The Confession Room by Lia Middleton

Author:Lia Middleton [Middleton, Lia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405954556
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2023-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

AFTER

* * *

‘Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.’

Robert South

13th November, 5:40 a.m.

The door clicks and the hood is gone. Emilia blinks rapidly, the low light of the warm streetlamp seeming bright after the pure black of the inside of the hood. The man, his face shielded with a scarf and beanie, is standing at the open doors of the van, staring down at her.

She digs her heels into the floor of the van and shuffles backwards, away from him. But she knocks into Ryan’s body, and she can’t suppress the cry that finds its way out through her tightly pressed together lips. She tried to stay away from him during the journey, desperately avoided looking his way, not wanting to acknowledge that the man who had been in that room with her was now dead beside her. But they hadn’t secured him to anything. She had shrieked when he slid towards her, his bare arms coming to rest against her bound hands. His skin already cold.

‘Emilia,’ the man says, his voice low. ‘Do you know where you are?’

He steps to one side, allowing her a clear view out on to the road. She scans the street, taking in the details: the uniformly spaced speed bumps, the streetlamps, the detached houses set far back from the road. It is familiar. She knows this road. Squinting into the distance, her eyes widen as it finally clicks into place. There, on the main road, perpendicular to this one, is a police station. Not her old station, but a neighbouring one. They are leaving her not even two hundred metres away from a police station. And he is standing here, in unassailable quiet confidence, certain that they won’t be caught. Not now. Not today.

‘Yes,’ she whispers.

He reaches inside his heavy coat and pulls out a pocket knife, the blade glinting in the stream of light from the glowing lamp to his side.

He reaches towards her and she flinches. His eyes glint. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Emilia.’ He tugs on her legs, pulling her roughly towards him, her head knocking against the side of the van. ‘I’m letting you go, remember?’

She resists the urge to kick him square in the chest, biting down on her back teeth. He smirks. ‘I know what you want to do –’

‘Quit playing with her,’ the woman snaps from the front. ‘It’s time to get out of here.’

His nose scrunches with annoyance but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he presses the blade of the knife against the rope that is binding Emilia’s ankles together, and slices it away.

‘Get out then,’ he snarls.

Emilia glances sideways, unable to prevent herself from looking at Ryan’s lifeless body one last time. Nausea curdles in her stomach.

‘Don’t look at him. Just get out.’

She slides forward, shuffling her feet in front of her until she reaches the open edge of the van, and drops down to the ground, her bare feet flinching from the frigid tarmac.

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