When had their relationship become so antagonistic? Her fault, she knew, ever since the injury to her hand had forced her to leave the Defence Psychology Service. Hers for constantly being on edge. Should she just call him back, apologize? Probably. But she knew that she wouldn’t, knew that the nugget of her personality that was stubborn and self-righteous had dug its heels in, despite knowing that she was shooting herself in the foot. That she was risking the best thing that had ever happened to her.
21
Though Carolynn couldn’t bear to be alone in this dark, claustrophobic little house, images of Zoe and Jodie careering around inside her skull, she couldn’t go outside for fear of being recognized. Even with the curtains closed, she felt as if she was inhabiting a goldfish bowl, as if every passer-by knew that Carolynn Reynolds, the woman who had slithered out of a guilty verdict for strangling her own daughter, the woman who was running alone on the beach when Jodie Trigg was murdered, was hiding out behind those dirty white walls. As if she’d peer out through a crack in the curtains and see a crowd in the street, brandishing pitchforks and baying for her blood.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she paced restlessly from the kitchen to the hallway, to the sitting room with its coiled vine walls, the tension inside her escalating with each step until she felt as if she would combust from its intensity. The house had a smell of its own that she had grown to hate, the tickly scent of dirt and dust that, however hard she cleaned, she could never eradicate, the years of rental neglect ingrained in its every atom. It was a smell she had come to associate with confinement, with claustrophobia, with a miserable, lonely existence.
The sudden blare of the telephone made her jump. Ducking into the hallway, she snatched at the receiver.
‘Roger.’
‘Carolynn.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at work. I was phoning to check how you are.’
‘The newspapers.’ The words rushed out of her. ‘Have you seen them?’
‘Yes.’
‘My face is in all of them. They’ll arrest me again, accuse me of killing that second little girl.’
That second little girl.
Jodie Trigg.
The little girl who lived on the static caravan park, who I befriended six months ago when I saw her hanging around on the beach outside the house alone, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. The little girl I never told you about, because I knew that you would stop me from having contact with her.
‘It’s a coincidence. Her death has nothing to do with Zoe.’
‘You can’t believe that, Roger. She was found in the same place, in a heart of shells, with an identical doll by her side. It must be the same killer.’
She slapped a hand over her mouth, pushing back the bile that rose up her throat, as a horrifying thought occurred to her. If the police found out she was living here and invented a reason to search the house, they would doubtless find some of Jodie’s fingerprints. Oh God. Where had Jodie been? What had she touched? All the surfaces in the kitchen for sure: she’d drunk orange juice and eaten chocolate biscuits at the table many times, stayed for an early dinner often too. The downstairs toilet. Where else? The sitting room … had she been in there? And what about upstairs? Yes, she’d been upstairs a couple of times too. She’d have to clean everything, every handle, every door, every surface.
‘Carolynn. Carolynn.’ Roger’s voice cut through her thoughts. ‘Listen to me. You were at home when that girl was killed and I was at work. You always have the lights on, even during the day, so someone would have seen you through the window.’
‘Yes,’ she murmured. She couldn’t tell him that she had been out running in the rain, had run down the beach to West Wittering, the beach deserted.
‘We’ll be able to find someone to testify on your behalf.’
At the word ‘testify’, Carolynn’s stomach knotted.
‘But it won’t come to that.’
Her legs were trembling. She leaned against the wall for support, clutching the receiver to her ear as if it was a life raft.
‘We need to move, go somewhere else, before the police find out where we are.’
‘We’re not going anywhere, Carolynn.’
‘I can’t go through it again—’
‘Just do what I tell you. Stay at home, don’t open the door and don’t speak to anyone. I’ll be home in a couple of hours.’
Jodie Trigg. I knew her.
‘Close the curtains—’
‘I already have.’
‘Go upstairs and get one of your pills, put the telly on and watch one of those rubbishy chat shows that you like—’
‘I don’t want to take a pill,’ she snapped. ‘They make me feel drowsy, stupid.’
I need a clear head. I need to think. I grew up in a prison. Spending my adult life in one is unconscionable. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.
‘Can’t you come back sooner?’
‘I’ve got a few things I need to finish at work, but I’ll be home as soon as I can.’
Before she could answer, the dial tone buzzed in her ear. As she lowered the receiver to its cradle, her legs buckled. Sliding down the wall, she concertinaed herself into a ‘Z’ on the hall floor, tucked her face between her knees and screamed until her throat was raw.
Zoe.
Jodie.
You were home when that girl was killed.
If DI Simmons found her, how would she explain the missing hours when she’d been running along the coast, the rain cloaking her in solitude, trying to shake the headache, the ghastly images that the second anniversary of Zoe’s death had surfaced, like a horror film reel spinning inside her head. He had failed to convict in Zoe’s case. He couldn’t let a second child murder go unsolved. With Zoe, as time went on, he’d needed a scapegoat and she had been an easy target. Her fingerprints had been on the shells surrounding Zoe’s body, all
