Page 135

And now, here. Sunny Evesham, gateway to dreams, ha ha. Well, it will be, as long as I play my cards right. Though tbh it doesn’t feel that dreamy right now – this crummy B&B is rather too reminiscent of that shite place we stayed our first night in Belfast for my liking,but I am absolutelynottaking that as an omen. I’ve ‘moved on from my past’, right? It’s going to be different this time. Because this time, I’m in control. This time, there’s no K. And that’s one change I’m going to be welcoming with open arms and a fuckingstreet party.
But first things first.
I need a passport for starters, which looked like being a bit of a problem as I need a guardian’s consent for an Irish one because I’m under 18 (and let’s face it, any way you look at it I’m not getting that any time soon), but I’ve had a look on the dark web and fucking hell the stuff you can get there. And passports are like,seriouslycheap. And it’s not as if there’s any rush – there’ll be all the filming to do here before I need one of those. And money won’t be a problem either, not once this Tierney woman stumps up. I just need to put the cash somewhere nice and safe where no one can find it. I’ve looked all that up too. And then –America. No more weedy towels and Wi-Fi you have to bloody pay for like this dump. I’ve told that Tierney woman the deal and she says her boss will never agree, but tough titties. I know how much she wants this story, and she’ll want it even more when she finds out who I really am. Though if she’s even a halfway decent ‘researcher’ she’ll have got there already. I mean – that Brenda Heist case went international, it’s even on a Ranker top list of ‘Missing People Who Were Found Alive’, FFS. Does she want a fucking diagram?
Talking of diagrams, it’s a pain in the arse to get to her place even though it’s only, like, eight miles away. There’s a bus that goes via every sodding village in England as far as I can see, but no way I’m shelling out for a cab. I had a look at the house on Google Maps too. You can’t seemuch on Streetview because there’s this huge fucking hedge at the front, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me – it only took about five minutes to find the architect that got paid to do it up. Must have been a farm originally but you’d never know from the inside. They gutted the whole thing so it’s got massive high ceilings and a gallery and one of those baths with feet standing right in the middle of the room. And of course the tit of an architect gave the clients’ name so I found them too. I’m guessing it’s Tierney’s sister cos they look a lot alike. Mackenzie her name is. She’s only 27 and she’s already got the fuck-you lifestyle all ticked off – holidays in Sardinia, a job in PR for some snotty cosmetics brand, a husband with an actual six-pack, even a fucking golden retriever. Goldie, FFS. Like, does she have no imaginationat all? And none of that was hard to find either because, fuck me, does she overshare. Or maybe ‘blurt’ is a better word. Mackenzie – or ‘Mack’, as she likes her friends to call her – is currently trying for a baby, has a ‘mega-annoying’ nut allergy, and a ‘BIL’ who had a cancer scare last year but is OK now (#blessed). Jesus, she practically puts her menstrual cycle online. The things people post about themselves, you’d think they’d have learned by now.
Anyway that’s where I’m heading later today. On a fucking charabanc like it’s something out of Agatha Christie. And in the meantime I’m just lying here on the bed surfing (the bed has acandlewickbedspread, btw – can you evenbuythat shit any more?). Evesham may be dullsville but shit this Hescombe place is something else. The name actually means ‘witches valley’ (like, what theactualfuck?) and they used to drown witches in the lake and stick pins in them and starve them to death in trees with scold’s bridles and here’s me thinking the bloody Irish wrote the book on all that woo-woo bullshit.
But then I started wondering – if all that stuff is true, how many corpses must there be in that lake? There must be something weird about the currents or whatever as well because I can’t find anything about the bodies ever surfacing again. So all those old bones must still be there, right? Piled up in the mud any old how, innocent and guilty packed in together and no way to tell them apart. And probably no way to tell how long any of them have been down there, either.
Which, when you think about it, would make it, like, aseriouslygood place to hide a body.
***
Phone interview with Mackenzie Stirling
2/08/2024, 16.07 p.m.
On the call, DS T. Bradley
MS:DS Bradley? It’s Mackenzie Stirling – I’m sorry to bother you but I just got a call from Robin’s neighbour in California – he only just heard what happened -
TB:What’s the problem, Mrs Stirling?
MS:The neighbour – he says hesaw her– he didn’t talk to her but it was definitely her -
TB:Hesawyour sister? When are we talking about?
MS:That’s just it – it was about a week ago. He says he was parking his car and saw her going up the steps to the apartment. He called out and she waved back, then she went inside. He knocked on her door later that day but there was no answer.
TB:And has he seen her since?
MS:Yes, that’s the weird thing – he says he saw her the following morning coming out of a motelon the Interstate with a bag, like she’d been staying there.
TB:He’s sure it was the same person?
MS:He said so. He couldn’t work out what she’d be doing there -
TB:Does the neighbour have a key to the apartment, Mrs Stirling?
MS:I don’t know – I guess –
TB:Could you ask him to call the local police and tell them what you’ve told me. They’ll also need to send someone out to check the apartment – we need to establish if anything’s been taken.
MS:Oh my God I didn’t think of that – shit – I’ll call you back –
[line goes dead]
***
Importance: URGENT
Date:Fri 2/08/2024, 16.16
From:[email protected]
To:[email protected]