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

herself. That Sasha didn’t mean what she was saying. She didn’t answer.

      They sat quietly for some minutes. ‘Sash?’ Alex said. ‘Can I look at your arm?’

      A shrug.

      Gently, Alex lifted Sasha’s head off her shoulder and took her arm, pushing up the sleeve of her sister’s shirt. The gash down the side of her forearm glistened wetly, but she judged it didn’t need stitches this time. She got up and went into the kitchen, finding a bowl and some kitchen roll. She filled the bowl with warm water, poured in some salt and went back to sit beside Sasha. She wiped the cut, thankful to see it had stopped oozing blood. Her movements were mechanical – if she thought too hard about what she was doing, about what Sasha had done, she wouldn’t have been able to clean up the wound.

      ‘Don’t take me to hospital, Alex. Please. Otherwise, I won’t be able to feel.’ She rubbed her face with her other sleeve. ‘I need to feel.’

      Alex nodded. ‘Okay, but you must take care of yourself.’ She bit her lip. What she was saying was nonsense. She could never stop Sasha from self-harming. God knows, she’d tried. Their parents wouldn’t believe it was going on, not even when Sasha had to stay in hospital because she’d cut herself so badly, and not even when the local doctor had her sectioned after she’d cut her wrists – not self-harming, not a cry for help, but a real suicide attempt. But she hadn’t hurt herself this badly for months and Alex had been beginning to hope she might be on some sort of road to recovery.

      Sasha looked at her with dead eyes. ‘How can I take care of myself,’ she whispered, ‘when I couldn’t take care of my children? When the woman who murdered my babies is out there again?’

      There was nothing Alex could say to that.

       4

      It was mid afternoon and the light was already leaching out of the day when Alex left Sasha, having bandaged her arm and made her lunch, which she picked at. Alex also tried to persuade Jez to go round and stay, at least for one night. That was hard work. She knew that statistics for a couple splitting up after the death of a child were higher than average – she wasn’t sure what they were when two children were dead. But Sasha and Jez had disintegrated pretty quickly after Harry was buried, and not even the thought that Millie might come home one day was enough to keep them together. Anyway, Alex had always thought he ought to give his ex-wife more support, so she steeled herself and rang him.

      ‘Yes,’ he said to her, whispering fiercely down his phone, ‘I do know about the court’s decision. I am in the right place, you know.’

      ‘And you hadn’t thought to go round to Sasha’s?’

      There was silence. ‘I couldn’t, Alex. I thought you—’

      ‘Yes, well, I’d been told nothing would happen before midday, but they were wrong there, weren’t they? So you can imagine what she was like when I got to the flat and she’d been watching it over and over again on bloody 24-hour news.’ She found she was whispering, too.

      He sighed, and Alex imagined him raking his hair with his free hand, making it all stand up on end. ‘Look, it’s difficult enough for me to process this right now, and I’m in the middle of another case.’

      ‘I’d have thought you would have been there. At court, I mean.’ Alex couldn’t help herself.

      ‘Why weren’t you?’

      ‘They weren’t my children.’ No, they weren’t her children, but they were her sister’s children, and if it wasn’t for her they might still be alive. But she had to stop thinking that or it would send her mad. ‘Couldn’t the police give you compassionate leave or something? Look,’ Alex went for a more conciliatory tone, ‘I’m not asking you to drop everything now. I just want you to go over later. Stay there for the night. I would if I could but I’ve got Gus to think about.’

      Silence. ‘I can’t, Alex. I can’t do it.’

      ‘Why not? Don’t you owe her something?’

      ‘Owe her?’

      ‘You were married to her.’

      ‘And now I’m not, okay? I wish things could have been different, God how I wish it. I still—’

      ‘Still what?’

      There was more silence. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Besides, it’s too late now.’

      ‘Jez, I know—’

      ‘No.’ His voice was sharp. ‘You don’t know anything. I’m trying Alex, really trying to get over her; to deal with what happened all those years ago, but the pain is still so near the surface, you know? Even after all this time. Christ, it’s even hard to go out with other women, even though I try. God, how I try.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘And I never thought I’d say that.’ He paused. ‘And I bet she’s been cutting herself.’

      Alex said nothing. Two could play the silence game.

      ‘I’m right, aren’t I? And I know I’m partly to blame. Look, Alex, I don’t expect you to understand, but me and Sasha—’

      ‘You and Sasha what?’

      ‘Nothing. Me and Sasha are nothing.’

      ‘If you can’t go round, could you send another plod round just to, I don’t know, stand outside the flat or something. I don’t want her besieged by journalists.’ She knew her play-acting on the phone wouldn’t fool a determined hack for very long.

      ‘I will ask,’ he said finally.

      She had to hope it was enough.

      It was cold and damp and Alex hunched her shoulders as she put the key in the front door. Suddenly a pair of arms encircled her waist.

      ‘Honey, you’re home.’

      She rolled her eyes and felt her depression lift just a little. ‘Malone, you are so predictable.’ She opened the door. ‘And what are you doing? Waiting to ambush me?’

      ‘And how else am I supposed to get into your house? You haven’t given me a key yet.’

      ‘Too soon, Malone, too soon.’

      ‘It’s not too soon for me.’ Malone pushed the door shut behind them, grabbed hold of her hair each side of her face, and kissed her deeply. He smelled of whisky and smoke.

      She pushed him away, trying to smile. ‘Down boy.’

      ‘Come on, sweetheart. And haven’t I just given you all of myself so you can keep yourself in handbags and shoes?’ He laid his slight Irish accent on thickly.

      ‘Ha. As if. And you know I’m very grateful. But, to be honest, it’s been a shit of a day.’

      He stroked her cheek. ‘Did they not like the piece?’

      ‘I don’t know yet, I haven’t looked.’ Alex rolled her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck.

      ‘So?’

      ‘Sasha.’

      ‘Ah.’ Such a wealth of meaning in such a little word.

      Alex hadn’t known Malone that long. In fact, she met him while researching her latest article; he was the article – the mad man who’d worked undercover most of his adult life. He had posed as a member of a far-right group. His work had included exposing would-be terrorists. It had been a dirty job and his life had been in danger. Then there had been the infiltration of environmental protest groups of the flat sandals and vegan persuasion. Lord, he told her with his lopsided grin, he never wanted to see a lentil again.

      ‘How close did you have to get to the protestors?’ she’d asked him.

      He’d shrugged