Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
ERIN
There is a particularly bitter irony to the fact that, having spent the past six or more years of my life being silenced, dismissed, and disbelieved, it now seems that everyone can’t wait to hear my truth.
Or, I suspect, more accurately, to watch me being thrown straight back inside Larksmere asylum.
Seriously – it’s nothing more than a modern-day witch hunt.
Dan Riley’s TV appeal has sent the keyboard Karens into meltdown, and that awful photograph of me that’s been plastered all over it has garnered some pretty brutal comments: ‘She even looks like a serial killer,’ one had observed, with another describing me as ‘Larksmere’s finest alumni’.
Though maybe they have a point there… ‘Why was this woman released when she’s clearly mentally deranged and dangerous?
She’s the perfect example of a failed system.
’ And, my personal favourite, ‘Is she really only forty?’
I snap Molly’s laptop shut and switch it off.
I can’t stomach reading any more and I’m fearful of being traced.
Molly could’ve put a tracker on it, one of those ‘Find my laptop’ AirTag things that everyone’s using to help them find all the essential items that they must keep losing.
I imagine it’s just the sort of sensible, practical thing that Molly might do.
A sudden gust of wind causes the old bedroom window to rattle, startling me.
I place a hand on my chest in a bid to soften the jitters dancing inside it, peer outside through the grubby net curtains onto the grimy, wet street below.
Are they already watching me, the police?
Are snipers currently positioned on the rooftop of the Bull and Barrow, poised to take me down at the first sign? I drop the curtain, quickly.
I need to leave this place – now. Judging by the reports I’ve read online, it’ll only be a matter of time before the police come and smash the door down, no doubt fifty men strong, being as though I’m so ‘deranged and dangerous’, and I certainly don’t want Pete’s premonition of a bloodbath coming true. He has his sheets to think of.
Somehow, I have to get to Samantha Valentine before they get to me.
Only, the truth is, I still have no idea where she is.
I’m no closer to finding her than I was when I was caged up inside Larksmere having my brain lobotomised.
And even if she is here, in this city, no doubt she’ll have absconded after seeing Dan’s TV appeal and all the media mayhem this story is creating, disappeared into the shadows unnoticed, a ghost once more.
Perhaps I was wrong and DCI Riley isn’t the man for the job after all.
Potentially, he’s scuppered my plan by publicly giving her the heads-up.
If she’s smart – and Samantha is nothing if she isn’t that – then she’s probably already on a plane out of here and I’ll never get justice.
Frustrated, I hastily throw my clothes into my now-much-lighter tote bag, wrap the gun in an old T-shirt and bury it underneath them.
Then I give the shabby room the once over with a cloth and some bleach, being careful to wipe down all touch surfaces and the old mirror – it’s probably the first proper clean it’s ever seen.
‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re sneaking off to, sister?’ Pete calls out to me as I’m halfway through the pub, heading towards the exit.
I wince, roll my eyes. I was hoping to slope off without him noticing, only I get the distinct impression that Pete has other intentions for me, or, far more worryingly, us. ‘I’ve got scampi and chips in a basket going cold here, blondie!’
I swing round at him with a pasted-on smile.
‘I’ve just a couple of errands to run first,’ I say, breezily.
‘Keep it warm for me.’ I give him my best flirtatious face, the sort that Samantha could muster up at the drop of a hat and have any man in the palm of her hand – or woman, for that matter.
‘And the scampi and chips too!’ I wink at him over my shoulder, my smile vanishing instantly as I turn my back on him – creep.
I can’t risk using public transport. London is one great big closed-circuit television camera. Forget about your best side – if you’re lucky enough to have one of those – with so many cameras on you day in day out, there’s no side of you to hide.
I think about hiring a car while I’m rummaging through the rails of clothes in the charity shop, mindful of the CCTV cameras.
I’ve been careful to keep most of my face covered with the thick scarf I’m wearing.
I don’t want it to look as if I’m trying to deliberately conceal my identity though – it’s a delicate balance.
Thankfully it’s still pretty chilly out and there’s a light drizzle in the air, so the scarf is appropriate.
Now though, I’m looking for something a bit different, something to change things up a bit.
I grab a pair of smart black trousers and a fitted white shirt, choose a pair of suede boots from a collection of tatty old footwear on a shoe rack – the best of a bad bunch.
I check that they’re my size before taking them to the counter and purchase them along with another two scarves and a black woollen double-breasted dress coat that cinches in at the waist – Samantha would definitely have approved.
