Mary-Jane Riley - The Bad Things - A gripping crime thriller full of twists and turns

The two-tone noise of the computer announced it was ready for business, and Alex let the emails download. She decided not to go on Facebook or Twitter; it would only push her blood pressure sky-high. That was the trouble with being a freelance – she felt she needed to be readily contactable, which was easy in the era of mobiles and social media, but, boy, when she wanted to lie low, it was bloody difficult.

The emails were, as she suspected, a mixture of clothes companies, train companies, and supermarkets advertising their wares, and requests for interviews about her and Sasha from various magazines. She deleted them all. But the one she wanted from her editor was there.

To : Alex Devlin

From : Liz Henderson

Subject : Malone

Hey Alex – loved your piece on Malone, strikes just the right balance and gives us a good rounded picture of the man. The photographs all add to the mood.

The photos had to be done in shadow or from the back to keep Malone’s anonymity intact. At least he hadn’t insisted on wearing his balaclava.

You’ll be pleased to know we’ve found an early slot for it in the Saturday Magazine – should go in two weeks time. Please invoice as usual.

Alex let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Thank the Lord; she’d be able to eat for a little longer, though she still wouldn’t have enough to pay for the skiing trip. Worry began to gnaw away at her again.

Keep coming up with the ideas, Alex, we love your pieces.

Best

Liz

That lifted a little of the heavy weight that was permanently on her shoulders. It was hard making a living as a freelance, and she was lucky to have found such regular work with the magazine supplement. She’d even done news stories for the main daily paper to earn some extra cash. Sometimes she felt like a jack of all trades and master of none, but her in-depth features seemed to chime with the Saturday Magazine ’s ethos.

She looked at the time of the email. Liz had sent it just after the news broke of Jackie Wood getting out of prison. Keep the ideas coming. Sure. Easier said than done sometimes. News features didn’t just fall into your lap; you had to keep your eyes and ears open. Be receptive.

Jackie Wood.

The thought flashed into her head. A thoughtful piece on her time in prison, reflecting on her life; all that bollocks.

She shook herself. Where on earth had that idea come from? Left field, most definitely. She sat back in her chair.

Absolutely not.

She gazed out of the window onto the scrubby courtyard that passed for a garden, the gloom pierced by the lights in the kitchen. The terracotta pots she had planted with geraniums and lilies in the summer looked defeated. They bore cracks from the frost and the plants were withered bits of brown stick. If she’d had an ounce of foresight she would have brought them inside before the winter. The grass was patchy and mostly mud and even the silver birch looked tired of life.

Picking up a pencil, she began doodling, making notes. Suppose, just suppose for one minute that she did get to talk to Jackie Wood, what were the pros and cons?

Pros : she really wanted to talk to Jackie Wood. She never thought she’d be able to and yet here it was. The opportunity. The woman had been let out on a technicality and she was still guilty. At least, in Alex’s eyes. She must know where Millie is buried. She could tell her. She would tell her. And that would bring peace of mind to her sister.

Cons : Jackie Wood probably wouldn’t want to talk to her. Wouldn’t want to talk to any journalist. Would she know who she was? Would she remember her; her name? Not necessarily. It was fifteen years ago and Sasha had captured all the headlines. Sasha and Jez. Jez had managed to keep Alex’s name out of it as far as possible, and, because he was a police officer, that seemed to be a long way. And then she’d kept her head down, not courting any publicity. But she did give evidence at the trial, so that was living in cloud cuckoo land. Jackie Wood would know who she was, there was no doubt about that.

And what about Sasha? And Jez? How would they feel?

But she’d be doing it for them.

And then there was the main stumbling block – her editor would never wear it. Liz was bound to say she was too close to it; it wouldn’t be fair; it wouldn’t be balanced, and all that. In truth, Liz would be worried about bringing the Press Complaints Commission down on the Saturday Magazine ’s head.

But, what if she talked to Jackie Wood, managed to write the article and then pitched it to Liz, what about that? She’d done that many times in her career – written an article on spec. And if Liz didn’t want it, she could tout it around. It would be a financial risk, but someone, somewhere would take the article. And there would be no deception involved. All above board. She would declare her interest and sell it as a personal story. Everyone wanted a personal story.

The words went in and out of focus. It could be the best chance she had to get the story out of Jackie Wood; the best chance to find out what happened the day Harry and Millie were taken. From her garden. While she was supposed to be looking after them. The day their family had been torn apart; the day she had let her sister down. And if she knew why Jackie Wood and Martin Jessop had taken the twins away and murdered them, then maybe she could find some sort of peace.

And she would go some way to paying her dues to Sasha; get rid of that guilt that had been eating away at her for the last decade and a half.

She turned back to her computer and opened up a document file entitled ‘Jessop and Wood’. She’d kept all links to the case in one tidy place on her computer. Links to stories; links to people who claimed they’d known Jessop and Wood were evil; she’d even kept a link to the clairvoyant who insisted he’d be able to lead them to Millie’s body, for a fee, naturally. Alex never found out if he went to the police in the end. She stared at the file. She would be adding new links soon, to today’s story, but first—

There it was. A picture and contact number for Wood’s lawyer. She picked up her phone.

Something like adrenalin surged through her. She’d had fifteen years of being passive, of believing that justice would run its course, of thinking that she could run away from it all. Now she knew she’d been wrong all along. She punched in the number.

After that, it was all plain sailing. Alex got through to Jonathan Danby easily, and the conversation went exactly as she hoped. He had heard of her, had read a few of her articles and even enjoyed them, he said in that oleaginous manner she knew he would have. Loved the Saturday Magazine , he said. She crossed her fingers in the hope that he wasn’t great friends with Liz or something. She wanted the interview to be a fait accompli before anyone could say no. However, all Danby said was that he’d met the owner of the paper and the accompanying magazine at a couple of events. That was all right. Clive Lambert had little idea of who his staff were, never mind the freelancers. So when Alex broached the subject of Jackie Wood and an exclusive interview with her, she could hear Danby thinking in pounds and pence and not worrying about anything else.

‘It would be a fair depiction of Jackie and everything she’d been through?’ he asked. Alex heard the tippety-tap of his pen on his desk, or more likely on his blotter on what she imagined was his mahogany desk.

‘Yes,’ she said. It had to be fair otherwise it wouldn’t get published. It was just that she hoped to get so much more out of it.