The Woman Who Lied(80)

‘I know everything. You’ve read my book. And so you’ll know it too.’ She frantically feels for the doorknob, relieved when her fingers find the cool brass handle. She turns it and almost falls over the threshold down the steps onto their driveway. She feels safer outside. She’ll scream if he tries anything. Madge and Phil from next door will hear her.

But Trevor is staring at her in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The book! It’s all true. The serial killer. What happened with Daisy and Ash. It was Louise. It was all Louise. Did you kill Louise to stop her talking?’

He looks like he’s been punched and opens his mouth.

‘Don’t try to deny it, Trevor. It all adds up.’

He shakes his head. ‘What has got into you?’ His eyes are full of disappointment. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot, but this takes the biscuit, it really does. I think it’s best that I leave.’

She stares at him, trying to read him. But he’s as inscrutable as her bloody husband.

‘I’ll get Elliot to drop back the rest of my things. I’ll catch the bus.’ He steps down onto the driveway and she moves away from him. He shakes his head at her again, and mutters something under his breath. Then he stomps off down the driveway and onto the street, out of sight.

The kitchen still smells of the cigarettes Trevor likes and that linger on his clothes, even though Elliot won’t allow him to smoke in the house. She slumps at the kitchen table. Her world feels like it’s imploded. It was bad enough when Jonas betrayed her all those years ago – she’d thought she’d never recover. Then she’d got her book deal and started writing about Miranda Moody, and as the character grew stronger, so did she. And then she met Elliot and had Wilfie and her life felt complete. Now a hand grenade has been thrown into her world for a second time, and she doesn’t know whether she can cope with this fallout, which is so much worse than the last time. How is she going to explain it all to Jasmine and Wilfie?

It’s hot in the kitchen, the sun streaming through the glass of the bifold doors, and she can feel sweat in the small of her back. She wants to cry, to scream. She feels like she’s in the middle of a nightmare and she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t want to involve her parents. Louise is dead. She’s already put Jonas and Kristin through so much. The only person she has left is Ottilie. She knows she’s seeing her tomorrow but she can’t wait. She needs to speak to her now.

Ottilie answers on the first ring. ‘Hey, Mils.’

Emilia blurts it all out over the phone. Everything. Her suspicions about Trevor being the Doodle Man, Elliot being Ash and his bike being found at the scene. All of it. She can hear Ottilie’s stunned silence after she’s finished.

‘Oh, Mils. Are you sure? I can’t imagine Trev being a serial killer. I mean it’s all just so … utterly hideous. You can’t go around accusing people based on something Louise wrote … and Elliot told you he wasn’t Ash. Don’t you believe him?’

‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Emilia snaps. ‘I’ve been going over and over it in my head and there is no other explanation.’

‘Where are the kids? Do you want me to come over? Oh, shit, I’ve got the cat.’

Emilia explains that Jasmine and Wilfie are away for the night.

‘Then come here! You need a break, a change of scene. You can stay the night. We can talk it all through.’

‘Okay.’ She sniffs. ‘I’ll come over. I’ll see you in an hour or so.’

She runs upstairs to her bedroom, her mind full of Elliot, imagining him in some dank interview room, being questioned over and over again.

She throws her pyjamas and underwear into a bag but can’t find any socks. It’s always cold in Ottilie’s flat, even in summer. She turns to where Elliot keeps his socks instead and finds a chunky grey pair in his bedside cabinet. She’s just about to close the drawer when something familiar catches her eye. It’s a beanie, pushed down among the socks. She pulls it out. She’s never seen Elliot wear a beanie. He’s not the beanie-wearing kind. He always said it’s because he’s got too much hair, which made it look as though he had an odd-shaped head. She remembers them laughing about it once when they were in Harrods, not long after they first met, and trying on hats. She’d been doubled over in giggles as he tried to press the hat down over his spongy hair.

But that’s not what has caught her attention. It’s the badge on the front she recognizes. It’s the same Scandinavian brand that the thief who stole Elliot’s bike was wearing.





56





Another victim. This time a woman called Suzanne Chambers, a forty-five-year-old who’d moved to Plymouth only a year ago. That’s two now in the last eighteen months, not including Louise. Because I’m certain DC Greene’s death is something different entirely. It doesn’t fit with the rest: Greene wasn’t stabbed, and the etching on her ankle was drawn rather than carved. Something else about it all is nagging at me too and I can’t work out what it is.

‘We’ve got to get this fucking bastard,’ mutters Saunders, as we leave the bedsit that afternoon. It’s only a few streets away from where Lorraine Butterworth lives. Is that a coincidence? ‘I hope he’s getting sloppier now. Two who live so close together.’