‘And Layla sent him on that Friday night?’
Stanley nodded. ‘Jamie said he found out Layla had been catfishing him, using someone else’s photos. He called her right away and she told him she had to use fake photos because she had a stalker. But that everything else was real, just not the pictures.
‘Then she told him that her stalker had just messaged her, threatening to kill her tonight because he’d found out about her and Jamie being together. She told Jamie she didn’t know who her stalker was, but she’d narrowed it down to two men, and she was sure they’d go through with their threat. She said she would message them both and set up a meeting in a remote place, and then she asked Jamie to kill her stalker, before he killed her. She told him to say the words “Child Brunswick” to both men, and that her stalker would know what it meant, he would be the one to react.
‘Jamie told her he wouldn’t do it, at first. But she convinced him. In his mind it was either he do this or lose Layla forever, and it would be his fault. But he says at the moment he attacked me, he didn’t want to do it. Said he was actually relieved when I knocked the knife out of his hands.’
And Pip could see it all, played the scene through in her mind. ‘So, Jamie has spoken to Layla on the phone?’ she asked. ‘She’s definitely a woman?’
‘Yes,’ Stanley said. ‘But I still didn’t entirely trust him. I thought he still might be Layla and was lying to me so I’d let him out, and then he’d either kill me or tell. So after this conversation with Jamie – we talked most of Saturday night – we agreed a deal. We would work together to try to find out who Layla really was, if she wasn’t Jamie and did really exist. And when . . . if we found her, I would offer Layla money to keep my secret. And Jamie would keep my secret in exchange for me not telling the police he had attacked me. We agreed Jamie would stay there in the bathroom until we’d found Layla and I knew I could trust him. It’s hard for me to trust people.
‘And then the next morning when I’m at the Kilton Mail office, you come to see me about Jamie and I see all the missing posters up around town. So then I knew we had to find Layla quickly and work out a cover story for where Jamie had been, before you got too close. That’s what I was doing at the church that day, I was looking for Hillary F. Weiseman’s grave too, to see if it led me to Layla. I thought it would only take us a day or two, and everything would be fine, but we still don’t know who she is. I’ve listened to your episodes and know Layla messaged you. I knew then that it couldn’t be Jamie, that he was telling me the truth.’
‘I haven’t worked out who she is either,’ Pip said. ‘Or why she’s done this.’
‘I know why. She wants me dead,’ Stanley said, wiping one eye. ‘A lot of people want me dead. I’ve lived every day looking over my shoulder, waiting for something like this to happen. I just want to live. A quiet life, maybe do some good with it. And I know I’m not good, I haven’t been. Like the things I said about Sal Singh, the way I treated his family. When it was all happening, here where I lived, I looked at what Sal had done, what I thought he’d done, and I saw my dad. I saw a monster like him. And, I don’t know, it seemed a chance to make amends somehow. I was wrong, I was horribly wrong.’ Stanley wiped the other eye. ‘I know it’s not an excuse, but I haven’t grown up in the best places, around the best people. I learned everything from them, but I’m trying to unlearn all those things: those views, those ideas. Trying to be a better person. Because the worst thing I could be is anything like my dad. But people think I’m exactly like him, and I’ve always been terrified that they’re right.’
‘You aren’t like him,’ Pip said, taking a step forward. ‘You were just a child. Your father made you do those things. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I could have told someone. I could have refused to help him.’ Stanley pulled at the skin on his knuckles. ‘He probably would have killed me, but at least those kids would have lived. And they would have made better lives than I’ve made of mine.’
‘It’s not over, Stanley,’ she said. ‘We can work together, find out who Layla is. Offer her money or whatever she wants. I won’t tell anyone who you are. Jamie won’t, either. You can stay here, in this life.’
A small glimmer of hope flashed across Stanley’s eyes.
‘Jamie is probably telling Ravi and Connor what happened right now and then –’
‘Wait, what?’ Stanley said, and in one blink, the hope was all gone. ‘Ravi and Connor are in my house right now?’
