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“So where is she?” Jamie pleads. “Where’s Pippa?”
There’s nothing Adam can say. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know.
Romilly looks at him through the darkness. “I need to go, Adam,” she says softly.
“This doesn’t change anything.”
“It does, and you know it.”
Jamie glances anxiously between the two of them. Romilly sees his confusion.
“I got a letter,” she explains. “From him. He says I need to go and talk to him.”
Jamie grabs her by the tops of her arms, and she starts. “Then you have to go,” he shouts, pleading. “Please.”
Adam places a hand on his arm. “Jamie,” he says softly, “she can’t. It’s exactly what he wants.”
“But what if he does know something? Surely, it’s worth it? For that tiny chance?”
Jamie’s voice is desperate, and Adam can see by the look on Romilly’s face that it’s exactly what she’s thinking too.
“But Milly,” he says, “you’ve worked so hard to escape this. You’re so much better now.”
She shakes her head. “I can do it. I’ll be fine. And Jamie’s right. What if he does know something? He’s in prison with the craziest people. What if he’s heard rumors? What if it’s someone who’s just been released?”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s not up to you,” Romilly says sternly.
Adam turns to her. He knows the effect this man had on Romilly. He’d seen the panic attacks, the nightmares. Watched her crying for hours after sessions with her therapist. “He’s a dangerous man,” Adam says quietly. For the first time since they were divorced, he takes her hands in his. They feel warm, almost clammy. “He tortured and raped five women. He killed four of them. He will manipulate you, as he did then and has been doing ever since.”
Romilly stares down at his hands, then pulls away. She looks at Jamie, his face drawn and pale.
“I’ll go,” she says decisively. “I’ll go and see my father.”
LOCAL DOCTOR CHARGED WITH FOUR MURDERS
Hampshire Chronicle, November 20, 1995
The disappearance of four women came to a distressing end last night, as local GP, Dr. Elijah Cole, was arrested at his home in Gloucester Road. On searching the property, police found the partly decomposed bodies of three of the missing women—Rebecca Sparkes, Claire Charters, and Nicola Henshaw—in shallow graves in woodland on Cole’s property. A further body, of Grace Summers, was discovered, recently deceased, in the outbuilding. An additional woman, not known to be missing, was found alive and has been taken to hospital. Her condition is described as stable. Police are still in the process of locating her next of kin, and her name will be released to the public in due course.
Police haven’t issued a statement at this stage, but all five women are believed to have been held since their disappearances over the last four months, and subjected to sexual assault, rape, and torture over this time. Numerous restraint devices are rumored to have been found at the remote property, including cages, chains, and handcuffs.
Local residents remain in a state of shock. Dr. Cole was a respected member of the community, providing medical care from his surgery on Cannon Street. One local resident stated, “He is such a charming man, a pillar of our community. I can’t believe it.”
It is rumored Dr. Cole’s eleven-year-old daughter raised the alarm, although further details are unknown. She has been taken into the care of Children’s Services and is not believed to be connected to the crimes.
CHAPTER
30
Day 6
Thursday
YEARS HAVE PASSED, but Romilly feels the same as she pulls up in the car park of HMP Belmarsh. All through the two-hour drive, she’d wanted to change her mind, looking at every junction of the motorway and telling herself: turn around. But she hadn’t. As much as her gut shouts at her to stay away, another part is drawn to him. To see the man that destroyed her life all those years ago.
Phil offered to come with her, but she’d told him no. He hadn’t understood why, choosing to take her rebuff personally. And in a way, he should. If Adam had offered, she probably would have said yes.
