ramblings of a spurned student, trying to put them off track. Yet he kept coming back to the passage about death, unable to stop thinking about it. The words burned onto his memory.
Death is inevitable, yet people are always surprised when it happens.
He shook his head. He needed to go home, eat, sleep, shower.
Murphy stood up, taking his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I’m getting off, Laura. Nothing more we can do right now. Get some sleep, okay?’
‘Oh, okay sir. Meet you here at eight?’
‘Yeah, fine.’ Murphy replied. He turned and headed out, entering the lift which was thankfully already at his floor.
Murphy leaned against the back of the lift, closing his eyes. The pain was back, rocketing across his head behind his eyes. Brilliant flashes of stinging light.
Stop thinking about her. Stop it. He repeated the mantra softly to himself for the entire lift journey, only stopping when the doors opened again.
The image of the dead girl, Donna McMahon, lying pale and peaceful, laid out on a bed made from damp earth, stuck in his mind. The image flickering across his conscious, soft, sharp, in focus, blurred.
The pain became worse. The image didn’t fade.
Murphy had to sit in his car for fifteen minutes, eyes closed, before he felt well enough to drive.
The pain subsided. The image didn’t. The way it always was. The pain was good in a way. At least it dampened down the worst of the flashbacks. The images of red flashing across his eyes, the pounding of his heartbeat as his breath shortened and became shallow.
They were always there. Ready for him. He just wanted to be normal again. Not some clichéd version of himself. Donna’s face blurred and became others. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He was haunted. The past, the present, forever blighted by his life. He couldn’t see any end to it.
This was just him now.
Rossi watched Murphy leave, entering the lift and resting his head against the back wall, his eyes closed.
Merda. He was losing it already. Great.
She could see Brannon watching her from his desk, a dirty smirk on his face. He could see it too. All she needed.
She checked the time; just before half past seven on day two. She pulled the letter from her desk and read it again.
It was too neat, too academic. Non emotional. If it was someone the victim knew, wouldn’t there be more there? Could someone who killed her, strangled her to death with his own hands, then put this together so sufficiently?
No. She didn’t think so.
She was using pop psychology. 101. Garnered from her first year at uni, when she’d taken a module just to see if it was of interest. It wasn’t for her. After the interesting bits had been and gone, she’d been left with a bunch of long words, which didn’t mean anything really. She was happier with sociology, learning about the world around her, how capitalism works, theories, and all that sort of thing. How social policy affected all their lives.
And she’d still ended up in the police. At least the degree had meant she moved out of uniform quicker.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to leave. Pay her dues.
Be the good daughter.
Alessandro and Isabella Rossi lived in a small terraced house in West Derby. A fifteen-minute drive from the station, a straight run on West Derby Road to the town, and then down a few side streets until she hit their road.
They’d lived there the past forty years, ever since they’d been talked into coming into the country with promises of endless work and riches. Alessandro ended up on various building sites, and then on the docks later in life. He got caught up in the dockers’ strikes of 1995 and now existed on their meagre pensions, bringing in just enough to buy the food that was always needed, and keep Papa Rossi in his Sky Sports and Lambert & Butler cigarettes.
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