Dear all of you.
I’m no longer the person I was yesterday. I have been reborn as a hollow image of my former self. Hope has gone. Love has gone. I have gone. I want to feel something but I can’t. Do you know how it feels to feel nothing? I haven’t even cried. Why can’t I cry?
What you took from me can never be returned. It is a part of me, a slice of who I am. I’m not going back to that school, ever. You will never do this to me again.
To my aggressor. Why me? What did I ever do to you? Your cruelty knows no bounds. I pity everyone in your life. My wounds are testament to how evil you are.
The bystander. You could have got help at any time but you stared at me throughout. Humiliation overload! You could have done the right thing, but you chose not to.
Finally, the instigator. You noticed me leaving the party and you couldn’t help but throw fuel on the fire. My so-called new friend! Following me out, taunting me, forcing me in a direction I wouldn’t choose to normally take. Pick on the school newbie, why don’t you? I wasn’t allowed to walk back through the woods – Mum and Dad would never have allowed that. That’s when I realised that you’d planned this all along. It was probably meant as a Halloween joke originally, but the joke took a sinister turn, didn’t it? How did you all get so carried away? I’ll tell you how, because of you, the instigator. A suggestion here, a remark there, which led to more than any of you had planned. You enjoyed every moment of it all.
The bystander shouted out that what you were doing wasn’t a part of the plan but you both carried on and the bystander continued to keep watch, alongside two others in masks. You all had a choice in this, you could have stopped at any time, but you didn’t and I paid the price.
That brings me back to my main question. What did I ever do to you? Nothing.
I will never be fixed and I will never be free of what you put me through, and I will never forget. Never!
One minute I think I should tell someone, the next I can’t. If I tell, everyone will know the details and that scares me more. I don’t want people to know what you all did to me. I want to go back to my old school. I want to go home. Today, I am going to ask Mum if I can stay with Nan. I’m going away for a while. I need to think, get my head together, decide how I live with this or what I do about it.
A large tear plopped onto the back of Gina’s hand. She flinched at the tap on her window. PC Smith smiled and Kapoor was just getting out of the car. ‘Alright, guv. We got here as quick as possible.’
Gina pulled an evidence bag from the glove compartment, turned it inside out and bagged the letter up. One last thing caught her attention through the plastic. On the back of the page was a triangle. The top point had a doodle of a tree next to it, the point on the left had a doodle of three tiny houses next to it, two of them without roofs. The last point had a question mark next to it and a picture of a little ghost. Her mind whirred: if the woods represented Alex’s body, what did the houses and the ghost represent?
‘There’s another body.’ Gina gulped. ‘I think it will be Penny Burton’s.’
‘What?’
Gina held the bagged letter up as an ambulance parked beside them.
Briggs’s car skidded to a stop behind hers and he ran out from his car. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’ Gina stared at him, unable to speak. ‘Gina, are you alright?’
She forced a smile and looked up at PC Smith. ‘Can you keep the letter safe? It needs to be booked into evidence ASAP.’ He nodded and left Briggs with her.
Gina knew she wouldn’t be going home or anywhere else for ages. Samples from her body would be taken, she’d have to make a full statement and that would take hours, her car would be impounded for further sampling. ‘I know why I was chosen, it’s in the killer’s letter. As soon as forensics get here, they need to cordon off that side of the road, the cut through to the field and the coffin. I was buried alive.’ Another tear slipped down her cheek. She turned away from Briggs, not wanting him to see her weeping.
‘It’s okay. You’re safe now.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder. How could she have ever doubted him? Briggs had not sent the letter to the press. Her mind had just got the better of her.
‘I’m sorry.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Have a look at the letter that I just gave to Smith. It’s a diary excerpt from a very distressed person, a victim of an assault. They know I’d understand how they feel. How they know this, I have no idea. Probably the same way Lyndsey Saunders and everyone in the town seems to know.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll fill you in when I can get my breath back. That’s what I was calling the station for while I was driving. I was hoping to sound Jacob out first, just fishing to see if he’d been called by the press, then I was going to call you.’
‘Okay, is there an immediate lead in all this, the diary you mentioned?’
She nodded. ‘There’s a triangle drawn on the back of the letter. One point has trees on it; I’m betting that it represents the woods. Another point has three little houses drawn on it, except two houses have no roof. We need to check out all derelict and crumbling buildings. We need to go back to the squat. This is a big clue. A house with no roof. The roof of the squat is damaged and it is at the end of a row of three houses. Whoever is doing this is giving it to us on a plate. We just need to focus.’
‘But the other houses on that row have roofs.’
‘I know. It’s the best I have and it has been a link to the case.’
‘I’ll call it in, get someone over there to search the house and the area.’
‘We’re looking for a buried coffin and hurry. Penny might still be alive. Get the dogs to go over the grounds.’
Briggs turned and hurried over to PCs Smith and Kapoor. They both hurried back to their car and radioed for assistance. Gina spotted the forensics van pulling up and stepped out of her car. ‘Whoever did this to me may have been in my car.’
Keith slowly straightened his stiff back out and nodded. ‘I’ll be over in a minute.’ He hobbled around to the boot of the van to get his kit.
