Wednesday 23:55
Even when I hear the familiar sound of police sirens, I stay where I am outside the bathroom, waiting while they pull up outside before coming in through the open front door downstairs. Priya takes charge of everything, and seems remarkably sober too, given how many bottles of beer I thought we drank together earlier. I watch them all coming and going, police colleagues walking through the crime scene that used to be my home, while I seem unable to stand or think.
I only snap out of it when I hear my niece start to cry in her bedroom, woken by strangers working on the murder of her mother. Not that she knows that, or will understand it any time soon. Doctors are checking her over now; they think she was drugged. I try to get up using the wall for support, avoiding looking inside the bathroom. They haven’t moved Zoe yet. She’s still lying in a pool of red water, staring up at the name on the wall.
‘Take it easy,’ says Priya, rushing over to help me get back on my feet. ‘I’ve got this. You shouldn’t be here, is there somewhere else you can go?’
There isn’t.
Olivia is screaming now. I don’t know how to explain what has happened to a two-year-old, I don’t understand it myself. Priya carries on talking, but all I can hear is a little girl crying out for a mother she’ll never see again.
‘I’m guessing you’d rather avoid social services getting involved, so I’ve found a neighbour who says she can look after your niece, sounds like she’s looked after her before. You’ll need to sign something, but a family liaison officer will take care of everything, is that OK?’
I think I nod, but I don’t know if it is OK. Maybe I should stay with her.
‘Good. You can’t stay here,’ Priya says, as though reading my thoughts.
‘I need to find out who did this,’ I insist, my voice sounding strange inside my ears.
‘I know you do. But maybe tomorrow, sir. I think it might be best if I get someone to drive you somewhere else for the night?’
‘Where do you think I’m going to go? And why haven’t you asked the most obvious question yet?’
Priya pulls the face she reserves for when she feels most uncomfortable.
‘I don’t know what you—’
‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Priya. You know exactly what I mean. What do your instincts tell you? Do you think she did it?’
‘Who?’
‘Anna! They never liked each other. Why else would my ex-wife’s name be written on the wall in blood? She’s been the first to arrive at every crime scene. I know you suspected her earlier. Maybe I could have stopped this from happening if only I’d—’
Priya stares at me with a look that lies somewhere between pity and mistrust, and it redefines her features.
‘Go on, say whatever it is that you’re thinking,’ I say when she doesn’t speak.
‘Well, you said yourself that the bathroom door was locked from the inside when you arrived…’
I don’t have the patience for one of her pauses.
‘Yes,’ I snap.
‘And the key to the door was found on the side of the bath—’
‘Are you suggesting it was suicide?’ I interrupt. She stares at me, the awkward silence answering the question for her. ‘If my sister committed suicide, then what did she use to slit her wrists? Do you see a knife or a razor?’
Priya looks back over her shoulder at the scene. I can’t bear to follow her gaze, so I carry on trying to explain things the way I see them.
‘There is a friendship bracelet tied around her tongue, just like the other two victims. We haven’t shared that information with the press or the public. Whoever killed the others, killed Zoe, or are you suggesting she sewed her own eye closed?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, sir. But she could have been working with someone else, and things went wrong. I’m just gathering the evidence, like you taught me to.’
Her phone rings and I think she’s grateful for the interruption until she sees who is calling.
‘It’s the deputy chief constable,’ she says.
‘Well, answer it.’
She does, and I watch while he talks and she listens. It feels like an eternal wait for the call to end, but in reality, it only lasts a couple of minutes.
‘He wants you off the case. I’m sorry, sir, but given the circumstances I think it’s probably the right call.’
The short speech packs a punch and was well delivered. Either the alcohol we drank earlier has given her additional confidence, or she’s been rehearsing for the moment she could justify stealing my job.
I’m distracted when someone starts to take pictures of the crime scene behind us. The flash jogs something in my tired broken mind, and I remember the photo. I push past Priya and hurry down the stairs. She follows me into the kitchen, and at first I think the picture has disappeared, that maybe I imagined it. But then I see someone walking away with an evidence bag.
‘Stop,’ I say, snatching it from them.
‘I saw the photo, if that’s what you’re looking for,’ Priya says. ‘I asked them to bag it up.’ The look she gives me is one I haven’t seen before. I stare at the picture, at the faces crossed out with a black marker pen, and I start to see things the way she must. I take a step back without meaning to. It just got even louder than before inside my head.
‘You do know that I didn’t have anything to do with this, don’t you?’ I ask her. The respect she had for me only a few hours earlier seems to have disappeared. ‘I was with you all day, and all night.’
‘Technically not all night. I went out, sir. Remember? And you left my house well over an hour before you rang me. I’m not sure why it took you so long to call for help.’
The room starts to twist a little, catching me off guard so that it feels like I might fall. I was sure I called her straightaway, but it must have taken me longer than I thought. Probably the shock of what I saw.
‘Come on, Priya. You know me.’
‘No, sir. I don’t, not really. We’re just colleagues, like you said earlier. The team searched the bins outside, looking for a discarded weapon, and found a pair of muddy size ten Timberland boots instead. Just like the footprint found next to Rachel Hopkins’ body in the woods. Are they yours?’
I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in a parallel universe. I don’t understand why Priya is behaving this way. She’s been treating me like a hero for months, we kissed earlier tonight, now she’s looking at me as though I might be a suspect in my own sister’s murder.
‘Do you know where the knife is, sir? The one that appears to be missing from the block?’
‘Please stop calling me “sir”. Look, I think someone might be trying to set me up. The photo of the girls was here when I got home,’ I insist. ‘Somebody put it here, the same someone who killed Zoe. That’s Rachel Hopkins, Helen Wang, Anna…’ my voice falters. ‘… and my sister.’
‘Who is the fifth girl?’ asks Priya.
‘I don’t remember her name.’
It’s obvious she doesn’t believe me – I’m starting to doubt myself – but I have to try to get Priya on my side. I panic when she starts to turn away.
‘Wait. Please. I don’t think the other girl was very popular, and I’m surprised they were friends with her, to be honest. Three out of the five people in this picture are dead, and my sister wrote Anna’s name on the wall in blood. Don’t you think we should at least try to find her?’
‘I do, but perhaps not for the same reasons as you, Jack.’
I think I preferred ‘sir’ after all.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘As you say, three out of the five girls in this photo are dead. We only know the identity of one of the others. I think maybe Zoe was trying to write a warning when she spelled out Anna’s name, and that your ex-wife might be in danger.’
‘What are you saying?’ I ask the question already knowing the answer.
‘I think Anna might be next.’