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

to do an interview, take my picture and all that.’ He plucked at the sleeve of his jumper. ‘And I don’t want it, Mum. I don’t, like, want it to be anything to do with me. I was only a baby. I don’t even remember Harry and Millie.’ He sniffed. ‘But they kept asking and asking and saying we were liars, that you were a liar. And I wanted to get away.’

      ‘I’m sorry, love.’ She pulled him closer.

      ‘And then a couple of mates asked me if I wanted a drink.’

      ‘Mates?’ she asked, more sharply than she intended. Please don’t let him have fallen in with a bad crowd again.

      ‘Yes, mates.’ He glared at her. She decided to leave it, for now. ‘Anyway,’ he carried on, ‘I thought you’d be more concerned about the reporters than the half pint of lager I’d had.’

      ‘I am concerned about that,’ she said, trying to believe it really was just a half pint of lager. ‘They had no right to stop you and talk to you. What did you say?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘How did they know you had anything to do with her?’

      He shrugged. ‘Dunno. But there are a couple of them at the gate now.’

      ‘What?’ Alex jumped up and went over to the window. Sure enough, a man in a shiny grey suit and yellow tie and a woman in a black shaggy coat were standing just outside the gate under the streetlight and looking at her front door. Both of them on mobile phones and having animated conversations. She wondered which of them would be the first to come up with an offer. Vultures.

      ‘Bugger,’ she said, stepping back from the window before they saw her, heart thumping, ‘I thought they wouldn’t find us.’

      ‘Come on, Mum, you know you can find anyone these days through the internet.’

      Irritation crawled up her spine. She knew that. She damn well knew that, so why hadn’t she given it a thought? ‘They’ll go away as soon as they realize we’re not giving them anything. Or until they get cold or tired or hungry, or all three.’ She half drew the curtain.

      ‘How’s Aunty Sasha?’

      It was her turn to shrug. ‘You know, coping.’

      ‘Badly?’

      She nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve just got to support her through this.’

      ‘We will, Mum. We will.’

      Alex looked at her little boy. Taller than her with wisps of facial hair and that deep voice. ‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ She resisted the urge to lean over and kiss his cheek.

      ‘So are you going to do anything about her?’

      ‘Her?’

      ‘Jackie Wood?’

      ‘I—’ No. She wasn’t going to tell him. ‘Look, there’s nothing we can do. She’ll be whisked to some safe house somewhere until the furore’s died down and then she might change her identity and find somewhere new to live. The best thing we can do is to help Sasha through this.’

      ‘Mum?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘What can you remember about that day?’

      Alex drew him back into her arms and hugged him close to her, resting her chin on the top of his head. ‘Oh, love, it’s difficult to describe.’

      ‘Try. Please.’

      She closed her eyes. ‘I remember the police coming round, making lots of notes. Everyone going to look for them. Not finding them.’

      ‘They were taken from our garden, weren’t they?’

      A spear of pain lanced Alex and the guilt threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Yes. Yes they were.’

      She was responsible.

       6

      Kate shoved the pills to the back of the bathroom cupboard and closed the door. Her head was pounding; the picture on the health centre’s telly of Jackie Wood on the steps of the High Court, smiling, going round and round in her head. The smug lawyer. The sentence quashed. A murderer’s accomplice set free.

      She thought back to when the judge had sentenced Wood and Jessop to life imprisonment for the murders of Harry and Millie Clements, and how she’d felt as though she could breathe again. Although she’d been the one to find Harry’s little body all squashed up in the suitcase, abandoned behind a bin in a shitty lay-by as if he was just a piece of rubbish, she hadn’t had anything more to do with the investigation, apart from celebrating in the pub when they arrested Wood and Jessop.

      She’d had her day in court, of course, when she stood in the witness box and told the judge exactly what had happened the morning she had found the little boy, reliving it in her head as she kept her voice even and unemotional. She’d glared across at the pair of them in the dock; wanted them to look her in the eye so she could stare them down. But they didn’t give her the satisfaction; just kept examining their hands, Wood occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a white handkerchief edged with blue. Funny how she could remember the little things. And then she’d been in the public gallery when the professor of dirt and stones or whatever he was delivered his damning evidence. The unusual type of soil and gravel found in the corridor of the flats in Sole Bay matched that found inside the suitcase that had contained the body – that was the gist of it, and the jury bought it, every single damning word. So did they all, to be fair.

      And now, fifteen years on, the great professor had been discredited. The evidence he had given in another trial had been called into question five years previously. After that, the convictions tumbled, and it was only a matter of time before the Jessop–Wood trial was scrutinized. And yes, the evidence was called into question. Unsafe conviction. The gravel and soil could have come from several places in Sole Bay. So Wood was now out in the community.

      Kate found herself obsessed with Wood. She didn’t believe for one moment that Jessop and Wood were not guilty, and she knew her colleagues would be of a like mind. There was no question of it being opened as a cold case, and it wouldn’t be too long before the force would trot out the line: ‘We’re not looking for anyone else in this matter.’ Subtext: they did it, and Jackie Wood has got away with it.

      She turned on the cold tap and splashed her face, remembering too late the make-up she had put on earlier that morning. Bloody hell, she’d have panda eyes now. Opening up the cupboard again she took out her make-up remover wipes and began to clean her face so she could redo her mask.

      ‘Is that you Kate?’

      A door slammed as Chris’s voice floated up the stairs. Her hand stopped its cleaning. Damn. What was he doing home? She thought he’d gone to source more wood for the table and chairs he was making.

      ‘Kate?’

      She put down the make-up remover wipes and gripped the basin, head bowed. Then she dragged in a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face. If she made herself smile, it would sound in her voice.

      ‘Hallo sweetie,’ she said, emerging from the bathroom and going downstairs. ‘I thought you’d be out for most of the day.’

      Chris enveloped her in a hug. With her nose pressed into his thick woollen jumper she breathed in the familiar smells of freshly-cut wood and linseed oil. There was a prickling in the back of her nose. ‘Hah. So your secret lover could come and go with impunity.’

      ‘Something like that,’ she mumbled, not wanting to think about the visit to the doctor. ‘What about the wood?’

      ‘Bloke I needed to see won’t be back until this afternoon. Bit of a wasted journey.’

      She lifted her head up. ‘Didn’t you check he was going to be there?’