‘Um,’ she swallowed. ‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Did they break a window?’
The answer was written on Pip’s silent face.
Stanley’s head dropped from his shoulders and he breathed out all his air in one go. ‘Then it’s already over. The windows are fitted with a silent alarm that alerts the local police station. They’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’ He drew one hand up, holding his face before it fell any further. ‘It’s over. Stanley Forbes is finished. Gone.’
Pip’s words staled in her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know, I was just trying to find Jamie.’
He looked up at her, attempted a weak smile. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quietly. ‘I never really deserved this life anyway. This town was always too good for me.’
‘I don—’ But the word never made it out of her mouth, crashing instead against her gritted teeth. She’d heard a noise, nearby. The sound of shuffling footsteps.
Stanley must have heard it too. He turned, walking backwards towards Pip.
‘Hello?’ a voice called down the hall.
Pip swallowed, forcing it down her throat. ‘Hello,’ she replied as whoever it was approached. They were just a shadow among shadows until they walked into the circle of light given off by the upward torch.
It was Charlie Green in a zipped-up jacket, a light smile on his face as his gaze landed on Pip.
‘Ah, I thought it must be you,’ he said. ‘I saw your car parked on the road and then I saw the light on in here and thought I should check. Are you alright?’ he said, eyes dropping to Stanley for just a moment before flicking back.
‘Oh, yes,’ Pip smiled. ‘Yes, we’re all fine here. Just talking.’
‘OK, good,’ Charlie said with an outward breath. ‘Actually, Pip, could I just borrow your phone quickly? Mine’s dead and I need to message Flora something.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, sure.’ She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket, unlocked it and walked the few steps over to Charlie, offering it to him on her outstretched hand.
He picked it up, his fingers scratching lightly against her palm.
‘Thank you,’ he said, looking down at the screen as Pip walked back to where she’d been, beside Stanley. Charlie’s grip tightened around the phone. He lowered it, slipped it into his front pocket and pushed it down.
Pip watched him do it and she didn’t understand, she didn’t understand at all, and she couldn’t hear her thoughts because her heart was too loud.
‘Yours too,’ Charlie said, turning to Stanley now.
‘What?’ Stanley said.
‘Your phone,’ Charlie said calmly. ‘Slide it over to me, now.’
‘I d-don’t –’ Stanley stuttered.
Charlie’s jacket rustled as he swung one hand behind him, tensing his mouth into one sharp line, his lips disappearing. And when he brought the hand back out, there was something in it.
Something dark and pointed. Something he held up in his trembling grip and pointed at Stanley.
It was a gun.
‘Slide your phone over to me, now.’
Forty-One
The phone scraped against the old floorboards as it skittered past the wrappers and beer bottles, spinning as it came to rest near Charlie’s feet.
The gun was still in his right hand, pointed shakily at Stanley.
He took a step forward, and Pip thought he was going to pick the phone up, but he didn’t. He raised his foot and brought the heel of his boot down hard, shattering
the screen. The light inside it blinked out and died as Pip flinched from the sudden sound, her eyes fixed on the gun.
‘Charlie . . . what are you doing?’ she said, her voice shaking like his hand.
‘Come on, Pip,’ he said with a sniff, eyes following the line of the gun. ‘You’ve worked it out by now.’
‘You’re Layla Mead.’
‘I’m Layla Mead,’ he repeated, a look on his face that was either a grimace or a jittery smile, Pip couldn’t tell. ‘Can’t take all the credit, Flora did the voice when I needed her to.’
‘Why?’ Pip said, and her heart was so fast it was like one held note.
Charlie’s mouth twitched with his answer, gaze darting between her and Stanley. But the gun never moved to follow his eyes. ‘The surname is Flora’s too. You want to know what mine used to be? Nowell. Charlie Nowell.’
Pip heard the intake of Stanley’s breath, saw the abject look in his eyes.
