Dead Girl Blues by David Sodergren

Author:David Sodergren [Sodergren, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paperbacks and Pugs Books
Published: 2020-03-28T23:00:00+00:00

24

She ran until she could run no more, her aching legs forcing her to a premature stop. Heart pounding mercilessly, Willow stumbled and fell, grazing her palms on the concrete. Two young men from outside a nearby pub rushed to her aid, helping her to her feet.

‘You alright?’ asked one.

‘I’m fine,’ said Willow, backing up, wishing to get as far from other people as possible. She started away from them, mumbling, ‘Thank you,’ before hurrying on, unable to think straight.

Images tortured her mind like a rusted blade to the temple. The ghastly video, Jessica holding the razor, dead eyes above a heroin smile, while the laughter of the doll played on an endless loop. She lurched down a side-street and stood panting. She closed her eyes, but still she saw the doll falling to the pavement, its round head bouncing, and the shocked look on the faces of the building’s occupants.

So much for subtlety, she thought, and laughed. It was a strange, childlike laugh, one she didn’t recognise. Had she grabbed the doll instead of the baby? Surely not. There was nothing else in the crib. Was there? The neighbour was a crank, a nutter, tending to a piece of plastic as if it were his own flesh and blood.

You’d better hope so.

The man was dead now, another corpse for the fire, another body for no one to care about. The poor didn’t matter around here. They were little more than an inconvenience harnessed by aspiring politicians, led around by the nose with the pretence of improving their lot in life, when all they had to look forward to was a smoke and a drink and a million-to-one chance of winning the lottery. She thought back to Jessica's house, to her affluent parents. Why had the girl given it all up to live like this?

Jessica.

The murdered was also a murderer.

She had cut that boy up, tortured him, abused him. What she had done was—

She tried not to think of it.

Please, he had begged as she sliced through his skin as if peeling an orange. Please…

So why had Jessica been murdered? If anything, this revelation made matters even more perplexing. The deeper she dived, the muddier the waters became.

Willow looked around and realised she didn’t know where she was. It was becoming a habit. Checking her watch, she saw it was eight in the morning. She wanted to go home, but Cat would be there, and she would have to tell the whole story, what she did, what she saw…

No, she couldn’t do that. She shoved her hands in her pockets and kept walking, following the sound of traffic. Her fingers brushed something and she remembered the photograph. Pulling it from her pocket, she stared at the image for a long time, at the weeping naked girl, the knife at her throat. On closer inspection — too close, some might say — Willow spotted a latticework of scars down the girl’s chest and shoulders and arms, some white and faded, others raw, angry and bleeding.

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