Mary-Jane Riley - After She Fell - A haunting psychological thriller with a shocking twist

‘I’m not, Catriona. I just want a whisky, that’s all. It’s not a crime.’ He banged a tumbler down on the top of the cupboard. ‘Alex?’

‘Not for me, thank you.’

‘Mark.’ Cat again, pain naked on her face. ‘What do you mean you spoke to her? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘And did she say she was ill?’ interjected Alex. She had to get a grip on this, see what she might be getting herself into.

Mark poured himself a drink then drank it down in one swallow. ‘Not in so many words, no.’ He poured himself another couple of fingers.

‘What does that mean?’ demanded Cat. ‘What the hell does that mean? And why didn’t you say something sooner? Why didn’t it come up at the inquest?’

‘Nobody asked me, and as you know, I didn’t go to the inquest. I was abroad at the time and it wasn’t thought necessary to call me. You know all this,’ he said simply. ‘And I didn’t want to make things any worse than they were. The text had been found and that was that.’

He was too smooth.

‘So you thought,’ said Cat, bitterly.

‘Mark,’ Alex made her voice firm, ‘what made you think Elena was ill?’

He shrugged. ‘Just the way she was talking. A bit lost, a bit helpless. She said things hadn’t been going well at school. I suggested she talk to her housemother or whatever they call them at the school, that’s what they’re there for.’

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ said Cat, a break in her voice. ‘I’m her mother.’

‘But you weren’t around, darling, were you?’ her husband said, gently. ‘You were in Brussels. Some high-level meeting or something – I can’t remember now – Elena said she had tried to speak to you but your mobile was off all the time.’

How could the man be so cruel? thought Alex. Did he realize what he was doing to his wife?

‘The migrant crisis. All those displaced people. That’s what it was. I wanted to help. But I—’ Cat looked bewildered. ‘If she’d left a message or something I’d’ve got back to her. She knew that. I always did.’

‘But she phoned me instead,’ said Mark.

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

‘We thought it best not to. You were busy, had a lot on your plate; we thought it was best you weren’t worried.’

‘My daughter was feeling suicidal and you thought it was best not to worry me?’ The fury was etched deep on Cat’s face.

Mark shook his head. ‘No, no, you’re not listening.’ He kept calm. ‘She never said she was suicidal, only that things weren’t going well and she wasn’t eating properly.’

‘But—’

‘Mark, Cat.’ Alex knew if she didn’t bring the conversation back to the point the two of them would be going round and round in circles and they wouldn’t get anywhere. ‘We can look into Elena’s state of mind just before she died. What I want to know is why you, Cat, think Elena was murdered?’

Cat let out a deep breath and leaned back into the cushions. ‘You will help, then? You are interested?’ She reached out and took Alex’s hands, squeezing them tightly. ‘I knew you would understand. That I could trust you. We still have it, don’t we? That tie, that closeness?’

Alex nodded. It was true. It was as if they had spoken only yesterday.

‘And you know what it’s like to lose people close to you. You know how I feel.’

‘For God’s sake.’ Mark’s calm veneer suddenly cracked. ‘ I know how you feel. Don’t leave me out of this.’

‘I’m not leaving you out of this, Mark, but you still think she killed herself. I don’t.’ She looked at Alex. ‘The inquest was last week.’ She visibly winced. ‘It was horrible. Having to relive it all, listen to the lies about Elena. The details. The pitying look from the coroner as she told everyone Elena had thrown herself from the cliff. The reporter scribbling down the details in his notebook so they could fill a page of their grubby little paper.’ Cat’s eyes were glistening. ‘And that text. The one they found on her phone. I never got it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I’d have remembered if I’d got a text like that. We were always texting, you see. The last time I heard from her was about ten days before she died. But I deleted it.’ She began to cry and rock herself backwards and forwards. ‘I deleted it because the storage on my phone was almost full. I deleted it. I keep texts from my secretary, but I deleted my daughter’s texts.’

Alex put a hand on her arm. ‘Cat, it’s all right.’

‘No it’s not all right.’ Gulping sobs escaped her.

‘Tell me what the texts said.’

‘Do we have to drag all this up?’

Cat jerked her head up. ‘Yes we do, Mark.’ She looked at Alex. ‘She said she was looking forward to coming home. Said there were things going on at the school that she had to tell me about, worrying things, she said. She said …’ Cat gulped back tears, ‘she said she had to talk to me. I asked her to tell me there and then but she wouldn’t.’ She looked at Mark. ‘But nothing about not eating or being depressed.’

Out of the corner of her eye Alex could see Mark trying to catch her eye as if to say, ‘ See, no definite proof. ’

‘And you don’t know what she was referring to?’

‘No. But then I got this.’

Suddenly she had her mobile phone in her hand and she turned the screen towards Alex. ‘Here. Look.’

Alex looked. It was a Facebook tribute page – she had seen quite a few of them in her time when she’d written stories on young people who had died – a special page dedicated to that person. She took the phone from Cat and scrolled through the page. It was full of the usual: ‘ I love you hun RIP; You’re the best, we’ll miss ya; You’ll be an angel in heaven now .’

She looked up at Cat. ‘It’s great your daughter’s friends cared, but—’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Cat snatched the phone back and scrolled down, her finger moving at a frantic pace. ‘There. See.’ She thrust the phone at Alex.

Elena did not kill herself

The comment was prefaced by a picture of a silhouette – standard practice when people didn’t want a profile photo – and the name ‘Kiki Godwin’.

‘And again. Look, underneath that message.’ Cat’s eyes were bright, feverish, her hands shaking. ‘Another one.’

It’s true. Elena did not kill herself.

Again, the same silhouette picture, the same name: ‘Kiki Godwin’.

‘And if you look, everybody else posted their messages just after Elena died and in the following few weeks. These two were posted four days ago, after the inquest.’ Her excitement was palpable.

Alex clicked on Kiki Godwin’s name. It took her to a Facebook page that echoed the silhouette but had no details about Kiki Godwin. She took her own phone out of her bag, opened the Facebook app and found Kiki’s name herself. Then she sent her a friend request. Let’s see if we get any reply to that, she thought.

‘I’m guessing’, said Alex, putting her phone away, ‘you don’t know who Kiki is?’

‘No. Not at all. I presume it’s one of her friends, but then, why doesn’t she have a profile?’

‘And have you shown this to the police?’

Cat met her eyes. ‘No. Not yet. I don’t trust them like I trust you. Them and their great size thirteen boots. No finesse, no subtlety. All they’d do is scare everyone off. Nobody would talk to them, least of all Kiki Godwin, whoever she – or possibly he – might be. Anyway, they wouldn’t believe me. Even my own husband doesn’t believe me. No, I want you to look into it, Alex. Please.’

‘But Cat, the police have resources, know-how, manpower and all that.’