‘We extracted over ten or more hair fibres from the blood at the scene and from the victim himself,’ she informed me.
‘Could the victim have reached out and pulled at her hair while he was trying to defend himself perhaps?’
‘Well, you might automatically assume so,’ she’d agreed, ‘given the number of hair fibres found, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. There was no hair found in, on or around the victim’s hands, no DNA underneath his fingernails, as you might expect. Rather, it was largely recovered from his torso, and more were mixed in with the blood found around his chest, around the wound. The hair fibres themselves are interesting in that they’re small snippets of hair, no more than a centimetre or two in length, blunt in shape, like they’d been cut.’ She sounded perplexed. ‘It’s not what I would expect from an ordinary hair sample found at most crime scenes, one which has somehow shed or been pulled out. You would generally expect them to be longer or to have a root attached maybe, if they’d been ripped from the scalp. The pattern in which they were distributed on his body was unusual as well, like they’d been randomly sprinkled…’
This had really made my head spin.
‘Planted by who exactly?’ Archer is up out of her chair now. I can still smell those few squirts of perfume lingering in the air – mind you, at £250 a pop, I’d hope to.
‘I haven’t got time for this, Riley,’ she says, shortly, ‘and frankly, neither have you. While you and DS Davis were shopping in Leeds, intel has come in on Erin Santos’s whereabouts.’
‘Oh?’
‘CCTV picked her up at Leeds Central railway station. She boarded a train and was again picked up on camera at the other end in London King’s Cross. ‘They’ve identified an address.’
THIRTY-TWO
ERIN
There is a particularly bitter irony to the fact that, having spent the past six or more years of my life being silenced, dismissed, and disbelieved, it now seems that everyone can’t wait to hear my truth. Or, I suspect, more accurately, to watch me being thrown straight back inside Larksmere asylum. Seriously – it’s nothing more than a modern-day witch hunt.
Dan Riley’s TV appeal has sent the keyboard Karens into meltdown, and that awful photograph of me that’s been plastered all over it has garnered some pretty brutal comments: ‘She evenlookslike a serial killer,’ one had observed, with another describing me as ‘Larksmere’s finest alumni’. Though maybe they have a point there… ‘Why was this woman released when she’s clearly mentally deranged and dangerous? She’s the perfect example of a failed system.’ And, my personal favourite, ‘Is shereallyonly forty?’
I snap Molly’s laptop shut and switch it off. I can’t stomach reading any more and I’m fearful of being traced. Molly could’ve put a tracker on it, one of those ‘Find my laptop’ AirTag things that everyone’s using to help them find all the essential items that they must keep losing. I imagine it’s just the sort of sensible, practical thing that Molly might do.
A sudden gust of wind causes the old bedroom window to rattle, startling me. I place a hand on my chest in a bid to soften the jitters dancing inside it, peer outside through the grubby net curtains onto the grimy, wet street below. Are they already watching me, the police? Are snipers currently positioned on the rooftop of the Bull and Barrow, poised to take me down at the first sign? I drop the curtain, quickly.
I need to leave this place –now. Judging by the reports I’ve read online, it’ll only be a matter of time before the police come and smash the door down, no doubt fifty men strong, being as though I’m so ‘deranged and dangerous’, and I certainly don’t want Pete’s premonition of a bloodbath coming true. He has his sheets to think of.
Somehow, I have to get to Samantha Valentine before they get to me. Only, the truth is, I still have no idea where she is. I’m no closer to finding her than I was when I was caged up inside Larksmere having my brain lobotomised. And even if she is here, in this city, no doubt she’ll have absconded after seeing Dan’s TV appeal and all the media mayhem this story is creating, disappeared into the shadows unnoticed, a ghost once more. Perhaps I was wrong and DCI Rileyisn’tthe man for the job after all. Potentially, he’s scuppered my plan by publicly giving her the heads-up. If she’s smart – and Samantha is nothing if she isn’t that – then she’s probably already on a plane out of here and I’llneverget justice.
Frustrated, I hastily throw my clothes into my now-much-lighter tote bag, wrap the gun in an old T-shirt and bury it underneath them. Then I give the shabby room the once over with a cloth and some bleach, being careful to wipe down all touch surfaces and the old mirror – it’s probably the first proper clean it’s ever seen.
‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re sneaking off to, sister?’ Pete calls out to me as I’m halfway through the pub, heading towards the exit.
I wince, roll my eyes. I was hoping to slope off without him noticing, only I get the distinct impression that Pete has other intentions for me, or, far more worryingly,us. ‘I’ve got scampi and chips in a basket going cold here, blondie!’
I swing round at him with a pasted-on smile.
‘I’ve just a couple of errands to run first,’ I say, breezily. ‘Keep it warm for me.’ I give him my best flirtatious face, the sort that Samantha could muster up at the drop of a hat and have any man in the palm of her hand – or woman, for that matter. ‘And the scampi and chips too!’ I wink at him over my shoulder, my smile vanishing instantly as I turn my back on him –creep.
I can’t risk using public transport. London is one great big closed-circuit television camera. Forget about your best side – if you’re lucky enough to have one of those – with so many cameras on you day in day out, there’s no side of you to hide.
I think about hiring a car while I’m rummaging through the rails of clothes in the charity shop, mindful of the CCTV cameras. I’ve been careful to keep most of my face covered with the thick scarf I’m wearing. I don’t want it to look as if I’m trying to deliberately conceal my identity though – it’s a delicate balance. Thankfully it’s still pretty chilly out and there’s a light drizzle in the air, so the scarf is appropriate. Now though, I’m looking for something a bit different, something to change things up a bit.
I grab a pair of smart black trousers and a fitted white shirt, choose a pair of suede boots from a collection of tatty old footwear on a shoe rack – the best of a bad bunch. I check that they’re my size before taking them to the counter and purchase them along with another two scarves and a black woollen double-breasted dress coat that cinches in at the waist – Samantha would definitely have approved. I throw in a pairof reading glasses and some tarnished gold costume jewellery to finish the look off.
‘That’ll be £69.40.’ The hippie-chick behind the counter rings them all up.
Jeez, £70 for a load of old cast-offs? Things reallyhavechanged since I’ve been locked away. ‘Can I get you a bag, hun?’ she says in a sing-song voice. ‘It’s 25p extra, but itisbiodegradable.’
Hun. The word triggers me. ‘Hun’ was what Sam always used to call me. She’d tag it on the end of everything. ‘You OK,hun? You want a drink,hun? Would you kill for me, hun?’
‘No, thanks.’ I wouldn’t pay 25p for a plastic bag on principle alone, even if it is biodegradable.Even if I was a millionaire.
‘Is it OK if I use the changing room?’
Hippie-chick looks up at me, her plaits wobbling as she nods and points. ‘Sure, it’s just through there, the curtain behind the books.’
