‘Emily was murdered, Mr Griffiths, we knew that. Your son was falsely accused of her murder and was awaiting charges. At the very least, this new information about Emily’s death makes someone responsible for Luke’s suicide. The police are culpable in many ways.’
She watched him carefully as she spoke, gauging his reactions. There was a lot she had learned from Chloe in those past six months. Faces could reveal so much more than words were capable of. She hadn’t missed it: at the mention of the word ‘suicide’ the tension in Malcolm Griffiths’s jaw had relaxed slightly. He knew something. He was hiding something, and had been doing so for all these years.
Susan was crying now, silent tears that ran streaks down her face.
‘Chloe’s in the University hospital, if you want to go to see her,’ Alex said, standing from the chair. She wondered if Chloe would want to see them. It didn’t seem to matter: Alex doubted that either of Chloe’s parents would go to visit their daughter. They didn’t seem the type of people to admit when they’d been wrong.
‘In the meantime, if you need anything, please take my number.’
Susan hurriedly rose from the sofa, running her sleeve across her face. She went to the sideboard and took a pen and paper from one of its drawers, handing it to Alex. Alex wrote down her name and number and handed the pen and paper back to Susan. It was Susan who saw her to the door, though Malcolm lingered in the hallway behind them, watching every move.
‘If I could have a moment alone with your wife, please, Mr Griffiths.’
‘Why?’ He stepped nearer and put a hand around Susan’s wrist. ‘This is my house. Anything you want to say to my wife can be said in front of me.’
Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Fine. We’ll talk outside then.’
She opened the front door and waited for Susan to leave ahead of her. The woman did so reluctantly. So this was what life had been like, Alex thought. Malcolm Griffiths dominated his wife. He had been the same with his children. Once again, Alex felt in awe of the way Chloe had managed to succeed despite the terrible start her young life had been given.
She unlocked the car and gestured for Susan to get in. Malcolm Griffiths stood on the path to the house, watching, with arms folded.
‘Chloe tells me you’re a Jehovah’s Witness.’
Susan eyed Alex suspiciously, as though wary of falling into a trap. She glanced past her and through the window to her waiting husband.
‘Yes.’
Alex nodded. ‘It must be a relief to you, knowing your son was not a killer. Perhaps your church will have you back now.’
Susan’s face dropped. ‘How do you…?’ She pushed a hand through her hair.
‘I spoke with one of the elders earlier this morning. Do you want to tell me why you were excommunicated?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. Our son killed a girl.’
‘Only he didn’t. You know that now.’ Alex glanced at Malcolm. Would his wife now be brave enough to tell the truth? ‘You have my number. When you’re ready to talk, call me.’
Alex started the engine, her eyes returning to the house where Chloe had grown up. She waited to watch Susan walk back up the path and return to the house with her husband, wondering what would be waiting for the woman once the door was closed behind them. She wondered what secrets lay beyond that door, and what words were being spoken now that the rest of the world had been shut out.
Chapter Seventy-Five
There were two detectives sitting opposite Adam: a man he didn’t recognise and the bitch that had turned up in that bathroom. Neither of them had taken their eyes off him, as though staring long enough was going to make him cave in and reveal everything.
It wasn’t.
The woman pushed a couple of photographs across the table towards him, prompting him to take a look. ‘You recognise this place, don’t you?’
They were photographs of the pub: the room where he’d held Sarah and Lola, and the bathroom where his mother had drowned – the bathroom where he had found her dead one Friday evening fifteen years earlier.
He could still remember that night so clearly. He had been living in care for a few years by then – a supposed home where he kept himself to himself and didn’t bother with any of the other kids. He had gone to the pub to see her. He had already been a couple of times, on the afternoons he’d bunked off from school and lied to the home about hanging around town. Even after all that time, he still wasn’t sure why he had felt the need to return to her. He didn’t like her. She had never liked him. He hated going to the pub. He hated the noise from downstairs, the smoke-filled air of his mother’s living room and the raucous voices of the girls who worked behind the bar. He hated it because it reminded him of every other pub they had lived in. It reminded him of the fat, sweaty men he would see coming out of his mother’s bedroom, of the grunts he would hear through the flimsy wall that divided her bedroom from his.
‘Adam,’ the detective said, dragging him from his thoughts. ‘Or would you prefer me to call you Joseph?’
He’d given them the name Joseph Black; made up an address and a false contact number. Nobody had ever bothered to check them out.
‘We found the support group member records in the glovebox in your van. Want to tell us how you got them?’
He had taken them when Connor had been ‘otherwise engaged’ with that tart, Sarah. They thought everyone else had left.
He met the detective’s gaze. If he could, he would close his hands around her throat and squeeze until those eyes bulged from her head. He hated her. He hated all of them.
His mother had claimed to hate those men, although that never stopped her from letting them back into their home time and time again. She would be all painted smiles and low-cut tops when they arrived, then scowls and slurred expletives when they left. When he was small, he hadn’t understood what had been happening on the other side of the wall. Then he’d got older and he had grown to realise what his mother was. As soon as he did, she had hated him for it, as though it was somehow his fault.
‘Why did you take them to the pub?’ that bitch King asked him. ‘What did she do to you there, Adam? Or was it the men? Did one of the men do something to you? Do you blame her for letting it happen?’
He sat back and closed his eyes. If he focused hard enough, he could drown her out, just like he drowned out the others. He had come to think it was the coldness that cleansed not the water itself. Warm water soothed the skin, but the cold could drive right through it, hitting the heart of all that was truly dirty.
It could seep through to the rotten core of any person.
The bathroom door had been ajar. He could see a hand, so pale it looked almost transparent, with thick turquoise veins, rested on the edge of the bathtub. He pushed the door aside slowly using his foot. His mother was in the water, her face submerged. She was naked, although he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He kept his focus fixed to her face, lifeless and blurred beneath the water.