Give me 10 gee and I won’t go to the feds.
‘What does it say?’ Milla asks, reaching for the phone. I hand it to her in silence then watch her read it. ‘Fuck,’ she exhales, elongating the word. ‘Well, I guess it’s good that it’s only ten grand. We can afford that, right?’
‘What?’ I spurt out. ‘We’re not paying her!’
‘Please, Mum,’ Lucy whimpers.
‘Not you as well!’ I push off the bed and start pacing the room. ‘Look, this is blackmail. Illegal. When you’ve done nothing wrong.’ But as I pause for breath, the message replays in my mind. ‘She said she saw you,’ I mumble.
‘Sorry?’
‘On the message. Jess said she saw you kill Amber.’
‘Well, she didn’t,’ Milla blurts out. ‘How could she? And you saw the video – Amber was completely fine except for a few cuts.’
I pause. I can’t believe I’m asking this. ‘Could there be another video?’
‘What? No, of course not! You can’t think I actually killed her, Mum?’
‘What happened to your jacket?’ I ask.
She sucks in air. ‘What?’
‘You were wearing your denim jacket in that video, but you only had a jumper on when I found you.’ I want to add that I can’t find that either, but that would mean admitting I’d searched her room, and this isn’t the time to be losing my moral advantage.
She’s quiet for a while, an imploring look on her face, then she drops her gaze to the carpet. ‘I’m not sure,’ she whispers. ‘I felt all hot and bothered after our fight, so I took it off. I must have put it down somewhere, maybe in the churchyard. I only realised I’d lost it when you forced us to go to the fun day and I wanted to wear it.’
‘That’s convenient,’ I can’t help muttering.
‘Oh my God, you’re unbelievable!’ Milla calls out, jumping to her sister’s defence again. ‘This is Lucy, remember? The most sweet-natured girl in the world? The one you’re supposed to love unconditionally? Her explanation makes perfect sense!’
‘I do love her unconditionally,’ I whisper, not adding what the term means, that I’d still love her even if she had killed someone. ‘And I do want to believe her; there’s just so much to take in.’
‘Well, try harder. Lucy didn’t kill Amber, okay?’
I bite my lip. I wish Matt was here. For all Milla’s swagger, I know she’s scared of him. But he’s not back until Friday. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Lucy’s done nothing wrong. But that’s even more reason to not pay this ransom demand. Because Jess is committing a crime. And this message,’ I continue, pointing at the phone in Milla’s hand, ‘is our evidence.’
‘But if we don’t pay her, she’ll put that video online, and then millions of people will think I killed her sister. I’ll be trolled by the whole world!’
‘And everyone knows the police are lazy bastards,’ Milla says. ‘Unless there’s masses of DNA incriminating someone else, they’ll see the footage and pin the murder on Lucy. They won’t care that it’s not what happened. Think about what Dad went through.’
‘Milla, you can’t let one unjust incident affect your opinion of the police for the rest of your life.’
‘It’s not one incident though, is it? The news is full of stories about the police fucking up. We need to deal with this, Mum. By ourselves. Dad’s earning way more than he did as a teacher, so I bet you’ve got at least ten grand in the bank. It’s not that much to you, but it’s a fortune to a 15-year-old foster kid. Maybe she wants it so that she can get out of Chinnor. And then we’d be free of her.’
‘And if that’s not her plan? If she wants to get our money and then post the video online anyway? Or take it to the police? Amber was her sister. Do you really think ten thousand pounds will be enough payback for her?’
Milla gives me a dark stare. She doesn’t like it, but she knows I’m right. ‘We’ll scare the shit out of her then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘There’s only one of her, but there’s four of us. If Jess thinks Lucy killed Amber, what do you reckon she’ll think Dad is capable of? Lucy’s always said that Jess was the weaker one of the two. The follower. Doing this must be way outside her comfort zone. So we give her the money, but say if she ever posts the video, Dad will hunt her down.’
‘You want us to threaten violence against a grieving 15-year-old vulnerable child? Dad, a teacher. Me, a social worker?’
‘For Lucy,’ Milla reminds me.
Then Lucy’s phone lights up in her hand. She passes it to her sister. Lucy blinks as she reads the message, then looks up.
‘She wants us to drop it in a bin by Kiln Lakes. At midnight on Friday night. Please, Mum, can we give it to her?’
AFTER
Thursday 9th May
Rachel
‘You could have worked from home again, you know,’ Elaine says, her forehead creasing with concern as she leans over my desk and assesses me. I must look dreadful. I sent the girls back to bed after Jess’s second message, but I couldn’t sleep myself. I tossed and turned for a while, and when I couldn’t bear the oppressive silence of my bedroom anymore, I tiptoed downstairs, made a mug of tea, and put the TV on low. I found a nature programme on Netflix and tried to lose myself in the tropical rainforest. It worked for a minute or two, but the questions kept snaking their way back in.
Are we really going to pay Jess Scott blackmail money when Lucy’s innocent?
And threaten a vulnerable child with violence?
Is there any chance that Lucy could have killed Amber?
The video kept replaying in my head too. Bronwen’s letter. Lucy’s angry threats. You think I won’t use what I know. What did Lucy mean by that?
And then I remembered the sound of the plastic bag hitting the railway track when it dropped. There was the high-pitched crash of a bottle breaking, but I’m sure I heard a second noise too. The thud of something more solid than a bottle. I thought about the missing rolling pin, Amber’s injuries, and I couldn’t sit still anymore.
At seven o’clock I went for a shower, and then tried to cover my dark circles with some make-up – which, judging by Elaine’s expression, I failed to do. When I poked my head around Lucy’s door, she announced she was too sick to go to school, and I didn’t try to change her mind, secretly grateful to have her contained in the house for the day. Milla was already dressed when I knocked on her door, and breezed past me as though our conversation in the middle of the night had never happened.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, smiling at Elaine as brightly as I can. ‘I’m not sleeping brilliantly, but I prefer to be in the office – with you – than at home on my own.’
‘I get that,’ she says, smoothing out her forehead and returning the smile. ‘By the way, the girl you found on Saturday, her social worker popped down yesterday looking for you. Her name is Colleen Byrne.’
‘She did? Why?’ I sound defensive, and Elaine’s eyes squint in confusion. I soften my voice. ‘Sorry. Did she say anything specific?’
‘Not really. Just that she’d heard that Amber’s body had been found by a fellow social worker in Children’s Services. And it felt like too much of a coincidence to not introduce herself. I think she wanted to check you were okay mainly.’
I nod slowly, giving myself time to process this news. I don’t want to see her. For one, I want to distance myself from this murder inquiry as much I can. And there’s also the chance that Munroe has told her about the bullying, and my connection to it. But if Colleen Byrne was Amber’s social worker, then she will be Jess’s too, and do I really want to give up an opportunity to find out as much as I can about our blackmailer?
‘Is she in the office today, do you know?’ I ask.
‘She said she would be,’ Elaine says, nodding her head. ‘I can hold the fort here if you want to go upstairs?’
It turns out the second floor is a carbon copy of our office on the ground floor. Grey, industrial-looking carpet. A sparsely furnished meeting room at the far end, and a tiny kitchenette in the corner. More than half the desks are unmanned – a mix of people working from home and out on visits – but a woman with long dark hair and piercing green eyes stands up.
‘Are you Rachel Salter?’ she asks in a soft Irish accent, her face opening up into a smile. She looks like one of life’s good people, and my stomach churns with shame for only being here to wring information out of her. But it’s for my family, so I smile back, and drop into the chair opposite her desk when she gestures towards it.
