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

remember where to come back to, even if she was still alive. Naturally, she didn’t say any of that to her. No one could say anything like that to her. At least, though, Alex was in the town and could look out for her sister, and, on a good day, she could run there in eight minutes.

      This was not a good day – lack of sleep and not much food – but adrenalin would add wings to her feet.

      ‘I have to go, Gus,’ she said, running to the door. ‘You finish your toast. There’s a new jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.’

      ‘But Mum – what’s up?’

      ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Alex felt breathless as she pulled on her coat and fumbled with the buttons. ‘I have to go and see Aunty Sasha. Okay?’

      He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

      The radio carried on in the background.

      The pavements were damp but thankfully not slippery. She ran, weaving through the people who blocked her way. Where was the family liaison officer? He’d said there wouldn’t be a decision this early. She’d have time to prepare Sasha for the possibility of Wood getting off. What had happened?

      Two old women pulling shopping trolleys were chatting, taking up the whole pavement. Trolleys with loud red and green spots, the sort that tripped up the unwary pedestrian. She hated them. She had to leap into the road to get round them; a car hooting as it just missed her. Then a woman with one of those pushchairs that could be used to haul babies up mountain ranges suddenly stopped, almost making her fall. A crowd of school kids laughing, pushing each other, appeared in front of her. Inside her head she screamed at them, wanted to shove them out of the way. She barged through.

      Not too far now.

      She skittered around the corner into Sasha’s road.

      She needed to stop, lean up against a wall and catch her breath, but didn’t dare.

      She weaved passed two black wheelie bins, noticing that one of them was overflowing with rubbish – cartons, cereal packets, chicken bones – that littered the pavement. She crossed the road, passed the public toilets, to Sasha’s waist-high wrought iron gate. Alex wiggled the catch until it finally gave way, thinking she must get Jez to do something about that, then finally the five steps up the path to the front door.

      She slipped her key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open all in one movement, almost falling into the hallway.

      Sasha was in what passed for the sitting room; a room that had once been light and full of laughter, but with its faded blue and white striped wallpaper and cream carpet that had seen better days, was now oppressive. A two-bar electric fire in the fireplace pumped out a desultory amount of heat. There was a television in one corner, and a sofa pulled up in front of it. The curtains were half drawn and the place smelled fetid and unkempt: all a sure sign that Sasha was in one of her downward spirals. Some thirty pictures of the twins, in various stages of development, right up to the day they went missing, were arranged on every surface. One photograph had been taken in the clearing in the woods, the tartan blanket laid out, picnic basket ready to disgorge its lunch of dainty crustless ham sandwiches, slices of banana, apple, segments of tangerine. And the treat of lemonade to drink, with iced biscuits and little strawberry yoghurts to finish. A perfect day out. A few days later they were gone.

      The television was tuned to BBC News, its red logo adding a bit of colour to the room. The breaking news strapline screamed out at Alex from the crawler across the bottom: Jackie Wood wins High Court appeal – conviction quashed. Pictures flashed up: Jackie Wood on the steps of the High Court smiling and waving, her solicitor by her side about to read out a statement. The words washed over her and around her.

      ‘Held for fifteen years…an innocent woman…rebuild my life…’

      She heard the viper’s tongue in every word.

      And the shouted questions from reporters: ‘How did you cope with life inside?’

      ‘What will you do now?’

      ‘Are you going to try and get some compensation?’

      The sound of the traffic and blaring horns obliterating some of the syllables.

      Wood smiled, and Alex saw the smug look in her eyes. She could imagine the triumph the woman was feeling and she wanted to reach into the box and grab her round her scrawny neck. At least she didn’t look great on prison life or food – she was alabaster pale and thinner than Alex remembered. Her skirt and jacket looked chain-shop cheap. She quite fancied strangling the solicitor too, though his neck was much less scrawny. In fact, the feeling was so visceral she could almost taste the air being squeezed from the man’s body. How much of any compensation was the woman going to get? Alex looked at Wood again. Three appeals and finally she’d managed to get off. Three appeals, a campaigning television producer, and a discredited expert witness and there was finally enough evidence to make two out of three High Court judges feel her conviction for the abduction and murder of Alex’s niece and nephew was unsafe. She was a free woman. At least, Martin Jessop, her accomplice, was dead and gone. Hanged himself in the first three months of his sentence.

      ‘I have nothing more to say, thank you.’ Wood turned and went back into the building. The newsreader moved on, unaware of the effect the news was having on both her and Sasha.

      The telephone started to ring, making both of them jump.

      Alex thought quickly, then picked it up.

      ‘’Allo?’ she said in a bad imitation of a French accent.

      ‘Is that Sasha Clements?’ The slightly breathless, high-pitched voice of a journalist hoping to get the first interview.

      ‘Non.’

      ‘Is Sasha Clements there, please?’

      ‘Non. She moved from ’ere three years ago.’ She winced, unsure her days of am-dram had stood her in good stead after all.

      ‘Oh.’ Disappointment in the voice. ‘I don’t suppose you have a number for her, do you?’

      ‘Non, sorry.’

      ‘Do you know where she went?’

      ‘I think she went to Spain.’

      ‘Spain?’

      ‘Spain.’

      ‘Oh. I see. Well thank you for your time.’

      ‘Plaisir.’

      Alex cut the call and then put the receiver down on the table, wanting to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all, and wondering if she’d done enough to delay the feeding frenzy. Only time would tell.

      She turned off the television and looked at her sister properly. Sasha hadn’t noticed her, hadn’t realized there was no sound or picture coming from the television. She was sitting staring at the now blank screen, tears rolling down her cheeks and her arms hugged around her body, hands tucked in the sleeves of her shirt. The material was stained red. Alex wanted to cry.

      She sat beside her sister and put her arm around her, trying to ignore the fact that she flinched. Alex didn’t say anything for a moment, attempting to breathe evenly to get some saliva into her dry mouth. Then Sasha leaned her head on her shoulder and let out a shuddering sigh.

      ‘Alex.’ She said her name softly, like a small puff of wind. ‘I didn’t think they’d let her out. They told me the appeal would fail. They told me.’

      Alex kissed the top of her head. ‘I know, my love, I know.’

      ‘I thought I was dealing with it, you know; living with the fact that Millie was gone, buried somewhere and we’d never find out where.’

      Alex tightened her arm around Sasha. And me, and me, she thought.

      ‘But now—’

      ‘We will find Millie, you know, one day. I promise.’ And she felt the burden of that promise settle on her shoulders.