Page 20 of The Unforgiven

“What’s made you get in touch? It’s been years since I’ve seen you?” Brooke watched the river, full to the banks, trees trailingin the water. The heavy rain the previous week had caused flooding, so she wasn’t sure why they were walking by the river now.

Her old friend smiled with lips that were different from what Brooke remembered. A lot of things were different. The person Brooke remembered from that summer had been smaller, scared. Such an easy target.

Meeting up here was penance, she supposed. Walking wasn’t something she enjoyed; Brooke worked to live, and living included make-up, social media and paid partnerships. If she carried on the way she was, she’d be able to give up her day job soon. No more screaming kids and shitty nappies, or rude parents who thought they were better than her because she was just a nursery nurse. They didn’t seem to mind leaving their precious children in her care though.

“You look really well, by the way.” Even if that coat was shapeless and hid what was probably a pretty decent body now. Brooke hadn’t really dressed for the weather. She fully intended heading into Stockport later for Sunday evening drinks at a trendy bar where she might bump into a couple of band members she kind of knew. A boyfriend who had some form of social media presence would be a good business investment, more chance to raise her profile.

“Thanks. I know I’ve changed a bit. That was a weird summer, wasn’t it, when were all together. Do you keep in touch with any of the others?”

“Not really. I’m on socials loads but they never come up in my feed. I think I’m friends with most of them but it’s not like we see each other or text all the time.” Brooke couldn’t see the point in keeping in touch with old friends, so she wasn’t entirely sure why she was here now. “What are you doing with yourself now?”

“Still studying really. Learning about people. It’s interesting.”

“I’m kind of doing the same. I’m getting loads of paid sponsorships, you know on social media. I’ve got almost ten thousand followers.”

To be fair, Brooke expected ten thousand followers to get a better reaction than a laugh.

Maybe she was wrong here. Maybe she did need to apologise for how she behaved that summer. Ganging up like that wasn’t fair. It had been mean how much they’d found it funny, locking that old house up so there couldn’t be any escape.

“I am sorry you know,” she said. Besides, if it was an apology that was needed to end this little walk, she could head off into Stockport onto the Underbanks. Now the storms had stopped, the sun had come out and the light was golden. Perfect for taking photos. “What we did was awful to you. You must’ve hated us.”

“I never hated you, as in the past tense. I still hate you.” The sound of the weir, loud with the volume of water it was contending with, roaring like an alarm.

Brooke laughed. “Then why did you want to meet up with me? I mean, you were as weird as fuck back then, and you’re clearly not right now, so why not just leave it in the past? I mean, you’ve obviously moved on. You look great, you’ve lost loads of weight and you’re not ugly anymore.” She shrugged. “It feels like you only wanted to see me so you could tell me you hated me, and I don’t need that in my life.” Brooke had enough trolls online to tell her she was a waste of space, or she was fat or ugly, words she’d used herself that summer. But she knew she was none of those things and you had to have a few trolls to prove you were someone.

“I wanted you to know I hate you. Like really hate you. You made my life a misery.” The voice sounded like a child, someonenot much older than a teen. Not an adult who was approaching thirty.

Thirty. God, she would be thirty in less than two years. That was old.

“Well done. You’ve told me now – what is it?” Brooke turned round, wanting to know what was going on behind her, what’d made her old non-friend stop walking.

They were right at the weir, the bank down steep and rugged with rocks and trees. On the other side of the path were more trees, just about obscuring the view of a derelict factory which was probably about to be knocked down to make way for more trendy apartments.

“Look in the water. I think I can see a body?”

Brooke frowned and stepped closer to the edge. She wouldn’t have seen the blade anyway, the coat far too big and bulky, concealing all sorts, but she did feel it. It didn’t hurt at first, a numbness then a sting and then rapid pain, then another sharp hit, and another and then she stumbled forward and down, down, down over the rocks and the roots of trees, her head hitting against whatever was in its way, but she was losing consciousness anyway, so by the time she hit the water and the weir pulled her over, tossing her like a plastic bag into a thick crop of weeds and a supermarket trolley, she had no idea that her mascara wasn’t that waterproof.

It rained later, because this was April and Manchester, and spring meant you had all four seasons in one day. It was helpful too, as some of the evidence was washed away again, leaving just enough, as well as some other bits, dropped afterwards.

Littering.

But on purpose.

Chapter Nine

“I’m not under arrest, though, am I?’

I sat back in the chair, arms folded, eyes fixed on Neil Hunt. He looked more like a boxer dog than a person, even if he wasn’t drooling like one.

“Not yet.” Wrigley leaned onto the desk between us and Hunt, looking rather like a sedate old grandad. This was his standard interviewing pose; unthreatening, mild, slightly more interested in a pint in his local after a walk with the dog.

Wrigley didn’t have a dog. Pam wouldn’t allow it. He also didn’t have a local, which had nothing to do with Pam and everything to do with Wrigley preferring to take a taxi to his favourite cricket club, half an hour away, knowing the importance of keeping his job away from his actual life, not that there was always much difference.

Wrong career for that.

“No, son, you’re not under arrest. It may or may not stay that way depending on whether you killed your girlfriend or not. If you did, I will find out and arrest you. If you didn’t, well, I need to find a way to prove that, and to do that, I need you to tell me where you were on Monday evening, March thirtieth, and all-day Tuesday, and ideally I need to know where I can find proof of where you were and who you were with. Make my life easy, son. Even if you were doing something you shouldn’t, as long as it doesn’t involve murder or another heinous crime, I don’t really care.” Wrigley stayed still in the same position, waiting.

I wasn’t there to say anything, really. It wasn’t that I’d been told to keep quiet, quite the opposite, but my task was to watch, to look at Hunt’s body language. Was he lying? Was he upset that his girlfriend was dead? Was he covering something up?