‘No,’ he said quietly, barely audible. But Charlie heard him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Emily Nowell, the final victim of the Monster of Margate and his son. She was my sister, my big sister. Do you remember me now?’ he shouted at Stanley, jerking the gun. ‘Do you remember my face? I never remembered yours, and I hated myself for it.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Stanley said.
‘Don’t give me that,’ Charlie screamed, the tendons sticking up like tree roots on his reddening neck. ‘I was listening to you talking, giving her your sob story.’ He indicated his head at Pip. ‘You want to know what he did?’ he asked her, but it wasn’t a question. ‘I was nine years old, out in the playground. My sister Emily was watching me, teaching me how to use the big swings when this boy comes up to us. And he turns to Emily and he says, his eyes all big and sad, “I’ve lost my mum, please can you help me?”’ Charlie’s hand danced as he spoke, the gun shifting around with it. ‘So Emily, of course she says yes, she was the nicest person in the world. She told me to stay by the slide with my friends while she went with this little boy to help him find his mum. And they left. But Emily never came back. I was waiting there for hours, on my own in the playground. Closing my eyes and counting, “three, two, one” and praying she would appear. But she didn’t. Not until they found her three weeks later, mutilated and burned.’ Charlie blinked, so hard the tears fell from his eyes straight to his collar, leaving his face untouched. ‘I watched you abduct my sister and all I could think about was whether I could go backwards down the slide.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Stanley cried, his hands up, fingers splayed. ‘I’m so sorry. I think about her the most, your sister. She was so kind to me, I –’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Charlie shouted, spit foaming at the edges of his mouth. ‘Get her out of your ugly head! You were the one who chose her, not your dad. It was you! You picked her! You helped abduct seven people knowing exactly what would happen to them, you even helped him do it. But, oh, the government just hands you a brand new shiny life, wipes all of that away. You want to know what my life has been like?’ His breath growled in his throat. ‘Three months after they found Emily’s body, my dad hung himself. I was the one who found him, after school. My mother couldn’t cope and turned to alcohol and drugs to numb everything out. I almost starved. Within a year I’m removed from her care and sent from foster family to foster family. Some were kind to me, some were not. By seventeen, I was living on the streets. But I pulled my life around, and there was only one thing that got me through all that. Neither of you deserved to live after what you did. Someone already got to your father, but they let you walk free. But I knew that one day I would find you and I would be the one to kill you, Child Brunswick.’
‘Charlie, please just put the gun down and we –’ Pip said.
‘No.’ Charlie didn’t look at her. ‘I’ve waited nineteen years for this moment. I bought this gun nine years ago knowing that one day I’d use it to kill you. I’ve been ready, I’ve been waiting. I’ve followed every single tip and rumour about you on the internet. I’ve lived in ten different towns in the last seven years, looking for you. And a new version of Layla Mead came with me to each one, finding the men who fit your age and description, getting close to them until one might confide in me who they really were. But you weren’t in any of those other towns. You were here. And now I’ve found you. I’m glad that Jamie failed. It’s right that I do it. This is how it’s meant to be.’
Pip watched Charlie’s finger, flexing and tensing against the trigger. ‘Wait!’ she shouted. Just buy some time, keep him talking. If the police were at Stanley’s house now, with Ravi and Connor and Jamie, maybe Ravi would send them here. Please Ravi, send them here. ‘What about Jamie?’ she said quickly. ‘Why get him involved?’
Charlie licked his lips. ‘The opportunity presented itself to me. I started talking to Jamie because he fit my Child Brunswick profile. Then I found out he’d lied about his age, and discounted him. But he was so eager. He’d fallen for Layla in a way none of the others have before, kept messaging saying he’d do anything for me. And it got me thinking,’ he sniffed. ‘My whole life, I accepted that I would be the one to kill Child Brunswick and most likely forfeit my life in return, end up with the life sentence
he should have had. But Jamie made me think, if I just wanted Child Brunswick dead, what if I could get someone else to do it for me? And then I could go on and have a life afterwards, me and Flora. She really pushed for that, for a chance for us to stay together. She’s known I’ve had to do this since we met at eighteen, has followed me around the country looking for him, helping me. I owed her to at least try.
