M. Arlidge - Eeny Meeny

She bit her lip hard. Anything to distract her from that thought. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it.

But suddenly it was all she could think about.

It was an annihilation. Other police officers might have shrunk from the task, sending some scapegoat to field the shitstorm. But Helen knew this situation was of her making, so she had no choice but to be the sacrificial lamb.

Flanked by two huge close-ups of Mark and Charlie, Helen briefed the national press, urging anyone who had suspicions to get in touch. Emilia’s spread in the Evening News had started a stampede. Every major tabloid and broadsheet from the UK was represented in the packed briefing room, as well as journalists from Europe, the US and beyond.

There was no hiding any more. They were hunting a serial killer. This was the public admission that Emilia Garanita had been waiting for and she piled on the agony now, calling for Helen to resign. She demanded an official enquiry into Helen’s leadership during this case. The Evening News was running another big spread, cataloguing the lies, half-truths, evasions and incompetence that had in their view characterized the investigation so far. Helen let the assault ride over her – as long as she got the message out there, the professional cost was of little importance.

She had intended to stay at the coalface all night, to work off her anger and frustration, but her concerned team finally prevailed on her to go home – for an hour or two at least. They had all worked themselves to the bone, but she was running on empty.

Helen biked home, keeping her speed steady – she was still shaky and emotional. Once home, she showered and changed. It was good to feel clean and immediately she felt a surge of energy and, even more ridiculously, hope.

For a brief exhilarating moment, she felt sure she would find them alive and well.

But as she stared out of the window at the gloomy nightscape, this brief spasm of optimism started to evaporate. They had looked everywhere and they had come up empty-handed. Whilst Hampshire police tore Southampton apart in their hunt for the missing officers, Helen had contacted her colleagues at the Met. Perhaps there was something personal in her sister’s choice of location? Perhaps she’d chosen somewhere ‘fun’ to have the last laugh? There were the derelict warehouses where they used to go to smash the windows, the cemetery where they used to get drunk, the schools that they truanted from, the underpasses where they watched the boys skateboarding. She had asked for them all to be investigated.

But nothing so far. The same crushing silence. The same debilitating frustration. Mark and Charlie were out there somewhere and there was nothing Helen could do to help them.

She lasted ten minutes in her flat, before marching out and speeding back to the incident room. There had to be a clue out there somewhere. And Helen had to find it.

The baby wouldn’t stop shouting.

Charlie kept picturing it inside her. Somehow she knew it was a girl. And when she pictured her baby, it was already human with a personality and needs, rather than just a bunch of cells. She pictured her baby screaming for food, confused and distressed about why she wasn’t getting anything from her mother. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Was her tiny stomach cramping with hunger as Charlie’s was? She might not even have a stomach yet, Charlie thought, but it was an image she couldn’t get out of her head. I am starving my baby. I am starving my baby.

Mark and Charlie had put themselves in this situation. They were to blame for it. But her baby was innocent. Pure and innocent. Why should her baby pay the price? Her anger at their stupidity fired her spirit. Her will at least wasn’t diminished, unlike her emaciated, useless body.

She tried to swallow her fury. She tried to sleep. But the night was long. And cold. And quiet. Charlie tried to sleep but her baby wouldn’t stop shouting.

Shouting at her to pick up the gun.

The team had been briefed and dispatched. Whilst Bridges, Sanderson and the rest of the team had fanned out across the county and beyond, Helen remained behind in the incident room. Someone had to coordinate the massive search and, besides, Helen had the nasty feeling she was missing something and wanted to review the evidence again.

She had chased up every tiny lead. Every council in southern England had been contacted and the clerical staff were now poring over the list of brownfield sites that were awaiting renovation or demolition. The port authorities had been contacted – a list of warehouses and craft that were out of action was being compiled. Rental properties were being chased down, but they could only process the most recent rentals and who was to say Suzanne hadn’t rented a place weeks ago.

The search was massive and all-encompassing, but nevertheless Helen was gripped by a sense of the futility of it all. If the location where they were being held had been chosen randomly, then what were the odds of them finding it? Driven by fear of failure and a sense that the answer was under her nose, Helen went back over the key sites of the childhood she’d shared with her sister. She’d always looked up to Marianne, who was the stronger of the two, and had followed her around like a shadow. If you could find Marianne, you would find Jodie, that’s what they used to say. Changing her name, changing her life, Helen had tried to step out of that shadow, but it fell on her now once more, bringing darkness and despair with it.

It was while reading her file on Arrow Security that Helen had felt that first shiver of excitement and exhilaration that heralds a new lead. In this age of gender equality, the presence of a female security guard on their lists shouldn’t have stood out. But how many female security guards did you really see? More importantly, this female guard had only joined Arrow two months ago. She had been assigned to help keep an eye on the properties around Croydon and Bromley, as that’s where she lived. But her references looked shaky – forged – and a quick check by the clerical staff had shown her home address to be fake.

Helen faxed Marianne’s original mugshot and the computer-generated image of an ‘older’ Marianne over to Arrow and the alarmed company had responded promptly. The woman in the images could be their new employee, who went by the name of Grace Shields.

Grace. There could be no doubt about it. But was it a ‘fuck you’ or ‘come hither’? Helen opted for the latter and was now once more speeding towards Chatham Tower. She couldn’t be sure if – or when – her sister had meant her to find the link, but her mind was made up. Either Marianne was somewhere in Chatham Tower or Mark and Charlie were and she was going to find them.

Helen felt a surge of hope inside as she sped north. The endgame had begun.

It was raining when they took me away.

I hadn’t noticed it when they’d dragged me out to the cop car, but as I sat in the back like a common criminal, I noticed the pulsing blue lights reflecting in the puddles on the street.

I felt numb. The psychologists would say it was shock after the killings, but I never believed that. It was shock all right, but not about that. They’d tried to get me to talk to them, but I wouldn’t – couldn’t – give them a word. I was already shutting down. It was the beginning of the end for me.

I looked up and saw her staring at me from the doorway. She was wrapped in a blanket and there was a social worker fussing around her, but she just stared straight ahead, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. But it was happening and she had made it happen. It was she who tore the family apart, not me.