As I straightened she looked away.
‘Working overtime?’ I asked, hefting my bag over my shoulder.
She nodded ruefully.
‘Well, I’ll probably see you tomorrow, then.’
‘Bye.’
Her eyes bored into me through the office window as I walked down the steps of the building. Perhaps she’d realized that something interesting was happening in my correspondence.
Dear Amy,
I hope you’re getting these letters. I can’t let myself think about what it would be like if you weren’t. I think I would just lay down and die.
There isn’t much time left. I’m sure he’s going to kill me soon. He gets angrier and angrier all the time.
I realized that I’ve never described him – well, not what he looks like. He has blond hair and blue eyes. I don’t know his age, but he might be something old, like over thirty.
He told my nanna and me when he came to visit us that his name was Alex Penycote and he was my social worker, but I think he was lying. He says he is part of a gang. I’ve never seen anybody else but I believe him, because he knows things about me, and about my mum and my nanna. When I was at the hospital visiting my nanna after her accident, he said I had to come with him. Now he says that he is very rich and powerful and anywhere I go in the world he will be able to find me, because he can pay people to kill me and they will.
Yesterday I tried to run away again. I got as far as the steps but he caught me. I was sure he would kill me, he just kept kicking me and kicking me and now I can barely move for the pain.
He keeps saying that I must be grateful for all he does for me, but I will only be grateful to see him burning in Hell.
Please look harder. It’s not that I’m not thankful for all you do but I have to be rescued soon.
Love,
Bethan Avery
P. S. Be careful because he’s very sly and I don’t think he’d have a problem hurting people other than me. Don’t let anyone in your house you don’t know.
P. S. again – I’m being very serious.
The next day, my enquiries were getting me frankly nowhere. I’d gone through my back files and, as expected, there’d been no other letters comparable to Bethan’s. The other psychiatric units in the district were no more help than Narrowbourne.
In the days that followed, there had been no more letters.
Perhaps there’d be nothing else now… Maybe we’d had our lot.
I was thinking about this possibility, funnily enough, when the doorbell rang.
I was cutting up vegetables for a wickedly spiced peanut stir fry, and musing to myself that even the deepest emotional wounds can have an upside – Eddy had never been able to stand the stuff.
‘Hello, Mrs Lewis?’
Two people were on my doorstep, a man and a woman, lit only by the lamp on my hall porch, so it took a second or so to make them out. The man wore a casual suit and raincoat and was youngish, with thick, gelled hair and a petulant, rosebud mouth; the woman had on a dark dress and dogtooth jacket. Her hair was short and white-blonde, to set off her aggressive permatan, and she had soft cheeks and large grey eyes.
I had a sudden flashback to the scrawled postscript on Bethan’s letter – ‘Don’t let anyone in your house you don’t know.’
‘We’re so sorry to bother you – I’m Detective Inspector Hayers and this is Detective Constable Watson. Would it be possible to have a word?’
‘I…’ I was stymied by the warrant card he held up before my face.
He’d glanced down at the knife in my hand, and my own gaze followed his.
‘We can see that you’re in the middle of making your tea, and I promise it won’t take long.’
The knife. In my distracted state, I’d carried it to the door. I blushed hotly. ‘Oh, God, sorry! Yes, I was cooking. Come in.’
I hurried into the living room as they followed me, remembering to put the knife down on the kitchen counter. I turned the fire under the pan down. (‘Something smells nice,’ said the woman. She had a broad Essex accent. ‘I love a bit of Thai myself.’)
They took a seat on the squashy leather sofa while I perched on the edge of the armchair, and tried not to look a) guilty or b) nervous, my default settings when confronted by the police.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ said the man, whose name I had already forgotten, it being lost in the alarming prefix of his job title. ‘But we understand that you’ve received some letters that have since been entered as evidence in a crime.’
I blinked. Had they? ‘I spoke to a man, an academic, who took them away to be analysed…’
‘Yes, Dr Forrester, we know,’ he said, and smiled, a brisk professional expression, designed solely to reassure the fretful. ‘We don’t want to alarm you, but this is now quite a serious matter. We know there’s a limit to how much you can help us and that you’ve already spoken to our colleagues at the station a couple of times now, but we just need to get a statement from you about these letters.’
The woman nodded, watching me, ‘And there are things we’d like you to do if you receive any more of them.’
‘What? Oh, yes, of course, whatever you need. What do you want to know?’
The man, the detective inspector, did the talking, asking me once again to tell the story of how I’d received the letters, what my job at the paper was, who I had spoken to about them, whether I had any idea where they had come from or why they were addressed to me. As he’d predicted, it was all material I’d covered before, but I didn’t have the same undivided attention focused on me then as I seemed to merit now. The man’s pen scratched quickly over the pad, while both of them kept nodding encouragement at me.
‘So,’ I said, once they seemed to finally be satisfied. ‘I suppose the letters must have turned out to be real?’
They exchanged swift looks. ‘I’m afraid I really can’t tell you anything about that, Mrs Lewis,’ he said.
‘Are they going to reopen the cold case on Bethan Avery?’
‘I’m sorry…’ he said. ‘I just can’t…’ He paused, as though reconsidering. ‘The investigation you’re referring to was never closed, because of the serious nature of the crime.’
I frowned. ‘But if Bethan Avery is alive, how is it…’
‘But Peggy Avery isn’t,’ interjected the woman gently. ‘And we suspect this crime might be linked to others.’
The man nodded, as though in agreement.
Of course. Of course. There were other girls.
Possibly even Katie Browne. Katie who had been missing for nearly five weeks now.
‘Mrs Lewis, are you all right? You look a little pale,’ asked the man. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’
The woman was peering at me with concern, as though I might faint.
‘Me? No, no, I’m fine. I’m just – I’m just a little shocked at how everything has accelerated.’ I was shaking, I realized. ‘So what do I do if I receive any more of them?’
The man put his pen back in his jacket, secreted the notebook into his coat. ‘If you get another letter like this, we’d like you to let us know and we’ll come down to get it. Even if you’re not sure, but think it might be from the same person, still tell us. We’d rather a wasted trip than see evidence be impaired. If you see one in your post, try not to touch it, and just let us know.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
Wendy will be beside herself with all of this drama, I thought. I’ll never live it down.
‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, rising.
‘Enjoy your dinner,’ added the woman with a quick grin. ‘God, the smell alone is making me starving.’
I closed the door after them and returned to the kitchen.