She’d tried attending some sessions with a therapist, but soon realised that talking about what had happened didn’t change a thing. It made no difference to how she felt. By defending both Gwen and herself, she’d had no choice that night: kill or be killed – that’s all there was to it. Her actions ended a man’s life, and yet once the shock wore off, there was no guilt, no regret, no shame. In fact, in that decisive moment when she’d attacked Miles, Sinead had never felt more certain about anything. There hadn’t been a moment’s doubt. It was the right thing to do, the only thing. She was acting on a primal instinct to survive at any cost. And besides, he had wanted her to kill for him. He had groomed her, controlled her, and then he’d tried coercing her to murder. But Miles had made one fatal error: the choice of victim wasn’t his to decide.
Miles Brampton. The papers had disclosed a smattering of information since his death, but the man was still a mystery. What the authorities knew for sure was that he was suspected of having committed seven murders, and likely to have committed many more, dating back over a period of almost twenty years. There were several cold cases for the detectives to look at. He had worked as a hotel receptionist and as a postman for a while, but mainly earned his living as an examinations invigilator. Travelling around the country to work at various exam halls and choose his victims had been his modus operandi. There was some speculation that he had actually ceased killing for a few years. And he’d been married to a seventy-year-old woman who had been his supervisor, but who now resided in a care home and was unable to provide the police with any meaningful information on account of her dementia.
DNA from Elliot Sheeny and Vincent Mulligan, the missing student, had been found in Miles’s car and a lock-up garage; the only two items of property that he actually owned. A detective told Sinead that he may have killed Elliot the very same day she first came to see the bungalow; there was some circumstantial evidence suggesting Elliot had been alive the evening before, but there had been no trace of him after that date.
Sinead had given five interviews to various police officers, and had told them everything she could remember about the man who had posed as her landlord. Each time she’d been asked if she’d suspected that something wasn’t right about him. Yeah, of course, she’d replied. But then something hadn’t been right about her either. She’d been teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown for months. Had he threatened her, assaulted her, hurt her in any way at all? She told the truth: right up until the last two nights of his life, he’d been the perfect gentleman.
Now that her leg had healed and the police had confirmed she wouldn’t be facing any manslaughter charges – Gwen’s statement had put paid to that insane notion – the time had come to leave the country. She needed to start again, on the other side of the world where no one knew her. Perhaps she would even change her name.
The young guy gave Sinead the eye again, and this time he just stared creepily. Then he stood up and began walking towards her. Sinead grabbed her backpack and duty-free bag, and took off in the opposite direction. It felt good to walk away in a hurry after all those weeks in the cast.
Up ahead, a mother was ushering two small hyperactive children towards the toilets. Sinead realised she hadn’t said goodbye to Gwen. She hadn’t seen Gwen since she’d been taken away in the ambulance. The last image she had of her was through the back windows, sitting propped up, blanket across her shoulders and breathing through an oxygen mask. The poor woman had gone through hell, and was so shocked she couldn’t speak that night. She had emailed Sinead a fortnight later to thank her for saving her life, explaining how she couldn’t face meeting her in person as it was too soon; she wasn’t ready to talk about it, to relive the events of that terrible day. She was also grieving for the real Elliot, the friend that she’d lost.
Sinead wandered into a Sunglass Hut and tried on a pair of metallic-blue-rim shades. She checked them out in the mirror by the rack and decided they were too big for her face. Selecting another pair, she put them on and became aware of the two shop assistants behind the sales desk, young girls in their late teens. They were staring at her and whispering to each other. One of them pulled out a phone and held it up, pretending she was texting while the camera lens pointed at Sinead. The other girl said, ‘Excuse me – are you Sinead Woods?’ Sinead placed the sunglasses on the rack and left the shop.
The departures board displayed the Qatar Airways flight to Singapore, leaving from Gate 23 in forty minutes. Sinead looked around the bustling departures lounge and wondered when she would be back in the UK. Maybe next month, maybe next year. Maybe never. All she knew for sure was she’d been given a second chance and she was grabbing it with both hands. She looked for the sign to Gate 23 and proceeded along the crowded walkway, glad to be on two feet again.
Glad to be alive again.
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 R J Lindsey
The right of R J Lindsey to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in
accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in
writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the
terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Print ISBN 978-1-913419-33-2