I read on, but each word seems to fill me with more dread. In retrospect, it doesn’t make the police look good. Archer isn’t going to like this one bit.
The unexpected shrill ring of my phone causes me to jolt upright. Instinctively, I glance down at Jude, but he’s still sound asleep in the crook of my arm, and my heart sinks in my chest –he can’t hear the phone ringing.
‘Dan Riley.’
I hear breathing down the line. There’s a pause.
‘Erin, is that you?’
‘Hello, Dan,’ she says as I place the phone between my ear and shoulder and gently lay Jude down onto the cushions next to me. He snuffles but is otherwise undisturbed, bless him.
‘I’m really glad you called back, Erin. I’ve been reading your police file.’
‘I’m sorry for calling at this late hour – I know you have a young family.’ She sighs. ‘Must be nice, having a family to come home to. It’s all I ever wanted really, you know, to have a little family of my own. Sounds corny, doesn’t it?’
I hear regret, or perhaps resentment, in her voice.
‘That’s still possible, isn’t it, Erin? And no – it doesn’t.’
Turns out my earlier hunch was right. There was no answer when Leeds had sent a patrol car to do a welfare check on Erin. I sense that she’s likely gone on the run, but I don’t yet know why exactly, or what her connection is to Milo Harrison’s murder. ‘After all, you’re a free woman now, Erin.’
She snorts, softly.
‘Ah yes, afreewoman! I suppose it all depends on how you interpret the word “free”, doesn’t it, Dan? I’m a “free” forty-year-old convicted killer who’s been locked away in a secure psychiatric hospital for the past six years. I mean, come on,’ she scoffs, ‘wouldyouswipe right?’
‘Where are you now, Erin? Are you in London? Can we meet?’
‘I went dizzy when I saw her name on the Met news feed. I thought I might actually pass out for a moment.’ She ignores me, continues. ‘You see, Dan, when I was rotting away spiritually, mentally and physically inside that medieval cesspit, Larksmere, I wasn’t sure this day was ever going to come, you know? The day when Samantha Valentine resurfaces and my truth is validated and I’m vindicated at last. Only… here it is! But d’you know,’ she sighs again, ‘I thought I would feel better than I do, knowing there was someone else out there, another victim of that twisted psychopath and that I’m not alone… but in all honesty, Dan, I think it might have made me feelworse.’
Has she been drinking? I detect the gentlest slur around the edges of her words.
‘I’ve been searching for her for the past six years of my life, all that time while I was incarcerated.Six yearsthat should’ve been spent building a life and a home, having that family I always wanted, maybe even a career. But instead, because of her, whoever shereallyis, I became a murderer and a liar, a mentally ill danger to the public, and then I was sent to atone for it all in hell.’
The gravity of her words silences me.
‘Do you know what ECT is, Dan?’
‘ECT?’
‘Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT for ease. They put you under general anaesthetic for it, you know, knock you out, and then, well, God only knows what they do to you, but they dig about inside your head, have a little tinker around, shuffle things about a bit. It’s supposed to change your brain chemistry or something. Like a factory reset of the mind.’
‘Is that what happened at Larksmere, Erin? Did you have ECT?’
Her own silence hangs heavy down the line.
‘I should never have been there,’ she says quietly. ‘Sheput me there, and the police did nothing to stop her. Do you believe me, Dan?’
I can hear my heartbeat pulsing loudly in my ears.Do I believe her?
‘At the time, police found no evidence to support your story that anyone named Samantha Valentine existed, Erin.’
‘There is now though, isn’t there, Dan – evidence, I mean? This crime you’re investigating, it’s the same story. She used the same MO, didn’t she?And she used the same name.That was a gamble, don’t you think? Very bold, but then,’ she snorts, ‘that’s Samantha all over.’
‘Why do you think she did that, Erin – used the same name again?’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’s justlovingall the attention on social media, all the mystery surrounding her. “Who is Samantha Valentine?” It’s what narcissists like her thrive on, after all – attention, positive or negative, it doesn’t matter, it’s all the same to them. Ormaaaybe’ –she elongates the word – ‘it’s something more personal than that.’
‘More personal? Personal in what way? Did you fall out with Samantha? Did something happen between you and that’s why she did this?’
