Roger left the sitting room and she heard him jogging up the stairs, returning a moment later, two small white pills nestled in the palm of his hand. Flunitrazepam. He had bought the pills, liquid, every possible method of sedating her, off the Internet from Malaysia, had had them delivered to a PO Box in Chichester, which he had opened under their new false identity.
She looked at the pills and shook her head. ‘I might go for a run.’
‘Are you serious, Carolynn. Now? With that police and media circus out there? You’re upset and you need to calm down.’
They stood, facing off against each other across the sitting room. Carolynn chewed at the skin around her thumbnail.
‘Stop that, Carolynn. You’ll make your hands look ugly.’
Dropping her hand, she nodded dully. He was right about the nail-biting, about the pills, about staying inside. He was always right these days. He hadn’t used to be, when they first got married, but now she could see that he was. Always. When had the tables turned? Since she had been accused of Zoe’s murder, since the trial? Or earlier than that? Since becoming a mother had leeched her energy and her happiness?
But she longed to experience the feeling of endorphins coursing through her body, the euphoria, however temporary that came with utter physical exhaustion. Sometimes when she returned from her runs along the beach, something had shifted inside her and she found some small measure of peace. Often though, only her body was changed, the miles she’d run registering themselves in physical exhaustion, but everything else, her mind, the thoughts that haunted her waking hours, unchanged. Still, running was like a drug to her now, her only hope of respite, however temporary.
‘Here.’ He held out his hand. ‘Take your pills.’
Obediently, Carolynn extended her right hand for the pills, her left for the water. He watched as she popped first one and then the other into her mouth. His eyes tracked the movement of her hand as she raised the glass to her lips and took a sip. Tilting forward, he planted a soft kiss on her cheek, grimacing, she could sense without even seeing his expression, as the downy white lanugo hair on her face tickled his lips.
‘I can’t go back,’ she said again, when he had stepped away, aware of the thread of desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t go through all that again. I can’t.’
‘You won’t need to, but you have to listen to me, do what I tell you.’
She nodded. No matter how hard she looked into his eyes, searched for something there, all she ever saw was emptiness. It was the same emptiness she saw in her own.
‘That means no friends, for starters. And no more visits to Dr Flynn.’
She started to speak, to object, but his fingers moved to cover her mouth, cutting her off.
‘We can’t risk getting close to people, Carolynn. You know that. Not now. Not with this second little girl dead, so close to where you found— where Zoe was found. It’s too much of a risk. They’ll find us and then they’ll find out … they’ll find out the truth this time and we just can’t take that chance.’
The truth.
He left the sitting room and she spat the pills into her palm and slipped them into her pocket.
10
Marilyn stood at the front of the incident room and contemplated the hastily assembled team. Sarah Workman had looked washed-out on the beach, but he’d put it down to the light filtering through grey clouds; now, under the harsh fluorescent strips, her skin was a sickly pale grey and she looked even worse. Already the stress of the case was taking its toll, and there would doubtless be sleepless nights and soaring stress levels to come for all of them. He met her gaze and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but was more likely a maniacal grimace. Nothing about this case promoted a genuine smile.
‘Good evening, everyone. I won’t keep you for long, as we have a lot to do.’
A photograph of the dead girl was already tacked to the whiteboard behind him, where it would stay throughout the investigation. Once they found out who she was, it would be joined by one of her alive, smiling preferably, looking like the undefiled child she had been, reminding everyone why they were here, who the eighteen hour days were for.
‘As you all know, the body of a young girl was found in the sand dunes at West Wittering beach earlier this evening.’ He glanced down at the notes he’d scribbled, though he knew everything, what little they had so far, by heart. ‘I don’t have much to give you, I’m afraid. Dr Ghoshal will perform the autopsy tomorrow, but his preliminary assessment is that she was killed by strangulation. She was wearing what looked to be a school uniform – white shirt, navy-blue jumper and navy trousers, no identifying school badge – and her clothing wasn’t disturbed, so it is unlikely that she was a victim of sexual assault, though of course the autopsy will confirm or refute that.’ He paused. ‘A doll in a pink ballerina dress was found by her side. The doll had black marks drawn around its neck with felt-tip pen. The black marks aped the strangulation bruise marks around the little girl’s neck.’
His gaze scanned the assembled faces as they digested the information. A stranger could be forgiven for thinking them indifferent; Marilyn knew better, knew that the little girl’s murder had touched them all deeply, just as Zoe Reynolds’ had done two years previously.
Arthur Lawford, the exhibits officer, raised his hand. He had been with Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes longer even than Marilyn, a solid thirty years on the job and still a sergeant, a role he was more than happy to languish in until retirement. Not everyone could be the star player; not everyone wanted
