Gina shivered as she headed along the corridor. ‘I recognise the name of the company. It’s where Isaac Slater works. Did we hear back from them?’
Wyre shook her head. ‘I’ve tried to contact them a few times and no answer, so I left a few messages. It was on my list to actually pop in today.’
‘Another grave, another body. Looks like our killer has struck again. We have to jump on this now. The coffin killer strikes again, I can just see it in the papers. Satanic cults, burying the living.’
The woman from admin came in with the post. ‘Oh, here you go.’
Gina took the envelope from her; as before it was marked private and confidential. She ran to her office, put some latex gloves on and began prising it open as carefully as she could. She grabbed her phone and hit Briggs’s name. ‘Come on.’
‘You okay?’
‘I’ve had another private and confidential letter. It says, “DI Harte. We’d all like to feel safe but truth is, we’re not. The worst thing is, imagining you are crazy. Even worse is, believing that you are. They make you crazy, it is their fault. We’re not crazy. We need to stand up and roar, show them who we really are.” This person is standing up and roaring. They want us to acknowledge what has been done to them. I can’t let this be about me, I just can’t.’ Her voice began to crackle. ‘The others are going to see these when all this is over and the evidence is compiled. I have to get used to the fact that my private life will no longer be that.’
‘I can’t protect you from that, Gina. I wish I could, but you need to put all these thoughts aside right now and work on catching this person. They feel they know you and that might mean you know them. Let that help you.’
She shook and wiped her eyes. ‘You’re right. I’ll speak to you later.’ She glanced out of the window and Lyndsey Saunders gave her a slow wave. Her life as she knew it was soon to be over.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Cherie grabbed the kitchen chair and flung it against the worktop. This is what it felt like to lose everything. If her family had gone then so would the house. She grabbed another chair and flung it into the garden. Not content with it landing in one piece, she picked it up and smashed it onto the patio several more times until it split and broke. She ran to the shed and grabbed her emergency bag. There in the corner sat another one of her hidden bottles. When she’d been out after the dinner party looking for Marcus, this is what she’d done, drank some of her hidden stash then eaten several mints before returning home. It was a bit of a blur.
She snatched the empty bottle and stormed back into the lounge, smashing it into the television, along with the two empty wine bottles. She grabbed the vase her mother had bought her on one of her birthdays and dropped it from height onto the coffee table. Shards landed everywhere. She kicked what was left of the little table over. What was the point of anything? She had blown the lot. At least her family might apportion some of her behaviour to a breakdown should they take the mess she was making into consideration.
Running into the kitchen, she grabbed hold of the mug tree and flung it at the microwave, followed by the coffee and sugar jars. The whole room looked like an explosion in a coffee factory. She kicked the doors, leaving muddy prints on everything. Exhausted, she fell to the floor and sobbed like never before into her sticky hands. She could show them her real self. It would be easier in the long run for the kids and Christian to hate her. It would make moving on easier for them.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and stared at the message. Why should she be there for Penny? Why? Penny had caused all this with her little stint. On the other hand, Penny was the only one still speaking to her; she needed to cling to that. When she tried to call the number back, Penny’s phone had been switched off. Her friend didn’t want to be traced or found if she was scared for her life.
Maybe Penny had tried to talk to Marcus and Isaac before she had messaged Cherie. One of them had to be trying to kill her, to shut her up. If only Cherie could persuade her to shut up but in a nicer way. Her one last chance came with turning up at the meeting point in the message. A chance she couldn’t blow. Everything else was lost but not this, this was her chance to make things right. Maybe she and Penny could do the right thing for once. That was what scared Marcus and Isaac the most.
A flashback to the previous night filled her mind, of her driving badly through a red light. The rest was a blur. She’d come back with more wine though, evident by the third empty bottle she’d found next to the bed.
She could still turn things around by facing the consequences; that option still had to be on the table. Everyone’s shock and hatred filled her mind: the one reason she’d remained silent. Now, it seemed irrelevant. Her children and husband were gone.Her husband. The words rang in her head in time with the pain from her hangover. She’d taken Christian for a fool with her lies and she’d inwardly laughed as she won him over every time. She caught her reflection in the stainless steel kettle that lay on the floor, dotted in damp coffee granules. If Christian could see her straggly hair and mascara-streaked face, he’d know he did the right thing by leaving. If he was close enough to smell the staleness of her breath, he’d recoil just as he’d been doing for a long time. She was way beyond fixing.
Wiping the tears away with her sleeve she knew what she had to do next on this dark and gloomy morning. She had to take a couple of paracetamol, get freshened up as much as she was able and prepare to meet Penny. At least she’d find out what was going on.
Her legs shook as she stood and walked to the stairway. She grabbed the old black coat and began to shred it with the scissors. As she hacked through the material, she hoped that it would finally stop haunting her.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
12 years ago
Halloween
In a daze, somewhere between hallucination and reality, I grab the cord and drag my weary body back towards the satellite. As I watch Earth from the skies, what I see becomes blurred and then I feel nothing but water. That’s when I snap out of my weird dream. I notice the cold liquid filling up my box and then I remember. I’m buried alive. The laughter from above booms out, throbbing through my head. Scratching around, I feel the matchbox and the final match on my chest. I must have left them there when I was lucid. One match; that is all I have left. One measly match.
As I inhale, my chest lets out a crackly wheeze. I’m fading fast.
Strike, and once again my confined world is lit up. It’s a far throw from my vision of being in space where I’m hanging on by a rope but I’m free still.
The match runs down. I’m sure my finger burned as the fire reached the end of the wood but I can’t feel anything. My whole body has stiffened. A tear escapes my eye as I think of rigor mortis. It’s coming for me. I wheeze again. This time I don’t panic. There’s nothing more I can do apart from accept my end. I’m at peace. I haven’t hurt anyone, I don’t have unfinished business.
Then I think of the person above, laughing. I do have unfinished business. I manage a weak murmur. ‘I’m going to come back and haunt you. You just wait and see. I’m going to haunt you all until you wished you were the ones in a box.’
I remember falling and hitting my head, but there’s more. I remember who and how and why. It’s flooding back. Great, my biggest moment of clarity has hit when I’m in no position to do anything. I’m at the mercy of whoever’s up there.
Chapter Sixty
Now
