Helen told uniform to search the block and surrounding grounds – ‘We’re looking for a mobile phone’ – whilst she joined forensics with the bodies. She’d never lost her cool in front of fellow officers but she did now. It was too appalling seeing the pair of them like that. They had been through so much, suffered so much and yet always the love had been there. There had always been smiles and laughter, even amidst the daily degradation and abuse. Helen was convinced this wasn’t suicide on these grounds alone and the presence of the gun put it beyond doubt.
Helen walked into the tiny kitchen to recover her composure. Idly, she flicked open the cupboards, the fridge. No food. Not even tinned or preserved food. The whole space had been cleared of anything edible and yet… the bin was empty. There were no wrappers or bottles lying around. As the thought started to lodge in her mind, Helen felt vomit rising. She forced it down and marched over to the sink. Turned on the tap. Nothing. As she’d expected. Picked up the phone. Dead. Helen sank down on to the nearest chair.
‘You think this is her doing?’ Mark had entered the room. Helen nodded, then:
‘She locked them in. Took their food, cut off the water, cut off the phone, left them the gun. We won’t find any keys to the deadlocks or the padlocks because she took them with her…’
Mother and daughter trapped in their own home, unable to escape, unable to rouse anyone who might be concerned about them. It was the most lonely way to die. If there was any consolation in the fact that ‘she’ hadn’t won, hadn’t succeeded in making Marie kill her own daughter, Helen didn’t feel it now.
Today had been the darkest of days. The worst since it happened. Today was the day of Ben’s funeral. To start with Peter Brightston had avoided his victim like the plague – didn’t want to know how his fiancée and friends were suffering or what they thought. But, as the days passed, he found himself spending more and more time online, checking out Ben’s memorial page, the messages on his Facebook page, climbing inside the life he’d destroyed.
Three days ago, he’d seen details of the funeral being posted by Ben’s best mate. It didn’t sound like it was going to be a big affair and Peter found himself wondering who would go from the firm. The partners would all attend and most of Ben’s team of course. But would the PAs go too? Would Peter be the only person who wasn’t there? For a mad moment he wondered if he should go, before dismissing it out of hand. If Ben’s friends saw him, they’d tear him limb from limb. And who could blame them? And yet a big part of Peter wanted to be there. To say goodbye. To say sorry.