‘It wasn’t too difficult, ma’am, being as though I am one.’
‘Yes, well, that’s debatable, Riley,’ she quips, ‘but you seem to have been a big hit – especially with the…’ she pauses, ‘… the female audience… a few have left some, how can I say, “favourable comments” on social media.
I feel my cheeks glow warm.
‘You’re winding me up, I?—’
But before I can finish, something draws my eye back towards the computer screen.
Tilly Ward is on her feet, pacing the interview room. Her hands are linked together on top of her head, and her face is red. She’s visibly upset.
‘I want to speak to Detective Riley,’ she cries. ‘Please, can you ask him to come? I only want to speak to Detective Riley.’
Archer lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow as she turns to me with a smirk.
‘See what I mean?’
TEN
ERIN
Present day
‘That’s the last of the milk, Erin.’
Molly takes the empty carton from the fridge and places it down on the worn and grubby kitchen work surface. Like me, the years of grime it’s seen are so deeply embedded that not even a little Ajax and a lot of elbow grease can shift them now.
‘Don’t forget to put it in the recycling bin, will you? Remember, plastics and glass in the green box and…’
‘… Paper and cardboard in the black… yes, I know; don’t worry, I won’t forget.’ Bless Molly. She really does seem to care so much abouteverything. I think she believes that even bottles and cardboard have feelings.
Molly Martin is the lady from Re-Connex, a charity that helps relocate and rehabilitate mental health patients after they’ve been released back into society. She wears this old, shaggy, brown furry coat and is always scratching around inside a drawer or a cupboard or a box somewhere, like a mouse. She’s friendly enough, though I can never let my guard down around her. I must never forget that cute little mice can also be disease-carrying vermin.
Re-Connex has helped house me as part of the conditions of my release. I must also attend mandatory weekly therapy sessions, take daily medication, and I have to check in with an adult mental health social worker and my parole officer on the third Friday of every month for the next eighteen months, which is a drag. But at least I am ‘free’, in a sense at least, because while I am no longer incarcerated, I’ll never be truly free.Not until I find her.
‘Have you taken your meds today?’
I loathe the fact that she asks me this question. Doesn’t she trust me?I don’t need the bloody pills anyway. She goes into the bathroom to retrieve them from the cabinet, places them next to me on the table as she returns.
‘My mother, God rest her soul, always gave me a boiled sweet after I took my medicine like a good girl. Did your mum do the same, Erin?’
‘My mum’s dead,’ I say. That stops her in her tracks.
‘Oh, Erin, I’m sorry. When did you lose her?’
‘When I was thirteen. And I didn’tloseher. She wasstolen.’
She’s silent for a moment. I can tell that she’s trying to process what I might mean exactly by that statement, but decides, wisely in my opinion, not to probe any further for now.
‘You know you can always talk to me.’ She cocks her head. ‘Some of the patients – ex-patients – find it helpful to talk about their experiences.’ And by ‘experiences’ I think she probably means ‘crimes’.
‘Is your father still around?’
‘Also dead,’ I say. ‘No family.’
She flashes me a pitiful look.
‘What about friends? It’s good to have a support network around you while you adjust back into normal life.’
