Immediately the response came back: That’s wot YOU think. I can prove she is evil. And eny1 that evil could EASILY kill a little kid. I KNOW wot she is like.

He typed, I thought you had real info for me but you are talking nonsense.

‘Hattie’ came back with, I can proov it. Im sending you a link to a video that ur stepdaughter made. REMEMBER evil Alice did this. SHE IS GUILTY!!!

Winkler waited for what seemed like forever and was starting to think that ‘Hattie’ was bluffing or had chickened out, when another message popped up, with a link to an external site.

He clicked it. As ‘Hattie Styles’ had promised, it led to a video. Winkler clicked play and started watching it.

‘Well, fucking well,’ he said.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32
Helen – Day 5

Helen sat in the office with her back to the door, but kept an eye on the laptop screen for a movement in the reflection that would signify Sean’s approach. It would only make things so much worse if he spotted the contents of the email discussion she was having with Marion. After returning from the encounter with Janet Friars, Helen had got home to find an email from her gym-buddy, asking her how she was doing. Quickly firing emails back and forth, Helen had asked Marion what she was up to that evening and her friend had replied that she had a date with a guy so hot he made Brad Pitt look like Shrek. Sex was, apparently, very much on the cards.

I actually can’t imagine ever having sex with Sean again, Helen replied. She paused and stared at the photo montage on the wall above the desk, a selection of the best photos from their last few holidays, of her, Sean, Alice and Frankie, mostly on beaches with wind-whipped hair and summer-dark skin, only Sean pale and freckly next to the mocha skin tones of the three girls. She wondered, not for the first time, if Alice minded the fact that she, Helen, could pass for her mum.

Then she added, How depressing is that?

Marion had replied immediately. Try not to worry, honey, you’re under so much stress. Sex is probably the last thing on your mind.

Helen crossed her legs, squeezing them tightly together. No, she replied, typing furiously, her fingers pounding the keyboard. I’m gagging for it, to take my mind off everything. Seriously. But every time I think of Sean and I doing it, the way he is now, so cold and distant, it just turns me off again. And I feel so guilty for even thinking about it, with F missing . . .

Helen hesitated before hitting ‘send’. Perhaps she was ‘over-sharing’, something she knew she was prone to doing, usually after too much white wine. She was over-sharing, she decided. She deleted the last few sentences and instead wrote, Yeah. Not really in the mood these days . . . Anyway, got to go . . .