‘Please don’t,’ she said softly.
The hours she had spent alone in the darkness had given her time to think. She knew him, or at least she thought she did. There would be things she could say to him, ways she might be able to talk him down. She had seen it on TV: if she kept him talking, she might be able to get him to change his mind about what he was doing.
She didn’t want to die here.
She didn’t want to die.
When his hand moved, she realised he wasn’t carrying a knife. It was a pair of scissors.
‘That dress makes you look like a slut.’
She didn’t like the dress either. She had chosen it in an act of defiance against Connor, but she hadn’t thought it too bad with the tights she’d been wearing. Where were they and when had he removed them?
‘Please don’t,’ she said again when she realised his intended use for the scissors. ‘I’m so cold already.’
He reached for the front of her dress and Sarah began to scream. With the back of his other hand, he hit her across the face. She could feel every inch of her body shaking, every nerve tensed as the scissors moved to her chest and he began to cut through her clothing. Sarah squeezed her eyes closed and tried to shut out the sound of the metal slicing through the fabric. She tried to block out the sensations of the scissors’ coolness against her already frozen skin; the feel of his gloved hands against her body.
When he was finished, he stepped back to look at her. She was now in just her underwear, cold to the bone and humiliated. She could sense him staring at her, but refused to open her eyes to look at him.
‘If you’re going to do it, just do it,’ she said, the words catching between sobs.
‘Do what?’
Sarah opened her eyes and looked at him reluctantly.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That. You think that’s what I want?’
She was so cold that she didn’t know how long her body could survive the temperature inside the room. When she next spoke, she heard the shiver in her words. Despite the darkness, she could see the cool cloud formed with every syllable.
‘Let me go. Please. Just leave me somewhere, anywhere; I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’
‘Leave you somewhere?’ he repeated. ‘Like that? You’ll catch your death.’
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut again. The mocking tone of his voice rang in her ears, taunting her. ‘I’ll catch my death if you leave me here.’
‘I won’t be leaving you here.’
She opened her eyes. This time she was determined to look at him; to really look at him, and to make him see her back. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she asked again. ‘I’ve never done anything to you.’
He tutted. ‘You all say that.’
When he moved back towards her, Sarah braced herself for what she thought would happen next. She’d been wrong. He reached into his pocket and took something out, something that he pressed over her mouth and nose though she fought to try to get him off her.
Within seconds, there was nothing but darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alex switched on the TV and turned up the sound. In the kitchen, she began to prepare herself a sandwich and a cup of tea, leaving both half-made when she heard the sound of Superintendent Blake’s voice coming from the living room. She went into the hallway and stood at the living room door, watching her colleague face the news crews and reporters as he prepared for the announcement recorded earlier that evening.
Harry still didn’t look well. The grey pallor of his skin blended with the grey at his temples and there was something missing from his eyes, some kind of lost spark that seemed to Alex an unspoken admission. Why had he come back to work so soon? Had he even wanted to come back at all?
There had been an air of detachment surrounding him these past weeks; a hopelessness that wouldn’t allow itself to go ignored. It shouldn’t have been so surprising or unexpected. Harry hadn’t returned under the most usual of circumstances. Besides that, he wasn’t the only person at the station whose attentions had seemed more than just a little diverted.
Alex’s thoughts drifted involuntarily to Chloe. She glanced back through to the kitchen, to the oversized clock hanging on the wall to the side of the sink. It was just gone ten thirty. Whatever Chloe was doing at that moment, Alex hoped it wasn’t something reckless.
‘We are currently investigating the murder of local woman Lola Evans, as well as the disappearance of another young woman.’ Superintendent Blake addressed the camera with a solemn expression fixed upon his face. ‘Miss Evans was from Rhydyfelin and her body was recovered from the River Taff at Bute Park on Tuesday morning. She was last seen on Saturday, the ninth of January in Cardiff. Another young woman, Sarah Taylor, is currently missing. We have no reason at this time to believe the two cases are in any way connected, although we are keen to make contact with Miss Taylor as soon as possible. While I’m unable to give any further details about either investigation at this time, I would ask anyone with any information regarding either of these two young women to please come forward and speak with police. As in any other circumstances, we ask everyone to take sensible precautions when in the city, particularly during the evenings and at night.’
There followed the usual barrage of questions from the press, despite the fact that Harry had just made it clear he could give no further details. The camera panned back to the news reporter as an image of Sarah Taylor appeared on the bottom right hand of the screen. It was a photograph of her in a pastel pink bridesmaid’s dress, taken at her sister’s wedding. She was smiling, her eyes focused on something or someone to the side of the camera and her face caught by a ray of sunshine that made her squint.
Alex turned off the television as the newsreader moved to the next story. Harry was taking precautions by advising people to remain vigilant, but they didn’t believe that Lola had been taken at random. If it had been a mugging or a sexually motivated attack, her injuries would have been more frenzied and less methodical.
And Sarah Taylor could be anywhere. She might have visited a friend, stayed out and got so drunk she’d ended up somewhere she hadn’t planned; there was no reason to believe she was in any danger.
She went back to the kitchen and to her task of making tea. The file she had left on the kitchen table still lay opened, its front page waiting to be turned. She felt a surge of guilt. She had made a promise to Harry and she had broken it. She had known that if she didn’t, it was likely Chloe would get there first.
Alex finished making the sandwich she’d been midway through preparing when she’d heard the superintendent’s voice coming from the living room. At the table, she pulled the file closer to her.
Post-mortem Report: Emily Phillips
A 16-year-old female was found deceased secondary to what was claimed to be a staged suicide in the family home. The body displayed signs of primary flaccidity. Attempts at resuscitation had been made.