Buried Deep by Susan Wilkins

Author:Susan Wilkins [Wilkins, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838885175
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2020-04-05T23:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Nine

Tuesday, 7.55am

It’s early and Megan wonders how difficult it’s going to be to rouse Heather Waycott. In the event, as she approaches the small terraced house painted sunshine yellow, she sees the kitchen light on and Kerry’s mother framed in the window. She’s filling the kettle at the sink. This will probably be the last thing she does before her already chaotic life is thrown into even more turmoil.

Ringing the doorbell, Megan tries not to plan out what she’s going to say. It’s better to play it by ear. The door is opened by a boy. He’s eight or nine, blond with sandy brows and lashes like Kerry. Megan has only glimpsed her younger brother and sister before, playing in the garden.

She smiles at him. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I’m Megan. Is Mummy there?’

‘Mum, it’s that cop,’ he calls over his shoulder.

Megan follows him into the house. Heather appears in the kitchen doorway. She wears an old Coldplay concert t-shirt and some frayed men’s pyjama bottoms. Her skinny arms hang limply at her sides. For a frozen moment she stares at Megan, then her mouth gapes open and she drops to her knees with a feral howl of pain.

Her puzzled son puts his arms round her and tries to hug her. ‘Mum?’ he whimpers.

Megan has done this too many times, as a young PC and as a detective. She waits a moment then helps Heather to her feet and shepherds her to the sofa in the living room. The boy and his younger sister, who looks to be about five, stand and stare forlornly until their crying mother gathers them into her arms and clutches them tight.

Returning to the hall Megan makes a quick phone call to Sheila Waycott; she manages to hold back the information and ask her to come round.

Then she sits down on the same armchair as the evening before. The pizza boxes are on the floor beside the chair where she put them. She waits for the questions that will come. But Heather says nothing. She doesn’t even ask if her daughter is really dead. If they’re sure it’s her.

Megan would prefer shouting and accusations to the heavy silence. Now the initial shock is wearing off, her own abject failure to save Kerry is flooding through her like a toxin.

It takes about ten minutes for Sheila to turn up in a black Mitsubishi Trojan pick-up driven by her son, Justin. He’s been released on bail. She lets herself in with a key.

Megan stands up to face her.

‘She’s dead, in’t she?’ says Sheila. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ says Megan.

‘How? She kill herself?’

Witnessing the intense pain on the old lady’s face, Megan guesses that’s her preferred option.

‘There’ll be a post mortem later today probably,’ says Megan carefully. ‘And the result will tell us more. But, at the moment, we’re not treating this as a suicide.’

It takes a moment for the implications to sink in.

Heather raises her head. ‘What? I thought… she was just so upset. She told me she’d had enough.

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