Chapter 10
TEN
ERIN
Present day
‘That’s the last of the milk, Erin.’
Molly takes the empty carton from the fridge and places it down on the worn and grubby kitchen work surface. Like me, the years of grime it’s seen are so deeply embedded that not even a little Ajax and a lot of elbow grease can shift them now.
‘Don’t forget to put it in the recycling bin, will you? Remember, plastics and glass in the green box and…’
‘… Paper and cardboard in the black… yes, I know; don’t worry, I won’t forget.’ Bless Molly. She really does seem to care so much about everything. I think she believes that even bottles and cardboard have feelings.
Molly Martin is the lady from Re-Connex, a charity that helps relocate and rehabilitate mental health patients after they’ve been released back into society.
She wears this old, shaggy, brown furry coat and is always scratching around inside a drawer or a cupboard or a box somewhere, like a mouse.
She’s friendly enough, though I can never let my guard down around her.
I must never forget that cute little mice can also be disease-carrying vermin.
Re-Connex has helped house me as part of the conditions of my release.
I must also attend mandatory weekly therapy sessions, take daily medication, and I have to check in with an adult mental health social worker and my parole officer on the third Friday of every month for the next eighteen months, which is a drag.
But at least I am ‘free’, in a sense at least, because while I am no longer incarcerated, I’ll never be truly free. Not until I find her.
‘Have you taken your meds today?’
I loathe the fact that she asks me this question. Doesn’t she trust me? I don’t need the bloody pills anyway. She goes into the bathroom to retrieve them from the cabinet, places them next to me on the table as she returns.
‘My mother, God rest her soul, always gave me a boiled sweet after I took my medicine like a good girl. Did your mum do the same, Erin?’
‘My mum’s dead,’ I say. That stops her in her tracks.
‘Oh, Erin, I’m sorry. When did you lose her?’
‘When I was thirteen. And I didn’t lose her. She was stolen.’
She’s silent for a moment. I can tell that she’s trying to process what I might mean exactly by that statement, but decides, wisely in my opinion, not to probe any further for now.
‘You know you can always talk to me.’ She cocks her head. ‘Some of the patients – ex-patients – find it helpful to talk about their experiences.’ And by ‘experiences’ I think she probably means ‘crimes’.
‘Is your father still around?’
‘Also dead,’ I say. ‘No family.’
She flashes me a pitiful look.
‘What about friends? It’s good to have a support network around you while you adjust back into normal life.’
I want to ask Molly to define what ‘normal life’ looks like, only I’d rather she just leave, so I try not to engage any more than necessary.
‘Not really,’ I reply. ‘Most of them fell by the wayside after… after everything. Though to be honest with you, I prefer it that way.’
‘Oh?’ She seems crestfallen. ‘That’s a shame.’
I assume that Molly knows my history, and about Samantha.
It’s no doubt the real reason why she’s asking me about my ‘friends’ and family, or lack of them.
She doesn’t appear to be scared of me though, which makes me question whether she really is familiar with my case.
‘You should come along to one of Re-Connex’s monthly social gatherings, meet some new people…
It’ll do you good! Everyone’s super friendly, and it’s a mix of women and men.
You never know, you could meet the love of your life.
’ She grins. Molly’s eyes disappear into slits whenever she smiles, which is often.
Her happy disposition is sometimes a painful reminder that I used to be like her once upon a time.
Now though, a darkness chases me; one I can never seem to outrun.
‘The only men I like are dead ones,’ I say flatly without breaking eye contact.
A look of horror registers on her face. I’m not sure why I’m trying to provoke her. I know she’s only trying to be kind. ‘Do you know what men fear most about women, Molly?’
She shakes her head. ‘No…’
‘That women will laugh at them.’
‘Oh, really?’ She shuffles from foot to foot a little awkwardly.
‘And do you know what women fear most about men?’
‘I must admit, I’m not exactly an aficionado on the subject. I’ve not had the greatest luck myself in that department…’
‘That they’ll kill them.’
‘Any luck with the job-hunting yet?’ Molly changes the subject as she nods at the laptop on the coffee table.
She has very generously gifted it to me, ostensibly so that I can search for employment.
Though who in their right mind is ever going to give me a job, I can’t imagine.
The job-hunting is merely a ruse anyway; it’s not jobs I’m searching for.
‘Not yet, Molly. But thanks again for the laptop.’
She stands, gives me a brief, awkward hug goodbye. Finally.
I watch Molly from the window as she scurries down the pathway in her big fluffy coat before turning left onto the main street.
Now that she’s gone, I untack the tie-dye wall-hanging and stand back and stare at the collection of cuttings and maps, and heavily scribbled-on Post-it notes I’ve been compiling on the wall behind it – years of covert research and study brought to the big screen at last. I break off a couple of squares of chocolate from the open bar on the table and pop them into my mouth.
Chocolate helps me to concentrate. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
How do you begin to look for someone who doesn’t exist?
Perhaps the one – the only – ‘good’ thing about spending six excruciatingly long and desperate years locked away with the criminally insane, is that I had plenty of time to start finding out.
As it transpired though, I was wrong, and the police and the judges and the doctors and the lawyers – they were right all along. Samantha Valentine really doesn’t exist, at least not technically. She was a creation of her own mind and not mine.
I know now of course that everything she ever told me was a lie. From the moment she took a breath to introduce herself, to the fatal second I stuck a knife into the heart of Bojan Radulovic, killing him stone cold dead. It was layer upon layer of them, a millefeuille of lies.
I open the fridge and take the cheap bottle of rosé from it, hastily pour myself a large measure into a chipped mug and swallow it back in three gulps.
The truth is, Samantha Valentine could be anywhere.
Searching for her is like looking for a ghost. It’s said, however, that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, and so if it’s true, then she will strike again.
She won’t be able to resist putting her head above the parapet.
Her need for control and power over people and the thrill of the emotional con is just too tempting for a psychopath like her.
I can’t go to the authorities for help in finding her, at least not directly.
How can I possibly turn to the very people who were so complicit in my demise?
Even armed with a truckload of evidence, I’m not sure they wouldn’t just lock me right back up with the loonies in a bid to conceal their own incompetence.
They got it wrong before; they could get it wrong again.
Anyway, I don’t trust the police. They don’t care about truth and justice; they’re corrupt.
I almost drop the mug I’m holding as the doorbell rings, startling me.
Who is that? I’m definitely not expecting any other visitors today.
Maybe Molly forgot something, though she does have a key, which she’s always perfectly happy to use, announcing herself at the same time as she enters with the words, ‘Only me!’
I grab the wall-hanging and hastily tack it back up.
And then the doorbell rings again.