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SEVENTY-NINE

Jane clicks the link in the message that Ash has just sent her and scrolls frantically down the screen of her phone. The news is freshly broken, only three hours old:

The page is currently offline.

Jane lowers her phone and raises her eyes to the blue sky above.

She’s torn between triumph that Nick Radcliffe has paid for his crimes with his life and disappointment that there will be no public reckoning, no time in prison, and, more important, no closure for the children of Tara Truscott and Amanda Law, all of whom still have no idea where their mothers are.

He has taken their fates with him into the cold, murky waters of the English Channel, taken those secrets, taken it all and disappeared.

Death is an easy way out. But at least the world will now know, she thinks, they will know that he was a killer, a liar, a cheat, a loser, a reprehensible human being.

She lifts her phone again and goes back to Ash’s text message.

Wow, she types. You did it. You are an incredible human being, and your father would have been so proud of you. And so am I.