2
SCARLETT
I’m going to hell. The funny thing is, I’ve never given much thought to whether I believe in God, the Bible, heaven and hell but I suspect I’ve broken the rules to pass the shiny gate and walk barefoot on the carpet of white cloud. The scary thing is, I don’t care why I’m going; I’m only terrified that when I get there, my dad and Gregory might not be waiting.
‘Miss Heath!’
Katrina Martin slams a hand on the cold, metal table between us, dragging me from my trance.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, allowing myself a brief glance upward before settling my eyes on the invisible movie playing out on the surface of the table.
‘You were saying?’ Her annoyance is obvious.
I don’t know what I was saying. I was thinking about my soul, burning alone, but I don’t think I said that aloud.
‘Scarlett!’ she snaps again.
DI Barnes sighs heavily. ‘All right, Trina, calm down. She’s had a shock and it’s the middle of the night.’
His soft tone causes me to search his face. For someunfathomable reason, he’s being nice to me. He turns up his lips ever so slightly, comforting me as much as I can or care to be comforted.
‘Scarlett, you said you were at the party.’
‘We were dancing.’ I explain the next half an hour of the party in seconds as I watch the scene replay in my mind. Gregory’s strong hand on my back, pulling me into his firm chest as he moved us around the dance floor, his brown eyes never leaving mine, desire sparking between us. ‘We didn’t want to stay for the fireworks.’
‘And Geoffrey drove you?’
I’d wanted to get in the Bentley and drive to where Gregory could consume me with sheer pleasure. I’d wanted to be held by him and never let go. But the feeling disappeared as soon as we slipped into the back seat of the car. An unsettling eeriness had chilled my bones. Gregory pulled me into him to warm me but I could still feel it, like a presence, something unnerving. ‘Yes. He drove us to the Shard, to Gregory’s apartment. I’ve been staying there.’
I stop myself before I tell themwhyI’ve been staying with Gregory. I promised I would tell them what he told me to say and that’s all. I don’t have a lawyer. We agreed not to have lawyers at first because we have nothing to hide. That’s the story. My mind blurs with confused images: my dad’s funeral, me on my knees at his hospital bedside as I realised he’d been murdered, the dark-haired boy from my dreams who watched his father beat his mother half to death.
‘Scarlett!’ Trina shouts, startling me, causing me to blink my dry eyes quickly.
‘Yes.’
‘What happened when you got to the Shard?’
‘The Shard. We parked and Jackson or Gregory, I don’tremember who, one of them noticed the tyres of Gregory’s Mercedes had been slashed.’
The hairs on my skin had pricked up. We knew who it was and we knew he was in the vicinity. Gregory told me to take the car and leave but I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t leave Gregory to face Kevin Pearson alone. But there was more than that, something deeper, darker within me that wanted to see the end of my father’s killer. Bile rises in my throat and I swallow it down. Gregory took my hand in his, instinctively protecting me, and Jackson pulled his gun from the glove compartment of the Bentley.
Jackson led the way, his gun cocked and raised as we left the basement and rode the lift to the sixty-fourth floor.
‘We took the lift to Gregory’s floor. Jackson got out first, then Gregory, then me.’
‘Nothing else happened in the car park?’ Trina queries. ‘You noticed the tyres then just left? Jackson or Gregory, they didn’t look around the car park? Check for an intruder?’
‘I, err, I don’t remember. Maybe, I don’t think so.’
‘So presumably, they weren’t taken by surprise?’
‘I, err, I’m not sure. I guess they thought it would be best to leave the basement and get to the apartment.’
‘You’re aware that the man who died tonight was Mr Ryans’s father, aren’t you?’
‘I, err…’ We didn’t discuss this. My chest begins to throb as my heart rate rises.They know.If I say yes, I only confirm what they know.Don’t I?‘Yes, I know that.’
‘Keep going, Scarlett, you’re doing well.’ DI Barnes casts a warning eye in Katrina’s direction. ‘So you got out of the lift at the apartment.’
