The mobile display read Unknown caller.
Great. Was it starting again? One previous mistake. She’d thought it was over. But clearly others weren’t going to allow it to rest. And what would happen once his identity was confirmed, once they found out the police had come to her for help? When they knew her name had been found on Ricky’s body? A shudder rocked her. She got up from the sofa, paced the room, arms crossed tightly. The ringing stopped. Connie sighed. It was her work mobile, she’d purposely got a new one solely for her new business – she didn’t want to give her personal number out to clients. The unknown caller could be a prospective client responding to her advertisement.
The phone gave its sharp ring into the silence. Unknown caller, again.
Leave me alone.
Connie set it to silent. Hopefully, if they were clients, they’d leave a message and she’d return the calls tomorrow. She watched her hands. The tremor. Please don’t let it start again. She switched the TV off. A low buzzing sounded from her handbag. Her personal mobile. She rummaged in the pocket of the zipped compartment.
Her mum.
Inhaling deeply, Connie pressed the accept button.
‘Hey, Mum.’ Already tears pricked her eyes. How sad was it that her only ally was her mother? No boyfriend. No friend. She had some friends, but they were mostly linked to the prison. They weren’t close, more like acquaintances. And they certainly weren’t ones she wanted to speak to just yet.
‘Have you had a good day?’ Her mum’s concerned tone exposed her attempt at naivety. She’d definitely seen the news.
‘You saw it then.’
‘Oh, darling. I’m sure it’ll blow over. Again. They don’t even know it’s the same man.’ The hope was evident. Connie was about to crush that.
‘It is, Mum. It’s him.’
‘They—’
‘Mum. The police came to see me. It’s definite.’
Silence.
Her poor mum. How could Connie put her through it all again? It had almost destroyed her watching Connie fall deeper into the void of depression. She’d been scared. Scared that Connie might do something ‘stupid’. An image of her brother flashed through her mind. However low she’d sunk, Connie had always kept the knowledge within her sights that she had to come through it, for her mum if not for herself.
She couldn’t let her lose another child.
‘It’ll be fine, Mum. Don’t worry. And at least I changed my name, my consultancy won’t be affected …’ A thought crossed her mind. ‘Have you spoken to Dad?’
‘Er … well, I was really worried when I saw the news …’ Her voice was flustered. So, she had called him. Connie knew they still used each other for support. Years of marriage, a shared tragic loss – their joint histories brought them together during challenging times, despite their separation. But Connie wished he didn’t know of this latest development. He’d see it as a negative; an inability to handle herself – to stay out of ‘trouble’. She’d regularly disappointed him when she was growing up. He’d made it very clear that her brother had been the one who had the shiny, promising future ahead of him. The one he was proudest of. The one who would go into the family business. Nothing she could do would ever compare to the success her brother would’ve had, if he’d been the one who’d lived.
‘And what did he have to say?’ Why was she asking? She didn’t want to know.
‘He said it was probably a flash in a pan. Told me not to worry unduly, that it was just another blip …’
Connie snorted.
‘Just another blip,’ she repeated quietly. She took a deep breath. ‘He’s right, Mum. Honestly, you should listen to him. It’s a murder enquiry. The focus of the police and media will be on the person who did it, not so much on the victim. He was a criminal; no one will be interested in his life – or in me. It’s bigger than that now.’ Her voice held more conviction than she felt.
‘You sure?’
‘Look, I’m working with the police on this. It’s not my fault and I can’t be blamed for anything this time. I promise.’
The call ended with her mum in a more hopeful place.
But Connie shouldn’t have made a promise like that.
A nagging, anxious voice crept through her skull.
Are you sure it’s not your fault?
Tuesday 6 June
Connie’s night had been restless; the shock of the situation, the worry of the repercussions sinking in and taking up residence in her tired mind. There’d been no hope of solid sleep.
The 6.00 a.m. alarm rang out for the third time. She reached across, smacking it into silence. Connie stretched out, her body at a diagonal on her double bed. She could do that. With no one else to take up the space it was one small joy she could relish. It was one of the few pleasures of being single. A string of short-term encounters, some failed blind dates set up by well-meaning colleagues, and a more recent, and more complicated date that had unexpected results, didn’t add up to any kind of satisfaction in that area of her life.
After a hastily taken shower, Connie took a sachet of ready-made porridge and tipped it into a not-so-clean bowl from the side of the kitchen worktop. It’d do. As usual she overcooked it in the microwave, the sludge-like consistency spilling over the top of the bowl. She attempted eating it before it’d cooled sufficiently, and the roof of her mouth bubbled in a painful blister. Get it together, Connie. She’d worked so hard to get to this stage in her life; independent, having her own business, she couldn’t allow a lowlife criminal and an annoying reporter to ruin her success. And then there were the police.
She’d told DI Wade that she wouldn’t be of any help – past the fact she’d written a report twenty months ago – but they felt that as she ‘knew’ Eric Hargreaves, he might have disclosed something from his background, associates that could be critical in the investigation. Why couldn’t any of the other psychologists from Baymead help with their enquiries? And there were other employees from the offending behaviour programmes department that’d had dealings with Ricky. They had access to her report, her notes and emails. The police didn’t need her. Not really. Why were they so keen for her to be involved? So they had a scapegoat if things didn’t go their way? She’d been that before; she wasn’t willing to be one again.
How much weight were they giving the discovery of her name on Ricky’s hand? Did they think it was related to his murder or just a coincidence? They obviously had to follow any lead, and a name on the body was bound to need investigating, particularly when that name had been instrumental in the prisoner’s previous release. Although they seemed to have found that out very quickly, given she’d changed her name since then.
The words from last night’s report spiked her memory. An inside source. DI Wade and DS Mack had known about her past with Ricky before she’d mentioned it, so someone must’ve jumped right in and told them. Did the police think she was involved in Ricky’s murder? Some kind of revenge attack, payback for messing her life up? Surely not. Maybe they were concerned that the murderer had put her name on Ricky’s hand as a warning and that was why they were so keen to pay her a visit. Admittedly, she’d had a flash of panic that it was a sign that she was ‘next’