not reply.
—Atlas
(Not your suspect. Just passing it on.)
I put down my phone and finished making the tea which was now slightly stewed. It was still pitch-black outside; the clock’s moving forward lengthening the night. Any arguing had stopped, just the ticking of a clock breaking the silence.
I opened the attachments when I was sat back down, the first a screenshot of our Jane Doe when she was alive and feeling pretty, her hair styled and face made up. She was smiling, and she now had a name.
Chelsea Bainbridge.
Thirty seconds later and I’d found her on social media.
She lived in Liverpool, had two kids and clearly hated their dad.
Her dirty laundry was hanging out there for anyone to comment, especially her ex who had helpfully thrown a load of abuse at her.
I clicked on his name and went to his profile.
The first photo was of him and the two kids he shared with Chelsea at a holiday park in the New Forest, dated two days ago, and telling the world how much he loved his kids and how their mum was a bitch and a whore because she hadn’t contacted them since Wednesday.
He was going to find out there was a good reason for that.
I put a pin in anymore investigations around Chelsea’s personal life and opened the second attachment.
The image was grainy, but I could make out two people, one probably Chelsea.
Only the back was visible of the person she was with; they wore a long, wide coat, down to their ankles, and the hood was up.
Impossible to get any identifying features, apart from they looked tall.
I closed the email app and opened my contacts, pressing Malcolm Wrigley’s name and hoping that Pam, his wife, didn’t wake up when his phone started to ring.
It wasn’t that the discovery of the body was a problem, it was more the timing of it because really, they should’ve found Dolly first, but maybe Dolly hadn’t been left in an obvious enough place.
He’d said that the police were inept, still using techniques and working theories from more than half a century ago, that their understanding of psychology and neuroscience was stuck there, lead boots in sinking sand, and really, if being caught was the objective then being obvious was necessary.
But being obvious wasn’t really on the agenda. The agenda was following what instinct said, which was righting a wrong and remembering what they’d done.
So this would be the third kill. The third time a life was taken. Arguably fourth, if we were being metaphorical.
The handle of the knife felt solid and competent, the hand around it confident.
Practicing what to do had been easy, perfected over the years, the idea of using it as desired just an idea until he managed to coax the words out so they made sense, and then formed a plan and then made it seem reasonable and rational and not the ramblings of someone who had an identifiable condition as categorised in the DSM-5-TR, or whatever edition they were up to.
It was all nonsense; he said so. Humans thought they needed to categorise everything in order to understand it, when what they needed to do was open their minds.
Like the police.
He said they wouldn’t solve the murders. That there was no way they’d work it out. Trusting him was proven, that’d been noted over the years. There’d been acceptance, understanding, maybe reliance although that wasn’t the norm for either of them.
He helped the voices, naming them, developing acceptance that they were a manifestation of trauma, trauma that was Dolly’s fault – and the others.
All of them.
They knew what they were doing. And they laughed. The memories of them laughing would never fade, no matter what barriers or breathing techniques or medication were used.
It’d been planned years ago, when intelligence gathered showed what they were up to, hashtag, living their best lives and all those achievements unlocked, smiling photographs showing perfect houses and Christmas trees and reunions.
Not that bloody perfect.
Chelsea’s husband would be glad she was dead. Her kids were better off with him – that had already been checked out because the kids couldn’t help that they’d been born to an evil, calculating person. They wouldn’t even know what’d happened.
Number three was next. All this talk about the Pusher coming back was exactly what was needed to help everyone stay incognito.
The police were too short-sighted to spot a connection that was barely there anyway. Might as well play into what the newspapers and online blogs were saying.
Brooke would be left in water too, which was ironic because she’d hated getting wet. She’d almost cried once when it started raining and her hair started to go frizzy, so this would serve her right.
Shame she wouldn’t actually be able to see it. She’d have cried even more.
Serve her right.
Brooke had been another bitch. Maybe not as bad as Chelsea but she hadn’t stopped it. She hadn’t said something or been a better friend. She’d laughed.
Serve her right.
The hand around the handle of the knife tightened. Readying itself.
Whose fault was it if it had a mind of its own?
It served her right anyway.
It would serve her right.
Anyone could see that.