‘I strangled her,’ she said, matter-of-fact. ‘That’s harder to do than it looks in films. I made sure she was dead then I rolled her down the embankment. I came home and to tell Mum I couldn’t find her, but she was in tears thinking she’d been kidnapped. It was so easy.’
‘But why the fake kidnapping story?’ Matilda asked.
‘I have you to thank for that,’ Jodie smiled. ‘I knew you’d be leading the investigation; the great DCI Matilda Darke. I’ve read that book Carl’s mother wrote. I knew Keeley would turn up dead and the newspapers would see it as a kidnapping gone wrong. Then, all the attention would be on you for screwing up another kidnapping, and not me.’
Matilda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How was it possible for such a sweet and innocent-looking fourteen-year-old to be so evil and manipulative?
‘Jodie, were you behind the photos of Keeley we found on her iPad?’ Matilda asked.
She smirked. ‘The ones of her in make-up and acting all sultry?’ Matilda nodded. ‘Of course I was. Who do you think did her hair and painted her face? She thought we were just having a fun day together, two sisters messing around. I put them online hoping some paedo would get a hard-on and snatch her off the streets. No such luck.’
‘My God!’ Christian said. He looked utterly disgusted.
‘And what about your mum?’
Jodie’s face hardened. ‘I hated Mum for what she did to Riley, for causing him such pain. When I was with him, playing with him, looking after him, feeding him, he’d look at me with his dead eyes and he’d be crying and yelling and I knew, I knew he was telling me how much pain he was in. He wasn’t living. He was just existing. He was trapped in his own body and he wanted to be set free.’
‘How long have you been poisoning her for?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. A while.’
‘What have you been using?’
‘Botulinum Toxin.’
Matilda frowned. ‘What? Why? How did you even get hold of that? Wouldn’t something like rat poison have been quicker?’
‘Because I wanted it to be slow. I wanted her to suffer. She needed to know why she was dying. Have you seen the photos of Riley before she shook him? He was such a sweet baby, always smiling, always hugging. He was so cute. His eyes lit up when he saw me. After she tried to kill him, all that was gone. His eyes no longer sparkled. She’d ruined the most perfect little baby I’d ever seen. She had to suffer.’
‘Where did you get it from?’
‘Well, it wasn’t easy. I spent hours and hours on the internet trying to find it. Did you know that it’s the same thing they use in Botox injections? It was fascinating.’
‘Why did you kill Riley?’
‘I wasn’t planning on killing him. My plan was to finish school and then I’d be his full-time carer and look after him and Dad. We’d be a proper couple, a proper family. But then I started thinking … he’d get older, but he wouldn’t grow up. I pictured him as a twenty-year-old, strapped in a wheelchair, still laughing at Pingu. That image frightened me. Nobody should have to live like that. He didn’t suffer. I promise you he didn’t suffer. I waited until he was asleep, and I popped a little piece of cheese in his mouth. He always slept with his mouth open. He didn’t know what was happening.’ She fell onto the table, her head in her arms. ‘He never knew what was happening.’
Matilda’s heart ached as she watched and listened to a fourteen-year-old girl admitting to murdering her family. There was a little remorse there when she spoke of Riley’s death, but she knew the harm she had done to Keeley and her mother. Matilda was conflicted. Jodie had arrived here through years of abuse. Should she be labelled a cold-blooded killer or the victim of a perverted father?
***
‘I don’t think I’ve ever needed a drink more,’ Christian said as he and Matilda left the interview room. He slumped against the wall and let out a deep sigh.
‘Come on. I know where we can get one from.’
ACC Valerie Masterson always kept an emergency bottle of whiskey hidden in the depths of a filing cabinet for such situations.
The room was cold and empty. It seemed strange to enter it while Valerie wasn’t in the building. Matilda went straight to the bottom drawer and took out the half-filled bottle and two glasses. She blew into them to clean away the dust.
‘It feels naughty being in here while the head teacher is away,’ Christian said, reluctantly sitting down on the comfortable armchair.
‘Do you really see the ACC as a head teacher?’
‘Yes. Don’t you?’
She thought about it for a while and the many times she had cried on her shoulder. ‘Not really.’
Matilda poured them both a healthy measure and they drank in silence.
‘What will happen to Jodie?’ Christian asked once his glass was empty.
‘I’ve no idea. She certainly needs to be assessed by a psychologist. She’s suffered years of mental and sexual abuse by her father and that’s led to her killing three people and trying to kill Sian and Ellen.’ Matilda finished her drink and poured them both another. ‘You know, I went into that interview wanting to catch her out as the cold-hearted psycho bitch I thought she was.’
‘And now?’
‘Now, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more sympathy for anyone than I do her. I just hope she receives the treatment she needs and she’s able to recover.’
‘Do you mind if I go home early today? I wouldn’t mind spending a bit of time with my girls,’ Christian said.
‘No. Of course I don’t mind.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I need to go and see the Meagans and tell them the results of the DNA test. I’ve been sitting on them for too long.’
‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No. I’ll give Pat a call. She’ll be glad of an excuse to leave her husband in the garden centre on his own.’ Matilda stood up to leave. She placed a hand on Christian’s shoulder. ‘Christian, do me a favour. Go home, take your wife and daughters out for a nice meal, and be a normal boring family for the night.’
‘I can do that. I’m Mr Boring.’
She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I wouldn’t have you any other way.’
Chapter 65
Matilda and Pat were sitting in the Meagan’s living room nervously waiting for Sally to join them. She’d been in the shower when they arrived. Philip showed them in then went upstairs to fetch his wife.
Woody remained in the living room with them. He’d taken to Pat in the months she had been coming to visit and she always had a treat for him in her handbag. Treat eaten, belly scratched, he curled up on the floor beside her, his head on her foot.
Matilda looked around the clean, spartan living room. Carl seemed to be looking out at her from every picture frame. She looked at him in the silver frame on the mantelpiece in a snap taken one Christmas morning. His eyes were dancing in excitement, his smile wide as he marvelled at the mountain of beautifully wrapped presents in front of him. A picture of happiness tinged with sadness. When Matilda looked at the photo now, she saw a sad little boy, asking her, pleading, begging to find him and bring him home.