‘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.
‘I couldn’t believe it when the police said one of my colleagues had discovered Amber’s body,’ she says. ‘I think I wanted to say thank you – I don’t know why. It’s not like it made any difference to Amber, but I suppose I felt a bit better, knowing the respect you would have shown her.’
I think about Saturday morning. How I scrabbled backwards, screaming, disgusted by what I’d found. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I manage.
‘It’s very sad,’ she agrees. ‘But an occupational hazard, I suppose, in our line of work. Have you been a social worker long?’
‘Twenty-five years, if you can believe that. All Children’s Services, but I’ve only been based here in Community Support for the last three. How about you?’
‘Similar. Lifelong profession, but I only moved to Oxfordshire in 2022.’
‘Oh.’ My shoulders drop an inch. ‘Does that mean you didn’t know Amber very well?’
‘I was getting to know her,’ she explains. ‘Doing my best anyway. Amber had a difficult start in life. There was a lot of violence in the home where she lived with her mum, and both girls were there when Jacqui was murdered by her partner. They were in their bedroom, but the police report said their door was partially open. We don’t know what they saw – neither girl has ever been willing to talk about it – so we can only hope they didn’t see their mum’s injuries. And then with no father named on her birth certificate, Amber became a 6-year-old orphan with no one in the world except her almost 8-year-old half-sister.’
‘You know, when I first became a social worker, I thought I’d be able to stop domestic violence,’ I admit quietly. ‘Not for everyone of course, but for the mothers I met, with children who were at risk of abuse too. I thought I’d be able to convince them to leave. I rarely succeeded.’
She nods. ‘There are so many layers to it. It’s hard for us to get our head around.’
I don’t need to ask who she means by us. Do-gooders with worthy aims. Strangers from a different world who are happy to ignore sinks filled with dirty dishes or sticky milk bottles stuffed between sofa cushions, as long as we can go back to our comfortable houses, our neat families, at the end of the working day. I feel a wave of self-contempt.
‘You know, I thought Amber would have a better life than her mum,’ Colleen continues. ‘The team managed to find foster carers who’d take both sisters. A lovely couple in Littlemore. And the girls stayed with them a long time, nearly five years, before they had to move. Amber had her problems of course, and an attitude so sassy I swear you could light a match off her.’ Colleen smiles at the memory. ‘But she was a survivor. I thought she was going to be one of my success stories.’ She gives me a sad smile. ‘All I can hope now is that the police find her killer and bring them to justice.’
I look away so she can’t see the tears forming in my eyes, then blink them away. She doesn’t mean Lucy, I remind myself, I’m just tired. ‘Have the police kept you updated on how the investigation is going?’
‘Not really. I spoke to them initially, gave them Amber’s file, talked to them about her background and so on. But they seem more interested in the here and now. Apparently Amber had a boyfriend; I didn’t even know. And between you and me, I get the impression they think he killed her.’
I remember the mechanic Steve mentioned. He said he was young, and it was only Steve’s assumption that the guy was Amber’s drug dealer.
‘Like mother like daughter,’ Colleen goes on. ‘The police are waiting for the forensics report, and I imagine they’re hoping there’ll be something there that proves it.’
I close my eyes for a second, say a silent prayer of hope, then look back at Colleen. I hate the idea of manipulating her, but in a few hours’ time I’ll return to the reality of my home – an accusation of murder and a ransom demand – and I need to have done everything possible to help my family. ‘And how is Jess coping?’ I ask. ‘It must be awful for her.’
Colleen drops her head to one side. ‘How did you know Amber’s sister was called Jess?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I say again, an automatic response when I’m on the back foot. ‘I live in Chinnor too – that’s why I found Amber, it was on my running route. Jess is in my daughter’s year at Lord Frederick’s.’
‘Oh gosh, I didn’t realise you knew the girls. And with a teenage daughter of your own, how terrifying that must be, a murder in your village. You won’t say anything about …’
I shake my head. ‘Of course not.’
