‘The latest victims of the Confession Room murderers have been found in a warehouse in East London. Patrick Hose, a thirty-nine-year-old man from Oldham, was discovered by an early morning walker. Beside him, unconscious but alive, was twenty-two-year-old Rosie Johnson. Miss Johnson’s family have asked for privacy at this difficult time and they will not be answering questions from the media –’
Emilia stabs the mute button on the remote then flings it across the room with a strangled cry.
The news reporter is still speaking, their mouth moving silently before cutting to images of each victim.
When will this end? When will the police piece it all together? How? The perpetrators are always so careful: hiding their faces, avoiding and disabling CCTV, covering every track that they have left an imprint on. Making the surviving victim keep their secrets.
Emilia throws up her arms to cover her face, her cheeks flushing as if the eyes of the world are upon her, heavy with judgement. If she had gone to the police straightaway, run inside that station without hesitation and told them every detail she could remember, if she’d told Ciaran the truth that night, maybe they would have found them by now. And two people’s lives wouldn’t have changed. Patrick Hose would still be alive.
What did he do for them to target him? She frowns. Does it matter? Whatever the reason, their twisted version of justice shouldn’t be happening. They shouldn’t be getting away with this. Yet they are. And they will. But when will they call on her? When will they make her keep to her promise?
Her parents drop round every day, her dad sitting awkwardly on the sofa, waiting for Emilia to speak, her mum finding any small job to do around the house, anything that will allow her to linger, watching Emilia closely.
Emilia sits up abruptly, the words of Rosie’s family ringing insistently, a bell repeating its pattern over and over. They will not be answering questions …
It’s the same answer given by them all. The same rule drilled into them before they are set free: You do not remember anything. If you say a word, there will be repercussions. Emilia has never felt more alone. But … in truth, she is not alone. The surviving victims have all lived through the same thing, all reiterating the same lie in order to keep the truth hidden. But maybe if they all spoke up, they might be believed. The killers can’t target all of their loved ones at the same time, and the police could protect them. If they warned their families and then told the truth, they would be kept safe.
A tear runs down Emilia’s face as she faces the possibility that until now she hadn’t allowed herself to consider.
If they all spoke up, maybe they could bring this to an end.
Emilia glances over her shoulder, fear almost paralysing her as she stares down the long road which is quiet. But not peaceful. A strange tension hangs in the air, the same tension that vibrates in the atmosphere of her home. A signal that something terrible happened here. Something violent.
She hasn’t left the house since she returned home. She has been too frightened, felt too watched. But now she is here, on Isabella’s road. The last time she was here, she was nothing more than an online sleuth, trying to uncover the truth of a case. Abandoning her own job to investigate another – a job she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to go back to. And now, she is part of the very fabric of the Confession Room. When true crime aficionados talk about this case in the future, they will speak her name.
Emilia steps forward, bracing herself, and knocks firmly on the door.
The house remains silent. There is no movement in the hallway, no voices bellowing for someone to answer the door. Emilia glances up at the two windows at the top of the building, both shielded with thin white shades. She squints – was that …?
Yes – there, at the window, peeking through a small gap to the side of the curtain, is Isabella.
She gives a little wave. Isabella disappears, the curtain closing abruptly.
Emilia knocks again, even louder this time. They need to speak. They need to acknowledge what is happening, what they’re both being forced to suffer.
‘Isabella?’ she calls out, craning her neck again to check the road. It is still quiet. ‘Can we talk, please?’
The door jolts open. But it isn’t her peering through the small gap. It’s an older woman, a woman Emilia recognizes from the car on the day of the vigil, and from the news. Isabella’s mother.
‘I’m sorry, but Isabella doesn’t want to talk to anyone about what happened. Not any more.’
Emilia steps back, down one step, away from the door. But her eyes shift up to the window. There she is again, peering down. She must be just at the top of the stairs. Listening. Hearing everything.
‘I just really hope she’s okay.’ She pauses, meeting Melanie’s eyes with a small, sad smile. ‘I’ve been having dreams – nightmares – but I think they’re actually memories. I’m thinking of going to the police and –’
Emilia stops at the sound of footsteps, thundering down the stairs. Isabella appears, flying around the corner and coming to a standstill behind her mum, her hair falling in her face. Breathless.
