Gina lay in bed, laptop screen lit up in the dark with Jade and Samantha looking at her, side by side. Both young, beautiful women with their whole lives ahead of them. One missing, the other murdered. Her head pounded. After feeling so sick, she’d skipped the takeaway that she’d promised herself earlier that day and settled for peppermint tea to settle her stomach which now rumbled away.
Snatching her phone, she checked it one last time for messages before putting it on charge. Nothing. Rex had left her alone. She hoped she’d heard the last of him. She’d made a big mistake giving him false hope with the second date. Another lesson learned. Her finger hovered over the Tinder app on her phone. Several swipes in her favour had pinged up. Maybe a quick glance, to satisfy her curiosity. No – she threw the phone face down onto the bed.
Paws pattered up the stairs and Ebony jumped up on the bed and began nudging her under the arm. ‘Hello, girl,’ She stroked the short-haired cat as she purred and settled, filling her bed with comforting warmth. Between the cat’s purrs and the humming of the laptop, Gina felt her eyelids begin to clamp until she drifted off into a deep sleep.
Aimee lay in the darkness, her face covered in blood. Was she alive? The young woman jolted up. Gina had to protect her just like she’d want someone to protect Hannah. She needed to get her to safety. ‘We have to run, get up.’ Gina grabbed the woman’s arms and tried to pull her from the floor but Aimee wasn’t responding.
Aimee’s fear-filled eyes opened and stared directly at her. ‘Take my hand, Aimee. We have to leave now,’ Gina whispered. She rubbed her eyes as Aimee’s face morphed into Samantha’s.
‘Why would you want to leave?’ the man asked. She squinted several times until she could just about see her oppressor through the red mist that had begun to fill the room. Steven! He prodded her with a knife, cutting the skin that protected her rapidly beating heart, forcing her backwards into the secret room.
‘Samantha, run,’ Gina called out. Was it Samantha or Aimee? As Gina stood to run, the door in which she’d fell through vanished leaving nothing but a black wall in its place. A wall with no door, a room with no escape lit by three candles.
A black whirlwind began to form in the middle of the room as Steven howled with laughter. As the breeze gathered like a mini tornado, a chill ran down her spine and the lit candles blew out, leaving her in darkness. She thrashed around, searching for a door before being slashed by the knife and sucked in by the whirlwind. She couldn’t hear – the noise filled her head, ringing, buzzing, gale force winds, howling laughter.
‘No, get me out. Get me out of here,’ she whimpered as she fought against her surroundings, blindly grasping for anything that felt tangible. The floor began to melt and she felt herself sinking and falling, whirling uncontrollably to her end. ‘No!’
Ebony meowed and pounced onto the floor as Gina thrashed, tangling her legs in the quilt. Her fearful stare searched every corner of her bedroom for the intruders from her dream as she gasped for breath. Her heart skipped a beat as she caught her laptop before it crashed onto the floor. Several screens flashed up as she randomly pressed the buttons on the keyboard. It eventually rested on the photo of Jade, lying dead on the path. Gina held her breath as she gazed at the screen. Slamming the lid down, she placed it on the floor and held her hand to her chest.
Snatching a tissue, she mopped the sweat that dripped down her forehead. She could guess all night and day as to what Steven thought he knew and it was killing her. She knew it wouldn’t be the true version of events and she also knew that wouldn’t matter to Steven, the man who idolised his loser brother and believed everything he’d told him.
She looked down and noticed how hard she was gripping her pillow. Gasping, she kneeled up, punching it over and over until she was too exhausted to breathe. She loosened her grip and ran to the bathroom. Hot and sweaty, she turned on the shower and stepped in before it had even warmed up.
Through chattering teeth, she sat in the bath as the water cleansed her, washing away all her self-disgust. Cold turned to steaming hot. Tears mingled with the shower water and all she wanted was someone to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. Closing her eyes, she thought back to when Briggs had touched her arm, his tender touch making her crave him.
