Page 91 of First Blood

‘She had learning difficulties?’ Kim asked, wondering if there was anything else that could have been thrown at her.

‘She was barely literate but we tried to work with her. I felt we were making progress and offering her some kind of self-value and confidence.’

‘But despite everything she went back to him?’ Kim observed.

A shadow passed over Louella’s face.

‘And your thoughts on that?’ Kim asked.

‘May I be honest?’

‘It’s preferable,’ Kim advised. This woman had an opinion and she wanted to share it.

‘I’m sorry she’s dead but Mia is safe now. She came here and took a valuable place from someone who might have used it more wisely. It was a waste of time. This place is a haven for abused women and children. Marianne could have done no more to give her a better chance in life. She did everything to put Hayley in a better position for both herself and Mia. As she does with all of us. I tried to counsel her; Marianne tried to counsel her.’

‘That was her job before she opened the shelters, wasn’t it?’ Kim asked, recalling Stacey’s background notes.

‘Yes, that’s how she met many of us in the first place. She offers a helping hand to anyone who needs it. You’ll find that most of us would have nothing if it wasn’t for her, so for Hayley to just throw all that time and effort into the bin and go back to the man who had abused her child is, quite frankly, unforgiveable.’

Louella’s voice had risen in volume and passion as the words had tumbled from her mouth.

‘You blame her despite everything you know about her past?’ Kim asked.

‘Of course I do. She was a mother before anything else.’

Kim couldn’t argue the point even though something inside her wanted to, but she wanted to pick up on something else the woman had said.

‘So, you’re saying that many of the people involved here at the shelter are from Marianne’s past?’

Louella nodded. ‘She’s a very generous woman who gives everything she has to victims of abuse whether it be domestic abuse or sexual. If they need a place to go she will do her utmost to take care of them. And some people just throw that effort back in her face when all she does is think about ways to…’

Kim found herself tuning out of the tirade of hero worship coming out of the counsellor’s mouth.

‘…and she should not be judged too harshly for what she did. If she’d had any other choice she wouldn’t—’

‘She had no other choice in what?’ Kim asked, sitting straighter.

‘Turning Hayley away,’ she said with a frown.

‘When was this?’ Kim asked. The woman had been in hiding for weeks.

‘I’m sorry, I thought you already knew. Hayley was here on Tuesday night asking if she could come back.’

Hayley Smart had been here the night she lost her life.

Chapter Eighty-Three

‘You didn’t tell us you’d turned her away,’ Kim said to Marianne. They had asked Jay to call her back to the office.

Marianne’s face folded into a mixture of sadness and regret.

‘She was here for just a moment,’ she said, as her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them before they could topple over the edge.

‘That doesn’t really excuse you keeping that information to yourself, Marianne. You may very well be the last person other than the killer to have seen her alive.’

‘Oh no, please don’t say that. I can’t bear the thought that I…’

‘But why didn’t you help her?’ Kim asked.