‘Mum, it’s okay,’ she says, placing a hand on Melanie’s shoulder. ‘I can speak to Emilia.’
Melanie swings around, her brow furrowed. ‘Darlin’, I don’t think that’s a good idea –’
‘I know her, Mum, don’t I? It’s fine.’
Isabella meets Emilia’s eye and forces out a smile. But as Melanie turns back to face Emilia, her back to her daughter, Isabella’s eyes harden.
‘Okay …’ Melanie steps backwards, allowing the door to swing towards her. ‘Come in, Emilia.’
‘No, Mum – it’s okay,’ Isabella says hurriedly, reaching around her to grab a coat that is hanging behind the door. ‘We’ll go for a walk.’
‘Isabella –’
‘It’ll be good for me. I need some air.’
She places a quick kiss on her mum’s cheek and then stalks out of the house, hooking her arm through Emilia’s and tugging her away down the path to the pavement.
They remain silent as they walk down the road. But as soon as they turn the corner, away from Melanie’s watchful gaze, Isabella grabs Emilia by the scruff of her coat, her eyes gleaming with anger.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ she growls.
Emilia’s mouth sets in a hard line, her eyes also turning cold. ‘We need to talk.’
‘There’s nothing for us to talk about –’
‘You know exactly what we need to talk about. We need to talk about what we’re going to do. We need to talk about what we know!’
‘I know nothing.’ Isabella releases Emilia, her hands dropping to her sides in curled fists, scuffing her boot against the ground, the sole scraping rhythmically against the stone.
‘How can you just act like I don’t know what happened to you in that room? As if I haven’t just been through the same thing –’
‘Lower your voice,’ Isabella snarls.
‘As if I didn’t do what you did!’
‘Please stop!’
The words die on Emilia’s tongue as Isabella lifts her hands to cover her face.
‘Isabella, I –’
‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispers. ‘Why are you dragging me into whatever you think you need to do to forgive yourself?’
‘People will keep dying if we don’t do something! We have no idea how long it will take for them to make a mistake or for the police to find them. We can’t just let this carry on! And if we spoke up together, we could just –’
‘Maybe they deserve it.’
Emilia falls still, the tips of her fingers still tingling with adrenalin, but her mind stalling at Isabella’s words. The very words that have been quietly echoing inside her as much as she has tried to block them out. Maybe Ryan deserved it.
‘You … You don’t mean that.’
‘I do.’ Isabella shrugs. ‘You didn’t even know yours. Why do you care? He did something horrible and now he’s gone. Now he will never be able to hurt anyone again. They aren’t choosing innocent people. Gregory … he was a monster. He hurt me more times than I can count. And he would have carried on doing it. They deserved it –’
‘Did I deserve it?’
Isabella stalls, her face turning blank, eyes empty and mouth open, as if her mind is buffering, analysing what has been said and what it implies.
‘Did I deserve to be put in that room and forced to kill someone?’
‘I don’t –’
‘You helped them.’ Emilia’s eyes sting as the memory floods through her: the woman standing in the garden, staring at her through the darkness. The unlocked back door. ‘Did I deserve that?’
‘Emilia, I –’
‘I helped you. I found you. You begged me to take you to the vigil and I did because I thought it was important. And you … you tricked me.’
‘Pretty soon they’ll ask you to do something too –’
‘And I’m terrified! I don’t know what they’ll ask me to do, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to do it. The thought of helping them kill another person –.’
‘I know. I felt the same. But you know that you don’t have a choice. You know how dangerous these people are. It was the last thing I wanted to do. And I tried to warn you. That’s why I told you they were choosing their victims from the forum itself. I felt sick knowing that I was part of the reason you were there. Especially when …’
Emilia narrows her eyes. ‘Especially when … what?’
Isabella tilts her head, her chin lifting up towards the grey sky. ‘I didn’t think you’d do it. An ex-police officer … I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.’
