by C. P. Wilson
She turns to face her partner. “Yeah, I suppose.”
Noting McCreadie’s expression, Gilmour brings himself close in to speak for her ears only. “We would have had to tell her sometime,” he offers.
“I know,” McCreadie concedes. “It doesn’t really make a difference, I’d have just liked to break it to her more gently is all.”
The living room door opens, cutting off Gilmour’s response.
James Beath enters with Jenna a step behind him. Mrs Beath follows the teens in.
“Can I get anyone some coffee?” she asks.
“Actually, Mrs Beath, we need you to be present for this.”
Mrs Beath’s smile wavers for the first time and she smooths her skirt nervously whilst seating herself in an armchair.
To her right, James and Jenna take seats on a small couch, leaving Gilmour and McCreadie space on a larger couch facing them.
Gilmour sits and then locks eyes with Mrs Beath for a moment. Fighting the natural urge to offer an apologetic glance, he composes his poker face and turns his attention to James.
“How are you both?”
Looking relaxed, both teens nod.
“Yeah, good,” they both say, laughing at their joint reply.
“That was quite something, the gathering you arranged for Mr Black’s funeral last week.”
James smiles. “Yeah, well, it was the least I could do,” he replies.
Gilmour nods once. “Indeed it was the least you could do, James,” he informs the teen flatly, watching as James’ smile evaporates.
From his bag, Gilmour produces a file, which he opens to retrieve a small stack of paper held together by a single staple. Both teens’ eyes are drawn towards it.
Gilmour snap-straightens the sheets and begins to read.
You’re the ugliest boy in school.
Your mum is an old tart.
No wonder your dad killed himself with a son like you.
Gilmour places the sheets of paper on his lap. Pressing his gaze onto the two teens he allows a few dreadful moments of silence to hang. Jenna looks puzzled. James’ expression is unreadable.
“Those are a small sample of a series of messages sent to Harry Jardine in the weeks leading up to Mr Black’s murder,” he informs them.
Jenna’s eyes begin to mist. James Beath is unmoved.
“It’s clear from Jardine’s account of events, and of his frame of mind that day, that these messages, along with a long history of sustained abuse by his step-father, were instrumental in prompting Harry’s psychological breakdown leading to his actions.”
Locking his attention onto Jenna alone, Gilmour presses on.
“They were sent to Harry from your Messenger account.”
Jenna’s head begins to shake. “I… I…would nev… I didn’t…” Jenna looks around the room, from face to face. Something occurs to her and she jolts with the realisation.
“I don’t even have Messenger,” she pleads.
Jenna gives way to tears, covering her face with her hands.
“We know that you didn’t send them, Jenna.”
Gilmour’s eyes flick to James.
“He did.”
Jenna lifts her face. Turning between Gilmour and James Beath, Jenna fish-mouths silently whilst tears stream. Her eyes unfocus and Jenna silently works backwards, placing jagged pieces of information, disparate events and half-recalled conversations next to each other and then slots them into a shape. Gradually her expression darkens. Jenna’s eyes refocus on James Beath’s face.
“How could you do that?”
James rises to his feet. “How could I not? He was sniffing around you. The pair of you were messaging each other for weeks. I did what I did. I can live with that,” James’ voice screeches. Suddenly he appears a very young boy in an almost-man’s body.
“We were becoming friends again,” Jenna rises to her feet, yelling at him. “That was all, James. Just friends.”
James snarls, waving away her protests with a hand.
“What did you do?” she asks flatly. Jenna visibly steels over. Her anger forging her heart, hardening it as the full impact of what James Beath has done dawns on her.
James casts his eyes around the room. His mother sits, her lips pursed, deep anger set in her expression. The two detectives sit impassive, awaiting his explanation. A white-hot storm, Jenna Hopkins simply glares at him.
Visibly sagging, he flumps back into his seat a second later.
Staring at the floor, he mumbles, “I found all of your messages on WhatsApp. I blocked Jardine and then used your Facebook account to open a Messenger thread with him from my phone.”
