Hamish’s handwriting. She reads it through to the end. The second letter talks about how the world sees him as a monster and how only the woman he loves can redeem him. The third is more whimsical, poetic even, deeply moving in its sadness. She recognizes his turn of phrase, his sense of humour, his imagination. The raw eroticism of the Christmas letter stabs her in the gut. There is no doubt that he wrote these letters. Five of them in total, the most recent sent just a week or so ago. Hamish has been writing love letters. And not to her.
She has a sense of a great weight above her head, a weight that will fall soon, crushing her entirely.
‘Who is the recipient?’ She hears her own voice sounding old and worn out. Hamish sees no one but his mother and herself. He told her that. She believed him.
Pete says, ‘I suggest you read the replies.’
There are more letters. The next batch is in a different handwriting, harder to read. No address.
She can’t read this drivel. She skips to the end.
There are more. One is enough. ‘Are these genuine?’ she asks, although she knows they must be. ‘Who sent them?’
‘All letters sent into and out of Parkhurst are copied,’ Pete explains. ‘We applied for a warrant to examine Wolfe’s correspondence – after we found the originals from him in Sarah Smith’s flat. Remember Sarah Smith? You know her as Sirocco.’
‘These letters were sent to Sirocco?’ Maggie manages. ‘To and from Sirocco?’
‘That’s right.’
Sirocco? That weird, needy, clingy girl? Hamish in love with Sirocco?
‘Are you OK, Miss Rose?’ the constable says. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’
If that man speaks to her again, she will hit him. ‘You told me she never visited. You checked. She was lying.’
‘Actually, she wasn’t,’ Pete says. ‘She just didn’t give her own name. She used the name Sophie Wolfe, pretending to be Hamish’s sister.’
‘That’s impossible. She’d need ID.’
‘She had it,’ Pete tells her. ‘She used Sophie’s old passport and had a new one issued with her photograph. She looked sufficiently like her for the Passport Office to be fooled. We spotted it the minute we checked the visitor’s schedule. We’ll add it to the charges she’s facing, of course.’
‘She would have needed Wolfe’s help to do that,’ says the constable. ‘He probably told her where she’d find the passport, how to sneak in to his parents’ house. They’ve been conspiring together.’
Maggie has an urge to get up, to bang her fists against a hard surface. She clasps the seat with one hand. ‘Sirocco killed Odi and Broon. She tried to kill me.’
‘Yes, that’s another thing,’ says Pete. ‘We have absolutely no evidence to connect her with the murder in Wells Market Square. Which means we can’t charge her. The only charge that will stick at the moment is that of threatening behaviour towards you. I’m afraid she was granted bail this afternoon.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
They get to their feet.
‘She’s been told to come nowhere near you,’ says Pete. ‘But as we know, she is a bit unstable. You might want to keep your doors locked. Obviously, if you’re concerned at any time, you should dial 999.’
Pete glances back as he leaves the room and his eyes settle on the pile of letters. ‘You can keep those.’
Chapter 99
‘HE DOESN’T LOVE her.’
‘If you say so.’
‘He can’t love her. Have you seen her? He’s been using her.’
‘So he loves you, but he’s using her, is that right? And yet, she’s the one who got the letters.’
Maggie pulls herself out of the bath and feels cold again immediately. She finds a gown and slippers. She is shaking, she is so cold. She leaves the steam-drenched bathroom and the temperature drops by a degree or more.
‘He loves me. He said so.’
‘Actually, that’s not what he said. He said, he loved – note the use of the past tense—’
‘Enough!’
‘Look at me.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘It’s time. Look at me.’
Her feet dragging like a sulky child, Maggie steps across the carpet to the full-length, free-standing mirror in the corner. The lights in her bedroom are always kept low, and the steam has stolen out from the bathroom to coat the surface of the mirror. She can see nothing of her reflection but a hazy shape.
In spite of the cold, Maggie lets her robe slip to the carpet. She can just about make out her tiny frame in the steamed-up mirror. She hasn’t weighed more than nine stone for years, but in recent weeks the weight has fallen off her. She was eight stone six pounds this morning. She’ll have gained two pounds, roughly, during the course of the day. She always knows, to half a pound, how much she weighs.
She pulls loose her hair and fluffs it up around her head. She can just about see the pale blue curls and the paler face.