‘So you thought unlocking my door was a death sen-tence –’
‘That isn’t fair –’
‘And you still did it!’
‘My family don’t deserve to be killed instead of a stranger!’
Silence covers them, a low-hanging cloud, smothering them with pressure.
‘I know that what I did was wrong,’ Isabella says, meeting Emilia’s eyes with a desperate plea in her gaze. ‘But they said that if I didn’t do it, they would come to my house and take my younger brother.’ Her lip trembles. ‘He’s only fourteen, he’s just a baby. He doesn’t deserve that. Not to save someone I don’t know. Not even someone who helped me. I’m sorry. I have to protect my family. I’ll do anything.’
‘Listen,’ Emilia says, reaching out to touch Isabella’s hand. She winces. ‘I know that you felt like you didn’t have a choice. Like you don’t have a choice now. But if we reached out to Joseph Henley and the three of us told the truth together, maybe we could stop them. And the police would protect our families.’
Isabella pauses, staring at Emilia through wide eyes, like a lost child. Emilia’s heart begins to lift: maybe she’s getting through to her. Maybe this is it –
But, no. Isabella begins to shake her head, slowly, resolutely.
‘I can’t do that.’ Her face crumples as she tries not to cry. ‘I just can’t. What if they hurt your parents? Could you live with that guilt?’
Emilia’s stomach drops. ‘I –’
‘We need to stay quiet, and eventually the police will find them, or they’ll stop.’
‘You think they’re going to stop?’
‘They can’t go on forever.’
‘Isabella, I –’
‘Please just think about what you’re asking me to do. What you’ll be asking Joseph to do. They gave us instructions. There are rules.’
Emilia steps backwards, away from Isabella, away from her panicked stare.
‘What if I do it on my own?’
‘If you do it on your own, you’ll be making that choice for all of us. That isn’t your choice to make. And you’ll be putting our families in danger.’
‘No, I –’
‘I’ve kept quiet this whole time,’ Isabella continues. ‘I’ve done what they’ve asked. Joseph Henley killed his own brother. You’re going to ask him to risk the truth coming out? We’ve all got a reason for wanting the other person dead, right? And my confession … I said I would kill him if he ever touched me again. If they release that and the footage of me doing it, what’s your expert opinion? The police are just going to let me go?’
Emilia doesn’t say a word, her mind scrambling for answers to an unanswerable riddle.
‘And your guy. Ryan Kirkland. He said he hurt his ex-girlfriend. Was that you? Someone you knew?’
‘No.’ Tears stream down Emilia’s face. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, her skin stinging in the cold air.
‘So what? Who was he?’
Emilia shakes her head, her hands lifting to cover her ears as anxiety swells in her chest.
‘Who was he, Emilia? What did he do?’
‘They said he killed my sister!’
Isabella covers her mouth, her fingers splayed in horror. ‘What?’
‘My sister was murdered. About a year ago by a stalker. They never found him. And … they said it was him. They had evidence and I …’ Her voice fades away, her words strangled.
‘And what was your confession? Did you confess to wanting to kill him?’
Emilia desperately tries to clear the lump that is stuck at the back of her throat. ‘I said … I said that if I ever found out who did it, I would kill him.’
She meets Isabella’s gaze, and there is an expression in her eyes, a heady mix of sadness and satisfaction.
‘That’s one hell of a motive … Right?’
Emilia hangs her head. Isabella is right.
‘I won’t say anything,’ she whispers, the words hanging in the air.
‘Thank you.’ Isabella reaches for her, pulling her into a tight hug.
Isabella lets her go and slowly backs away, holding her gaze for a few steps before she swings around and hurries back towards her house, turning the corner and disappearing from sight without looking back.
Emilia stands paralysed, suspended in the moment. The moment she decided that to lie was better than to tell the truth. The moment she decided that the lives of the survivors and their families were more important than the lives of any more victims.
The moment she realized that the Confession Room had manoeuvred them all into an impossible situation, too frightened to make the first move. They had been playing chess, thinking three steps ahead while the victims could only consider what was directly in front of them.
And here she was, unable to move. Defeated.
Checkmate.