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“Well, if it’s all the same with you, Ella,” she sighs. “We’re going to go ahead and trust the sworn statement of the professional forensic psychiatrist for now, yeah?”
I purse my lips.
“Now, the report doesn’t look very good. But your four years in reformatory school, coupled with your history of drug problems—”
“I don’t havedrug problems,” I snap angrily.
They glance at each other.
“That a matter of perspective now, too?” The male detective says dryly.
“No, it’s just not fucking true.”
“It’s right here, Ella,” he grunts, tapping the report. “I mean perhaps myperspectiveis off, but it sure looks like the night of the fire, you tested positive for radically high levels of THC in your system.”
The knot tightens in my throat.
This is bad.
They’re not interested in my explanation for that, or for anything. They’re just enjoying getting me more and more twisted up, smugly egging me on while I sit here accused of murdering my own mother.
“Were you mad at your mum that night, Ella?”
The words hurt so bad that tears spring to my eyes. My memory flashes back to that horrible sensation of being so incredibly messed up from the brownie Cora tricked me into eating that day. To hiding under my covers, and barely mumbling a word to my mum about why I couldn’t come downstairs for dinner.
Her last night alive, I skipped dinner. And my last word to her was a stoned and mumbled “sleep.”
I drop my head as the hot tears start to slowly trickled down my cheeks.
“You know you can just tell us, Ella,” the female detective says quietly, reaching out and putting a hand on my arm.
“We know you were a kid, and you had a lot going on in your head. But if you just tell us the truth about what you did, this can all go away so much easier, and faster.”
Fuck you—
The door to the room swings open, and a portly, middle-aged man wearing a bad suit and carrying a dinged-up briefcase stumbles in.
“Oi! You’re not having a little chat with my client without me, are you, Sarah?”
The detectives both laugh as they stand, shaking the man’s hands.
“Oh, just crossing a few T’s dotting a couple of I’s,” the male detective grins. “You know how we like to do, Henry.”
The other man rolls his eyes.
“You’re a scamp, Dan. Going to get yourself in trouble one of these days, interviewing suspects without their bloody lawyer present.”
The two detectives chuckle, like it’s a funny joke. Sarah turns to me.
“Ella, this is Henry Trumbull, your court-appointed solicitor, unless you plan on hiring one of your own.”
Right, with all that money of mine.
“Ella, pleasure,” the scruffy looking lawyer mutters, dragging a chair noisily across the room and plopping down next to me.
“Right, well, let’s see what we’re up against—”
“Killed her mum—”
