Did you find out the truth about Jess Scott?
Did you follow her on Friday night, then hit her with your car?
Have you hidden her body?
But I know there are even more gruesome questions than that because this didn’t start with Jess. Amber was murdered a week before her sister went missing. Matt’s case wasn’t referenced in her file, but she was Jess’s sister, so she must have been close to it. Her file did mention the incident that led to the girls being moved. It was dated as May 2023, which was the same month that Jess pulled her statement. The file didn’t give a name, but the boy concerned was five years older than Amber and known to the police. It all points to him being Sean Russo – and the incident being linked to Jess’s change of heart.
If Amber was Sean’s friend, like Colleen said, Jess being the fake witness makes sense. Sean asks Amber to help him out, and because she’s devious and selfish, she gets her biddable sister to take the risk instead.
Except Jess changed her mind.
How would Amber have reacted to that?
Yes, Sean roughed her up. But maybe she cared less about her safety, and more about getting back into his good books. Perhaps she devised the plan to terrorise Lucy, punish Matt the only way she could, so that she could deliver what she’d failed to do when Jess pulled her statement.
And if Matt had come to the same conclusion – and then watched his own daughter suffer at Amber’s hands – would he see the younger girl as the real culprit and want to make her pay? He did seem anxious when he came back from searching for Lucy on that Friday night, and he was later home than I expected. But killing a child?
I push out of the chair, and there’s a screech as its metal feet slide across the tiled floor. Conversation halts around me; builders and students turn to stare. God, I can’t stay here either. I lunge for the door, and a few seconds later, I stumble onto the pavement.
I breathe in the early morning air and feel instantly calmer.
This is ridiculous. Matt can get angry – when the house is a mess, or if he feels undermined – but he’s calm, controlled, never violent. I can’t imagine him ever hitting another person. Except …
I blink.
Have I got this wrong from the start?
The police left a message for him yesterday. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with them finding the note – if Matt did something to Jess, he’d have destroyed it anyway – but while Amber’s file might not mention the court case, Jess’s does. Now that she’s gone missing, the investigation team will be combing through her history for clues. They might even be at our house now. Pounding on the door. Matt cowering in the kitchen refusing to let them in, making it worse for himself. But would that be because he’s guilty, or because he’s scared of being wrongly accused for the second time?
I need to find out the truth.
But Jess is missing, not dead, I remind myself. She might well have run away – like Matt said – now that she’s ten grand richer. And the boyfriend was arrested for Amber’s murder. Yes, the police have let him go for now, but that’s probably while they gather more evidence. I’m letting my mind go crazy, just like I did with the girls, blaming someone I love for an appalling crime just because I’ve found a hair’s breadth of a connection. Where’s my loyalty?
I need to prove that Matt is innocent. Milla and Lucy too. And that starts with establishing that Jess is fine – spending her new cash, not buried in the woods, or dumped in Kiln Lakes.
Colleen told me that Jess’s father had been contacted by the police, but she didn’t mention her old foster carers. The girls lived with Lou and Justin Trapnell for years, so they must have been close. Could Jess have gone there? Or at least contacted them? Littlemore is only a fifteen-minute drive from here. I climb into my car, check the printout of Jess’s file for the address, and set off.
AFTER
Monday 13th May
Milla
‘Milla!’ A sound burrows into Milla’s consciousness. She bats it away, rolls onto her side, pulls the duvet over her face.
‘MILLA!’
She groans. ‘What?’ she tries to shout, but it comes out as a croak. She fumbles for her phone and checks the time: 07.48. Does her dad not remember that she’s on study leave now? She rubs her eyes. But as she slowly wakes, the sinking feeling returns to her gut. Could he not have allowed her this one thing? The escapism of sleep? Being able to sink into oblivion and stay there all night – despite everything – has been the only thing that’s got her through the hell of the last ten days.
Her bedroom door flies open and her dad storms inside. ‘Your mum isn’t here!’ He stops, looks around, curls his lip into a grimace. ‘God, your room is a pigsty.’
Milla ignores his criticism – they have a deal after all – but she doesn’t understand why he’s so agitated. Her mum has always been work-obsessed and loves an early start on a Monday morning. ‘So?’
‘She left before I woke up; didn’t say goodbye. And she’d told me she was going to work from home today.’
Milla lengthens her arms, arches her back, and tries to stretch out the tension. It doesn’t work. ‘So call her then.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried that?’ her dad snaps, running his palm along his forehead.
What the hell is wrong with him?
‘Chill, Dad, okay?’ Milla pushes up to sitting, then swings her legs out of bed and pulls on the joggers that she’d left on the floor the night before. She grabs a scrunched-up sweatshirt from the bottom of the bed and puts that on too. Her dad is pacing her room and it’s giving her a headache. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so stressed about Mum going AWOL for five minutes.’
‘There’s a message on our answerphone.’
‘What, like a human voice coming out of a machine?’ Milla can’t help mocking him, even though she knows it will incense him more. She loves her dad, deeply, but it can be hard to like him sometimes. Especially when he’s like this, feeling out of control and lashing out.
‘You know, one day someone’s going to take exception to your smartarse tone.’
Milla glares at her dad, but forces herself not to come back at him. Her mum is an open book – so easy to read – but it’s different with him. She can’t always predict how he’ll react. ‘Who’s the message from?’ she asks instead.
‘That detective who interviewed Lucy. DC Bzowski.’
‘Oh.’ Milla’s voice lowers.
‘Yeah, exactly. She wants me to call her. It must be about Lucy, talking to her again; they’ll probably want a DNA sample too.’
‘Fuck.’
‘But why did they ask for me, not your mum? I know I’m Lucy’s dad but …’ His voice trails off.
‘Maybe they’d already tried her phone?’
‘Exactly. You see now why I need to track her down.’
Out of nowhere, Milla feels tears burn the backs of her eyes. She gives them a quick brush with the back of her hand. God, why didn’t Lucy listen to her last Friday night? Milla made it so clear. Stay away from those girls who are making your life hell. But for once in her life, Lucy decided to ditch her compliant – bordering on submissive – nature. And what a stupid decision that proved to be. ‘Does Lucy know?’ she asks.
‘I haven’t told her,’ Matt admits, looking towards the window. ‘She left for school about ten minutes ago. And she seemed a bit happier, at last. As though she thinks that paying Jess the ransom money has solved all her problems.’
‘Well, you can’t blame her for that. That is what you keep telling her.’
‘I thought it would work out,’ Matt whispers, more to himself than Milla. ‘That making sure Jess kept her mouth shut would be enough.’
Milla squeezes her eyes shut, then flicks them back open. ‘Maybe it will be. If Lucy holds her nerve. She can’t have killed Amber, can she, Dad?’
God, why did she say it like that? Like she’s asking him to make it true.
‘I wish I’d known about that blog,’ Matt mutters, frustration seeping out of him. ‘It’s so threatening, isn’t it? What she wrote?’ Matt looks towards Milla for assent, but she turns away. It’s strange. She feels more loyal to Lucy now than she’s ever done before. Now – when her sister might actually have done something terrible.