Her thoughts then flashed to Steven, so like the brother of his that made her life unbearable when he was alive. Her thoughts settled onto Diane, the pained woman who lived all alone with no one to visit her. Gina didn’t want to be a Diane but she could see her future when she looked at the woman. She inhaled the steam and as her mind flitted back to Steven, she could almost smell him, sweat and cheap aftershave with a hint of weed. Her heart rate picked up. Weed. Had Steven been Samantha’s lover? Samantha smelling of weed was a big clue. He was connected, she knew it. She needed proof and she was going to get it. Diane was the key to everything.
Thirty-Four
Friday, 10 May 2019
‘Jacob, yes. I’m just outside Diane Garraway’s house. I’ll be in shortly.’ She placed the phone in her pocket and knocked on Diane’s door. The bathroom window the intruder had entered through had now been boarded up. A few moments later, she heard Diane shuffling along the hallway.
The woman opened the door. ‘Morning, Detective.’ She moved to the side, allowing Gina to pass her. The dark hallway felt as though it was closing in on them as they almost filled it. ‘Sorry, I haven’t been up that long. It takes me a long time in the morning to get up.’ She tied the belt of her quilted dressing gown. After leading Gina into the living room, she pulled the brown curtains open, letting in all the light that the cold grey morning had to offer. Magazines were strewn over the settee and a bowl that looked as if it had contained soup the night before had been left on the floor. ‘I haven’t had a chance to clean up.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Diane. I know it’s early so thank you for seeing me. I just wanted to speak to you about Samantha, the man she was seeing, and Derek.’ Gina sat at the far end of the settee, close to the window.
‘Oh here, I’ll turn the light on.’ The woman flinched as she tried to stand.
‘I’ll do it.’ Gina placed her notes on the coffee table and turned on the light.
‘I’d offer you a drink but I’ve only just taken my tablets. It’ll be a while before I’m good for much.’
Gina checked her watch. It wasn’t quite eight in the morning. She knew she’d caught Diane a little off guard and the woman had been good enough to see her. ‘Shall I make a drink for you?’ Anything that would make her more comfortable when they spoke had to be a good thing.
‘If you could just fill the kettle and flick it on, that would be great. I’ll be okay soon but I struggle to hold the kettle under the tap. Stupid swollen knuckles.’
Gina smiled and went through to the dark kitchen. Turning the light on, she spotted a half-full beaker of water on the side next to Diane’s tablets. Her mind fixed on a packet of tablets she recognised. Fluoxetine – antidepressants. After Terry’s funeral, she’d been prescribed a few months’ worth. She’d taken them for a while but eventually had come off them. She flicked the switch on and gazed around the small kitchen. Holding her coat over her arm, she followed the smell to the overflowing bin and spotted a fly buzzing around it.
‘Did you find the kettle okay?’ Diane called out from the living room.
Gina swallowed as she took in the decay and clutter around her. Diane was only a few years older than her but she was virtually immobile and totally alone since Samantha had vanished. Gina pushed her thoughts out of her head. She couldn’t get involved. Diane was one of many with problems in the town, one of many struggling with money and not getting the help and care she needed, one of many living with a chronic long-term condition that affected her everyday life. There was nothing Gina could do apart from find out what happened to Samantha. ‘Yes. It’s boiling.’ She turned off the light and headed back through the hallway.
‘You want to know about Derek, then?’
Gina nodded and picked her notebook and pen back up. ‘Yes, I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of Samantha. From speaking with you and reading her notes, I know she was a clever young woman who enjoyed going out. She lived alone and was seeing a married man called Derek.’
‘He strung her along, you know. People had Samantha wrong. They knew she was seeing him, even his wife suspected but I’m not sure how much she cared. Samantha told me it was more about the kids and him not being able to leave them. I tried to tell her that he was stringing her along but what can I say, she believed him and loved him.’
