Where was the bloody ambulance?
Her fingers retraced the skin at Chloe’s throat, finding the place where a pulse would make itself known.
‘Get me something to cut this with,’ she said, speaking to the officers who remained in the room with her. She gestured to the wire still binding Chloe’s hands. ‘Chloe. Come on, sweetheart.’
She glanced to the corner of the room. There was a rag lying on the carpet. She reached for it with her free hand. She brought it carefully to her nose before quickly throwing it back to the ground.
Then she felt it. The pulse was slow, distant, but it was there.
He hadn’t killed her. He had drugged her.
Alex exhaled loudly. Her fingers slid from Chloe’s throat and moved to her still-bound hands. She took the young woman’s hand in hers, clutching on to her fingers as though scared she might lose her for a second time. She heard the scream of an approaching ambulance. An officer returned with scissors. Carefully, Alex cut Chloe’s wrists free. Her hands slumped to her sides.
The paramedics arrived, filling the bathroom with their urgency. Their noise burst the awful silence that had fallen upon the room.
Alex stepped aside as one of the paramedics crouched beside Chloe, checking her vital signs. She left the bathroom, passing the waiting SOCOs who would retrieve the evidence that would be needed later. She walked back downstairs, past the super who was talking to one of the armed officers, and out of the building into the cold night air.
It was only then, with the start of rain falling fresh on to her face, that Alex felt relief slump over her. She sat on the front step of the cottage and allowed herself to cry tears for what might so easily have been.
Chapter Seventy-Four
She had never seen this woman. She had heard plenty about her during that difficult conversation at Chloe’s flat, but she had yet to meet her. As with so many other people, Susan Griffiths was nothing like Alex had expected. The woman’s face remained a blank until Alex explained who she was. Then Susan ushered her into the house, looking up and down the street as though checking that none of the neighbours had been witness to the police presence on her doorstep.
It seemed typical, given what Chloe had told Alex about her parents.
Alex hadn’t told Chloe she was going to visit her parents. Nor had she told her she intended to visit their church and sit in on one of the meetings. By ten that morning, events of the previous evening would be well broadcast on television and on social media, although it had been requested that, for the time being, the name of the officer involved remain withheld from the press. Alex wanted to get to Chloe’s parents before the media managed it first.
‘Is everything OK?’ Susan asked. ‘What’s happened?’
She seemed for ever concerned with her appearance, Alex noticed; forever touching her hair and searching out her reflection in the many mirrors that seemed to decorate the house. But Chloe had already told her this. For the Griffithses, appearances were everything.
Exactly what were those appearances concealing?
‘Is there somewhere we could sit down, Mrs Griffiths?’
Her husband appeared at the top of the stairs then, a tall man, slim, with a presence Alex could easily imagine a young child might find intimidating. He came down the stairs with his eyes fixed upon her, a definite defiance in his expression. Everything Alex knew of this couple was clouded with Chloe’s experience of them and the suspicions that had only developed over time. She knew she must try to ignore them, but it was difficult not to view the couple in the same way as Chloe.
It was also difficult not to suspect them now she had spoken with one of the elders from their church.
‘Mr Griffiths,’ she greeted him. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Alex King.’
He didn’t offer her a hand, or even a response.
‘Through here,’ Susan said, gesturing to the living room doorway. Alex followed her into the room and sat in a chair opposite the sofa on which the couple sat. They were nowhere near each other, she noticed; each taking a separate end of the sofa. She wondered if it was habit.
‘I’m afraid there’s been an incident involving Chloe.’
She watched the couple carefully for their reactions. Malcolm’s face didn’t change, his defiant expression remaining fixed and emotionless. There was a flicker in Susan’s face; a tensing of the jaw.
‘Is she OK?’
‘She will be,’ Alex told Susan. She had to hold back her anger. They hadn’t even asked her what had happened. ‘Incident’ could have meant anything.
‘You’re aware of the images of Chloe that were sent to the press last week?’
She spoke to Malcolm this time. She already knew he was aware of the photographs: Chloe had told her how he had gone to the flat and taunted her about them. The man’s eyes left her for the first time, casting down to the living room carpet at his feet.
Susan gave a slight nod.
‘The man who sent those images is responsible for the murder of three women. He’s also guilty of the attempted murder of your daughter.’
For the first time there was a reaction that Alex might have described as normal.
Susan’s hand moved to the arm of the sofa, gripping it as though stopping herself from falling off. Her face paled. ‘You said she’s OK though? She’s going to be OK?’
Alex nodded. ‘She’s pretty tough, your daughter. But then, I’m sure you already know that.’ She looked again to Malcolm. His gaze had risen from the floor, back to her.
Had this man really done what Chloe suspected him of?
‘The three women I mentioned,’ Alex continued. ‘One of them was Emily Phillips.’
Susan’s head turned sharply to her husband. His eye met hers, but still his expression barely changed. He refused to look at his wife. When Susan looked back at Alex her face looked frozen. ‘But, Luke?’
‘Luke was wrongly accused. He will be formally cleared. As a result, the case into his death is going to be reopened.’
‘Why?’ It was the first time Malcolm had spoken. It was the first time a reaction had been evident on his face. He didn’t seem to have any idea that she was lying, that she was testing the waters. There had as yet been no talk of reopening an investigation into Luke’s death.
Alex had let Chloe down. There was only one way that she was still able to help her. She hadn’t yet found out what had happened to Luke. Adam Edwards claimed to know nothing about Luke’s death; like everyone else, he thought it had been a suicide. It was better than he could have hoped for: Luke’s suicide had meant the police were no longer looking for Emily’s killer.
Alex hoped she might be able to find the truth for Chloe. She felt she owed it to her. Finally, Chloe would be able to move on with her life.