Two Little Girls: The gripping new psychological thriller you need to read in summer 2018. Kate Medina

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of course not. Like I already said, it’s in the opposite direction to home.’

      ‘Did she like to meet friends on the beach?’

      ‘School friends, sometimes. They all like to hang out on the beach, don’t they? What kid wouldn’t?’

      ‘We’ll need a list of their names.’

      ‘Fine. The school will know better than me.’

      ‘What about adults? Was she friends with any adults?’

      Her lip curled as she looked up and met his gaze with her tear-stained eyes. ‘What, like nonces?’

      Marilyn shook his head. ‘Anyone.’

      The lit tip of the cigarette glowed as Trigg sucked hard, her chest expanding as she drew the smoke deep into her lungs. Marilyn would have killed for a cigarette right now, but lighting up in the middle of an interview could hardly be called professional, whatever the interviewee was doing, and he was going to play this one by the book. Page, line, word and letter.

      ‘People who work around the caravan park,’ she murmured, exhaling. ‘It’s friendly like, and we’ve lived here since Jodie was born. She knows everyone on the site. The staff and full-timers, that is, not the holiday rental lot.’

      Marilyn nodded. ‘Do you give her a time she needs to be home by?’ he continued, using the present tense deliberately, following Trigg’s lead, to minimize her stress and upset. Faint hope.

      ‘I tell her she needs to be home by eight, latest.’

      ‘And you finish work at ten p.m.’

      ‘Depends if I’m on an early or late shift, but yeah, yesterday was a late, ten p.m., and then it’s an hour bus-ride home.’

      ‘So, what does Jodie do between three fifteen and eight?’

      ‘She stays out and plays with schoolkids on the beach, or kids from the caravan park. Sometimes she goes to hang out at the entertainment centre, watches people play the arcade games.’

      Marilyn nodded. The list of people the little girl had known and the time that she had spent alone both seemed to fall into the category ‘how long is a piece of string?’ The only certainty: another murder of another little girl, two years ago, the link between them, in his mind at least, concrete. The colour of the doll’s eyes a detail that he was sure hadn’t been in the papers.

      He was a pot calling the kettle black, pulling Debs Trigg up on her parenting skills, particularly as he recognized that she had little choice, but at least his own parental failings had been compensated for by his ex-wife, a caring, responsible woman. Even so, his daughter had gone off the rails. It sounded as if poor little Jodie had had no such stability and his heart went out to her, to her memory. Many nine-year-old kids he’d dealt with in his career had had it far worse, but he still felt that every child deserved a fairy tale childhood. Adulthood was tough enough, without hard times starting long before.

      ‘Would she have gone to West Wittering beach voluntarily?’ he asked.

      Trigg gave an evasive shrug. ‘What reason would she have to go?’

      ‘I was hoping that you would be able to help me with that.’ A sharp edge to this tone that he was struggling to suppress. ‘She has four and three-quarter hours from when school finishes to when you expect her home and another three hours after that, before you actually get home. It’s a long time.’ A very long time, particularly for a nine-year-old child.

      Trigg waved the stub of the cigarette towards the corner of the caravan. ‘We’ve got the telly and often as not she’s got homework.’

      Marilyn nodded. ‘But she could have gone down to West Wittering voluntarily. She could have been meeting someone without you knowing.’

      Trigg’s red-rimmed eyes remained fixed on the blank square of the television screen in the corner, looking but not seeing.

      ‘Couldn’t she, Miss Trigg?’ he prompted.

      ‘Yeah, I suppose she could ’ave.’ The words drew a little jerk out of her, as if the effort of acknowledgement hurt her.

      ‘I’ll need that list of her close school friends and everyone else she knew and saw around here on a regular basis. Detective Sergeant Workman will give you a hand with it.’

      Trigg gave a dull nod. All the aggression, the fight had leaked from her. Tears welled in her eyes and a barely audible voice came from the back of her throat. ‘How was she killed, Detective Inspector? How was my baby killed?’

      ‘She was strangled,’ Marilyn said plainly. There was no benefit in sugar-coating, not for anyone.

      ‘When?’

      ‘Mid-to-late afternoon.’ He glanced at his watch. It was half-past midnight. Yesterday afternoon. ‘Thursday afternoon,’ he added, probably unnecessarily.

      ‘When I was at work then,’ Debs muttered. ‘When I was on the fucking packing line, knowing nothing, some bastard was strangling my baby to death.’

      Marilyn didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.

      ‘She wasn’t …’ Her body twisted with anguish at the question. ‘She wasn’t sexually assaulted, raped, was she?’

      Though only Dr Ghoshal could confirm with 100 per cent certainty whether Jodie had been sexually assaulted, Marilyn shook his head, ignoring the look of chastisement that Workman shot him. He was getting good at ignoring her looks. He had seen the child’s body in the InciTent, still dressed in her school uniform, shirt and trousers, none of her clothing disturbed. Zoe Reynolds hadn’t been sexually assaulted and he would be happy to stake his professional reputation – what little he had left when it came to solving child murders – on the fact that Jodie Trigg hadn’t either. Every fibre of his instinct told him that Jodie’s murder, as with Zoe’s, wasn’t a sexually motivated crime. Every fibre told him, still, that Zoe’s mother Carolynn was responsible for her murder. And Jodie’s? He’d find out. This time he would find out.

      ‘No, she wasn’t sexually assaulted,’ he repeated firmly. ‘We’ll know a lot more once the, uh, once the autopsy has been performed later today.’

      At the word ‘autopsy’, Trigg began rubbing her hands convulsively up and down her arms, her clawed fingers leaving raw weals on her pale skin.

      Workman caught one of her wrists again. ‘Please don’t.’

      ‘Autopsy. Why? Why can’t you just leave her alone? Give her back to me to bury in one piece.’

      ‘It will help us to catch her killer,’ Workman said gently. Her hand was knocked away as Trigg shrank into the corner of the sofa, looking from Marilyn to Workman and back, like a cornered animal.

      ‘Look, I know this is difficult, Miss Trigg,’ Marilyn said, measuring his tone.

      ‘You don’t know anything,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t know me. You didn’t know Jodie. Has your daughter died, Detective Inspector?’ She caught his gaze and held it defiantly, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘So don’t fucking СКАЧАТЬ