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“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Murders and the like.”
Romilly couldn’t imagine how this man—how this man who’d poured his heart out to her, whose nervous laugh she’d realized hid a mass of fragilities—could deal with the most violent crimes without flinching. There was something about Adam she was drawn to from the start. She liked the sound of his voice, the low burr rising to a raucous cackle when it was something he liked. And he listened to her, his head resting on one hand, leg tilted up, knee in front of him. She recognized that knee for what it was: a protective shield. And slowly it lowered. The physical manifestation of the mental barrier.
Their engagement was short, the wedding small but perfect. Neither of them close to their families, so a few friends seemed right. And they were so in love. Romilly remembers those first few years. The two of them against the world.
Since the divorce, she’s managed to put some distance between them. Any time they tried to be friends, or even scrape together some semblance of civility, it fell apart with a resounding crash, causing chaos for the people around them. The couple closest to them, Jamie and Pippa, had often taken the brunt.
“I’m not going to take sides, but …” Pippa said on more than one occasion. Female solidarity eclipsed all else, it seems. Even despite what Romilly had done.
And Jamie has to be loyal to Adam. Adam is his boss, after all. They spend every day together. Adam tried to explain it once: a brotherhood. Bonds created by the environment they work in. If you’re not in the police, you can’t understand. You can’t understand, was the unspoken message.
But now, here she is. On the outskirts, but her brain pulling her in to these brutal murders. A serial killer: she knows about those—but only what happened then. How can she help? She’s tried to convince him. She should walk away. Especially given the nightmares.
She saw Phil’s expression over breakfast: concern, with a touch of hostility. He can’t understand why she doesn’t let it go. Whatever Adam says, she still believes it’s all linked. It is too much of a coincidence not to be true.
She knows what Phil would say—“you need to get some distance.” But she can’t, for reasons he’ll never understand.
He went to work, leaving with a chaste peck on the cheek. She wanted to chase after him, to apologize, but what was she saying sorry for? Talking to her ex-husband? Pushing her way into a case that has nothing to do with her? He should trust her, she thinks, summoning a wave of righteous anger, although she knows, deep in her heart, it’s not that. He’s worried about her, that’s all.
But she can’t stop. Won’t.
Something pulls her in. Something that tastes sour at the back of her throat. Something she knows is bad for her, but she consumes it anyway. Cheap white wine. A kebab late at night.
The guilt from a time long past.
Through all her musing, she hears the clatter of the letterbox as the post drops through. It’s a convenient distraction, and she walks to the hallway to pick it up. The usual mail: the catalogues from clothing companies she hasn’t used in years, bills she needs to pay. And one other.
She turns the white envelope over in her hand, a slow sinking feeling working its way from her stomach to her fingertips. Her name and address is written on the front in black block capitals she doesn’t recognize, but the franking stamp in the top right corner is unmistakable: HM Prison Belmarsh.
Her hands start to shake. She puts it down on the table, but she can’t take her eyes off it and picks it up again. Even though it’s just paper and glue, it feels hot. Charged with something not from this world.
Phil would tell her to wait until he gets home and they’ll open it together. Adam would say to rip it into tiny pieces: ever the avoidant.
But she couldn’t do that. What would Dr. Jones say? “He has no power to hurt you now.”
With trembling fingers, she rips the envelope open. Inside are two small pieces of paper. The first is a newspaper clipping, and she recognizes it. Front page news on The Sun, reporting the murders in the only way its journalists know: sensationalist and overblown. Not that they’d had to try hard, with details like this. The photo shows the dump site in all its mess and squalor, crime scene techs in their white suits, going about their work. Distinctive from any number of crime photos by the fact there were five separate cordons, five separate blue plastic tents. But the second photo they’d used surprised her. It had clearly been taken outside the police station and showed Adam talking to Jamie. The caption: “Senior Investigating Officer DCI Adam Bishop, and colleague.”
The newspaper article has been carefully cut out. Precise, neat edges. But the second piece of paper almost makes her heart stop.
Her chest tightens. She can’t breathe. She drops to her knees on her hallway floor, the note still clutched in her hand. It’s a piece of crisp white writing paper, thick and expensive. With a message, written in black fountain pen ink, in a handwriting as familiar as her own.
Six words, that blur her vision with tears. That stop her thoughts dead, leaving her gasping and weak.
You need to talk to me, the note says.
CHAPTER
22
ADAM CALLS TIME at nine PM. Energy has dissipated from the room—there is too much waiting. For the postmortem results, the further analysis of the fibers. For the fingerprint that is taking too fucking long. They have no good leads to follow; they all need a break. Adam knows that if there’s anything important, Maggie Clarke will call him from the lab.
He shouts across the desks, “That’s it! Wrap up what you’re doing and go home. See your families. See your kids. And anyone that doesn’t want to do that, come with me to the pub.”
A cheer rings out. Coats are thrown on. The usual suspects, the ones with kids and wives, head off fast before Adam can change his mind. Jamie stands by his desk, waiting.
“Why aren’t you going back to your beautiful new wife?” Adam asks.
“She’s out with the girls.”