‘So I started to test Jamie, see what I could get him to do. Turns out it was a lot,’ he said. ‘Jamie withdrew twelve hundred pounds in cash and left it in a graveyard at night for Layla. He beat up a stranger, though he’d never been in a fight in his life before. For Layla. He broke into my house and stole a watch. For Layla. I was escalating each time, and I think it would have worked, I think I could have got him to the point where he would have killed for Layla. But everything went wrong at the memorial. I guess that’s what happens when you bring an entire town together on one field.
‘I’ve run this Layla scheme nine times before. I quickly learned that it’s best to use the photos of a local girl, manipulate them slightly. Men were always less suspicious when they could see photos taken in places they recognized, and a face that might seem vaguely familiar to them. But it backfired here, and Jamie found out Layla wasn’t real. And he wasn’t ready yet; I wasn’t ready yet. But we had to try the plan that night, while Jamie was still under Layla’s thumb.
‘But I didn’t know who Child Brunswick was. I’d narrowed it down to two suspects: Luke Eaton and Stanley Forbes. Both the right age, the right appearance, neither had jobs that ruled them out, neither ever mentioned any family and avoided questions about their childhood. So I had to send Jamie to both. I knew it had all gone wrong when I heard Jamie was missing. I suppose you killed him?’ he said to Stanley.
‘No,’ Stanley whispered.
‘Jamie’s alive. He’s fine,’ Pip said.
‘Really? That’s good. I was feeling guilty about what happened to him,’ Charlie said. ‘And then of course, after everything went wrong, I couldn’t make any more moves to find out which one of them was Child Brunswick. But that’s OK, because I knew you would.’ He turned his face, gave Pip a small smile. ‘I knew you would find him for me. I’ve been watching you, following you. Waiting for you. Pushing you in the right direction when you needed help. And you did it,’ he said, steadying the gun. ‘You found him for me, Pip. Thank you.’
‘No,’ she shouted, stepping in front of Stanley with her hands up. ‘Please don’t shoot.’
‘PIP, GET AWAY FROM ME!’ Stanley screamed at her, pushing her back. ‘Don’t come near me. Stay back!’
She stopped, her heart so wild and fast it felt like her ribs were caving in on her, bony fingers closing around her chest.
‘
Back!’ Stanley screamed, tears chasing down his pale face. ‘It’s OK, get back.’
She did, four more steps away, turning to Charlie. ‘Please don’t do this! Don’t kill him!’
‘I have to,’ Charlie said, narrowing his eyes along the sight of the gun. ‘This is exactly what we talked about, Pip. Where the justice system gets it wrong, it’s down to people like you and me to step in and set things right. And it doesn’t matter if people think we’re good or not, because we know we’re right. We’re the same, you and me. You know it, deep down. You know this is right.’
Pip didn’t have an answer for him. Didn’t know what to say other than: ‘PLEASE! Don’t do this!’ Her voice ripped at her throat, words cracking as she forced them out. ‘This isn’t right! He was just a child. A child scared of his own father. It’s not his fault. He didn’t kill your sister!’
‘Yes, he did!’
‘It’s alright, Pip,’ Stanley said to her, barely able to talk because he was shaking so hard. He held his trembling hand up and out, to comfort her, to keep her back. ‘It’s OK.’
‘NO, PLEASE,’ she screamed, folding in on herself. ‘Charlie, please don’t do this. I’m begging you. PLEASE! Don’t!’
Charlie’s eyes twitched.
‘PLEASE!’
His gaze shifted from Stanley to her.
‘I’m begging you!’
He gritted his teeth.
‘Please!’ she cried.
Charlie looked at her, watched her crying. And then he lowered the gun.
Took two heavy breaths.
‘I-I’m not sorry,’ he said quickly.
He lifted the gun and Stanley gasped.
Charlie fired.
The sound ripped the earth out from under Pip.
Good Girl, Bad Blood Page 28