I wiped my mouth, my legs feeling like they were going to buckle underneath me. I couldn’t look at her broken body, those bones protruding from soft skin made me want to faint, and I had no idea how Mrs Harlow was getting so close to her. I staggered to the front door and clumsily tried to wrench the locks open.
‘Wait!’ Mrs Harlow hissed. ‘Don’t go out there!’
‘What are you talking about.’ My mouth watered and stung as the bile began to rise again. ‘We have to tell the police!’
‘Let’s ask Jeannie first. She’ll know what to do.’
‘I think Beebee needs an ambulance, Mrs Harlow,’ I said with as much conviction as I could, although even I could see it was far too late for that. This girl needed holy water and a priest. I yanked on the doors trying to get out.
‘Jeannie’s got the keys,’ Mrs Harlow said, her voice sounding too flat. She bent low again and tapped Beebee on the forehead. ‘There, there, dear. You’ll be fine,’ she soothed. But it wasn’t heart-warming, it was creepy as fuck. I had to get the hell out of here before these freaks broke me like a china doll. With abandon I let out a piercing scream.
Even in such terrible circumstances, it still felt kind of dramatic to be screaming like a banshee, but I was locked in here and I wanted out. Right. Now.
Jeannie flew down the corridor like a bat out of hell. She took one look at Beebee and joined me in a scream-off.
Banging reverberated on the other side of the door, and the bell rang like a death knell. I pulled and pulled like my puny arms alone would somehow break wood and metal. The next thing I knew Jeannie was beside me with the key, my jailer and my saviour all rolled into one. She twisted the key in the lock and I flung it open allowing the police officers who’d been stationed outside to enter.
‘Help her!’ I rasped. ‘Godammit, someone help her!’
* * *
Later that evening, after Beebee had been pronounced dead at the scene and her body taken away, the place was once again crawling with officers and forensics. Before Randolf even had a moment to say boo to a goose, Mrs Harlow was found on her hands and knees scrubbing away the blood at the bottom of the stairs. Randolf practically dragged her away, kicking and protesting, her face still splattered with Beebee’s blood from the scrubbing brush and pail. Randolf’s usually cool demeanour was lit with wrath as he reprimanded her for tampering with evidence.
I was hauled back into Eugene Weiss’s grand office, and DCI Randolf followed me in, contemplating me in a way I didn’t like. His jaw was ticking, eyes slightly wider than usual. He was angry beyond belief that another death had happened when the force had been stationed outside to prevent exactly that.
He surveyed me a little longer, until he managed to regain his usual self-control and took a seat. ‘Mrs Weiss, would you like to tell me about your movements last night?’
‘I… um, yes, absolutely.’ I knotted my hands together. I had managed to calm down after my little outburst. It had felt good to lose it for once, but now everyone was looking at me like I was a fragile thing that wasn’t quite right in the head; like I might break at any moment. I’d put up with these Weiss fuckers for almost two decades and they thought I was fragile… It was a bloody outrage.
‘I was up late… working in the living room, and then I went to bed.’
‘And what time was that?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Around twelve-thirty a.m., I think.’
‘And did you see Beebee at that time?’
‘Y-es,’ I said reluctantly.
Randolf raised his eyebrows. ‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what you saw, said and did, even what you smelled, so that I don’t have to chase you for the truth?’
I cleared my throat before continuing.Smelled, interesting choice of word. They must have found the joint she was smoking, so it wouldn’t be wise for me to hide the fact she was smoking weed… But what if that somehow put Callum in the firing line? And there was no way I was going to tell them that a few nights ago I found his Rizla packet in the secretstairwell. I decided then and there not to include anything that I considered a minor detail.
‘I was sitting in the living room, with Gloria, Jeannie’s dog. I couldn’t sleep, because of, well… you know, everything that’s been going on.’
‘You weren’t concerned that being alone late at night might make you a target?’
‘Well, I suppose a little. But, I needed space. And well… I just don’t think anything will happen to me.’
He stared at me blankly, ‘Really. And why is that?’
I huffed a laugh. ‘Well, I would see it coming a mile off… I would fight. I’ve been in this house numerous times, nothing bad has ever happened before.’
‘Forgive me, but that seems incredibly naïve of you Mrs Weiss. All the other members of the family have been here numerous times. Yet they are no longer here to tell the tale. Things are happening now, Mrs Weiss, so unless it’s you that’s committing the murders, or you know the person whoiscommitting the murders and feel you have no reason to fear them… I fail to understand your complacency.’
‘Yes but?—’
‘But?’
