Page 153 of Don't Believe A Word

‘Stop! Stop!’ Cristy cried, as the recording went past the last they’d heard. ‘Go back a few seconds.’

Jacks hit the keys and the message picked up where they’d left off.

‘We shouldn’t be in here, Lottie won’t like it,’ Mia said.

‘Lottie’s gone, Mia,’ Sadie responded.

A few moments passed. Mia said, ‘What are you doing?’

Sadie’s voice was further away, but clear enough. ‘Waiting for you to tell me why I’m here.’

Mia’s next words were lost, until she said, ‘… so please don’t go, Sadie …’

Long moments of nothing until Sadie spoke, almost inaudibly, ‘… can’t ignore what’s happened … did to my mother. And it was you, wasn’t it?’

Tearfully, Mia said, ‘Lottie made me. I didn’t want to …’ She either leaned onto the phone, or perhaps her hand covered it for a few moments, before she could be heard saying, ‘… past. Can’t we put it behind us?’

‘No, Mia, we can’t. I’m sorry …’ Some muffling and echoey distortion until she said, ‘… Why are you afraid? I took out the injunction to make sure you were protected from what you’d done.’

‘Yes, that was very good of you, but if you leave … I’ve already told Victor that I want to see him …’

Sadie’s laugh had no humour. ‘Are you about to pull a Lottie on me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If I don’t do as you ask – if I don’t stay – you’ll cut me out of the will? You think it’s all about money, don’t you, Mia… always have. Lottie … same… had enough.’

There was another long silence before Mia said again, ‘What are you doing?’

Sadie’s voice was more distant as she replied, ‘We need some air in here.’

There was the sound of doors unlocking and what was surely wind whooshing into the room.

Mia cried, ‘Sadie! Everything’s blowing around …’

Closer now, Sadie said, ‘I thought you understood that if you changed your will, I would get the injunction lifted, and then everyone would know what you did. I thought you wanted to avoid that, to get away with what you did. And now you’re threatening me …’

‘Let me go. You’re hurting my arm.’

‘You could go to prison for what you did to my mother. Maybe you should.’

‘Please, Sadie, stop. I don’t want … Don’t make me go out there.’

There were the unmistakable sounds of a struggle, Mia sobbing in terror, shouting for Lottie, Sadie grunting with effort, saying, ‘It’s for the best, Mia. You know it is …’ Then, ‘I don’t want you threatening me any more … You did it to my mother. Now see how you like it,’ and then the terrible, heart-wrenching sound of Mia screaming before the call ended in an abrupt and deadly silence.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Cristy murmured, clasping her hands to her cheeks. Suspecting was one thing, being proved right another altogether.

‘I’ve never heard anything like that before,’ Clove practically wailed. ‘It was awful. Shit! I feel like I was there.’

Clearly still shaken, Connor said, ‘Maybe there is a God.’

Cristy looked at him.

‘I think we have the response to Sadie’s video,’ he explained.

See how you like it.The words kept going round in Cristy’s head, along with the horrific image of Mia’s final moments. That poor, demented woman, trapped for so many years in the guilt of what she’d done to an innocent girl; she was a murderer herself, but had she really deserved to die like that?

Had Janina?