The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood

Author:Alex Marwood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Azizex666, Thriller
ISBN: 9780751547986
Publisher: Sphere
Published: 2012-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

In for questioning. What does that mean, ‘in for questioning’? Does it mean he’s under suspicion? Is it the same as ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, or is it more definite, something that follows on from that? Amber racks her brain to remember what was said of herself and Jade all those years ago and realises that, shut away in the police station at Banbury, they had had no idea of what was going on in the outside world. Behind those walls, before the crowds saw the six o’clock bulletin and began to gather – shellsuits and placards and broken house-bricks, the good people of Oxfordshire showing their solidarity with the Francis family – it had just been them and the impassive policemen and the sincere social workers and Jade’s mum bawling in the hall (her own, in transit to their Far East resort, took three days to be found and return) and Romina pacing and fiercely smoking and, later, solicitors. It had only been when her lawyer had suddenly stopped her and advised her to take care what she said that she had realised that they weren’t getting out of there, that they weren’t part of the routine; that the police had known all along that it was them, and were just waiting for their versions to crack apart.

She prowls the house like a caged animal, afraid to go outside, afraid to show her face in case the news has got round the estate. Which it will have. They couldn’t have been more public about how they went about it if they’d tried. And of course they probably were trying, she thinks. Five women are dead, and all they seem to have done is hold press conferences. It’s no good just doing something; they need to be seen to be doing something. The frisson of murder always turns to outrage against the police if they are too slow to point the finger.

What does it mean, in for questioning? Do they know something I don’t know? About Vic? Have I been blind?

Mary-Kate and Ashley trot up and down at her heels, shadowing her as she walks. He’s been gone sixteen hours now. Sixteen hours. That’s not a cup of tea and a quick chat, is it? Christ, what I would do for a cigarette. Five years without them, and the longing is just as ferocious. She wonders if Jackie has left any behind and finds herself turning over the kitchen drawer in search of a pack, though she knows he would long since have found and disposed of it if she had. Damn it, Vic. Day after day I’ve gone without sleep. What have you done to me?

He hasn’t done anything. Amber, what are you like? There are a million reasons why his prints would be in there. He works there just like you do, for God’s sake. He could have come in looking for you. He could have gone in to get out of the rain. They could have been there for years: maybe you’re not as thorough a cleaner as you think you are.

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