I throw in a pair of reading glasses and some tarnished gold costume jewellery to finish the look off.
‘That’ll be ￡69.40.’ The hippie-chick behind the counter rings them all up.
Jeez, ￡70 for a load of old cast-offs? Things really have changed since I’ve been locked away. ‘Can I get you a bag, hun?’ she says in a sing-song voice. ‘It’s 25p extra, but it is biodegradable.’
Hun. The word triggers me. ‘Hun’ was what Sam always used to call me. She’d tag it on the end of everything. ‘You OK, hun? You want a drink, hun? Would you kill for me, hun?’
‘No, thanks.’ I wouldn’t pay 25p for a plastic bag on principle alone, even if it is biodegradable. Even if I was a millionaire.
‘Is it OK if I use the changing room?’
Hippie-chick looks up at me, her plaits wobbling as she nods and points. ‘Sure, it’s just through there, the curtain behind the books.’
I notice the TV screen on the wall above her is switched on to the BBC news channel.
Trust me to choose a charity shop where the staff have an interest in current affairs.
Why isn’t she watching a music channel or something?
Young hippie-chick here looks more like a Love Island fan to me – but then I think it’s fairly safe to say that, given my past history, maybe I’m not the best judge of character.
I listen out for the news as I hurriedly strip off my old clothes and change into my new ‘office chic’ ensemble.
I throw the thick black dress coat over the top before brushing my hair and adding a dash of red lipstick.
It’s as I’m standing back a little from the mirror, observing my transformation, that I hear my name mentioned.
‘… Erin Santos… early forties with long dark hair and green eyes… she was last seen on CCTV at Leeds Central station, where she boarded a train to London King’s Cross…
’ I surreptitiously pull back the curtain a touch, peer through it at the TV screen that hippie-chick is now, of course, avidly blinking up at.
‘… A former inmate at Larksmere High Security Psychiatric Hospital, police have advised the public not to approach Santos and if they do see her, to call them at the first opportunity.’ That dreadful photo of me flashes up on the screen again.
‘… Police have advised the public not to approach Santos.’
My face glows with anger. Sometimes I’m amazed that I still have any anger left in me.
You’d think, after all these years of injustice, that particular reservoir might’ve run dry, and yet it is the gift that keeps on giving.
The police really are a bunch of muppets.
They got this all so wrong from the very beginning, and seem hell-bent on continuing with the same narrative even now, all these years later.
I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less, really.
I plan to call Dan Riley again once I’ve hired a car and put him straight.
Maybe he can do the same for me about this forensic evidence they’ve supposedly found at this crime scene I was never at.
It’s currently being suggested on social media that my DNA was discovered inside Milo Harrison’s apartment.
Only, I know that can’t be right. It’s probably just fake news.
Still, I’m incensed they can report such lies so seemingly legitimately without evidence, or recourse.
Does anyone care about the truth anymore?
I tear back the curtain, the metal rings singing with the momentum.
Screw them all! What does it matter anyway, what people are saying about me?
When the real truth is finally revealed in all its shocking glory, then I’ll be a media sensation for all the right reasons, and heads will roll.
I’m almost sad that I won’t be around to witness it when it happens.
‘Wow!’ Hippie-chick remarks, wide-eyed, as I step from the changing room. ‘Look at you! You look… awesome!’
I was right. No one tells the truth anymore. Anyway, at least it appears she hasn’t recognised me from my photo that’s still on the screen above us.
I flash her a fake smile. I doubt she can tell the difference.
Samantha Valentine may be a cunning chameleon, able to adapt and mimic sincerity like the professional emotional fraudster she is, but six years in that hospital from hell has taught me nothing if not how to portray my emotions – real and, especially, otherwise – convincingly. Besides, I learned from the master.
In hindsight, one of the things Samantha inadvertently taught me is how to hide in plain sight, like the misplaced set of keys you’ve spent hours searching for only to find they were right under your nose all along.
Now though, I reckon I can give her a run for her money.
When I find Samantha – and I will find her – she won’t know what’s hit her.
Subservient little Erin, her well-trained puppet, her faithful and adoring follower, her friend, is no longer the person she was so effortlessly able to deceive and destroy without care or conscience. I’m different now. I’ve changed.
‘Thanks,’ I say, turning back to smile at hippie-chick as I strut out of the shop in my new ensemble, ‘hun.’