He flinched as her voice brought him back to the moment. ‘Her and my bitch sister were good friends and I suppose I wanted to show her that she didn’t need Samantha, she only needed me. It didn’t take long to drag Samantha from her. I suppose I had a small fling with the woman. She reminded me of my sister when she was younger, giving it to any man around. Soon, she began to sicken me.’ A grin spread across his face.
‘What then?’
‘She needed to understand that the things she did were wrong and had consequences. Innocent people would get hurt, they always do. Sleeping around would not only hurt her, it would hurt those around her – innocents. She didn’t once think about Derek’s children when she was screwing him. She wouldn’t listen, she just kept screaming and screaming. I only wanted to shut her up.’
Why was he angry with Jade?‘You left the photo and card for your sister to find. Why did you want her to see the photo of Jade and Samantha together all those years ago?’
‘Don’t look too hard into that. I was just screwing with her.’ He shook his head slowly and let out a little laugh. ‘The stupid cow never stopped going on about Samantha, all the bloody time – on and on. I thought I’d make her pay. If she was going to go on all the time, I was going to give her something to go on about.’ He scrunched his brow as his grin faded. ‘When I saw Jade at the Swap Fun party at Dawn’s house, it hit me hard. All those years ago, I thought Jade was different. She was like me, on the periphery of all the action, the one being hurt. Back then, she sat there in the social club watching Noah sticking his tongue in Samantha’s ear.’
Gina glanced at the photo of Samantha and Jade at the social club. ‘Go on.’
‘I’d spent years feeling sorry for her after feeling a connection when I saw her. We’d been kindred spirits, so I thought. Then there she was at Dawn’s house, giving it all up at this party. I knew she was just like the rest. She let me down. I lost my faith in people all over again.’ He paused and wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘I didn’t realise it would be that easy though. I thought I’d have to plan her rehabilitation for a while but then I found her walking around the streets, half cut. I finished up quickly with Dawn in that stupid caravan and went searching around the locations. It was so easy. I was prepared of course because I knew Aimee would be at the party, it was all for Aimee originally. Then Jade turned up and I can’t tell you how let-down I was. I wanted to find her, help her see that what she was doing was wrong. She had a child. I had to stop her before anyone was hurt.’
Gina swallowed. Reliving that night she saw Jade’s caved in face, using the cold pavement as a pillow. She’d love nothing more than to grab this sicko by the ear and slam his head into the table. ‘Rehabilitation? You killed her.’
‘I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think she was dead. I just wanted to stun her so that I could get her back to the workshop. I wanted to tell her how disappointed I was in her, make her realise that her child would get hurt. I guess I hit her too hard.’ He shrugged his shoulder and leaned back. A smile crept into the corners of his mouth.
The lack of emotion in Richard’s face was unnerving. A shiver ran down her spine and her hair began to uncomfortably tingle. He was enjoying telling his story and she’d let him continue. ‘We have a blood sample, left behind from the person who chased Sophie Dobbins before attacking her. I suspect it will match yours. Did she hurt you when she hit you with her shoe?’
‘Not really,’ he said as he sniggered. ‘Look, barely a scratch.’ He leaned forward, showing the tiniest of marks on the back of his ear. Sophie can’t have hit him as hard as she’d thought. ‘I used a bit of Maggie’s make-up to cover it up. Anything else you want to know? I’m all talk today.’ His solicitor shook his head and coughed before whispering to the man again.
Richard was becoming animated in his replies. Shoulders shrugging and fingers pointing. He was not only losing it, he was enjoying losing it, and Gina was glad. She knew this was the one moment in his life where he was being heard. There was more to come from Richard.
‘Why Aimee?’
‘Again, the error of her ways. Sleeping with that older man, her constant flirting and she wanted it with Noah so badly, I could tell. I knew what Noah was like from the past. Back then at the party, the way he treated Jade when he was dancing with Samantha, and now there was another attractive young woman acting like a stupid whore. I wasn’t going to kill her.’
‘Just like you weren’t going to kill the others.’
‘They were an accident!’ He stood and punched the wall, the skin on his large knuckles splitting and dotting blood over the wall. ‘I just wanted her to see…’ He paused and let out a forced laugh.
‘What did you want her to see?’
Sweat ran down his face and he stared at her with his mouth open. ‘Actions have consequences. Before she could hurt someone with her loose ways, I had to intervene.’
‘Someone saw you when you kidnapped her, didn’t they, Mr Leason?’
‘The other man. See, that’s one of the reasons I had to take her. Look what she was doing to everyone, to all the men. They all watched her, wanted her. It would lead to bad things. Someone would eventually get hurt.’
‘In what way?’
‘I just don’t know! With the others I saw it happening, people and children were getting hurt. With Samantha, I was getting hurt; that stupid married man Derek was getting hurt and his children would have suffered if I hadn’t have stepped in. With Jade, she’d changed. The demure woman at the party with her dignity intact had lost it. She had a child. She should have been at home looking after her. One thing leads to another – that poor little girl would have felt it at some point. I had to help her child.’ She saw a distant look in his eyes as he went silent. There was something about the children that had caused his grin to drop.
‘Why do you care about her daughter?’
‘Because children are innocent,’ he spat. His bottom lip began to tremble. ‘If she carried on like that, the child would have got hurt. Noah would have gone and that little one would have been in danger.’
‘Danger?’
‘Other men in their lives. Mother’s bring men home and those men hurt children.’
She was getting somewhere. ‘How?’
His veins were almost popping out of his neck and his face was almost beetroot-red. ‘These men abuse them, they rape them; they humiliate them. I saved her child.’
‘You killed the child’s mother.’
He shook his head rapidly and began to tremble. ‘No, no, I saved the kid. I saved her. It couldn’t happen again to someone else. I just want these women to see. I told Diane to stop but she wouldn’t.’