“You did a lot more than that, James,” Gilmour adds. “You constructed a derogatory website centred on Harry Jardine. You abused and bullied him online, all the time using Jenna’s voice to do so. You badgered and harassed and humiliated a kid whose own father died in the worst circumstances when he was a child. A kid who had been beaten for years by his step-father. A boy whose mother virtually ignored him, allowing his step-father to emotionally and physically damage him.”
Gilmour deliberately raises his voice. “This is the kid you chose to mentally torture whilst hiding behind the skirts of your sixteen-year-old girlfriend?”
James Beath does not look up at Gilmour.
“Whilst we cannot prosecute you for the messages you sent, we are issuing a formal warning and you will be investigated for sharing pornographic images which may include children.”
“No,” he cries. “There were no kids’ images.”
“We’ll ascertain whether or not that’s true, James,” Gilmour informs him.
All angry tears, James glares up at Gilmour. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It’s not my fault.”
To Gilmour’s ears it is a contemptible statement from a self-centred, pathetic child who thinks himself a man.
Gilmour hisses his contempt through his teeth.
“Your actions, regardless of how indirectly, caused the death of Mr Black.”
McCreadie joins her colleague, and both of them move towards the door. Before Gilmour exits, he speaks over his shoulder to James.
“Live with that.”
Epilogue 4
Unsure why, Jenna checks behind her before reaching out to press the buzzer.
The resulting sounds makes her start. Whilst she waits for a response, Jenna looks off along the driveway. Her mum has parked the car and is joining her at the entrance.
“You alright, love?” she asks her daughter.
Swallowing hard, Jenna bobs a nod. She opens her mouth to reply but is cut off by a voice from the intercom.
“Almond Valley Psychiatric Hospital. Can I help you?”
Jenna’s mum squeezes her hand in reassurance.
Jenna steps forward, bringing her mouth closer to the mic.
“Jenna Hopkins. I have an appointment to visit Harry Jardine.”
Static hisses before the voce returns.
“Yes, I have you listed here, Ms Hopkins. I’ll buzz you in.”
Jenna steps forward, one hand on the door, awaiting its release.
Turning to her mother, she asks, “Am I doing the right thing here, Mum?”
Mrs Hopkins nods as the door opens for them.
“Letting a boy with no-one else in the world who cares for him know that he never stopped having you for his friend? Yes. You’re doing the right thing, love.”
Jenna nods firmly and crosses the threshold.
THE END
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Also by C.P. Wilson:
Ice Cold Alice
The Only Truth That Sticks
Writing as Mark Wilson:
Wake Up And Smell The Coffin
Bobby’s Boy
Naebody’s Hero
Head Boy
Paddy’s Daddy
On The Seventh Day
dEaDINBURGH: Vantage (Din Eidyn Corpus 1)
dEaDINBURGH: Alliances (Din Eidyn Corpus 2)
dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus 3)
dEaDINBURGH: Hunted (Din Eidyn Corpus 4)
dEaDINBURGH: Collected Edition
Dedication
For Cara, Patrick, Jodie, Dawn and wee Alice.
Love you kids so much.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the following people for their support in writing this novel:
Thanks to my regular test-readers, Gayle Karabelen and Jayne Doherty. Love you for the time you spend reading and for never saying no.
Tracy Stewart, John Marley, Mark Tilbury, Marcia Kim Turner, Nicola Kinney, Phil Deane and Shell Baker for giving their time to beta-reading.
Steph Dagg for her editing of the book. I can’t imagine publishing a novel without Steph.
Special thanks also to fellow writer Ryan Bracha who has been a tremendous support and source of inspiration and always makes themselves available for advice or to just talk nonsense about whatever. Reading Ryan’s books pushes me to be a better writer.
A huge thank you, as always, to my wife Natalie Wilson for her unwavering encouragement and support. Twenty four years have only made me love you more in their passing.
A very special thank you to each of the people who allowed me to use their twitter/Facebook handles throughout the book. Many of these lovely people took the time to post their tweets in the ‘real world’ on publication day also. A large number came from the Facebook groups UK Crime Book Club, Crime Book Club, Crime Fiction Addict and Beyond The Veil.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
First Kindle Edition, 2018
Text Copyright©2018 Mark Wilson (CP Wilson)
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission of Mark Wilson (CP Wilson).
Published by Paddy’s Daddy Publishing.
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