I feel terrible thinking about asking Malcolm to leave. But he’s asking too many questions and it’s preventing me from thinking in a straight line, so I don’t see I’ve got much choice.
Following a fatal stabbing on Thursday, police are appealing for a witness to come forward…
I bolt upright, barely managing to click on the link with my vibrating fingers.
Samantha Valentine has been missing since an incident that took place at Stockwell Gardens, South West London, at approximately 6 p.m. on Thursday. A thirty-four-year-old local man was pronounced dead at the scene, and a thirty-five-year-old woman was taken into custody. Samantha Valentine is thirty-six years old, around five feet four inches, approximately 120 lbs, with long blonde hair and green eyes, and is currently believed to be in or around the South-West London area. Anyone with information should contact the Serious Crime Unit and speak to SIO, DCI Dan Riley on…
I reread the words until they start to bleed around the edges, too frightened to blink in case they disappear.Is it possible?
Adrenalin is flooding every crevice of my body. There’s not much in the way of detail given, but the basics sound promising – a small, blonde-haired female with green eyes has fled the scene of a fatality, and another female is in custody. The MO sounds horribly familiar, and the description of the ‘witness’, though generic, is accurate, save for her age. Sam said she was thirty-three years old when I met her, over seven years ago. That would make her forty years old today. Though of course, how oldisa pathological liar really?
There’s more though! I gasp as my eyes hungrily try to take in what they’re seeing. It’s another link,to an artist’s sketch! Oh. My. God. My heart is hammering painfully against my ribs as I click on it, holding my breath as it downloads onto my phone. Suddenly, I feel every drop of blood drain from my body, and for a moment, all I can do is sit, paralysed, on this shabby second-hand sofa, dressed only in my underwear, with Malcolm leaning over my shoulder in his boxer shorts.
It’s her.
‘Is that your friend, Samantha?’ He stares down at the sketch. ‘Actually,’ – he glances at me, then back to the screen – ‘she looks a little bit like you! Different hair and that, but… You sure you’re not sisters?’
I’m too stunned to answer him. The Met Police post has been shared thousands of times already and people are beginning to comment on it.
Who’s the woman in the sketch?
I saw her today down at my local Tesco. I thought she looked a bit shifty.
Why are police looking for her, what’s she done?
She looks pretty…
I hope they find her…
It’s official.Samantha Valentine is trending news.Now everyone was looking for her.
Over the many years of being repeatedly told that Samantha Valentine didn’t and doesn’t exist, it’s been almost impossible at times not to doubt myself, or my sanity. I’d asked myself over and over again, what if I reallywasjust a headcase? Like, do you even know if you’re suffering from complex mental illness? Isn’t that part of the illness itself, that you’re not aware of your condition? Having lived – or rather, survived – alongside some of the UK’s most dangerous and criminally insane for the duration that I did, I still don’t know the answer to that question. But what if I actuallywassuffering from psychosis and delusions that had made me genuinelythinkshe was real? You see, if enough people keep telling you the same thing over and over again, eventually you can’t help but start to believe it. The reinforcement is real. And consistency is everything.
In hindsight, I realise now that Larksmere Hospital had in fact used very similar methods on me that a sociopathic con-woman like Samantha herself did – only not as successfully. They’d also tried to brainwash and gaslight me into accepting their narrative using, among other things, drugs and ECT, or passive-aggressive veiled threats of punishment and loss of privileges, in a bid to break me down. All those educated doctors, qualified therapists and practitioners with half the alphabet after their names that I’d been passed between at Larksmere, they could’ve learned a trick or two from Samantha Valentine, she was therealtrue professional among them.
This changes everything now though. This right here is my moment of truth. Malcolm is talking over my shoulder, but I don’t hear his words. My head hurts with questions. Why was Samantha in London? What has she done?Where is she?I was right though, I always knew she would eventually turn up. After all, along with the truth, scum always floats to the surface.
Using the name Samantha Valentine this time around was risky though, and not just a little audacious. Why has she done that? Surely she knows there’s a chance I could come forward to the police, screaming from the rooftops that I had ‘told them so’ seven years ago – if only they had listened to me! Now someone else is dead and more lives will be ruined!
I think of all the media coverage a story like mine would elicit if it all came out. Social media is an untamed beast now. Everyone’s a keyboard warrior, or a podcaster and an influencer, a journalist or a social commentator of some sort. My story could go stratospheric. There would be a press feeding frenzy. All of them scrabbling to relay the shocking and sensational tale of how I’d been tricked, brainwashed and coerced by my ‘best friend’ into killing a man who turned out to be an innocent stranger. And of course, how the police had failed me, not to mention the man I killed. It’s got Netflix written all over it.
Nobody likes betrayal or injustice, and in this story there’s both, and more, by the truckload, with a trailer on the back. Who wants to think of anyone sane being locked away in a mental institution due to police failures? It’s the stuff of nightmares, right? And people love nightmares,other people’s nightmares.
Maybe there would even be a public apology, both to myself and Bojan Radulovic’s family. I imagine this scene for a moment, the idea of the Chief of Police addressing TV cameras, slightly red and shamefaced, forced to admit to a catalogue of errors for not taking me seriously. It’s too late for any of it now though; public apology or no, that ship sailed and sank long ago.How can I possibly ever trust the system now? How can I ever trustanyone? If I want any kind of justice,I know what I have to do.
‘I’m sorry, Malcolm, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
I breathe the words from my lips without taking my eyes from my phone. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
He looks hurt when I finally glance over at him. I don’t mean to intentionally offend him, but I haven’t got time to waste. I’ve been waiting for this moment for over six years. I have meticulously prepared for it.
‘What have you got to do right now, this minute, that’s so important? I thought we might snuggle down on the sofa for a bit… watch a film maybe, you can choose if you like?’
I hear the rejection in his inflection and guilt pangs in my chest. I haven’t got time to worry about Malcolm’s feelings. He has no idea what this means to me, and I’m not about to tell him.
‘I need to go somewhere,’ I say, beginning to look around the room for some clothes to put on. I can’t go to London dressed as a dog. That really would bebarkingmad.
‘Where?’ he asks. ‘Is it something to do with this woman, this Samantha Valentine, whatever her name is…? Who is she? How do you know her?’ He’s asking questions again, and again I don’t answer him.
