Page 106 of The Unforgiven

“I won’t write about you, Mia, at least no one will know about you. I’m not sure you always know about you.” More paper. More flames.

“I think the same can be said of all of us.”

He nodded, watching the fire. “Quite possibly.”

“Did you encourage her to follow her dreams, Daniel?”

He looked at me, amusement in his eyes. “I encourage everyone to follow their dreams, Mia. Just like I did with you.” A handful of pages hit the fire, my notes, Justine’s notes, anything to implicate him in the involvement of the murders of the Aberwyn girls going up in flames and becoming ash.

“Justine won’t tell anyone about what happened when you were fifteen. She read your file without me knowing, a bit like you’ve just read hers.”

“What I read. I didn’t see it all.”

“You saw enough. If she did say anything about Steve Ellis it wouldn’t harm your career, you just wouldn’t like to be made a victim – or maybe it’s the blame you’d get because you didn’t come forward as a child, and he went on to abuse others.” He emptied the other folder into the fire.

“We don’t know he hurt anyone after me.” I was stiff with fear, cold even though the fire roared.

Daniel laughed, arrogant. “With all you know about profiling and offenders, do you really think that you were the last one?”

I managed to stand. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead and I don’t want to find out.”

“Maybe that’s something you should work through in therapy.”

“Maybe you should partake in some of that yourself. You manipulated Justine. You groomed her, all in the name of research, giving you the perfect material to prove that you’re still god in your own kingdom, and five women and one man were killed.”

“She confessed?”

“She confessed.”

He nodded. “Justine is not a puppet, no more of one than you, Mia. You both have agency. What she chose to do is on her. When she spoke of her desires to take revenge on those girls, Iassumed it was just a fantasy, a way to rid herself of the past, like how you changed your name.”

“You told me you didn’t know where Kelly-Anne was.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know it. I might’ve suspected it, but that could’ve led you up the wrong path. Anyway, my dear, I need to return to the meeting. It’s caused quite a mess here, as you might expect, and I’m without an assistant. You wouldn’t know anyone who’d be interested, would you?”

I walked out of his office, holding my head up high, hearing him laugh.

“See you soon, Mia.” The tone was almost fond.

I drove back to Lucy’s flat, putting the rest of my belongings into two binbags, super strength, and the washing basket, making a second trip up the stairs to get the duvet and my suitcase. I’d acquired more possessions than I’d realised since I’d moved there, but nothing to account for a thirty-year-old life.

Lucy wasn’t in, the flat cold and empty. I could’ve tortured myself thinking about whether she was with Cavan, but ultimately, I didn’t care. It had hardly been the romance of the century, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about other men.

I was trying not to think about Vinny though.

I sat in my car, phone in hand, engine off. My boot was packed with my stuff, and I was scrolling through my messages, pausing on one.

Jalen. Sent a few days ago, asking how I was. I had a lot to tell him, a lot I wanted to practise. My heart started to race a little faster as I typed a response.

Fancy meeting up for a drink?

I waited, watching a couple having an argument on the pavement, glancing at the dots dancing as Jalen was typing a message, seeing them stop and feeling all sorts of doubt.

Then the response came through.

Drink drink. Like a date, bc you haven’t asked me to go for a drink in all the years I’ve known u.

I smiled at the screen, feeling hopeful.