There was a bottle of vodka at the end of the bath, nestled between the taps. To the left of the hot tap, two bottles of prescription medication.
Her hair clung to the sides of her face, partly covering it. Later, it would be her hair he would remember the most. He hated it. He hated the way she wore it long: pretence at a youth that had long since passed her by. He hated the way it concealed the ugliness of the person who hid beneath it.
Like the make-up she wore caked in thick layers on her skin, her hair hid the truth of what she really was.
He put out a hand and touched the top of her head, pushing down slightly. Her body nudged further below the water, weighted to the bottom of the bath.
The detective produced another photograph from the file on her lap. She put it alongside the others and waited for him to react. He took a glance, knowing straight away who the girl in the image was.
Emily Phillips.
‘You confessed to her murder. Why did you kill her?’
Everything was his fault, his mother had told him. She did it for him. To keep a roof over his head. To keep food on the table. She could have had a nice life without him. No man wanted to keep her. That was because of him.
Eventually she’d given up on him. She had told social services she couldn’t handle him. She told them he’d be better off with someone else, as though she was getting rid of him for his benefit rather than her own.
Detective King was still staring at him, still waiting for a response. He supposed he should give her one.
‘She was a little whore, just like the rest of them.’
There was a flicker of a reaction in the woman’s face. He had touched a nerve, it seemed.
‘And Chloe?’ she said. ‘You knew about the webcam work. You sent that video clip to the paper, didn’t you? And here, to the station? Did that make her a whore, as well?’
He had never felt such bitterness towards his mother as he did in that moment he realised she was gone. He had wanted that moment as his own – had dreamed of hurting her in so many ways, childhood nightmares that had turned into obsessive fantasies as he had reached his teenage years – and now she had taken it away from him, robbing him one last time. She couldn’t even leave him with that.
The water had been a final bad joke. She was filthy. Disgusting. And now she was drowned. Cleansed. It was funny, really.
The detective placed both hands flat on the desk in front of her. She looked down at the photographs before focusing her gaze upon him once more. ‘Seeing as you’re not prepared to talk to us,’ she said, ‘let me tell you what I think. I think you’re a coward. I think you believe you hated your mother, but more than anything you were desperate for her love – so desperate, you would have killed her rather than gone ignored by her any longer. But she took that opportunity away from you, didn’t she? And to compensate for it, you’ve been making other women pay. Innocent women. Women whose vulnerabilities you sought out and then preyed upon. Women who made no other mistake than to trust you.’
She sat back, still staring at him, waiting for a reaction.
‘There’s no rush for a response,’ she told him. ‘You’re going to have plenty of time to think it over in custody.’
Chapter Seventy-Six
Glancing in through the window of Chloe’s hospital room, Alex saw the young woman sitting on the side of the bed. She had a bag opened on the sheet beside her and was moving things from the bedside table, packing them away.
‘Not leaving already? I’ve heard the food’s so good here.’
Chloe turned and gave her a tired smile. She looked so much better than when Alex had last seen her, lying in this same bed unconscious, the drugs and the exertions of her fight in the bathroom at the cottage having exhausted her. She had come around long enough to tell Alex what Adam had told her – that it was he who had murdered Emily. She had rambled incoherent words about Luke, a car, something about CCTV footage, and then she had left them again for a while.
Her nose had been reset. There was bruising to her neck and her eyes bore dark circles from the effects of her broken nose. It seemed to both Chloe and Alex that she had paid a small price in comparison to that which they had both feared.
‘Has he told you, about Emily?’
Alex nodded. Adam had known Chloe was alive and conscious and that she had told them what he had confessed. What had chilled Alex most was the man’s lack of remorse. Adam Edwards seemed to think himself on some sort of one-man crusade, ridding the world of impure woman. The cutting of their hair seemed a stand against dishonesty, ridding his victims of part of the mask he felt they hid behind. His moral crusade had stretched to Connor Price – to the text that had been sent threatening to tell his wife of the affair with Sarah Taylor. And yet throughout his interviews, Adam Edwards failed to acknowledge any sin in his own actions. His only regret seemed to be that he hadn’t achieved a greater number of kills.
What exactly had he seen and heard as a child growing up in the flat above that pub? What had his mother done – what had she allowed to happen to him – that had led Adam to become so consumed with hatred and fixated on revenge? They would never know all the things that had driven a young boy to become the man Alex had just two days earlier charged with three counts of murder and one attempt.
Not for the first time that week, Alex considered how criminals could so easily blend themselves into the rest of society. No one had considered Adam – Joseph – anything but a kind man, someone reliable, someone to be trusted with their secrets. Vulnerable women had befriended him, regarding him as non-threatening. They had seen him as safe, and it was this that had empowered him.
‘This is all my fault,’ Chloe said.
‘How?’
‘If I’d seen him years ago for what he was—’
‘Chloe,’ Alex said, sitting on the bed beside her. ‘No one saw him for what he was. Not Emily, not Lola, not Sarah. Is it their fault too?’
Chloe looked down at her hands, not meeting Alex’s eye. ‘I’ve done some stupid things. Really stupid.’
‘So have I. I’ve been sleeping with my ex-husband.’
Chloe looked up quickly. Alex wasn’t sure whether she looked embarrassed or was trying to suppress a smirk. She wouldn’t mind if it was the latter. It would be worth her own momentary embarrassment just to see a smile on Chloe’s face again.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s been going on a while. Every time I felt a bit stressed out, a bit lonely, I called him. And I didn’t once realise that he’d been with someone else for months, not until I saw them out shopping with her kids.’
Chloe’s eyes widened. ‘Christ. What a prick.’ Her face coloured slightly, as though she thought herself guilty at having spoken out of turn.
‘Exactly. And I’m almost twice your age. What’s my excuse?’ Alex put a hand on Chloe’s arm. ‘You trusted someone you’d known for years. That doesn’t make you stupid.’
Chloe smiled. She looked her beautiful self, despite the tiredness and the broken nose. Alex wouldn’t tell her yet, but short hair suited her.